Night Rider

Kreak

-Hiccup's POV-

Sleep was gracious and only woke me when the sunlight hit my eyes in the morning. I groggily sat up and washed my mucky hands and face in a pool of water, before giving the grumpy Toothless his morning load of fish. Don't ask me why he was grumpy, 'cause I have got no clue. All I know is that I am going to spend the whole day with my best bud to try and lift his spirits, and hopefully mark off a few more islands near Berk. After I had also eaten, we took off and flew to the East of Berk, leaving a note in the cave just incase Astrid or the group came lookinf for me. It was a pleasent day, a few clouds dotted the crystal blue sky and the sun bathed everything in light and warmth. We made sure that we didn't fly near habited islands, just incase we were spotted and they opened fire at us. That had happened a few times before on Berserker island...

We spotted a few Thunderdrums and Scauldrons along our journey, as well as many Terrible Terrors who were playing on any sea stack that they could find. It brought a smile to my face and I realised that many dragons are happy, but that thought lead to another thought and I then started thinking about all the dragons which I didn't save or couldn't save or haven't saved. I was so lost in thought that I didn't realise that an uncharted island had just popped into view.

Toothless had noticed it though and he nudged my leg with his head carefully. I looked up and saw it. The island was surrounded fully by jagged, black rocks, and there was only cliffs into the sea - no beaches. It looked brown, dead and deserted, but it had a small mountain off to one side with snow on the top and a large waterfall gushing down the side of it, with a little vegetation near that. Wild dragons lined the coast and as we got closer they roared at us and bared their teeth, but non actually took flight. Deadly Nadders, Monsterous Nightmares, Gronkles, Terrible Terrors, Thunderdrums, Scauldrons and Zipplebacks inhabited the island (which I could see), but as we drew even closer, non came to meet us in the sky. This was very weird and it got me thinking...

We flew a circle around the large island inspecting it, so I could add it to my map. There was very little greenery, and everything seemed to have been burnt to a crisp, except from the mountain itself. After a few laps of the island, and carefully drawing it on the map and all the little sea stacks by it, we decided to head back to Berk, so we would make it back just before nightfall.

"Come on Too--" I began, but something had caught my eye. On the edge of the mountain, there were very many concealed holes, probably made by Whispering Deaths or running water as they were so smooth and rounded, but a few dragons were walking into them and different ones coming out of them, like a tunnel. As I took a closer look, I also noticed a few weak trails of smoke coming from the holes too. How had I missed them?

"Bring us down to that hole, bud." I asked Toothless. Willingly (he was very tired after a full day of flying) he settled down on the edge of the mountain and took a well-derserved drink from the melted snow water which was running down the side of the mountain. Again, no dragon attacked us which I thought was very weird, especially since we had invaded their territory.

Are they sick? I thought. If they were, we couldn't stay here too long just incase Toothless (or I) caught their illness, even though I would give anything to help them, I wouldn't risk Toothless's health. I hopped off him and onto the ground. I was surprised to find it warm, but not too warm that it burnt my feet - just warm enough to be pleasant and curious. I stood at the entrance of the tunnel and looked down it. I could see perfectly fine, even though the smoke was coming out and I couldn't see any dragons in this particular tunnel.

"Come on, bud. Lets go." I addressed Toothless as I took a step in the tunnel.

After about 10 minutes of walking, we could see the end of the tunnel. The further we went down the tunnel, the hotter it became and I was sweating from head to toe. My feet also were burning up, and you could tell that Toothless's were too by the way he was 'dancing', always trying to have only two of his feet on the ground at once. We needed to get out of here, but my curiosity got the better of me and I carried on to the end. We had only encountered a few Terrible Terrors on the journey and they had left us alone, but Toothless was still panting rapidly from the heat. I wish I had bought more water with us.

When we reached the end of the dark tunnel, I stood and gasped. Lots of dragons flew in circles in the cavern and a few sat on rocks, including an Eruptodon and a Cavern Crasher. There was a little bit of sunlight coming from the very top of the mountain which lit up the cavern a little. Surprise, surprise, no dragons attacked us. I was begining to get worried that non of them had attacked us or even approached us, what was going on? I also realised something else. The extreme heat made sense, the smoke made sense, the hole in the top of the mountain made sense, the heated floors made sense - this wasn't a mountain, it was a very angry volcano.

"Toothless, we are going!" I shouted to him. We both turned around and ran back down the tunnel. This didn't help with the heat that my body was already suffering with, but I couldn't stop. There was no way of telling when this volcano would erupt. With Toothless infront of me, we sprinted at top speed. We could not fly, the tunnel was too small for that. I couldn't sit on Toothless, it was already hard enough for him. Suddenly, the ground started rubbling and small rocks rained from the ceiling. Still I sprinted. I could feel the cooler air hit me, and I knew that we were nearly there. A large boulder fell from the roof, sealing me in and Toothless out, blocking us from seeing eachother and pitching me in almost complete darkness.

"Toothless!" I called. I faintly heard a shouting response from him and my heart lifted to know he was okay. I clawed at the boulder, trying to climb it. It was exceptionally smooth, with no footholds or anything.

"Toothless?!" I called again. He couldn't understand me much, but I hoped he understood that I was distressed and in need of him. The heat was almost unbearable, the boulder acting as a plug to seal the heat in. I heard a hissing sound, so I turned around to inspect it. My eyes widened. Not now! I thought. Tiny trickles of lava had started to penetrate the cracks in the floor and I scrambled desparately at the boulder again. A river of it was forming, heading my way rapidly and it was accompanied by gallons of smoke.

Bang!

The boulder had crashed in two, a smiling Toothless greeted me on the other side.

"Come on, bud! Come on!" I told him as I ran through the wreckage of the boulder. The increasing smoke began to sting my eyes and make them water, and it also didn't help my breathing either. Thank Odin! We raced out the tunnel and I hopped on Toothless's back swiftly. We fled at full speed away from the island. Many of the dragons who lived on it had also took flight, but we overtook them easily. I took a lot of deap breaths and rubbed my eyes to get rid of the smoke in them.

Both Toothess and I were exhausted, so we decided to stop at a small island halfway between Berk and the volcano island, which I had named Kreak. The island which we stopped at was small, but far enough away from Kreak to make sure that we weren't caught up in the nasty part of the explosion, when it eventually occured. The sky had just started to turn a deep blue, so we settled under a large oak tree in the middle of the island. I grabbed us a lot of fresh water from a near by pond, and we slept like logs.