A New World, Complicated

Chapter 14: What Flies Beneath (Hiccup)

 Everybody has a past, even dragons. And sometimes, that past can come back to haunt them. And when it does, you're gonna need to be there for them.

A few of us stood around one of the many strange holes that had popped up overnight all over Berk. Toothless made his way over to it and sniffed the deep tunnel, then began to roar and rear wildly.

"Whoa, hey!" I stretched my arms out to calm my dragon. "It's just a hole, bud."

"It's not just a hole! It's like an underground village!" I looked down in alarm at the sound of Bucket's voice coming from the bottom of the hole. How did he get down there?

"Bucket! There you are," Mulch sighed. "I've been looking for you all night!"

"Sorry, Mulch. But I think I finally found it: my happy place!" The ground rumbled beneath us, and Bucket was shot out of the hole in a cloud of dust.

"Are you all right, Bucket?" my dad asked.

"Not so happy anymore."

"What happened?"

"Something pushed me out! Something's down there! Something big!" Toothless growled again before jumping down into the hole, and soon enough, the ground started trembling, and a sound almost like thousands of whispers began to seep through the cracks.

"What is that sound?" Reign muttered, staring at the ground as though the answer would spell itself out for her.

"Eh, whatever it is, it's giving me the willies!" Everyone backed up as the tremors got more violent, and suddenly, a creature with blank eyes and thousands of teeth shot up in front of us.

"Whoa! Look at the size of that thing!" Snotlout marveled.

"Do I have to?" Fishlegs quivered.

"Dragons, everyone!" Astrid ordered. The group got onto their dragons and prepared to fire, while I stared at it carefully, trying to figure out what it was.

"Uh, I don't like the way it's eyeballing me."

"Don't worry, it's not just you."

"Thanks, big relief."

After taking the time to look around at everything, it dove back into the ground, tail flicking and cracking like a whip as it struggled to fit its large body back down below.

"What... was... that?"

"Whatever it was, I want one!" Reign shot Tuff a glare.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that was a Whispering Death."

"Whoa, great name. So much better than Zippleback."

"W-Where'd it go?" Bucket looked around nervously. "Why's it here? What's it gonna do to us? Why aren't you slapping me to snap me out of this?"

"Because I'm scared too, Bucket," Mulch answered honestly. The Whispering Death burst from the ground again, creating a fresh hole in the ground.

"Ah, it looks angry. Why don't you do that thing where you touch its nose and feed it grass?" There was no way I would be able to get close enough to this thing to gain its trust. And that whole 'feed it grass' bit was a little demeaning.

"Okay! Uh, Fishlegs, what do we know about the Whispering Death?"

"Boulder class; razor-sharp teeth, incredibly strong, hunts from underground," he shouted.