Content
“Hey James, come out here for a sec.”
“Where are you?”
“In the back.”
James made his way through the empty wooden house over to the back door. He opened it to the greeting of the shining sun, filtering gently through one of the nearby trees. He stepped outside and onto the grass. It was a beautiful autumn day; nice and cool, the trees had just barely begun to shed their leaves, and the constant rustle of the wind passing through the nearby forest was like a symphony. He walked out a little further and took a deep, satisfied breath.
*thwack*
“Ow!” James put a hand to the back of his head where something small and hard had just hit. He turned around to see his older brother, standing with a satchel over his shoulder and a less-than-happy expression on his face.
“Joshua! What was that for!?” James demanded.
“What was what for?” he asked insincerely. The older boy took a few innocuous steps closer, while inconspicuously reaching a hand into his bag.
James glared back at him angrily.
“Oh, wait, you mean this?” Joshua’s hand suddenly whipped out of the bag, launching a small object straight at his younger brother. James had just enough time to identify it as an acorn before it nailed him in the arm.
“Hey! Quit it!” James yelled.
“Not until you apologize,” Joshua replied, letting his hand slip towards his bag again.
“For what?!”. Joshua’s scowl deepened a bit.
“I don’t know, maybe for touching my stuff!” The older boy threw another object, something a bit bigger this time, a smashed-up pinecone.
“Ow! I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m going back inside.” James made quickly for the door, but Joshua stepped in front of it. James took a few steps back as his older brother’s hand began to move again.
“Oh, let me help remind you then.” Joshua pelted another acorn.
“Ow!”
“Remember now?”
The truth was, James had a pretty good idea why his brother was mad at him, and Joshua could tell.
“I… I didn’t do anything wrong! Stop throwing things at me!” James pleaded, taking another few steps back, but that only made his brother angrier.
“Dad gave that carving knife to me!” Another tiny projectile whistled through the air, hitting the younger boy in the shoulder. “He told me to keep it safe, and that means not letting it get broken by clumsy little brothers!”
“I didn’t break it!” James yelled back. “I just picked it up to look at it!”
“I told you not to touch it!” Joshua flung another pinecone.
“Joshua stop! That hurts!” James whined.
“Then apologize!”
“No! That’s not fair! Why are you the only one who gets to touch dad’s stuff!?”
“Because he put me in charge while he’s gone!”
“Well- well I wish you were gone too!” James shouted.
Joshua’s face tightened into an angry grimace as he reached into his bag for the biggest object he could find.
James tightened up in anticipation of another hit. He glanced quickly at the door, still blocked. As his brother drew his hand back again, his instincts took over and he took the only path left. James turned around and bolted in the opposite direction, just barely avoiding his brother’s throw.
“Get back here!” Joshua yelled, immediately starting after him. The older boy reached into his bag again and launched more forest debris at his younger brother. Despite the fact that they were both running, a number of his shots still hit home.
“Just leave me alone!” James wailed.
“You’re not getting off that easy!”
Seeing as running was just about the only thing he could do, James kept at it, fleeing as fast as he could from the sound of his brother’s pounding footsteps. His escape attempt quickly took him a good distance from their house. He found himself having to jump over roots and rocks and dodge around trees more and more often as he ventured into untamed woodlands.
“Stop!” James yelled, “Mom says we’re not supposed to go this far into the forest!”
“Then stop running into the forest!” Joshua yelled back jeeringly. Another acorn hit James square in the back of the head, which only served to spur him on. Tears forming in the boy’s eyes from pain and exhaustion, he continued to press on.
…
It was a strange kind of shriek that woke her from her nap. She opened her eyes, finding herself more curious than annoyed. The sound came again. Definitely some kind of larger creature, and it sounded somewhat distressed. She raised her head from its comfortable position on the forest floor and turned toward the noise. She caught the tiniest bit of unusual motion and focused on it.
After another moment she saw it again. A human- no- two of them. Now her curiosity was really piqued. She knew there were a few humans around these woods, but they almost always kept to their routines. They stayed on their little paths or inside their big boxes. She hardly ever interacted with them really.
Interested now, she watched them for a minute. They trampled noisily through the woods, like a hatchling who had yet to learn stealth. And that wasn’t even considering their little yelps, which really did sound like calls of distress. Were the humans in trouble?
As they drew a bit closer, she began to make out something else. There were tiny little things flying from one of the humans to the other. It seemed that every time one made contact there would be another yelp. It was only then that she realized what she was watching, and she thought herself rather slow for not seeing it sooner.
The human in the back, who of course was significantly larger, was chasing the one in the front, continuously pelting it with tiny projectiles. Humans were known for using strange methods and objects when hunting, was this bigger human hunting the smaller one?
A few more squeals reached her sensitive ears.
The idea that they were hunting each other sort of rubbed her the wrong way. Even most common animals had the decency not to go after their own. Maybe the bigger one was deranged? She started to feel a bit sorry for the smaller one, chased through the trees by one of its own kind, too weak to fight back.
The cries grew louder, the little one was obviously getting more desperate. She doubted the chase would last much longer, and judging by the dogged nature of the pursuit, she had little reason to believe it would be a pretty end. The thought didn’t sit well with her.
What if…
…
*pant* *pant* *pant*
James rushed raggedly through the forest, having managed by some miracle to not end up face down in the dirt. He was exhausted, but Joshua was still hot on his heels. He wanted to keep running, to deny his brother the satisfaction of catching him, but he knew he couldn’t keep it up for much longer. He was just about out of steam, not to mention he was starting to get a bit lost. He spared a glance back, trying to see how much of a lead he had.
“Oof!”
James ran headlong into something big and solid, bouncing back from the impact and landing hard on his butt. He thought for a moment that he had accidentally run into a tree, until he looked up.
“Aaaahhhh!!”
“James!?” came Joshua’s voice, carrying a bit of genuine concern. He cleared the tree in front of him and his eyes immediately focused on his sibling sitting in the dirt. Thinking nothing more than that James had tripped and scared himself, he didn’t even miss a step, but continued running straight at him. Then the tiniest bit of movement caught his attention, causing him to glance upwards.
Joshua’s eyes went wide. He skidded to a stop a couple feet in front of his brother, looking up with a terrified stare. It had blended in so well, standing still in the dancing shadows of the trees. He hadn’t noticed it at all, he had been too busy chasing James, but now he couldn’t look away.
A brown-scaled dragon. A sinking feeling engulfed his chest as he recognized it. He felt the impulse to run, but he was already far too close, he didn’t dare move an inch. Not to mention James was right there, trembling at the thing’s feet, its long neck looming over him. Lucky for the younger sibling, the dragon didn’t seem too interested in the tiny human that had just crashed into it. Instead, it seemed much more concentrated on…
“Joshua…” James whimpered. He couldn’t see the dragon’s face, but its head was pointed directly at his older brother. And judging by the terrified look on his sibling’s face, it was staring him right in the eyes.
A new sound emerged over the rustling trees: a low, quiet, threatening rumble.
*ggrrrrrrr*
Joshua was distracted from the overwhelming pressure of the dragon’s eyes by a tiny gleam of white just below. But in the time it took his eyes to move that short distance, his whole world suddenly flashed red, and then went black.
“Joshua!!” James screamed. In the blink of an eye, the dragon’s head had lunged forward, its jaws spreading, and engulfed the older boy up to his chest. His satchel fell to the ground, the strap severed by one of the beast’s many teeth. James watched, frozen in horror, as his brother panicked, throwing his arms blindly at the dragon’s face. But against the sturdy, brown scales the impacts seemed little more than an annoyance.
The dragon jerked its head forward, sliding its jaws further down Joshua’s body, pinning his arms against the sides of its mouth. James could see the long, crimson tongue peek out from inside its maw and briefly stroke against his brother’s shirt, leaving behind a thick layer of slimy saliva.
The dragon’s head came down further, arched directly over James’s cowering form, taking in Joshua almost up to his belly. James could hear his brother’s frantic cries as muffled tones from beyond the thick walls of scale and muscle. But even more strikingly, he could see the underside of the dragon’s neck start to wriggle and bulge at the base of its head as Joshua’s flailing body was fed inside.
The brown dragon tilted its head up, lifting the young man off the ground with shocking ease. Joshua kicked his legs wildly. The dragon jerked its neck forward again, sending more of the human down its waiting throat. The long neck sagged above James’s head, wriggling even more violently. The little boy stared at it, his mind overwhelmed with the staggering knowledge that it was his own brother that was struggling inside, suspended above him by the beast’s powerful gullet.
The dragon’s head rose further, and James’s eyes went wide as he saw what would forevermore be burned into his mind. He saw the wriggling bulge that was his brother begin to slide, picking up speed as his legs and feet were pulled inside. The lump slipped down the scaly neck in a series of lurches, passing right over his head. His brother’s screams leaked out from inside, but he couldn’t make out the words, or maybe he just didn’t have the wits left to process them.
He watched through terrified eyes as the bulge continued, carrying his brother along beneath the scaly hide until it reached the dragon’s chest. Slowly but surely, James watched it disappear, gradually merging into the dragon’s bulk, tucked away inside its massive body. He heard a *gurgle* and a *glorp* and then saw the dragon’s underbelly twitch. Then it twitched again, just slightly. Then again.
James realized in horror that those tiny little movements were his brother. All his fighting and struggling, and those little jiggles were all that got through. He could still hear him, crying out for help, but it was extremely muffled now, just barely audible over the sound of the wind.
He knew he should run- he had known the whole time that he should run- but all he could do was stare, stare at the looming dragon that had just eaten his brother alive, stare at the twitching belly as it once again gurgled loudly before him, outdoing his brother’s shouts.
Not bad, the brown dragon thought. She heard a slight shuffle and looked down, only to see the smaller human still cowering beneath her. She arched her neck to get a better look, surprised to find it there. She’d stopped paying attention to the little one when she’d started eating, fully expecting it to turn and run. She’d get a meal, it’d get to live another day, everyone’s happy. Except it was still there.
“Joshua…”
It made a quiet little whimper. It was staring at her belly. Suddenly, it let out an explosive sound, loud and grating; a high-pitched whine that rang in her ears. Now she was very confused. Not only wasn’t it running away, but it was making quite a racket. The poor little thing seemed very upset. Was it just scared? But then why wouldn’t it just flee?
Perplexed by this conundrum, the brown dragon decided it best to simply leave. Turning away from the bawling creature, she lifted a limb and began to step away.
“Joshua!! No!! Give him back!!”
The little human’s wailing intensified. She glanced back, and to her immense surprise found that it was reaching out and was actually crawling toward her.
What in the world could it want? she wondered. It kept looking at her belly. She turned so that her flank was facing the human and then jiggled her dangling gut in front of it. It cried out louder and threw its tiny hands against her scales.
“Give him back!!”
Yes, definitely something to do with her belly. Did it actually want to be eaten too? No, that made absolutely no sense. Maybe something to do with her newest meal- the other human? Wait, was it upset that she had eaten it? But it had been attacking him! She thought it over for a moment; it was the only plausible reason she could come up with.
That put her in a bit of an awkward position. Normally she wouldn’t really mind- after all it wasn’t like the one she ate wanted to be food either, and she wasn’t one to give up an easy meal- but she had gone out of her way to try and help the little thing and she felt bad knowing that she’d somehow made it worse instead.
She looked down at the human. It continued to bawl and press its hands against her belly. It seemed so upset that it was forgetting to be afraid. Didn’t it realize that she could easily eat him too? She considered that option strongly for a second and quickly realized it was either she ate him, or she gave up her meal- because with the amount of noise that little thing was making, she would have to travel a considerable distance before she could nap again if she didn’t shut it up.
She thought for a long moment. Her belly gurgled…
James cried out again as the dragon began to move, taking its brother-filled belly away from him, but he quickly realized that the dragon wasn’t trying to leave. On the contrary, it turned its body to face him head on. The boy froze up as it lowered its head to his level, staring him in the eyes. For a terrifying moment, the thought finally hit him that it might want to eat him too.
His terror reached new heights as the dragon slowly opened its mouth before his petrified eyes, revealing the deep-red ridges of flesh that paved the way to its hungry gullet, and the rows of white, pointed teeth, ready to tear him to pieces. James froze up, unable even to take a breath, his heart pounding. Then came a revolting sound.
*ghech* … *ghech* … *ghech* …
It repeated over and over, coming from somewhere deep beyond the dragon’s throat. He could see the muscles at the back of its maw clench up with every occurrence. He stared on in horror, unable to look away. That is until something else caught his eye: a little bulge at the base of the dragon’s neck. It grew steadily, moving upwards with each sickening retch. James gasped as it suddenly jiggled quite violently.
It was his brother, he knew it. Hope sprang up in the little boy’s chest. He wasn’t sure exactly what was happening or why, but as he watched the wriggling lump slowly emerge from the dragon’s chest again and make its way up the long neck, the only thing that mattered to him was that he just might be able to see his big brother again.
James breathed heavily and quickly, anxiously watching and waiting as the bulge slowly made its ascent, much more slowly than it had gone down. By the time it finally started to approach the dragon’s head, he had clenched his hands together so tight that they had gone from blue to white.
The inside of the dragon’s maw began to move more and more as it arrived, the massive jaws jerking slightly with every new squeeze. Suddenly, a sputter of greenish fluid leaked out from the back of its throat, spilling down the twitching red tongue. Another wet squelch filled the air, followed by more of the sickening slop, until something solid finally peeked through.
Disgusted but resolute, James watched with desperate hope. The solid mass slid up over the back of the dragon’s tongue… and then quickly slipped down its length, falling from its jaws with a vile splat onto the forest floor.
Calling the thing ‘solid’ had apparently been a bit of an overstatement. The hunk of thick goop steamed in the cool autumn air, deforming as it slowly began to spread out through the grass. It gave off a horrid stench. James’s heart sank as he stared at it; the unrecognizable remains of one of the dragon’s recent meals. Was that all that would be left of his brother? A big blob of half-digested gunk?
*ghech* … *ghech* … *ghech* …
The dragon continued to retch. James looked back up, fearful now, as something else began to force its way back into the creature’s mouth. Whatever it was, it was definitely a different color- a much more distinct brown- and this time it definitely seemed solid. The dragon’s neck jerked a few more times, revealing more of the new arrival.
Finally, James recognized it: it was Joshua’s shoe! His heart leapt again. A few more slimy squelches and the other one squeezed into view, along with a small waterfall of green fluid. The dragon stretched its jaws wider and adjusted the height of its head, forcing the bulge in its throat out a bit further. Now James could just barely make out the skin of his brother’s legs, drenched in stomach juices, but thankfully undissolved.
“Joshua!!” he called. He saw his brother’s feet begin to flail around as they were released from the slimy confines of the dragon’s throat. Without any thought, James reached between the massive jaws and grabbed hold of his sibling’s ankles. He took the best grip he could get, and pulled.
He strained against the grip of the dragon’s gullet, feeling his sibling slip closer and closer to freedom with each contraction of its throat. A constant stream of stomach juices spilled out around the young man as he was pulled out. James watched as a pair of slime-covered legs slowly emerged from beyond the slippery tongue, followed by hips, accompanied by a pair of hands. Joshua could feel his younger brother’s hold, and was firmly resisting the urge to kick his legs as he felt himself being freed from the suffocating prison.
As the bulk of Joshua’s shoulders passed into the dragon’s jaws, James felt the resistance suddenly give way and his brother came falling out, narrowly missing the large, pointed teeth. He landed with a wet thud on the grassy ground, smack in the middle of the rest of the dragon’s previous stomach contents. Thick strands of digestive goo clung all over him, stringing back into the scaly creature’s maw. The dragon cleared them away with a swipe of its tongue and then proceeded to wipe the squishy organ across the rest of its mouth, chomping its jaws a few times as it attempted to clear the taste of vomit from its palate.
“Joshua!! You’re okay!!” James cheered.
The older boy looked around in a sort of dazed panic, his head darting around, first at himself, then at the grass, then his brother, and then finally at the dragon. It was that last sight that set him off. Like his sibling, he wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened, but he was sure of one thing: that monster had just tried to eat him. He scrambled away from it, knocking James over as he jumped to his feet.
“Come on James, run!!” Joshua screamed. He grabbed the boy by the shirt and pulled him back up, practically dragging him along as he broke into a mad dash. James managed to get one last look at the dragon before being forced to turn and run with his brother to avoid being dragged through the dirt.
…
It was a familiar sound that woke her from her nap. The sound of bushes rustling and leaves crunching underfoot. She opened her eyes, the sun was starting to get low, casting long shadows through the woods. The sound came again; definitely some larger creature. She lifted her head off the forest floor and turned it toward the noise just in time to see a form emerge from the brush.
A human- a familiar human. Her curiosity was instantly piqued. It was the smaller one, the one she hadn’t eaten. She had definitely not expected to see it back here again. It froze up as she spotted it and the two of them made eye contact. It was holding something in its hands.
James stared for a very long moment. The dragon made no move, it simply watched him back. He couldn’t see any malice in its eyes, but to be honest he couldn’t make out much of anything from its unblinking gaze. After an uncertain amount of time, the boy finally forced himself to take a step forward. The dragon remained still. James took another step, and then another.
She watched the timid thing approach slowly, fearful of each step, like she might suddenly leap up and pounce. Not an invalid concern all things considered. But she planned to do no such thing, she was far too intrigued. Eventually it stopped, just a few feet away, and began to squeak at her.
“Th- thank you,” James whimpered, “for not eating my brother. I really would have missed him. Honest.” He dropped the item he had been holding on the ground at his feet. He had meant to throw it a bit, but his nerves had gotten the better of him.
“Come on. Just hurry up and let’s get out of here!” came Joshua’s strikingly fearful voice.
The brown dragon perked up a bit, realizing that the larger human must also be nearby. The fact made her doubly surprised. Such strange creatures these humans, coming back to her after all that. Her attention was returned to the smaller one as it cautiously took a step back, then a second, then a third, before finally turning and rushing off back into the brush from where it had come. She listened to them both go, thundering through the forest without a hint of tact.
Only then did she look down at what the little one had left behind. She rose idly to her feet and stepped over to it, lowering her head to sniff. Her belly gurgled. It was a hunk of meat! Sure, it wasn’t very big, but there was something strangely enticing about it. She slipped out her tongue and scooped it up, drawing it into her mouth.
She licked at the tiny morsel, first curiously, then vigorously. It was delicious! Whatever this was, it was no ordinary meat, it was some kind of special human meat! And it was amazing! She drooled over the offering for a long while, savoring it until she became lost in the flavor and the tiny treat became lost in her saliva.
Eventually she did swallow it, sending it down to her belly. It wouldn’t do much to fill her, but despite the human she had given up to get it, she was happy for it. She looked off in the direction where the humans had gone.
Yes, definitely happy for it.