The dragon's den

   The dragon flew over us and then straight for the city. From our vantage point, we were able to see how the creature spew fire all over the place, making fires light up the morning landscape. The crimson color of the flames combined itself with the pink and blue hues of the morning haze, which looked beautiful but wasn’t any of the sort for the people in that place. Some had already died and others would die pretty soon, for sure. They didn’t even have the opportunity to wake up and see what was going on, as life had just caught up with them in the most awful of ways. Death was always an unwelcomed guest.

 The group overlooking the city soon split into two groups: some of them were responsible for the release of the creature and ran somewhere to try and contain it. Doing that was ridiculous and they knew it very well, but it would have been worse if they had stayed there, looking at the creature destroy the nearest center of population. They disappeared quickly and left the rest of the people there, only a handful of humans that had no real connection between themselves except the fact that they had learned of the other people’s plans and had attempted to thwart them, failing horribly in a matter of minutes.

 They had carried a bomb with them, hoping to seal the cave the creature had been sleeping in for centuries, but the device had failed and now they needed to know what to do. The destruction of their birthplace had begun and it was very possible that the creature would turn it all into ashes before they could do something to capture it or, of course, killing it. It was an obvious idea to have after seeing the creature for the first time. It was such a huge amount of flesh and bones, heavy, with fangs protruding out of its mouth and the deadly capacity of producing the deadliest fires one could ever imagine.

 The creature, to be fair, didn’t seem to have much of a mind, but it was precisely that what scared people so easily. They couldn’t know what kinds of things that beast was able to do. The only real problem was that one group of people decided to wake it up and find out, while the others only wanted to keep the creature away from the rest of the planet, sealing it away in order to protect them from a potential catastrophe, that ultimately happened. They had neglected to realized that some of nature’s creations cannot be controlled, no matter how much effort and money people could put into it. It wasn’t like that at all.

 So, the creature had awakened, as they had planned, but it had escaped in a matter of minutes and now death and more loomed over them. Several transports carrying personnel from the team that released the creature, cruised through the forest in order to get close enough to attempt some kind of trapping mission, which was obviously not the best idea to have but it certainly was one of the few things they could do, without losing the support of the people.

 But when they reached the outskirts of the city, they realized what the dragon had actually done: it wasn’t burning the city randomly, as it had seemed to them from the top of the mountain. The creature had created a perimeter of fire, burning houses, buildings and so on to create some sort of ring to protect its new home. As they couldn’t see it in the air, they sent robots and drones to check for the creature’s position, only to find out that the dragon was sleeping quietly in the center of the city, where a large square surrounded by ancient buildings enclosed a yard made with very old bricks and stones from many parts of the country.

 Apparently, the creature was exhausted and had decided to avoid looking for food, as sleeping to gain strength back was the wisest idea, or at least it felt like that. The creature did not seem dangerous at all, but the group behind its release was not going to let it go so easily. They had decided it was better to pretend there was a bigger crisis and use that to propel their own image in the face of such a strange occurrence. So, in a matter of hours, they helped evacuate the whole city by piercing a whole in the fire ring with the help of some very powerful fireman hoses that they had available for other emergencies.

 The creature did not notice the humans in the outskirts and slept all day, almost through sunset. Unexpected as they always were, a group of humans, not allies of those idiots that had liberated the creature from the cave, decided to infiltrate the city through another point that the dragon had not completely covered in fire. It was difficult and they risked their lives when doing so, but it was worth it as they believed the creature was not one to be disturbed and they needed it to understand that it was better for its well-being to fly away to some other place, instead of sleeping in the middle of a square, an easy target.

 Although many humans infiltrated the city, only three were brave enough to come closer to the creature. As soon as they got too close, the beast opened its eyes and looked straight at them. Then, two of those people ran away and only one remained. The dragon moved its formidable paws in order to get closer and the poor human shook nervously, but did not move from the position it had been when the dragon opened up its eyes. The creature grew as close as it liked and then sniffed the human for a long time. It was as if it was looking for something special, as if it knew something that no human knew anything about.

 The dragon then put his nose very close the human’s chest and started building up some fire. Of course, everyone in the vicinity thought that poor person was going to die in moments, burned alive by the fiery flames of a creature that people didn’t even thought existed. But the dragon did not kill the person, it just heated up its nose and then expanded its wings and flew away, somewhere where he wouldn’t be bothered, very far from those greedy bastards trying to make money out of it.

 The creature was never really seen again. Some reports came to the ears and eyes of the people in that region, but nothing could never be really confirmed. In time, the fires where finally extinguished and people were able to go back to their homes and enjoy their city again. The ones responsible for the destruction were brought to justice after some private citizens had formed a coalition who brought up proof that they had been planning for a long time the awakening of the creature to use it in many kinds of tests and medical investigations.

 The people of the city, however, never thought of the whole things as something inherently bad. After finishing repairs in many parts of the city, the mayor decided to erect a huge statue honoring the dragon, right in the middle of the square where it had slept. Most people in town were very happy about the idea and many children, as well as adults, submitted thousands of designs for the statue. It was unveiled a full year after the events of that day, when they had been awakened by the rumbling of such a majestic and mysterious creature. It became a legend of the region and a story to pass down through the generations.

 As for the dragon itself, no one knows where it rests these days. Some say it must have looked for another cave. Other claims that it now takes advantage of its freedom and roams the world changing its home from time to time. That idea is very popular with children, as they seem to enjoy a lot the idea of a travelling dragon. But the truth is that most people just want to see it once again, just once before they each return to the ground, as we all must do.

 And maybe it will happen… Maybe it has already happened. But that’s a story for another day.

Mantis

   Marina had been trained by the best martial artists in the planet and she had been practicing other techniques to make her moves even more fluent than ever. She had always been interested in sports and being fit, especially since in high school she had always been such a chubby little girl. Many of her classmates would make fun of her because of that. She would cry and tell her dad or her mom but by the end of her school years, she didn’t care anymore. She would answer with silence.

 When in college, she decided to become more active and enrolled in karate classes and then she went to a special school were she could learn how to handle a vast assortment of guns. Of course, she would only learn how to use the least complex ones because of her status as a civilian, but that was enough to make adrenaline pump all over her body. When she pushed her body to the limit, whether it was on the shooting range or in the gym, she felt liberated, someone else even.

 It was a surprise to her when, two years into her studies, she was approached in the campus by a man in a black raincoat. It happened at night, which wasn’t the best setting for a woman in campus. Marina had noticed the man walking behind her for a while and when he was closer, she used her elbow to strike his nose and then her fist to punch him hard in the stomach. She started running away from him but she was stopped when he caught up with her, pulling Marina from her sweater’s hoodie.

 She felt to the ground but didn’t loose any time: she used a very powerful kick in the shins to topple the man down and she was about to pull out her pepper spray when the man showed her his CIA badge. She pulled back just in time, watching as his nose bled profusely. She was confused and thought trouble was just a small word for what could happen to her. She feared that she had probably punched some undercover guy in the face. But why was he chasing after her?

  The man asked for help to get up and she did held her arm forward to pull him up. The man tried to clean his coat, covered in dirt and dead leaves, without taking a long look at what was happening in his face. He was still bleeding a lot. He only pulled out a handkerchief from one of his pockets kind of wiped some of the dried up blood off his face, not that it helped much. Marina stood there, afraid to run away but also to stay by the man. She grabbed her backpack, which she had removed when she landed on the campus’ floor.  Everything was fine inside it.

 The man finally started talking. He said he worked with the CIA and that he frequently probed the grounds looking for new recruits. He had been interested in Marina for a long time and had decided to talk to her that night. He admitted to the idea being a little bit stupid, with everything that happened to young women in that context, but he was also glad she had responded in such a manner when he came after her. It really showed that what they were looking in her was definitely there.

 Before Marina could ask any more questions, he gave her his card, with a few droplets of blood. He told Marina to arrive to that address the next day at five o’clock in the afternoon. He would be there to talk to her about the possibilities she could have with the agency and about her past, present and future in college. Before she could even say a word, the man turned around and walked away rather fast. Maybe he was afraid of getting hit again or he had realized how serious the nose thing was.

 Marina arrived at her dorm in minutes but she couldn’t sleep at all after what had happened that night. She was already beneath a lot of pressure from college, with all the work she had to do. She also had her training and her gym schedule. She was even considering helping in a fundraiser which was about helping young woman in campus but everyday seemed to disappear after that man had told her she could have “possibilities” with him and the agency he represented.

 She arrived right on time the next day. There, she met the man again, who had apparently been at the doctor’s because his nose had been properly taken care of. The bandages made him look a little bit different than the night before, or maybe it was the lighting. The point was that he was not alone. A woman, around his age, sat on the desk when Marina came in. None of them smiled or did anything to greet Marina in their space. They just went right to the questions and they did have a lot of those.

 After a long sessions, maybe two hours, of questions about her childhood, upbringing, education and interests, the woman asked her coworker to tell her again about what had happened the night before. Marina was a bit ashamed to hear about it, especially when she wasn’t asked herself about it, so she remained in silence, nodding when the woman seemed to need confirmation of what the man said. The story was short, so she didn’t have to endure that awkward moment for too long. The woman then asked Marina to meet them again the next day, in a new address, inscribed in another card.

 The next day, Marina entered her gym very late at night. The moment she had seen the address on the card, she had realized she knew the place by heart. Her trainer was there and she was glad to have a familiar face there. But he seemed very concerned and could only give her a nod when she entered the place. The woman and the man from the CIA were there and also two other men, closer to her age or at least so it seemed. They were dressed in gym clothes and looked at her as angry bulls.

 They all walked towards a corner of the space, one covered in mats. The woman from the CIA told Marina that she needed to see for herself that what her partner said that she was able to do was actually true. It was the only time the woman asked Marina if she wanted to go through with it all. Marina thought about how weird the whole thing was, how strange it was to be in one of her favorite places in the world but feeling as uncomfortable as she had never really felt.

 She had arrived in gym attire, so the first match began right away. One of the big guys she saw at the entrance was her first match. She guessed the second one was going to be against the other one, if she survived. The man behave more like a bull than like a man but she was able to counter every single one of her blows, no matter if they were kicks or punches, with relative ease. He was close many times, but Marina had trained hard in order to be not only effective but also incredibly fast.

 When she finally did her gut punch move, the other guy entered the fray and toppled her to the ground, making her feel like she had lost every bit of air that was inside her body. She tried to stand up but the second brawler kicked her hard on one side and the other was preparing to ram her again. What she did next was something based more on her instincts than on her actual skills. She jumped on top of the biggest guy, sat on his shoulders and tried to asphyxiate him with her thighs.

 Then, after a few seconds, she jumped down, taking advantage of the movement to kick the other guy straight in the face. He fell down like a deck of cards. The remaining guy was about to punch her when the woman yelled: “Stop!” And he did.

 Her trainer and the CIA guy were looking at her with eyes wide open. But the woman was actually smiling, something that didn’t really fit her appearance. She then walked closer and grabbed Marina by the hands “I have work for you”, she said, without dropping the creepy smile from her face.

The isle of Gods

   The island was the favorite place for gods and goddesses; as well as for fairies and all others creatures that had been created once and had then ascended the long ladder towards enlightenment. The only race that had failed to do so was the human one, rid of stupid creatures that had ideas that were not as grand and fantastical as the ones that the creatures in the island had. Its name was Warghia, the place where everyone could relax and be themselves, far from any responsibility.

 However, a human named Floyd once washed ashore. He had lost his life in a battle far into the ocean and his body had then floated slowly towards the hidden island. The magic surrounding the place, as well as the one done by thousands of creatures for so long, had been the one to blame for his resurrection, which no one was could ever understand, even millennia after Floyd’s actual death. His story would become myth but first, he had to live again.

  The first creature that saw him lying on the sand was a centaur, a male one that had been taking a walk by the shore. Assolan was his name and he had always loved water but his culture and traditions had never related to water, at all. He liked to see his reflection on the water and the moon’s one too. He always dreamed of sailing the ocean and he had been able to fulfill his dream there, on the isle of dreams. But, sadly, he had realized he wasn’t made for a life in the ocean.

 Of course, Assolan was devastated after such a sad realization. But it was true; he wasn’t made to be in the ocean. His legs couldn’t properly stand on a boat and his body was too large to be agile in the many works that sailing required. Besides, he just couldn’t handle the movement of the water. The need to vomit all over the place was impossible to handle and an embarrassment for such and enthusiast of the ocean. So he had decided to get off that boat and never try again.

 Finding Floyd was the best surprise in his many nights of solitary walks. He always did the same thing, kicking the sand and trying to imagine a solution for his motion sickness. He tried to think of herbs or other foods to provide a solution to his problem, but that just didn’t work. When he saw Floyd’s naked body on the sand, his clothes eaten by the ocean, Assolan realized his curiosity was not limited to the ocean. When he saw the human, he instantly felt something for the creature. He couldn’t quite put it into words but he knew he had to help.

 It was very difficult for the centaur to help Floyd. With his two arms, he pushed and poked the human but nothing happened. The creature was as good as dead. He tried talking to his ear and even blew air into his mouth but that didn’t work either. He touched the human’s face, his arms and his legs. He touched every single part of the man’s body but no response was shown anywhere. His face remained as the one of a sleeping creature, as all creature sleep in the same way.

 Assolan realized the only way to help Floyd was to put him on his back and then ride to one of the nearest temples where they were always doctors and shamans that could help even the gods. A human would be a simply thing for them. With difficulty, Assolan managed to put Floyd on his back and rode as fast as he could to the temple of Shiva, the nearest one to part of the beach where they had been just a few minutes ago. The temple was beautiful and grand, golden like the sun.

 Shiva was actually lying on her back, moving her many arms independently. With one arm, she used a fan to refresh her face. Two others cut an orange and two more caressed the goddess’s body with a cream that had the scent of a thousand roses. She didn’t notice Assolan right away, only when his hoofs stopped stomping the sand and started stomping the golden bricks of which the golden temple was made of. She looked to her side and just stared at Assolan, tired as ever.

 He dropped Floyd in front of Shiva and she then asked if it was a gift for her. Assolan, with almost no more energy, only managed to say the word: “Help”. Then he collapsed. Shiva stared at the two unconscious bodies in front of her. The arms stopped what they were doing. She really looked at the two creatures as she stood up and looked with not only her physical eyes, but also the eyes of thousands of souls. With her third eye and many more. She learned, soon enough, what had to be done.

 Days later, Assolan woke up in a beautiful room. It was made of gold and had tall windows to look to the sea. The surface of the temple shimmered softly. He then realized he had been missing from his home, not so far from there. Then he remembered that time didn’t seem to pass in the same way in that island so his worries transferred from his heard to the human he had found on the beach. As he turned around, giving his back to the window, he saw Shiva there, looking at him patiently. One of her hands asked him to follow and he did, in silence.

 They walked through fantastic halls. Shiva was clearly preparing a feast, a grand one for sure. Many servants of many species tended to dozens of tables, putting bowls of foods all over the place, as well as flowers and many other commodities for the many, many guests. They passed rooms and rooms of people preparing for the party but Shiva did not say a word about it. She kept looking forward, her hands moving in different ways from time to time, enigmatically.

 Finally, they reached a room similar to the one Assolan had woken up in. But instead of a centaur, a human was sleeping on a beautiful bed, adorned with lush vegetation. This time, Assolan was able to notice Floyd’s breathing. He didn’t wait for anyone to talk, he just launched himself at the human and hugged him, as if he was a doll he hadn’t seen in many years. But to the centaur, Floyd was something more to him. It wasn’t love exactly either. Just something else.

 Shiva waited and, when Assolan stopped his hug, she stepped closer to the human and touched his face. Then, she touched Floyd’s forehead and felt everything he was. His desires and secrets were all shown to hear in her head. With her wisdom and knowledge of every piece of time, she managed to understand why the human was alive. She knew about the mystical properties of the place they were in but had not yet understood how it worked. And she knew there were things it was best not knowing.

 She explained this to Assolan but he didn’t care about any magic or everything that was not known to the gods and goddesses. He knew he was only a centaur, a creature created a long time ago. They were now appreciated by others because they were strong and brave in battle. Both the females and males could use a bow and an arrow; they could wield shields and swords and could best most other creatures in war.  Assolan was just like that. But he knew there was more in him, somehow.

 Shiva knew this and she did something she rarely did: she was kind to someone else there, in the island. She was a goddess, yet she existed because the world needed her. And the world is sometimes just one creature, one simple need.

 She left the room. And as she did, she whispered some words in an ancient language. Suddenly, Floyd woke up. Assolan and him looked at each other in disbelief. It seemed to be for hours. Then they hugged and spent days together, sharing and learning. But this is only the beginning of their story.