But I was also growing bigger and no longer enjoyed sleeping in the tops of trees with one eye open, like a stupid bird.
So I moved into my very first lair. Now what I did was I took up residence in this abandoned spaceship I discovered in the forest one afternoon. Though of course I didn’t know it was a spaceship, I just figured it was some sort of shiny chamber. And the main reason I chose this chamber for my lair was because it had a clear door that I could shut with my talons.
And this door changed my life.
Because now I could drag a freshly killed deer back to the chamber and eat it in peace with no concern of some scavenger darting in and trying to steal my meal. I could finally sleep in peace too, behind the safety of that door.
I slept hanging upside down inside the chamber with my wings folded across my back. But I’d wake in the middle of the night and see the piercing yellow eyes of this big gray wolf watching me through the clear door. Once as a warning shot I belched a firestream at the door and the wolf leapt away. Later when I woke again that big wolf bastard was back, watching me through the clear door.
What else can I tell you about my very first lair?
Well the outside of my lair had the letters ATHENOS stamped on it. But since I couldn’t read or write back then, these letters held about as much meaning for me as the bark on a tree.
And inside my lair, there were these two dragon skeletons. Of course I didn’t know that they were dragons but I could tell by the shape of their skeletons that they were the same as me, just bigger.
They were sitting up in their seats. I’d found them that way. And each skeleton had a gold crown set atop its skull. Now propped up in front of those two skeletons was a small screen that flashed the words:
DESTINATION: PLANET EARTH
But again, I couldn’t read. So as far as what those flashing words on the screen were saying, I didn’t know. And as for those skeletons, I quickly forgot they were even there. Because soon the floor was littered with bones and fur and feathers from all the forest animals and whatnot I ate in my lair.
Then the days began to blur. Days, days, and more days.
A succession of arrivals and exits through my lair’s door. Survival was the thing. My life was claw and fang and wing, nothing more.
That is, until The Night When Everything Changed.
[ 3 ]
THE FIRST TIME I MEET DR. TERRIBLE, IT HAPPENS ON PLANET EARTH
We were deep into winter and the forest was beset with famine.
I spent my nights staggering around, desperate with hunger. The snow was thick on the forest floor. The effort of flapping my wings made me dizzy and when I tried to fly I instantly fell to the ground.
Then came The Night When Everything Changed.
That night, I happened upon a big buck deer hiding in some undergrowth. I remember there was a full moon in the sky, and I had walked near some brush when all of a sudden this big buck deer exploded out of there. And I looked up in surprise to see its brown hindquarters bounding off through the snow under the moonlight. Anyway, I bolted after it and even in my weakened state, I just managed to chase it down.
Well, I still remember how I was poised there over my fresh kill in the snow, and I was eating ravenously from it. Because for the last couple weeks the hunger pains had been gnawing at my insides. And that’s why I didn’t do what I would have normally done in that situation, which would be to take my fresh kill back to the shiny chamber and eat it in peace. Behind the safety of that clear door.
So I tore into my feast with my beak right there in the little snowy clearing, and I was chowing down under the moonlight like the starving beast that I was. And I figure that’s the only reason I didn’t notice the big gray wolf until it was too late.
Because normally my horns would’ve started tingling to warn me of an imminent threat. But unfortunately my horns were starving too. My little scaly green ass had been delirious with hunger for so long and now I was eating with my whole body. Plus I was only three years old at the time and nowhere near a fully grown dragon and still technically in my infancy.
But the instant I looked up and saw that big gray wolf standing there in the moonlit snow and growling and baring its fangs, well I knew I’d made a mistake. I should’ve known the scent of fresh blood would go out on the night wind like an alarm bell.
Then the wolf suddenly glided in closer and studied me with his piercing yellow eyes. He snarled and crouched low on coiled haunches. You could tell the wolf was going to pounce any second. My black heart was hammering away in my chest and my fool horns were tingling like crazy.
Thankfully, by that point the fresh meat in my belly had not only cleared my head, it also gave me a massive boost of strength. So I just looked that fool wolf in the eye and ripped a thunderous belch and a firestream flashed out my beak and blasted that thieving wolf in its furry haunches. Or it would’ve anyway, if that wolf hadn’t anticipated what I was going to do and leapt and danced away right before my flame zapped the spot on the ground where he’d just been.
Then I heard a terrible sound coming from behind me, and this sound made the scales on the back of my long green neck stand straight up. For as long as I live, I will never forget that terrible sound. Or the fear I felt when I heard it.
Because this sound was the deranged bloodthirsty howls of an entire wolf pack rushing in to attack me from behind. I realized only then that the first wolf had merely been acting as a decoy, something to distract me.
I was suddenly knocked off my webbed feet from behind. And in a flash I was pinned down there in the snow under what felt like a mountain of fur, and those wolves’ hot breath was all over me. Their jaws were snapping and I could feel their fangs sinking deep into my soft belly, over and over and over. These beasts were mad with hunger. Now one of those fiendish wolves snarled and plunged its fangs into the flesh of my right wing, and this same wolf wrenched its jaws and savagely ripped my wing in half and I felt the hot cutting pain explode all over my body.
I howled. In agony, but also in terror. Because in that instant I knew with my ripped wing I couldn’t fly out of there, and now my only hope of escape would come down to a footrace in the snow.
So I fought like a bastard, buried under that pile of thirty or so giant wolves. I tapped into my rage. I clawed and bit and blasted fire. I managed to get in a couple of good licks, too. I tore fur and flesh with my fangs. I felt my claws slice to the bone. And I savored the sweet taste of wolf blood in my beak. Yes sir.