Draconics

Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Brothers

"What's wrong Willow?" asked William.

"Is Devin..." she cried, "He's not in his room!"

"Oh no..." Zach thought.

"What?!?!" my dad screamed, "Come on let's go inside".

Everyone went into the house quickly, while Hitch and the Headsman were still talking.

Once inside, Willow sat down on the table. Max ran up the stairs.

"What happened?" asked Rose as she poured her some coffee.

"Well," she sniffed, "I was making breakfast and I called Devin to come eat and he never came. I went to his room and when I opened the door he wasn't there and the window was opened... not just that, but the door to the stables was unlocked and two horses are missing... I don't know if someone kidnapped him.. or... or-"

"He probably just ran away," William interrupted, "When I was a kid I used to run away a lot at night".

"Devin isn't you Bill!" Willow scolded, "Sure he's gotten into his fair share of trouble, but he has never done something like that... I'm worried that... whoever took him is the same person that took that boy Edward... whoever has been taking people...."

Zach was standing near the staircase.

"Oh no... this my fault..." he thought, "Why did I have to bring him WITH ME?!?!? What do I do....? Well... there's only one person in this village that might be able to help me with this... Grandpa."

"Uhm... c-can I be excused?" I asked, "I need a moment right now..."

"sigh... sure sweetie," Rose sighed.

Zach went to his grandpa's room to talk to him. But he wasn't in there.

He went up to his room to find the bag with gems. The bag was out from under my bed... on my grandpa's lap. Max was sitting next to him, sniffing the bag.

"Where- where did you find this?" his Grandpa asked in shock.

Zach walked shamefully over to him and sat on his bed. Head tilted down, not making eye contact with him.

"I...I..." he stuttered, before finally forming a sentence in his mouth, "I know where Devin is.... you were right Grandpa.... Draconics are real".

He gasped.

Zach started explaining to him everything that happened and how it was his fault that Devin got turned to stone.

"Zachary," he sighed. He took a long pause and then spoke again, "As a child, I told you a lot of Stories about Draconics. From their history to their cultures to my expeditions. But there's one story I've never told you about... my first face-to-face encounter with one of them. It was me and my brother."

Zach looked at him shocked. He didn't know that his grandpa had a brother.

"It was a long time ago," he continued, "I was your age and my brother was 21, 22 maybe. My brother was a bit of a black sheep in my family... he did whatever he wanted and got into trouble a lot of the time... he would steal sometimes and stuff.... my uncle was the one that told us stories about the Draconics when we were younger... we never really believed in them and thought he was just telling us silly old tales... But one night.... something happened...."

"My brother woke me up in the middle of the night. He told me that we should go to the Northern Mountain. Kind of as a dare, whoever stayed there the longest won. I didn't want to go, but he pushed me until he was finally able to convince me to go. We grabbed our horses and headed to the Mountain... Once we got to the Mountain we decided to try to set camp there... but we started hearing things... whispers... snarls... and yelps... I kept telling him we should go back to the village... but he kept telling me that I was a coward and I didn't have the guts to stay. Just trying to convince me to stay... But I eventually decided that I didn't want to be there and left him in the Mountains... Alone..."