angry, too

1. prologue

   Ash rained from the sky and looked like dark snow. It fell gracefully, and would almost be beautiful to look at if everything that Viktor knew wasn't crumbling to pieces at this very moment. His mother grabbed his arm and tugged at him, "Come on!" She screamed at him. "We need to go now!" He felt like he was frozen to his spot. He wasn't sure if it was because of fear or if it was because of the thousands of gold coins that he had stolen. It was supposed to give them a new life.

   "But-!"

   "Just leave it!" She scooped him up and started to run. That was when he saw the dragon. It was soaring high in the sky, just under the clouds. He blinked, knowing that something very bad was about to happen. He wasn't sure if his brain could process just how bad that something would be though.

   He had always imagined that dragons would make the world heat up with the blazing energy in their bellies, but he was wrong. As the dragon neared them, the world seemed to get colder around him. It sprayed green fire from it's mouth and melted buildings. His mother ran as fast as she could, stumbling over other people that were being stampeded in the crowd of panicked civilians.

   He had this feeling that he was about to die. At the time, he was only a child, so he wasn't sure exactly what words he was supposed to put to that feeling.

   He just knew.

  This was the end of the line.

   There was no way that they would be able to outrun a dragon the size of a building. His mother turned a corner and set him down right next to the catacombs. "I need you to hide here darling," She told him.

   "What? But what about you?"

   "I'm going to run to the city limits, see if there's any aid that might be able to help, but there's no way that I'm going to be able to get there in time if I have to carry you." He should have known then that she was abandoning him. But he trusted her.

   He went deep into the catacombs and waited, and waited, and waited. He could hear screams and explosions and destruction. He waited desperately for his mother to come and find him.

   She never did.