Dragonslayer, Inc.

Machen left through the front door. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.

I flopped down on my bed and curled the sheets around my body. It felt comfortable, like I was at home, so I closed my eyes and pretended I was home. I thought about my mom. I wondered what she was doing.

Was she sitting on the living room couch, crying and telling the police to look for me? I hope not. I didn’t like to think about that possibility then, and I don’t like to think about it now.

I thought about my dad. I hadn’t thought about him for a long time. He split when I was young. I don’t remember how young- I suspect five or six, but I don’t know for sure. When I was nine, I asked my mom about him, but she didn’t answer any of my questions. I think she would have preferred I believe he didn’t exist.

Then I thought about my sister, and I felt a warm glow inside.

I cared about my mother, but I never really missed her. That sounds bad, and I feel bad about it, but it’s true. On the other hand, I missed my sister every day. She and I had never been extremely close, but on that night in that hotel room, I realized how much she meant to me. Most of my memories up to that point had been shared with her.

If nothing else, I wished I had said a proper goodbye to her before I left. She deserved that.

The last thought I had before falling asleep was her face slowly fading to a dark, inky blackness. It was a thought I would have many times before my journey came to an end.

When I woke up, sunlight was poking through at my nose. I hugged my pillows. This was a comfortable room. It felt relaxed. It felt like a sanctuary. There was no way I was leaving any time soon.

I flipped on the fan and watched it spin. There was a fan in my house, but it broke when I was eight, and my mother had neither the money nor the desire to fix it. Watching the hotel fan reawakened some buried part of my spirit.

Flopping back down, I buried myself in my covers. I could have stayed there as long as I wanted, more or less. I had time, I had money, and I had freedom. But when the sun lifted off my pillows and into the sky, I came to my senses and ambled out of bed.

After eating breakfast, I went on a spending spree in town. I bought everything I would need for the remainder of my adventure to Andes: water bottles, loads of food, a tent for shelter, and a backpack to carry it all in. I also bought a new pair of boots, a couple new pairs of clothes, a decent sword, and a map of the region while selling my broken sword and my book.

For once in my life, I was prepared. I was proud of myself. I knew I had a long way to go, but I felt like a real adventurer, a real Dragonslayer. Setting off into the sunlit plains, I felt not the slightest hint of trepidation.

“The bad times are behind me,” I said to myself, “and the good times are ahead.” I pointed to the horizon. Never in my life had I felt so sure, and never would I again.

As the sun reached the top of the sky, I reached a grass hill. Below me, dingoes played, aardvarks rollicked, and ants labored. I was watching the grand spectacle of nature unfold before me.

The moons hung steadfastly in the sky. Deka was a splendid silver, and Mina was a peaceful pink. They looked different than in Natura. Back then, I couldn’t put my finger on why, but now I can: in Natura, they looked like they were part of the landscape, part of the aesthetic, but as they hung above the plains, they looked like they had broken free of their earthly tethers and were able to roam unburdened in the sky, unburdened by the cares of this planet and the people living on it.

I went to sleep again and woke up after the sun had set. Darkness had not yet swallowed up the sky, but it was fast approaching.

The crepuscular creatures were out hunting. I saw a small winged dragon swoop down and snatch a snake in its jaws. This wasn’t the kind of dragon I wanted to fight, not even for practice. It was too small to put up much of a fight. Either I would have killed it with ease, or it would have flown away. Neither option seemed appealing. I only would have hunted it if I had been hungry, and thanks to the food I had bought in town, I wasn’t.

There was a creature I had to fight however. It was something the likes of which I had never seen before. It was a monstrous salamander, over fifteen feet long and over three feet wide. With four eyes and a line of spikes running down its back, it struck fear into my heart as it slithered up from its musty subterranean den.

Out of its mouth emerged a slimy tongue, which slapped a bird out of the sky before scooping it up and delivering it into the creature’s mouth. Wanting to escape the same fate, I ran, but the salamander was faster, and before long, it was upon me.

Taking a deep breath, I drew my sword. “If I want to be a Dragonslayer, I might as well start slaying things,” I said. “No more running for me.”

It wasn’t a flashy sword. There was nothing to make it stand out from the thousands of other swords in the world. And yet I was sure it would be this sword that would slay the great beast before me.

It spit its tongue at me. I slashed this slimy appendage clean off. The creature writhed in pain. I had my opportunity. Now I had to take advantage of it. I had seen this scene play out thousands of times with many different Slayers and many different creatures, yet a wave of nerves took me. I hesitated, and the creature nearly slapped me with its tail as it flailed about.

Acting as though my sword was an extension of my body, I chopped my way through the salamander. Soon its eyes rolled and faded, and it was dead. I stood atop its carcass, victorious, and held my sword in the air. It was now a special sword.

A pang of sorrow shot through my chest. I had never killed anything larger than a mouse before. There was no going back. I didn’t immediately become a bloodthirsty killer, but something changed in me.

Bowing my head, I got down off the salamander and continued on my way. Besides being more efficient, traveling at night was stunning. It was like traveling through an alien world. It was a somber, contemplative world, but it was also a comforting world. Every now and then, I would look up at the moons and the stars, and I would feel connected to the universe.

At the top of the night, I heard what I believed to be a set of human footsteps. I believed it to be Machen. “Who else would it be?” I asked myself. I looked for him.

If he had been there, he would have been easy to recognize. At nearly six and a half feet tall, he casts a distinctive silhouette. His hair is the color of obsidian, and his eyes are the color of steel. In those days, he wore a gold chain around his neck. It was so shiny that it reflected moonlight as well as sunlight.

After an hour of searching in vain, I threw my hands up in the air and dropped the matter. It would have been nice to travel with a Slayer, but it wasn’t a necessity. I was disappointed but not disheartened. It wasn’t long before I started back toward Andes. I had a lot of ground to cover.

When daylight rose out of the horizon, I sat down on a patch of dirt and read my map. It turned out I wasn’t as far from Andes as I thought. I was overjoyed. “Soon,” I said, “I’ll have my chance.”

It’s strange how far one person can go on foot when they put their mind to it. I was walking a distance not a lot of people would drive.

Three days later, I saw the city skyline rising out of the horizon. I’d made it. I’d found paradise. Though I’d seen photos of Andes, I was not prepared to witness its shimmering elegance in person. Cast in moonlight, it the most beautiful city I had ever seen, the most beautiful anything I had ever seen.

I stopped and stared at it, feeling as though time had stopped. Its silhouette was majestic, seductive, even glorious. There were buildings that seemed to touch the sky and buildings that seemed to have a mind of their own. It was if the city was dancing to a fantastical sonata.

Far in the distance, right beside the Governmental Palace and towering over the rest of the skyline, was the home of my dreams, my ideals, and my ambitions: Dragonslayer, Inc. HQ. The main building was a silvery spire of unspeakable height, and it was flanked by two dragon-shaped buildings, one of which was blue, like the Sapphire Western Dragons of legend, and the other of which was red, like the Ruby Northern Dragons that were a plague onto humanity well into the last century.

I did not think my life could get any better than it was then.

Brimming with enthusiasm, I dashed into the city. I knew it wouldn’t be all sunshine and roses, but I was excited for every single sensation it would give me. I was ready and willing to embrace it wholeheartedly.

As I ran, I waved my sword and drank in the night air. It was like electricity was shooting through my body. The grin on my face grew wider and fuller.

My thoughts wandered. I considered what being a Dragonslayer would entail. Would I have to get in better shape? Would I have to radically change my lifestyle? Would I have to cut my sleep down to four hours a night? Would I have to give up a lot of what I loved?

I stopped in my tracks. There was still time for me to go back. I didn’t have to go through with this. A strange thing happens when you get close enough to a dream: it stops being a dream and starts being reality, and when it starts being reality, it becomes complicated.

Up until then, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Dragonslayers. But standing outside their city, standing where I had wanted to stand for too many years to count, I realized I only had an outsider’s perspective of the Dragonslayers. I didn’t know what it was like to be one.

A cool breeze came rushing through. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

It was up to me. If I had decided to, I could have turned around and never seen Andes again. No one was making me walk into the city. No one was making me go through with my crazy idea. I could have sworn off my dream of being a Dragonslayer. No one was there to judge me.

But I didn’t. I jogged into the city, into the lights and the action.

For that, I’m glad. My journey through the city and beyond was trying to say the least, but the guilt of turning away at the last possible minute would have pained me to this day.

My head was up. My eyes were wide. Streams of people passed on either side of me. The next stage of my life had begun.