Red Sunset

There they were, as they were every few months, ripping apart the sky. Small dots early on when the village seeks shelter from them, but monstorous creatures when they arrive to do their damage. It is rare we see them up close and live to tell, but I saw one from under a tall willow tree. Mixtures of red and gold, deadly spikes around it's back and tail. The feet and hands had claws like a raptor: they can rip you apart in one swipe. The wings, seeming so lordly when they spread themselves out as far as they can go, preparing for departure. The fire it spat was hot enough to melt rock. Dragons were our only enemy here.1

Life in the village is that of a quiet one. Fetching water, hunting, and marketing were the only real things we did. Of course, we had other chores, like grooming the horses if they weren't too badly burned.2

Every 2 months or so, they come. Just out of nowhere, a whole flock of them. A warning bell tolls, announcing their arrival. Nobody knows what they seek here or why the dragons single out our village. They always seem to be looking for something, and will stop at nothing to find it. If a person was unfortunate enough not to make it to shelter in time, they were burned beyond recognition or killed, by claws or by fire. The warning bell would ring loudly by the watcher, until they themselves were too scared and went to seek shelter. It was a dangerous life here in the village, and the death toll was rapidly escalating ever since the dragons came.3

When the bell rang, people abondoned whatever they were doing, grabbed the children, and fled into the forest on the east side of the village. When the dragons got here, they found the place deserted, and shot flames here and there to see if they could find a straggler. Children, especially toddlers, were often the victim. If a person was lucky enough to live through childhood, then a future of work and repair awaited them.4

Bu the strangest thing of all happens when the dragon is sure nobody is there. They fly rampant above the village in a circular formation, like a hawk looking for a meal. But it never striked, it just looked and looked. Whatever they were looking for, they never would find it, because they left, leaving burned and torn bodies of people, often travelers who were not accostomed to this warning.5

When I saw the dragon, I remember my mother was carried away from me by the stampeding villagers who went into the forest. I tripped and twisted my ankle. As they grew closer, their wings pushing apart clouds as they flapped, I crawled over to a nearby tree and sat behind it. I heard no sound after a few minutes, after the fires and the screams of stragglers, I thought they had gone. I stood up, my ankle then numb, and went out from behind the tree. I froze where I stood, not even breathing. It was just there, sitting, waiting. It turned to look at me and I thought, no, I knew, I was going to die. Somehow I kept calm and just stood there, hoping it would leave. My eyes connected with his, dark and gloomy, like he just lost a loved one. It seemed he was...greiving. I was just tranquilized by the gentlness of his eyes, yet I feared because of the anger that is an instinct for a dragon. Then it just spread out it's graceful winge, flapped them causing my hair to blow in my face, and left. I stood there, still frozen, shallow breaths, until the shock finally reached me. I had come face to face with a dragon, and it saw me, and it left. Why didn't it kill me like so many others before?6