Dragon Rider (#Wattys2016)

Sanity Vs. Madness

Recap:

Take my life!! Kill me! Save me! Help me!" Then the dragon did something completely unexpected, it gathered the last of its strength and pushed off the ground in a desperate lunge. Its jaws open its screamed one more time, "take my life! Kill me! Save me!" In that moment I saw multiple missing teeth and the swollen tongue of the dragon before realising the dragon was trying to kill me. The dragon lunged and I braced myself for the impact, the dragon crashed into me and its’ jaws clamped around my throat.

Storm’s POV

My body froze and everything to freeze for a moment, before the dragon’s jaws wrapped around my neck. I staggered back from the sudden weight, the feeling around my throat tightened and I could feel multiple sharp points managing to get in between my scales and onto my vulnerable leather-like skin.

I don’t think my mind had quite wrapped around the fact that I dragon wanted to kill me. Dragons weren’t supposed to kill each other! It was just wrong, ever so slowly the dragons grip was tightening. Knowing I needed to get the dragon off my throat I thrashed around, the dragon didn’t let go as I hopped nor did it stop tightening its grip around my necks. I paused momentarily but didn’t give the dragon a second to recover. I threw my wait forward instead of back like I had been doing. The dragon, who had basically been hanging off my throat, caused me to pitch forward. I completely lost my balance and tumbled forward, which is hard for a dragon to do. I tumbled forward, I landed on top of the dragon which let go. I leapt away from the dragon kicking off it with my hind legs to stop it from coming after me straight away.

While I had been focusing on trying to get the dragon off my throat, I had let my concentration slip. The voices that I had been blocking with a mental shield all crashed into my head. I roared as the voices assaulted my mind, making me confused and hard to control. A high pitched scream was heard in my head and I stumbled and crashed into a rock wall. I could hear the thumping of the dragon’s paws and darted left hoping to stay away from the mad dragon.

Death, death, death, death. Death will come for me and you, pretty blood will be spilled. Open wounds will fester, infections will settle. Paid in blood, showed by pain, worthy of pain, worthy of blood. Death, death, death, blood, pain, blood, pain. Oh come join and play the game! For blood will be spilled, wounds will be shown, and all too soon my fun will end and I’ll feast and drink again!

The words in my head sounded insane and I looked up, worried that the dragon trying to kill me was saying that.

Oh yes, yes Dearie, yes. It is me, me, myself and I! And our little friends, they all died you see. Their blood was drunk and their meat was eaten, my poor friends. But they tell me to continue, feast they cry, feast! Can you hear them?

A growl made its way into my throat and a question came to the front of my mind, why was the dragon only talking to me mentally now? Could it not speak in dragon tongue earlier?

Oh, I can, I can Dearie, I can! However that hurts my throat, it’s not my drink you see. My drink soothes my throat it helps oh so much! The dragon charged at me, I had to admit I wasn’t expecting it.

The dragon was quite fast although it didn’t look like it would last very long in a fight. I turned and ran left, not wanting to injure another dragon or kill it. It was wrong, wrong to hurt another dragon no matter the reason. The dragon however turned and leapt, covering a surprising distance. It landed on my back, bite, scratch, claw, chew. Murder, kill, death, that’s what you do Dearie. Bite, bite, bite! That voice, I knew, was certainly not the dragon who was fighting me voice. I knew that as it didn’t have as high register and it didn’t have that insane edge to it. The voice instead was deep and murderous, the dragon tried to bite my back. I felt the blunt impact as the dragon’s jaws closed on my back, however due to the fact I had scales it didn’t work.