Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I don’t understand it at all, but I also don’t question it. I race back to my bunk and hide, panting and terrified. Fort Dallas has been built in the remains of an old parking garage and a huge mall. There’s tons of cement around me. There are walls. A dragon can’t get to me.
He can’t.
I clutch my threadbare blankets to my chest and don’t come out. My stomach growls, angry, but I ignore it. Doesn’t matter that I only had a few bites of lunch and skipped dinner. I’m too afraid to leave my bunk. Too afraid that moving out from under the blankets will somehow alert the dragon that I’m alive. Too afraid that someone will ask why we came back early. Too afraid that the roof is going to peel off at any moment and a dragon’s going to peer overhead and slice my face open again…
But nothing happens.
And then I’m left with the horrible thought of…did I dream it? Am I going crazy? Were there really just yellow seats and not a massive, golden scaled dragon?
I’m starting to doubt my own sanity.
Dragons attack people…don’t they? Barring the blank-eyed ones around the fort, of course. Those might as well be statues for all that they pay attention to humans. But I lived through the Rift. I know what it’s like to make a noise and watch one of those horrible heads turn, eyes locked on you.
They’re predators. Enormous ones.
So…why didn’t this one eat me?
4
JURIK
The colors and sounds of this world are overwhelming.
From the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes, it is a tidal wave of sensation, swamping my senses. They drove me mad long ago. I do not fight them anymore. I let them carry me, the constant screaming of sounds in my ears letting instinct rule as I sink into an ocean of blue and green and blinding red.
This is my world now, and even though I lash out against it, even though I attack it with fang and claw and fire, it does no good. The world screams around me even louder, the colors brighter, until I have no choice but to let it wash over me and take over my mind.
It is easier to exist in a state of nothing than to fight and fight and constantly fight against the chaos.
It has been so long since there was anything but sheer madness that it takes me a moment to realize the world has gotten quiet. The sound—or lack of it—rings in my ears, so overwhelming in the silence that a single gasp reverberates loud and clear.
I lift my head, yawning, and that is when I see her.
It is a human, covered in the reek of one of their hives, but beneath that awful perfume is a sweeter, purer scent. She looks startled at the sight of me, her eyes going wide, and then she races away.
I blink, not entirely sure if she is a real thing or if I am imagining her.
The moment she disappears, the sounds and colors bleed back in, overwhelming me. I fight back a groan and close my eyes, trying to focus. Trying to fight against the tidal wave that will drown me under it once more. It’s too much, though. I let it wash over me and stop fighting. I forget all about the female and the moment of glorious silence.
Yet…my nostrils twitch.
And they keep twitching.
Something bothers me. It bothers me for endless hours, preventing me from sinking into oblivion. I finally lift my head in irritation, confronting the blare of color and sound that tries to wash out my surroundings. Colors swirl and weave around me, and the endless droning is in my ears, in my head, in my skull—
But I smell something.
I lift my head, fighting against the choking tidal wave of sensation, and then I find it.
A smell.
Just a small one.
But a different smell all the same.
I creep forward from my nest, muzzle snuffling at the cold floor, until I find it.
There, against the wall, is the scent.
It is…food? Though it smells like no food I have ever tasted before. I touch my tongue to it, and as I do, the scent of the female wafts over me again.
A female.
I remember now.
The overwhelming colors and sounds fade again and I realize dimly that it is because of the scent. Of her.
Is she…my mate?
I try to remember her face. Her form. It is a blur, distorted with swirling color. I do not remember much about her, even though she was here a short time ago…or was she? The madness makes it impossible to tell.
But I remember her scent.
I drink it in, rubbing my nose against the bit of food she left behind. Why would she abandon a meal at my nest?
HUNGRY, an infant’s thoughts broadcast through mine.