The Dragon of Broken Talons

Chapter 4: A Voice In the Walls

Hello Everyone! New Chapter, sorry it took so long. As always, vote and comment below!

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The light danced and flickered before the creature's eyes. Heat basked the creature's face, causing pinpricks of warmth to run up its snout and cascade down through the rest of its body. The warmth made the creature want to huddle closer to the light, but it knew that smothering the light too much caused it to go away far quicker.

'Fire' the creature had to remind itself. That was what the light was called. At least, that's what it seemed to be called. The images in the light sometimes had 'fires' of their own. Then there were the creatures. The ones like itself, that breathed the same light. The raess, or dragons. The creature was a little confused as to which sound was the correct one. It only knew that it was what the humans called it when they brought food. It seemed to be what they referred to the creatures when they were together, as rarely as that happened within the flames. Mr Lee was often around them though, and that was what he called the creatures.

Now, the fire was showing one of the dragons. The large appendages on its back, its wings, or Leiss, moved up and down occasionally. Four spikey horns, or hyrss, protruded from the back of the dragon's head, and its long tail, qerss, moved and twitched within the fire. The creature found this a strange vision. Occasionally it found oddities like this, where there was a single dragon just... floating, as if on nothing. Most of the humans had other surroundings that they interacted with, but these dragons sometimes seemed to just be surrounded by... nothing. The creature wondered if they were trapped like it was, but even then it was sure that it would at least find some sort of footing.

Still, despite nothing seeming to be happening within the vision, the creature found it immensely fascinating. The dragon seemed so... free like this. No concern, no discomfort. Merely floating in endless nothingness. It made the creature's own wings twitch and rustle, as if eager to spread themselves. Instead, the creature huddled its wings closer, wary of this new and rather uncomfortable experience.

A sudden, loud, aggressive roar from the wall to its left caused the creature to leap to its feet in a fit of terror. A yelp escaped its mouth as it quickly fled to the opposite wall, pressing against it as the noise continued. It was... angry. A muffled growling, roaring, and clanging, that echoed all through the creature's home. It curled up as far away from the snarling as possible, trying to hide away in the now-growing abyss.

The fire in the centre of the enclosure was fading now. The creature's sudden movement seemed to have shortened its lifespan. All the creature could do was watch as the peaceful dragon disappeared with the flickering light, stuck as the abyss shrouded it once more.

"LET ME GO!" the words echoed through the enclosure, sounds that had meaning behind them.

It caused the creature's head to rise in surprise, staring at the opposite wall as the sounds once again turned into intelligible raging. Something was behind that noise, or someone. Someone who could make meaning with the noises, much like the creature had learned to do a while ago now. The words were also human words, but as the creature listened, the raging and snarling seemed much more dragon.

It lay its head against the ground as the Abyss once again blanketed it, simply listening to the snarling and growling. Eventually, it began to grow quieter, softer, until it stopped altogether. What replaced it was a much softer noise. A more vulnerable noise. One that caused sadness to well up within the creature. Still, it waited, not sure what to do except huddle in the opposite corner of the Abyss.