Blood. Fangs. Darkness. Cold, unforgiving eyes. I must look into the faces of whose dragonets I have killed. War. Takes. Everything. Chains. White-hot fire burns my scales. I cannot obey orders. I. Am. A. Failure. A disappointment. A useless Blood ZoneWing. IceWings. Cold. Chilly, my best friend. Dead.
I hurl myself against the bloodstained black obsidian walls. Insane. That's me. My name is Raini. In the Zone Kingdom, I'm called Mantis. What do I do? I ask myself. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!?!?!?!" I scream at the bloodied mummies. My eyes are red and bloodshot, the pupils enlarged like the three moons. Full. Close, yet so far........
"Take him." A freezing IceWing who introduces himself as Freeze steps forward. His muscles are rippling, and I count them. I suppose I'm being weird and random again. Unable to stop myself I say, "No wonder you're FREEZING." He scowls at me and says, "Not cool Moon-head." He hisses. Chilly. Too much like her. I blurt, "Why don't you just kill me now?" Then he smiles and says something that wants me want to rip out all my claws, teeth, and scales.
He says, "Because you're more use to me alive, than dead."
. . .
When I wake up, I'm tied to a bed. Restraints on my forearms and legs prevent me from moving than at least inches in any direction. I sigh, but it comes out more like a cry for help. And then the nightmares begin........
Two dragons of Nile. An IceWing. My claws begin to tingle, and I imagine ripping apart that IceWing and like a Dark Eye, literally rip out his heart without causing a wound, and crushing that organ in my talons. His eyes, blue as the sky. His terror. Torture.
And I love it.
* * *
Technically, I am unarmed. But NEVER, EVER should a dragon underestimate ZoneWing claws. I rake mine down the face of Freeze, causing blood to flow and damage to one eye. He snarls at me,"What do you think you're doing?" I step back, my claws trembling.
I suddenly feel very dizzy, and very sick, as if I might barf all over again. I say, "I-I don't feel too good. I need to g-go lie down." I stumble away and accidentally crash into a few stalagmites. I collapse on the soft bed, feeling the energy and blood pour from my two wounds, one in my neck, the other, a gaping hole in my side.
I hope I see Sunlight again. In my heart, something tells me that if something bad happens to her, I won't be able to stand it. I will die. I gather my things from the insane asylum, and go to my new room. I get a great surprise. Sunlight. She smiles at me and says, "I requested this."
I gasp like a fish out of water. My breathing becomes ragged, shallow, and I claw helplessly as I'm dragged into the world of hallucinations, and nightmares, and death, and gore, and the Real and Unreal, and death, and death, and death.
The Claws of Carnage are interrogating me. Cutting off parts. I see my wings, my beautiful black wings, get ripped to shreds and fed to the blazing fire, belching smoke into the sky. I see maybe two, no four pairs of talons suddenly heave me from where I am and into that fire. The fire burns my scales, but I'm distracted by a ZoneWing. She's staring into my black-purple-gold eyes, possibly thinking this is the dragon she wants to spend her life with. An insane dragon whose only thoughts are of complete madness.
Then the pain returns, as I'm as good as dead to Pyrrhia and the moons. I convulse on the ground, twitching, shrieking my head off. I'm sobbing now, and then laughing in a horribly TwistWing way. And then I see the same IceWing, and a lone female NileWing is talking to him, and I rip apart the pair, blood spraying the floor and the dragons.
I'm bashing my head against a tree trunk, when chains snatch my ankles, and cold, yet hot, claws latch onto my shoulders. A metal band is wrapped around my snout, and I see.... Shiny. Orange. Bubbles. "Talons," I mutter. "Tails, wings. Eyeballs, tongues. Heart. Love." The dragons stop, before marching in, dragging me along with them.
There, I'm practically beaten until I'm sobbing for them to stop.
I shout and claw at the wall. Then I collapse on the bed, as all the tension leaves me. I sigh, the longest sigh I've ever given. Up overhead, the moons are shining brightly, bestowing their woeful wishes upon me, hoping, that I will leave this planet of nothingness and rejoin the dragons in a faraway land.... A land where I belong..... A land called Pyrrhia.
My dreams are peaceful, for now. I dream of a land called Pyrrhia, where happy dragons love to dance and sing and paint and do everything every average dragon does. But then it turns into a nightmare. I'm held back by chains, as I'm foaming at my mouth, as if I've gone rabid. And then I screaming, howling, growling, shouting, yelling, cursing, and the entire time, I'm bringing down the moons towards me, making three asteroids that will wipe out dragon life forever.
I wake up clawing at the tubes attached to my burns. They've become old scars now, but i see something that looks like a bone sticking out of my forearm. I guess I must have been hurt pretty bad. I'm relived though, for once, happy that maybe I will become normal, not insane. But that isn't true. Dragonets my age, when they're already this far gone, they stay this way forever.
That same gorgeous ZoneWing steps in, and I see that her eyes are gold. They're beautiful. She comes closer, and runs her talons over my scales. I stiffen at the touch, but relax. A shudder runs through me, releasing the tortured prisoners of tension. She says softly, "I'm Princess Sunlight." I whisper back, "That's a really pretty name. Mine is Raini." Whatever she's feeling for me, that's what I'm feeling for her.
* * *
I say to her, "How are you?"
She replies, "I'm fine, what about you?"
I answer, "Good."
My dreams are way better. It's just me and Sunlight, roaming through a place called the Land of Hope. She tells me all sorts of things, like what magical flowers I should eat, and what sort of mythical creatures there are.
I smile, hoping this dream will never end.
Instead, I hear her scream, wake up, and find her dead on the floor.
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