Finding a small animal that was almost thirty times smaller than me was not an easy task. Not to mention that I had to do it from the air. There were the wind conditions to worry about, which were the very essentials of flying. If you slacked on your wing and tailfin positions, you'd spin out or crash to the ground. At the same time, your senses and a certain portion of your brain had to focus on the ground below you, keeping track of movement, sounds, and smells.
After a good ten minutes of searching, I spotted a hare, barely visible amongst the browns and greens of a slightly rocky clearing. His ears were up and alert, so I backed off slightly, waiting for when he'd be relaxed and oblivious.
To stay out of his eye range, I came down as low as possible to the trees without hitting them, and flew around the clearing slowly in wide circles, flapping my wings only occasionally to avoid any evidently abrupt wind current changes. The plan worked well, as the hare soon returned to grazing, and although he looked up occasionally to check, he showed no signs of tension.
Finally, the hare finished grazing, and settled down for a quick rest in the middle of the clearing, right beside a small rock. From my perspective, it looked as if he was attempting to use it as cover.
"Not useful enough, smart alec. You're not going to win this time," I whispered silently, recalling my experience with the goshawk. As if God himself had been watching simultaneously with me, a strong gust of wind blew briefly, and I grabbed my chance. In a flash, I quickly banked down into the clearing and landed on the rock, keeping my wings open to avoid making any noise. The trick was that the rustling of the trees' leaves masked my landing, canceling out the sound of my feet hitting the rock's gritty surface.
With a lightning-quick motion, I leapt over the rock and jumped down. The hare immediately noticed and tried to run, but it was too late. I lunged with my arms and seized him, my sharp claws digging into his hindquarters.
Even after being gripped and sustaining numerous stab wounds to his body, the hare wouldn't give up without a fight, and tried to scratch my arm as I pinned his feisty body against the rock. When the scratches became too much, my dragon instincts took over and overruled my sympathetic human heart. With a gulp of regret, I bared my sharpest fingertip claw and jabbed it deep into the hare's throat and ripped it out, leaving a long thick bloody gash.
As the hare went limp under the weight of my other mighty hand, I simply gripped onto its body, leapt up, and flew back to the cave. Having successfully located, captured, and slaughtered my dinner, it was now time to cook. There was just one major problem: how was I going to light the fire?
Recalling the heavy breathing I'd done at around noon, I decided to try again. Taking a few breaths, I slowly increased my exhaling from slow, short ones to brief, fast ones. After about twenty breaths, I felt something change in my throat. My breathing felt heavier and more energized than before. Then, down below, my chest started to rumble, as if some kind of trapped material was trying to burst free.
I figured that there was another, third lung somewhere within my chest that was connected to my two main lungs, and a valve in it was trying to open, but only under a certain amount of pressure. I took a deep breath and held it in. My chest rumbled with considerable turbulence, and expanded only slightly – though I could feel the muscle and tissue inside my chest stretch to almost painful levels.
Roaring to boost the pressure levels a little bit more, I pointed my head at the fire pit, opened my mouth wide, and exhaled as hard as I could.
BOOM.
That was all I could hear as a thick streak of searing heat shot right out of my mouth. Though not very large, it hit the fire pit hard head-on, almost knocking it completely over. The pine twigs and the large oak branches all lit up in a bright orangey-reddish-yellow mix of colorful flames and embers.
I bit my lip to stop the breathing and swiftly sucked in my chest. The fire in my throat and mouth subsided, and I spat out a few embers. With a few more relaxed, calm breaths, the embers were somehow put out.
My eyebrows shot up higher than the roof of the cave itself. I'd actually done it – I as a dragon had breathed fire! And in the process, I had started the fire needed for my food!
With the valve to my third lung firmly closed and my breathing under control, I used my claws to tear apart the hare from the neck down. While quite gruesome, the breast meat was plump and rich-looking. For personal taste, I pulled out the organs and piled them into a little sloppy heap. Holding them in one hand together with the hare's head, I threw the contents as far as I could, down to the rocks and trees below.
With the "disgusting stuff" gone, I turned my attention to the hare' body. Using my thumb claw as a gutting hook, I dug into the topmost layer of the flesh and carefully sheared off all of the furry skin, leaving the bright pink meat behind. After all the nasty dissection was complete, I used my middle finger to cut the chest meat into large chunks.
Setting the meat aside, I took the last oak branch and snapped it in two with my teeth. With my little finger's claw I whittled away at it until I had a smooth, bark-free stick with a sharp pointy tip, much like a giant pencil. I skewered three pieces of meat with it and held it over the fire, using the fire's warmth to remove all the fatty bacteria-filled slime off my hands.
I'd never tasted wild hare before, but it was delicious, even without any spices, flavoring, or vegetables whatsoever. It tasted quite dry though, and on top of the pulse of fire I'd shot out, my mouth might as well be a rock in a desert.
After chowing down on five large pieces, I tossed the bones down to the trees beyond the cave entrance, where the insects and fungi would eat them up – in the process of decomposition. Yes, my science knowledge from...
"School!" I exclaimed, shocked that such a word came out of my mouth. All of a sudden a few fragmented dots in my head started assembling and connecting themselves together, forming a now clear image of a place I recognized.
"Yes," I continued, even though no one could hear me but the birds and other animals in the forest below. "I attended school, and I gained knowledge by being taught, with something given to me to practice what I'd learned...homework! That's it. I also did that practice work at..."
My mind jammed up again like ten mice trying to run through a little hole all at the same time, and I sighed in disappointment. So close, and yet so far! At least some of my recent memories were coming back.
"I...remember..." I sang softly to myself, gazing up at the millions of stars in the bright black endless sky. "Oh, I remember when I would walk through those doors. The pesky students, the special place in the cafeteria where I sat with Melanie...and the playground. Oh, the playground where Jack would laugh every time I tried to play soccer but kept falling down and the other students tripped over me..."
As much as my new life in the forest was becoming more appealing, a part of me missed the fun and games of my previous life in the city. But if I returned, the human world wouldn't ever accept me in – I was a dragon. And everyone knows that dragons, like all mythical creatures, are made-up marvels of the fantasy world that exists within the scope of humanity's imaginative mind.
Having finished eating I used some of the few larger smooth stones in the cave to scrub my hands clean, though they still smelled of hare. Leaving the fire to burn off by itself, I trudged to the very back of the cave and curled up on my leafy bed to sleep, marking down a mental note to find better-tasting meat and a source of freshwater for drinking and cleaning the following morning.
Sometime later, I was walking down an empty city street with only a few street lights on, and bumpy, pothole-filled roads. The buildings' paint was old and chipping, while a couple windows were smashed in and doors leaned out on one hinge. It looked like an armed robbery had taken place, or the city street was completely deserted.
Suddenly the sky grew cloudy and dark, with thunder rumbling in the distance. As I continued walking down the street to find a good place to shelter from the imminent rain, a particularly tall building came into view. It was dense, too, having over an estimated four hundred windows. Yet unlike the rest of the many other buildings along the street, the windows of this tall building were untouched.
Except for one, which was cracked with a large fragment missing. Taped to it was a large paper sign that read "ALONE" in big bold red letters, with a few red lines streaking down from the word. I was about to enter the building to investigate the broken window, way high up, when the sound of a crying woman broke out, shattering the silence.
Startled and surprised at the abrupt sound, I ran about, pausing a few times to check the accuracy of the cries. After running up and down the street, climbing over broken fences, and knocking over a cabinet in a store, I finally spotted the source of the pitiful sound.
At the large building's rear, almost completely hidden by a rusty, smelly metal trash dumpster, sat a lone woman. She wore a rag-like dress and her face was sunk into her knees.
Feeling the need to console her, I gently tapped on the dumpster with my claw and whispered softly. "Hey."
She looked up...and with a look of sadness and terror, emitted a scream so loud my eardrums were in danger of ripping. Before I could get another word out, she ran away in fright.
"Wait!" I called out, chasing after her. "You...seem familiar. I've seen your face before."
Now that she heard my voice beyond just a word, the frightened woman stopped and glanced back at me. "Nothing can help me now. I've lost my son, Maverick, and I don't know where he is or what's happened to him? Is he still out there, or is he dead? What if he didn't love me all of a sudden? I don't understand how life can be like this. Nothing can change, just leave me alone!"
I stopped in my tracks and reached out with my arm. Not taking no for an answer, I put a comforting hand around the woman, who started to scream in fright and sob all over again. I fought back the building pain in my ears and looked straight at her in the eyes. It took a while, but then she looked straight back into mine, though rather fearfully.
"My name is...Maverick," I said softly. "And you are..."
"A-A-Abigail," the woman choked out from under the shower of her tears. But you're a massive beast! How can I expect you to possibly be my son? There's lots of people with the name Maverick out there, but I know only one, and he's gone."
I looked solemnly back into her eyes and scanned her face. "Now, I know—"
"You don't know nothing!" the woman screamed back at me, though with more sadness and despair than anger. Yet she then turned on me. "I raised him, my only child, through all these years, and...life is just empty now. You might even be the one who's taken and hidden him somewhere? Why did you have to do that and just...just leave such a hole in my heart! Why do you hate me?!"
With that, she shoved my hand aside and ran back to the front of the large building, either to sulk and sob some more or to return to a room inside the building – most likely that one with the broken window.
"Abigail, listen, I don't—" I began, but was cut off by a deafeningly loud rumble, followed by a few less loud ones. At first they seemed like the distant thunder I'd heard beforehand, only much, much closer. A large cedar tree crashed down behind me, and I jumped to the side, the large thick trunk missing my body by inches, but one of its largest branches had trapped my tail. As I tried to pull it free without tearing the delicate skin membranes or bones in my tail fins, more trees started crashing down around me, all of various kinds. Then a large "shower" of grass blanketed me in green, followed by one massive trunk which slammed down onto my head and the world suddenly vanished around me, sucking my head and heart into an abyss of black.
My tail shifted, and then my head shot up as if it was zapped with a live electrical wire. I looked around, and it was still pitch black. But I wasn't in pain, nor did I feel sore. My crazy experience on the city's deserted street came surging back and in an even more crazy mental mix, it all blended together with a stinging shock.
"MOM!" I called out in utter shock, my voice sending a thick bouncy echo across the cave walls. Lazily shaking my head I rested it back down on the leafy branches and nodded off once more, only to be haunted again by similar, though not as intense, scenarios. In each one the situation was the same – a woman in beggar-worthy clothing running away from me, thinking I'm a savage beast, all while me trying to explain who I am and how she seems quite familiar to me, with trees crashing down out of nowhere and threatening to crush me, injure me, or simply knock me out cold.
It was one insanely troubling night, with my mind and my heart going through so much crazy subconscious turbulence and turmoil. After what felt like forever, my very spirit, along with the body and mind it was contained in, was grabbed and pulled out of the discorded, nightmarish loop by the happy, positive sound of birds chirping and the faint sound of a cool breeze.
I staggered out of bed, fuzzy images of that same woman still in my head. Then I started mumbling to myself.
"Mom...Mom..."
The intense night had drained me of energy, and almost all of that hare meat I ate was just gone. Before setting off, I sat down and did one of my old routines – say a little prayer while gazing at the rising sun. But this time the whole experience was much different. In the dense, smelly, noisy city the loud mechanical sound levels drowned out any natural sounds and the other larger buildings blocked a clear view of the sun. Out here, the shimmering green color of the trees gave a more relaxing tone, and the quiet atmosphere allowed for crisp, clear hearing of all the sounds of nature – birds, squirrels, running hares, and deer.
I was about to take off but something was nagging me. I decided to see if I could reach Rusty again. So I set up the solar panels again to catch the warm rays of the morning sun, turned on the generator and the radio, and tuned in to the frequency I'd remembered from the day before.
Amazingly, Rusty was still there, chatting about the weather.
"Every day's new, with good or bad starts. Glad the rain will be coming soon in a few weeks, wash everything down. Them slim slimy water creatures may be smelly, but they make some damn good groceries, especially when caught fresh from the water they dwell in."
The tone of his voice gave me an idea. What if he knew about fishing? I had no clue if he'd been in California before, let alone camped out in these woods. But it seemed like a fairly worthy long shot. So, I asked him.
"Good morning Rusty Ratchet, that you?"
"Ten-four, Black Night Fury. Nice to hear you again. Gets boring out on these endless open roads, ya know?"
"Yeah," I nodded, before cutting to the chase. "Have you ever been to California?"
The radio went quiet for a few moments before Rusty returned in his gruff but tender voice. "Yeah, I have, twice. Once during a wrong highway turn around a decade back, and when I found time during the summer months to camp with my family last year, next to a lake. Good times."
My ears leaned forward in earnest. "Which lake was that?" I asked quickly.
"Ten-nine?"
"Sorry. I was just asking about which lake your family camped near."
"That'd be the infamous Lake Tahoe, right smack in the middle of the California and Nevada border. Recalling my maps, it's also just northeast of the El Dorado National Forest."
I bit back a gasp of shock. That's where I was living! Holding in my breath, I gave a smooth exhale and continued.
"How would you describe the lake for me?"
"Very nice and scenic. Large too, with a much smaller lake next to it called Fallen Leaf Lake. It's used for all kinds of water-based recreation – swimming, fishing, and boating, to name a few."
"Talk later, Rusty Ratchet. Got work 'round the corner. 3s and 8s!"
"Ten-four, Black Night Fury. I'll be on the line in the late evening. Got some shut-eye to catch mid-route. Bye, Toby."
I set the microphone down and shut off the radio, before disconnecting it from the solar generator. A good talk with Rusty energized my spirit and made me feel confident about conversing, so I decided to do something special to revive the blissful and comforting feelings I had felt back in my old "human" home.