Hellfire - A Dragon's Lifestory (Prologue)

Chap. 02 - "Dragon Blood (and Egg Shell?)"

The salamander and the bat both got blasted off while the crocodile was caught in the blast and suffered major burns. When the salamander opened its eyes, there was a large crater in front of him and smoke continues to rise from the ground even though there wasn't any hint of water left. The crocodile can be seen shaking from below. Its left side has been burnt really bad. You can slightly see the bones through its muscles, and the blood inside also looks like it's starting to evaporate.

Fire salamanders have a bit of resistance to heat, but it itself knows that this heat is on a completely different level. The smoke seems to be more gathered in the center of the crater. The salamander can see a silhouette inside. If that thing is the egg that just hatched, then how could it have fit inside the egg?! It's two times larger than when it was an egg!

The silhouette begins walking on all four. Terrified, the salamander tries to escape but was unable to. It looks behind, and sees that its back leg was burnt very badly. Even though it had heat resistance, it still got burned all the way to the muscles. The bat fell down in front of him with its left side also burnt. It seems it also got scared and tried to fly away, but it didn't realize that a part of its body got burnt and fell down instead.

The bat gets up. The salamander gets up as well, although limping. They crawl away thinking that death is right behind them. Though they weren't wrong, the silhouette was indeed already right behind them. Both the salamander and the bat dare to not make a move. They both stay perfectly still. And then, a shadow falls over them. Its head is right above them. Moving their eyes slowly, they look up.

They've made eye contact with its deep red eyes. Both of them were so frightened that they no longer stayed still and started to panic and thrash about. Whatever this thing was, they judged that it was bad news. A claw grabbed the bat. It was still trashing about. The salamander looked at the thing's body and saw its whole feature. It was a dragon. Its wings are still small and it blends in with its dark perplexion so it might be mistaken as an overgrown lizard. Its eyes pierced a deep red crimson. There's some kind of grey amulet stuck on its chest. It also has a few egg shells attached to its left side, though it looks like rust instead of egg membranes.

The dragon sat down and extended its left arm. Its tail held the salamander in place so it wouldn't escape. Both the bat and the salamander were still thrashing wildly, but the dragon put its own left arm inside the bat's mouth. The bat's fangs sunk deep into the newly born dragon's soft scales. The membrane around the area where the bat bit seems to be slowly dissipating. The bat stopped thrashing and took this chance to suck in the dragon's blood. The blood alone gave the bat enough energy to move its wing again even though it was burnt badly.

The dragon let the bat go, and the bat freely flew away, but fell down again. It seems that drinking the dragon's blood only gave the bat a pain-killer kind of effect, since it could no longer feel the pain of its burnt wing. However, it doesn't change the fact that the wing is still burnt bad, and it can no longer take flight nor lift the bat up.

Meanwhile, the dragon stretched its left leg in front of the salamander's snout. Although not entirely sure of what was happening, the salamander bites the dragon's leg and takes a small piece of its flesh, including the egg shell, and swallowed it whole. Just like the bat, the salamander was energized to the point that it could no longer feel the pain on its burnt leg.

The dragon let the salamander go, but the salamander didn't try to flee nor run away. It was still wondering why the dragon is doing this to him. The dragon then walks towards the crocodile. Its eyes look dead. The dragon cut off its own tail and put it inside the crocodile's wide-open jaw. Its whole tail was still covered with the rusty egg shell. The blood that was leaking out of the tail started dripping into the crocodile's throat. The crocodile's eyes come back to life and it looks down to see its tiny savior. Although unable to move because of its burnt half, it was alive and breathing again.

Both the bat and the salamander, as if instinct, went to the dragon's side. Something about ingesting a part or a piece of the dragon made their instincts a bit hazy and they thought of nothing but following the dragon wherever it goes. The crocodile does the same and slowly drags its body towards the dragon as well.

Meanwhile, the dragon, who was in the center of them all, licked its lip, grins widely, opens its mouth, and started sinking its fangs on all three of them, one by one.