Pic: William Wispish
Chapter 2
The man regained consciousness to a whiff of acrid fumes, which seared his nose, strangled his throat and made him squint. Dizzily, he tried sitting up and looking around, but right away he set his sensitive eyes on an intense light—then, all he saw was blinding white. As his vision slowly returned, small dots began to float in front of him, and beyond the floating dots, he could just make out four pairs of yellow discs, peering at him. At first, it didn’t occur to the man that there was anything odd about bright lights and peering discs. But, once his eyes adjusted, and the light began to look like a giant flame belonging to a giant candle, and the discs began to look rather like very large eyes belonging to very large heads, housing very sharp teeth, he realized that something was amiss. Still, probably due to a mild concussion, he couldn’t quite make sense of his situation. He just felt a bit puzzled by the queerness of it all.
“Father, is that his skin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I eat him?”
“Them critters is crawling with par’sites. Nasty things them par’sites, let me tells you. When they gets into your mouth, they head right for the noggin and cause ya all kinds of craziness.”
“I’ll cook him first, just like you showed. And I’ll chew prop’ly, I swear.”
“Lester, there won’t be any eating. Not yet anyway.”
“Your mother is right. Besides, I have a few questions for our guest.”
The man heard these voices in a far off sort of way. He could make out the words and even understand their meaning, but somehow his mind didn’t recognise any of it as real. It was the same with his vision: he saw scales that couldn’t possibly be scales; he saw claws that couldn’t possibly be claws; and he saw teeth that couldn’t possibly be teeth. The dragons that he saw, therefore, couldn’t possibly be dragons. This specious reasoning proved enough to convince the man that he couldn’t possibly be in any danger. So, he ignored his lying senses, relaxed a little and set his mind on getting out of the cave.
“Manni, I have never seen a human in attire such as that. That light that shines from his helmet, there’s no fire that emits it.”
“Curious, yes. I will ask him about that.” Manvreet turned to the man. “Human, what is—"
While the dragons were distractedly talking, the man had started free climbing down the side of the rock face.
“And where are you going?” said Manvreet. He plucked the man off the rock face and placed him back on the surface. “Stay.”
“Okay,” said the man in a vague and distant way, “I’ll stay… hmm…yes…right… tell me, are you real? I mean, am I hallucinating or dreaming or something?” The man scrunched his face and slumped his shoulders, which gave him a vaguely daft appearance. “I mean, I’m here, right, standing on a rock—nothing strange there—but the part that’s odd is that I think I’m seeing dragons, or at least big lizardy things. But that can’t be right because…”
“It’s like I tolds all you,” said Grandpa, “it’s them par’sites. He ain’t safe. Sees, he ain’t sensiblelike; he’s been ’fested through ’n through.” Grandpa took a deep breath to prepare to continue his tirade.
“Pa,” said Manvreet sternly. Grandpa growled and glared but stopped ranting. Addressing the man, Manvreet continued, “Your senses are dependable; we are here and we are dragons.”
