The Last of the Dragons-Set 1

172

3 Days Later

     I woke one morning, greeted with the same cool chilling air rolling down from the snowy mountain tops coating itself over my skin sending shivers down my back. The sky was cloudy with the sun peaking through as it rose up from the horizon. I climbed down from the tree branch I had perched myself on to sleep. The trees within the mountains were massive, some were hundreds of feet tall, their branches several feet wide at the base, making for a perfect place to sleep. As a safety measure, we secured ourselves to the branches with rope in order to prevent us from falling, even though we had yet to roll off. I slipped out from the ropes grasp sat up against the massive trunk of the tree. As I sat there looking up at the sky, I heard a rustling in the trees off in the distance. I looked around trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, but saw nothing that could make such a sound. The rustling got much louder as whatever was causing it approached. It was then that I realized that the sound of what was clearly an approaching animal was what had woken me, even though I hadn't realized it at the time I awoke.

"Maybe it's a deer or something." 

I turned and looked up to see Amy looking down at me from a branch just above mine, and Bailey sitting up below me. 

"Could feed us all for a while, first deer we've seen in a while." I replied in a whisper.

"Hey, where's Tahli?" Bailey asked.

I looked over to the branch where she'd been sleeping, and she was no longer there. I turned my attention over to the lake off to my right. The tree we had slept in was close to the tree line, so there wasn't much between us and the lake. I spotted Tahli taking a drink from the lakes edge before standing back up and looking over the constantly still lake, with the reflection of the mountains gleaming off of its still, seemingly solid surface.

"Get your bow, maybe we can kill it." Amy whispered.

Without making a sound, I untied my bow from the tree branch and readied an arrow to take down the deer if it got close enough, but, as the rustling got louder, I started to hear a deep grunting sound, coupled with growls and the sound of an animal much larger than a deer making its way towards us. My heart sank and my eyes went wide when I realized what was slowly approaching us. I turned towards Tahli as she stood on the rivers edge and started waving to her silently, hoping she'd get the message that silence was golden.

"What? What is it?" She shouted.

Before I had a chance to react, the animal growled, before it started running towards the edge of the tree line.

"BEAR!!!" I shouted.

I drew my bow and fired an arrow blindly into the bushes and underbrush of the forest before sliding down the tree and running to the tree line, with Amy and Bailey close behind. As the three of us came through the trees, we were met with the sight of Tahli running towards us with her bow in her hand as a massive male brown bear made its way towards us, with my arrow lodged in its shoulder. The three of us fired several more arrows at the animal as it approached, hitting it several times. But the arrows did little to stop the bear initially, and it grabbed hold of Tahli by her shirt before throwing her to the ground. The bear turned sideways as it went to grab Tahli in its jaws, and I took the opportunity to send an arrow into the side of its neck. The bear shrieked in pain before turning towards me and charging. I managed to hit it with one more arrow before it shoved me aside and turned its attention to Amy and Bailey. I ran to Tahli to help her back to her feet, just as Amy and Bailey unloaded the last of their arrows into the animals body. The bear stumbled back and forth as the four of us stood around it at a distance, before I shot one last arrow into the side of its neck, sending the animal to the ground with a thud.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked frantically.

"I'm alright. Thanks for that." Tahli responded.

"As am I." Amy said.

"I am too." Bailey added.

We stood in silence for a moment, looking over the bear as it lay on its stomach in front of us, with dozens of arrows sticking out from it's body.

"Why did it take so many to go down?" Amy asked.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps thicker skin or more muscles that protect its insides." I replied as I walked up to it and started pulling arrows.

Later That Night

The stars were bright, the moon lighting up the otherwise black lake with its casting light. The sound of the night was relaxing and numbing, while unnerving at the same time. we had set a fire that shot several feet into the air, which temporarily fended off the otherwise cool brisk air of the night. The meat from the bear killed earlier that day was plentiful, and full of juice, far more pleasurable to eat than what we had been living off of for a rather long time. We sat in a circle around the fire, consuming as much as we could without exchanging so much as a glance with each other for several minutes, before suddenly, I got a strange feeling in my gut. I swallowed what was in my mouth and looked up at the sky for a brief moment, before looking back into the fire.

"We have to go." I said.

for a moment, no-one said anything, before Bailey cautiously spoke up.

"Wh-Why?" She asked.

"We can't keep living this way. Constantly in fear, unable to travel what was once our land in fear of being needlessly slaughtered, confined to these mountains for safety. So many of our people have already fallen victim to the brutality of people who don't seem to have any regard for life, and now the few who have survived are living in just as much fear and solidarity as the four of us. We have defeated one enemy, we can defeat another. There is only one difference between then, and now."

Bailey turned her body towards me and spoke in a low, soft voice.

"Dragons." She said.