Camilla: Brother Pheasant's Journey 12

Dennis was sitting on the football field close to school, in the dark. He didn’t want to go home. He was in trouble again and he was out of options. 

He had a black eye. His bullies were mean and persistent. 

The taste of iron spread in his mouth every time he thought of them, of school, of this stuckness.

Whatever happened, he did not want to tell mom any of this.

He had been minding his own business today, sitting alone at a table in the canteen, eating his peanut butter sandwich and enjoying the feeling, the idea of swaying a huge dragon tail back and forth. He could feel the power and the joy of it, he could see the shining scales in his mind.

Before he even understood what had happened, Ronald and his soldiers had emptied his lunchbox om the floor, poured milk over his head and then pushed him so hard he fell and hit his left eye and cheek against a chair before hitting the hard floor.

Nobody seemed to notice. The three destroyers were gone in an instant and Dennis was alone in a sticky mess with an aching eye.

He could see the painted lines on the grass, but only barely. The lights from the school yard were burning in the distance.

A warm bubble formed in his mind. He became dizzy and held on to the ground. A sound like wind or a broken radio rose in his head and fragments of words started coming through.

…uud…

…de…

…ude…

…duuude…

…this has got to change, dude!

A snap and a flash of light and suddenly he was eye-to-eye with an enormous black dragon that he could actually see!

Dennis gasped and stood up, took a step back. He was TINY in front of this dragon.

“Wha…I…I can see you!!”

“It’s a treat, isn’t it? I’m one of the most handsome Black Dragons of the fifth dimension. I'm Sebastian. But dude! You have GOT to learn some things…you can’t go around swaying your tail at school! That triggers the creeps and the crawlers, man. You’ll get beat up every day if you don’t tuck in your dragon power at school."

Dennis brain hurt but he was way too curious not to fire away all the questions that sizzled within him.

“What are you talking about? What do you mean, swaying my tail?? I don’t have a tail!”

“Come on, Dennis. You must know by now that you are part dragon too.”

And those words were the SPLASH, the stone falling into the water of forgetfulness, spreading ring after ring of fire and remembering, rearranging DNA and memories.

His throat swelled up and for a moment he thought he might choke. But then the heat changed and suddenly he felt bigger, wider, sharper.

“That’s right. You have the Dragon energy too, man. You just have to tuck it in when you’re out there, at school or other unsafe places.”

“Tuck it in?”

“Hell YEAH! You can’t go around practicing this stuff with all kinds of people around! That stuff you have to do at home. You tuck it in at school and you only use it if it’s absolutely necessary. But then it’s better if you ask for help from us. You know, we snack on these kinds of negative vibes! Let us munch on Ronald a little bit! HAHAHAHA!”

Violet flames swirled out of Sebastian’s nostrils.

Dennis couldn’t think of anything more comforting than this funny, black giant munching on mean bully vibes.