Hellfire - A Dragon's Lifestory (Prologue)

Chap. 01 - "Crack!"

The salamander arrived in a spacious cave. There he lay rest to the egg in between two rocks so it wouldn't roll away. When it was placed down, the egg finally cracked. Flustered, the salamander prepares himself to take a bite at whatever was about to come out of it. That was when suddenly, a large bat took the egg away from the salamander. Disappointed, frustrated, and starving, the salamander chased after the bat.

The bat smoothly maneuvers through the cave because it has echolocation, meanwhile, the salamander is having a hard time trying to catch up to the bat on ground while not losing sight of it. However, it is determined to get its lunch back.

The bat is annoyed and increases its speed. The salamander is also annoyed and also increases its speed. But it's getting tired. So, the salamander loses sight of them. The bat rests on a crevice in the ceiling. The egg's crack got bigger. And, it's still slowly cracking.

The bat prepares to bite into whatever that will come out of it. It is unaware that the salamander was right behind it and that its wing got bit. The bat shoves the salamander away, but it was too late. The bat was already poisoned.

The poison from a fire salamander increases the body heat of its victim and slowly burns them from the inside. However, it can be cured if the victims submerge themselves underwater. Since, they are in a cave, literally under an active volcano that just recently erupted, water will not be easy to find. And, even if one does find one, it could just be a hot spring, hot enough to boil anyone alive if the poison doesn't already burn you from the inside.

The bat panics and decides to eat the egg before its last dying breath. The salamander returns and tail whips the bat's face. The egg gets hurled away. Both the bat and the salamander stop fighting and go after the egg. The egg falls off a ledge and lands on a fast flowing water. The current swept the egg away. The bat flies over the stream and follows the current. The salamander swims along the water.

A giant crocodile surfaces from the water with the egg on its back. The bat seizes this chance and grabs the egg, but the salamander had already climbed on the crocodile's back and is about to grab the egg as well. The egg cracks again and the crocodile seems to have heard it and tries to look back. The egg falls off its back and sinks back to the water again. The crocodile saw the salamander on his back and opens its jaws to bite at it. The salamander hurriedly gets off its back and went back into the water again to find the egg.

The bat looks for the egg using echolocation, but there was no luck. Same goes for the salamander, the egg couldn't be found anywhere. What they didn't know is that the egg had already hatched underwater, and what came out of it was... an eerie black fire that instantly evaporated all the water and created a steam explosion.

The walls began to crumble, the ceiling started to fall, and all the water vanished.