When I was nine-years-old, I slew a dragon.
His claws tore into the earth as easily as a surgeon slices flesh, his tail shook the pillars of Heaven as it collided with the park grass beneath it. Thick, black smoke, so hot it consumed the very oxygen around me, billowed from his flaring nostrils. Flames licked the back of his teeth, but the real fire was dancing behind his eyes.
That fire would only be quelled by my death.
Giant, powerful wings capable of disrupting weather patterns with a single flap propelled him above the ground and he swooped forward. Darkness surrounded me, but my youthful resolve held firm and I raised my makeshift weapon, held together with Elmer’s glue and duct tape. With a single stroke it split my opponent’s leathery hide and gelatinous, putrid fluid spilled out, mixing with the morning dew. The dragon fell to my right and met the ground with a thunderclap. He twitched for a few minutes and then died.
His form shimmered in the newly-born sun and then it began to sizzle; my eyes stung and I was blinded for a long while. When the steam cleared all that remained were the undigested bones of his victims.
As you can imagine, after that morning the next few years of my life were relatively boring.
But I’m getting ahead of myself; I tend to do that. Most stories would end when the dragon drew its last breath – mine was just beginning...