Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 88669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
And currently housing our dying mother.
I flapped my wings, catching pockets of air that slowed my descent. Spreading my taloned feet, I came to a graceful landing on the spiraling driveway. The gargoyles that watched over the property barely even acknowledged me, keeping their stony gazes turned outward.
It took me less than a couple of seconds to shift back into my human form. A swirl of blue and red mist surrounded me as the painless process magically shifted and remolded my muscles and bones and organs, turning me from a dragon with an intimidating eight-foot wing span to a grown man with a much smaller arm span, clocking out at a still-intimidating six feet and three inches in height. The same clothes I wore before the shift appeared back on my body, a white T-shirt and a pair of worn-out jeans.
The only thing denoting me from a regular human was the patches of crimson-red scales that covered part of my chest. All dragons retained some of their scales in human form, and none of us were ashamed about it. There had even been a trend (quite a dumb one, if you ask me) where regular humans would try and get scales surgically added to them in an attempt to imitate us. It resulted in their bodies rejecting the scales, some even coming down with life-threatening infections.
“Damien, hurry.” It was my youngest brother, Warrick, standing at the door with a worried expression twisting his youthful features. His thick glasses magnified the tears that welled up in his soft brown eyes. “She doesn’t have much time left.” His voice cracked with emotion, making the vise grip around my heart only that much tighter.
I braced myself for what I was about to see. I hadn’t been home for months. Ever since Mom got sick, I’d made it my mission to figure out a way to save her. From meeting with the merfolk up in Alaska to flying through the Amazon Rainforest in search of a rumored dragon clan with some kind of immunity to whatever was happening. I spent my days and my nights scouring this Earth in an attempt to figure out what was happening.
Nothing. All of my leads brought me to a sequence of dead ends. Doctors, shamans, Marvels. No one could tell us what was wrong or how to fix it. There would be blank stares when the questions were asked, apologies given and hopes dashed.
Empty-handed. That’s how I came back, and it made every step I took toward my mom’s bedroom that much heavier, as if I were trudging through wet cement, the invisible mixture solidifying around my ankles.
“Everyone’s here,” Warrick said as we walked through the dim hallway. “Even Dad.”
“Good,” I said. I put a hand on my brother’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze. He offered me a fragile smile. The green scales on his forearm glittered as he reached out for the doorknob. “Just prepare yourself.”
Prepare myself? For what?
I didn’t get a chance to ask the question. Warrick opened the door, revealing a scene I never wanted to see.
My mother’s bedroom was suitable for a queen, with vaulted ceilings and arching windows that bathed the white-and-black marble tiles in a wash of bright sunlight. There was a large bed pushed up against the wall, surrounded by my family. The wall behind the bed was covered in delicate ivy, one of my mother’s favorite flowers. It was usually an emerald-green curtain of trailing leaves, but today was different; colorful buds bloomed all throughout the wall, pinks and blues and red, popping against the bright green.
I moved toward the bed. My sister, Dawn, and my brother Xavier both turned to look at me with a heavy sadness reflected in their similar faces. They stepped aside and made room for me at my mother’s side.
Instantly, a sob wrenched its way up to my throat as I looked down at the husk that my mother had become. A woman so full of vitality and life was now staring blankly up at the ceiling with eyes that appeared to be close to falling out with how they bulged out from her taut and bony face. Memories dashed through my mind like a broken film reel: my mom taking me to the playground, my mom teaching me how to fly, my mom teaching me algebra, my mom attending my college graduation.
I was a grown man, a dragon, and seeing my mother like this made me feel like a newborn babe. Useless and broken.
“Oh, Mom…” I reached for her hand, picking it up in mine, feeling the bones of her knuckles poke at my palm. There was a scorching heat that prickled underneath her skin.
“I’m guessing you came back empty-handed?”
I looked up, staring directly into the eyes of my father, dark and storm-filled. A patch of onyx-black scales on his forehead appeared to suck in any and all of the light, exactly like his gaze.