Here be Dragons

Chapter 9

They didn't have much time, and needed to get out of there. Riley quickly stood from the chair and ran, barely noticing that the chair melted into the ground as soon as she took off.

"We need weapons. Like, lasers and stuff. Any place we can get some?" Riley said over her shoulder to Bruce and then to her side as the other girl was right there with her.

"I tried that. The lasers couldn't get through the scales. My saber barely made it through its claws."

"What about shooting it in the mouth?"

The dragon let out a mighty roar and the ground shook around them.

"I couldn't get it to keep the mouth open long enough."

"Really? Seems to always open up around me." Riley called out.

"Me too." Bruce chimed in.

"Well we need to do something. Any other weapons?" Riley asked, looking back and forth between the two, then up at the descending creature. It was closer than they'd realized and she was quick to yell, "Down!" as the dragon came near.

All three of them lunged to the ground just in time for the dragon to soar overhead. It's long talons just missed the back of Riley's head, and she thought they had all made it. Then she heard the scream and looked up to see that the dragon hadn't missed them. It had Bruce in its claws as it landed.

"Now what do we do?" Riley said, looking around. The girl looked at her and Riley pointed to where the dragon had landed, clutching their friend. The girl's shoulders hunched and she did the same thing Riley had done and glanced around them.

This place had nothing. There was no where to run, no where to find anything to fight with. It had the lava river, that was it. This was like, the worst place to fight a dragon as all it had to do was keep chasing them and then blast them with fire breath or something. Eventually they would get tired and it would catch them. Then it could just stomp on them.

"Wait, where did you get your weapons from? Did you bring them with you?"

"Did you miss the part where this is a dream. Where did you think I got them from? Where did you get your chair from?"

"I don't know. Thought you did some kind of weird magic mumbo jumbo or something?"

"Mumbu jumbo? Magic? Lols, this is a dream. Its in your mind. You think therefor it comes. You wish to be in Hogwarts and suddenly you're in Hogwarts kind of thing."

"Well, why can't we just wish the dragon away?"

"It's not our dream, and its not a dragon. It's a dream wraith and it was sent after Raz to kill him. The creature needs to be killed or Raz needs to wake up, but it can't simply be wished away."

The ground shook again, this time from a large dragon claw that came down in front of them.

"Split!" The girl shrieked and she felt her terror. It had gotten closer than they had realized and had just missed the two of them.

Riley didn't really process what she said. She didn't need to, there was a large dragon overhead, it's claw in front of them. Instead her own survival instincts kicked in, the claw was one way, so she ran the other.

It was only after she had gone a few steps that she noticed that the girl wasn't by her anymore and she realized what she had said. Since the claw had come down between the two, she must have ran the other way.

She looked over his shoulder, partly wishing the dragon was chasing after the other girl, but feeling like a complete dirt bag if it was. What kind of hero was Riley, if she let the dragon kill her. Riley didn't even know her name, and though she wasn't all that nice to her, Riley didn't want her dead. That would almost make her the monster in her own story. Well, she wasn't going to be the monster, she wanted to be the hero. That meant she had to go back and save her.