Grandpa Ted used to say: “ Little one, don’t you go looking for those Dragons. If they see you, they’ll eat you alive.” And in the fall of my teenage years, was the first time I set eyes upon them. It was a lazy snappy September morning, The howling winds a grim portent of what was to come. The gray skies hung low overhead like an overbearing tutor, ready to strike with a ruler in hand. I shuddered at the weather but tried to keep my hopes up, I wasn’t about to let a little lack of sunshine ruin our family picnic. Cousin Petunia came all the way from the Countryside and I’d be damned if that was gonna stop it. I packed the light lunch into the families plain beige Lunchbox, Twenty servings of bread, cheese, meat and other simple goodies for a classic day at the park.
The whole family strolled down on the way to the park. The children were running all over, excited for a fun filled day of games, good food, and family. The fresh scent of apples clung to the air in stark denial of the sky, wrapping us in a warm hug of fall weather. The old bones of the trees creaked and listed with the wind like Grandpa Ted when he was sitting down in his chair near the front porch. The beautiful twilight years of nature settling in for winter. Uncle Jethro stumbled a bit in a tough mud patch, and I was chosen to help him steady his walking. I gagged on the thick scent of tobacco and lemon juice on his dirty old coat. His breathing was hoarse and ragged like the soft babbling of the brooks behind our home.
“Damn ankle, hey Jerry?”
“It’s Johnny Uncle Jethro.”
“Whatever you do Jerry, don’t get old like me.”
And with that sage advice, we marched on in silence.
Nearly immediately I slammed face first into Aunt Gert’s enormous back, causing Uncle Jethro and I to tumble. Uncle Jethro angrily shouted:
"Hey! Watch where you are going Jerry! And Gertie! Why are you just standing there like a brain dead cow!”
However, Aunt Gert completed failed to nervous Uncle Jethro’s colorful musings. She was a statue, transfixed forward, with a look of pure horror on her face that would have left Medusa herself impressed. Completing this gallery of horrified statues were the rest of my family, spellbound in fear by something up ahead. Standing on my toes I peered over the mountain of Aunt Gert’s back and saw something I had never even considered before.
Where the old park used to be had been completely decimated. The trees, beautiful little streams, fields of flowers and grass had been exchanged for a completely alien construction. It was huge. A thousand, no a million times bigger than the small burrow the eighteen of us lived in. Incomprehensibly vast that no matter how much I strained and stretched I could barely even see two sides of the construction. Unlike the simple comforting roundness of our homes, this construction was built with harsh cutting angles and mathematical precision. The whole side we were on was a thick blood red. I only ever saw blood once when my brother James broke his leg while falling out a tree, the bone was sticking straight out and that thick red juice pulsed out in a way that made it queasy just to look at a similar color years later. The sounds of birds and the crickets went deaf, an unnatural silence fell over what once was the park.
My father was the first to react, he shook himself out of his stupor and said:
“What the, what on earth happened her-”
He was cut off by the most horrifying sound I had ever heard in my life. Raw squeaking and screaming noises as the construction morphed open to accommodate a massive hole in it. Suddenly, a creature I would see in my nightmares for years to come lurched out of the hole. The creature was a massive skyscraper, taller than a hundred of me standing on each others’ shoulders, It’s hide was thick and multicolored hues of cream, beige, and pink, with odd membranes in fantastical colors of Red, blue, and yellow. It’s stench was horrifying, I could smell blood and offal, mixed with waste and sweat. As it lumbered forward, It's massive jaw the size of me opened and I saw a row of teeth with an impossibly large number of them. It spoke in a language that was foreign and completely incomprehensible, made of harsh tones and dissonant cracks. The creatures head swiveled and it’s goliathian eyeballs transfixed upon us below, for a moment time itself was frozen in fear, as we stared back into the creature’s eyes. The spell was once again broken when the creature opened its mouth and spoke again, looking back behind it. The very earth began to dance with the fervor of an intense spanish salsa dance, as three more creatures erupted from the hole in the construction. Suddenly finding strength in our legs the family and I ran with all our might, I watched as Uncle Jethro fell once again but I had no choice but to leave him behind.
Hours later I found myself at the front door of our home, by the act of some merciful god I found myself safe, even though I had now seen the face of a god and knew that they were not merciful. The door was locked. So I waited, ten minutes, an hour, two hours, five, after waiting so long with no sign of my family my worries got worse and worse. I suddenly recalled the scene from earlier in the day when my mother locked the door and put the key in her coat. Dread filled my heart as I knew the only way back home, the only way to be safe again, was to go back to the Dragon’s lair.
I started to walk forward slowly, trying to muster what little courage I could find in my heart, however Father Time decided to conspire against me, as I blinked and found myself back at the familiar entrance to the Park. The world was silent, the land a barren desert devoid of light as I scampered my way through the thick grass, I crouched lowly to the earth and gruelingly inched forward like a worm through the mud, a fitting position for a being as lowly compared to the Dragons as me. I saw the Construction standing sentinel in front of me. The hole had been closed in the Construction, and so I approached I got closer, hoping to see if there was some smaller hole or pinprick to sneak into, suddenly the hole opened up again, and one of the Creatures thundered outside, it’s legs hammered on the ground around me and through pure adrenalyn alone I forced myself to rush into the Construction.
As the hole closed behind me, I found myself as Alice within Wonderland. An Alien world unlike anything outside of what my small mind could comprehend. The ground itself was coated in a thick layer of navy blue grass, so thick that they pillowed the ground to create a spongy, thick texture. I’d imagine that if we could walk on clouds, that they would feel like this. The empty space of the Construction was massive, so massive in fact that smaller Constructions were strewn throughout the land in all shapes and sizes, some small, barely even larger than me, others were massive in their own right, though they shared that same mathematical, geometric design. The sickly sweet smell of lemons overcrowded the air, making it near impossible to breathe. This new world was filled with sounds of a new variety the likes of which I never knew before. Whirrs and beeps and growls and squeaks and bangs and creaks and grinds and screams, a pure symphony of chaos and noise that drove all logical and internal thoughts away; leaving just one behind, finding my family.
As I crawled through the forest of navy blue grass I heard a booming roar as a new Creature turned the corner. I thought after seeing the Dragons earlier, that nothing else could faze me, but the mind numbing terror would not end. This Creature smelled horribly, of wet fur and rancid meat. It’s body covered in an ocean of thick yellowish fur, it’s body sleek and standing upon all four, it boomed with a roar so mighty I felt my own bones rattle, it lifted it’s snout into the air and siffed once, twice, a third time, and it’s massive eyes whirled around to fix itself on me, it bared its teeth and I saw rows and rows of knives sharp enough to cleave me in twain. It boomed once more and charged towards me with supernatural speed, how could a monster so huge move so fast? I turned around ran with all my might, my heart pumping with so much force I felt it was trying to leap outside of my chest and get away from the Creature faster. Taking a chance I hurtled myself underneath a large chocolate brown Construction made from some substance that looked buttery but as soon as you touched it it felt solid. The Creature continued to roar, frustrated at its inability to claim it’s prize.
I waited in the pitch black beneath the Construction, everything was silent here, so Silent I could practically hear the blood racing through my veins. Suddenly my ears pricked up and I heard the harsh language of the Dragons. They chattered on and on for what seemed like an eternity, once again it seemed like Father Time had decided to personally punish me cause no matter how much I begged the nightmare to end they wouldn’t stop. Then suddenly the entire world filled with light, for a moment my heart felt elated, cause the bright flash of light made me think for a moment that I had finally shed this mortal coil and ascended to the skies. But to my horror I saw that the truth was far crueler, the Dragon had lifted up the Construction like it was nothing. Before I even had a chance to react another Dragon grabbed me off the ground and took me closer to its mouth. This was the end.
“Aw Daddy, he’s so cute! Can we keep him?”
“No Jenna, put it out back with the others, we already got enough mouths to feed.”
And so Billy watched on as his daughter went into the backyard with the dog to let the little fieldmouse go
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