Here be dragons

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Not real ones anyway, the red dragon on the Welsh flag flew proudly from a few buildings and cuddly ones in the souvenir shops but certainly nothing that lived and breathed.

I was 10 years old the day it happened; I remember it like it was yesterday. There were four of us, Mickey, Charlie, Bran, and me, we were messing about by the stream. We had buckets of cold water and tiny fish that flashed silver when the sun caught them. With green fishing nets on bamboo poles, we were famous hunters, catching wild animals (which we threw back into the water at tea time). It was just after 3 when the earth shook, Charlie lost his balance and fell into the stream. It would have been hilarious except we were petrified. It was so hard to remain upright, we all leaned against boulders, feeling the deep vibration through the rock. We could see the rough slate on the hillside shimmer as it began to cascade towards us, first the odd rock soon to become a small avalanche. We tried to move away from the danger, but the ground was buckling and tearing beneath our feet.

I think I must have hit my head, because the next thing I remember was sitting at the bottom of a ravine. My head felt huge and swollen, there was blood on the stones around me. I looked around for my friends and they were nowhere to be seen…but there was the eye. I watched as a rough wall of stone opened into an eye, one that was filled with the waking fires of a forest blaze, surrounding a pupil black as the abyss. We stared at one another, and I felt my bladder spill open, as I looked into the eyes of death.

After what seemed like an eon, the stone surrounding the eye cracked and fell away revealing its face for the first time. It lifted its head free and screamed at the sky, the wail of mourning for its lost years imprisoned. The sound reverberated in my ears, I had to put my fingers in them to try and block the sound. Tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes as I squeezed them closed in fear. The wind from its wings battered me down to the ground, pebbles and shale bruising and tearing at my skin. Then it was gone. My ears buzzed violently as I wiped my eyes…there was nothing but a grey deathly vista of slate and a deep inset where once there was a mountain.

I couldn’t see my friends, scrabbling to my feet and looking around, I remember shouting for them but all I could hear was the insistent buzz. There was a slowly spreading pool of dark liquid drifting towards the stream…it was the place where they had been standing.

I clambered up to grass, collapsing in the soft blades softly sobbing. My skin and clothes filthy with dust, blood from multiple scrapes and cuts is smeared into the grime. The sky fills with fire above my head, and I watch the giant predator breathe fiery breath into the sky.

There is the faint noise of a plane, the white contrails cutting through the blue. The creature turns towards the noise, a curious cocking of its head, it watched the approach of the new threat. Screeching like a bird of prey, talons out it rapidly flapped up towards the plane, I then lost sight of it.

I slowly plodded towards home, feeling battered and soul weary, eye nervously scanned the sky. My leg was really painful, and my chest hitched uncontrollably. At that point inside I felt empty, I guess it must have been shock. My legs felt numb as I tripped over every piece of shale beneath my feet, but each stumble sent a spear of agony shooting from my legs into my back.

Home was in sight when there was a screeching filling the air, the cries of the creature interspaced with tearing of metal and the doomed fight of engines. I turned as the beast landed on the rocky vista, in its claws the broken shell of a jet. With a fleeting glance in my direction it pushed its snout inside, to feast on the meaty innards.