The Dragon

  The sound of birds singing woke him up. They sounded better than his arm back home ever did, but upon looking up at the immense tower, he instinctively covered his face with his hands to block out the sight. It was only when his stomach grumbled loudly that he gave in, reluctantly sitting up. He gathered his courage and decided to climb. He had only one more Exit to go through, and that thought alone pushed him to move.

  "Where am I even going?" he wondered, his mind imagining all sorts of horrible things that could be waiting ahead.

  He shook his head to clear the dark thoughts. There was no room for fear now. Taking one st look at the giant, unstable pnks, Roa clenched his fists and began scaling the tower, giant pnk by giant pnk. The task was daunting, but he had no choice. This was the path forward, and it was the only way to get closer to whatever y beyond.

  "What else am I going do?" he thought on his way up, speaking between his bored breaths. "Stay lost in some world with no name? Stick around and get eaten by the kind of dragon that only exists in fairytales, but for some damn reason, is perfectly normal here? No thanks."

  Roa’s hands were raw, his palms scraped and bruised as he gripped the rge nails, splinters, and notches in the wooden structure, each one offering just enough support to keep him from plummeting to the ground. He climbed and climbed for hours, until the ground began to grow hazy and faint below. The immense fields of gold, as well as the towns that dotted the green mountains, now began to look like features on a map.

  He was terrified. The wind blew, causing him to often lose his bance, his tired hands shaking, his heart dropping in the process. To make matters worse, the dragon reappeared in the sky every so often in the distance, forcing him to freeze in tiring, uncomfortable positions to avoid being noticed. Surely, if the monster found him up there, there would be no escaping from its jaws then.

  As night fell, the cold air stung his skin, and exhaustion began to take its toll. He found what few ft spots he could and colpsed, desperately trying to get some rest. Sleep was elusive, but he managed to drift off, only to be jolted awake by his racing thoughts in the middle of the night. Disoriented, he forgot where he was at that moment. He rolled over in search of a more comfortable position, only to find himself teetering dangerously close to the edge. His breath caught in his throat, and he scrambled back, his heart racing. Trembling, he sat upright for the rest of the night, unable to sleep, unable to shake the fear of falling that gripped him.

  When the first light of dawn finally broke across the sky, painting it with streaks of pink and gold, Roa took a deep breath and resumed his climb. The worst of the night was over, but the challenge still loomed before him. There was no turning back now. He was almost there.

  Three days ter, the boy from Earth made it to the top. He was starving, and his legs and arms were bruised and tired, shaking from exhaustion. He had climbed above the clouds, until he reached the ft base of the giant bird house above.

  Gncing up, a brief smile tugged at his lips, but it quickly faded as his heart sank.

  "You have got to be kidding me."

  A horizontal metal dder attached to the base of the wooden ceiling ran from where he was all the way to the edge. The only way up from there. Seeing no other alternative, Roa spent several hours mustering the courage to climb onto it. He hung on several times to test its strength. Everything looked unstable, but what other option did he have? Go back down? Even if he tried, at that point, he wouldn't have enough energy to even attempt the descent.

  He had puked his meals, and had only drank the rain puddling on the pnks of wood in the past few days. The dder was his only way out, and the Exit must have been close. He could already feel its pull coming from above, from within the bird house. He counted the bars on the dder.

  "300 or so," he said.

  He pced his trembling hand on the cold, gritty metal of the rusted dder, pulling himself up from the safety of the wooden ledge. The wind howled around him, rattling the fragile structure as he hooked his feet onto the bars. Gncing down, fear hit him like a freight train, his breath catching at the sheer drop below. His muscles ached, his arms burning as he forced himself to climb, each movement deliberate but shaky. The raw metal bit into his hands, and the dder seemed to stretch endlessly in front, mocking his dwindling strength.

  “Move, Roa, move,” he told himself, focusing on the feel of the bars beneath his fingers and the rhythm of his breath.

  When panic threatened to take hold, he remembered the carved words: ‘Trust in the process of life.’ Hanging for a moment as he rested his arms, he let the horizon’s vast stillness calm him before pressing on, each movement forward a painful victory. At st, his hand met empty air, and with a final burst of strength, he swung himself up, onto the birdhouse’s floor, colpsing in exhaustion. He made it to the top.

  Panting and ughing, he screamed in victory and id there for almost an hour unable to move a single, twitching finger. He did not have a drop of saliva left in his mouth but kept repeating Eray’s mantra with a hoarse voice.

  “Never give up. Never give up.”

  Feeling came back to his legs, and he was at st able to squeeze his hands into fists. He stood and walked the perimeter of the enormous wooden box. It was as tall as a ten-story building and the boy began to worry, regretting his loud celebration.

  "If this is the size of the house, then how big is the bird?"

  He snuck around each corner until he found the gaping opening. Above it hung a round clock, its hands pointing to 11:11. He took a sigh of relief, and his shoulders rexed. Inside, two Exits stood near each other, on opposite ends. The pce was completely empty, dotted by the occasional pile of bones, armor and treasures.

  "Well, I'm gd whatever lives here isn't home for me to have to deal with it," he said, brushing the sweat off his brow.

  He had cried victory much too soon, however. The sunlight creeping in through the entrance disappeared, causing the boy to turn. He stood frozen, paralyzed by a wave of fear that gripped him. He wasn't standing at the threshold of a giant bird house, but the nest of the dragon. The bright, orange eyes of the fire-breathing lizard met his. The warmth of its breath covered the young man’s skin with goosebumps.

  The monster sniffed around inside its home. Its long neck reached down, its mouth opened, revealing its many, giant, curved teeth.

  Had the boy come so far, only to die but a few steps from his destination? He could not reach the Exit in time. The speed of the monster would surely be greater than his tired, shaking legs could ever muster in that exhausted state. He stood still. His eyes wide open, his breath steady, and his hand clenched tight in a fist. He was done for, he accepted that tragic truth, but at least he would not go down without a fight.

  The dragon's head lunged at great speed towards him. He closed his eyes and screamed, as he lunged his fist towards the creature, using every drop of energy he had left. For a moment, it seemed like everything went quiet, and time itself had slowed down to a grinding halt. Just as his knuckles met the nose of the dragon, he opened his eyes. To his surprise, and probably that of the monster, the Sunflower, somehow unleashed a blow of preposterous power. Not only was he able to repel the attack, but the scaly head jolted backwards with such force, that it shot its long neck back out of the entrance it came from, to the top of the wooden house, yanking the entire body of the creature backwards with it.

  Roa, unable to believe his own eyes, suddenly heard a deafening cracking noise as the roof of the nest began to tear open. The now thoroughly unconscious beast, had dug its talons into the canopy, and as it fell back, limp and lifeless, it dragged the entire structure down with it. The wood creaked and splintered as the sunlight blinded the boy, revealing the bright blue sky above.

  To his further astonishment, his skin was covered with tattoos that glowed with a golden light, while his fist pulsed with a mysterious energy that swirled like a small hurricane. The young man had no time to marvel at or question the extraordinary sight and situation. They were falling.

  The structure lurched violently, tilting beneath him and sending him sprawling to the ground with a jarring impact. A deafening snap shattered the air, the sound echoing across the endless expanse of sky. His heart sank as he realized the tall, fragile tower below—supporting him, the dragon, and the entire structure—had finally given way. Hands trembling, he fumbled for his pouch, desperate for Nirvana’s instructions. What he pulled out made his stomach drop: a soggy, crumpled mass of wet paper, the writing smudged and unreadable.

  "Damn it!"

  Roa stared at the two exits in front of him, avoiding their gazes, his future hanging in the bance of this one decision; his body growing weightless, as the wooden structure plummeted through the clouds toward the golden fields below.

  "Damn it, which was it?" he screamed.

  His mind raced, but the answer eluded him. The wind screamed like a hurricane in his ears, tearing through the colpsing box which had now tilted violently, pinning his body against the now upside-down floor. He gnced through the gaping hole where the roof had been, catching a terrifying glimpse of the ground rushing closer with every heartbeat. Then he remembered—LEFT, circled and underlined.

  Summoning what little strength he had, he crawled. Each movement an agony, his body screaming in protest, he forced himself forward, inch by agonizing inch. He cried out with every push, muscles trembling, lungs burning, as the relentless pull of gravity worked against him.

  With the ground mere seconds away, he hurled himself through the left Exit, colpsing into the embrace of the magic portal. In a fsh, the falling world vanished behind him, and with it, the certainty of death.

  Amid the chaos, however, the boy failed to notice he had strayed from the path Nirvana had carefully instructed him to take. Instead, he plunged into the depths of darkness, descending once more into the unknown, this time, however, to a pce that wasn't on any map, nor on anyone's pns. No one's except the Universe's, perhaps, who in that moment, sent the boy not where he wanted to go, but where he needed to be.