Chapter 1: A Silent Death

She couldn't see through the smoke no matter how hard she batted at it with her hands. Where were they? They needed to leave! The house was burning down! She cried out to them. Soon she heard their cries and sobs. Her feet fell hard against the floor as she forced herself faster. She could save them! She could save them! She just needed to...

And like always she reached the room in time to see her parents thrown into the flames.

Amy surged upright. The terror from her nightmare pumped her with adrenaline. She clung to her sack-cloth blanket for stability, as she tightened her grip on reality. She looked around to see the rest of the inhabitants of Grestling Town Orphanage sleeping soundly.

The orphanage wasn't of much help to the children in any town you went to. They were only there because the king had decreed it, due to the fact his wife had complained so often of the poor abandoned children. Amy's personal bitterness told her that he'd just done it to get the queen out of his hair.

Amy violently shook her head to remove the scene from her mind. It was rare that she ever got a good night's sleep with such a reoccurring dream. There were very few changes to it. Sometimes she would jump into the fire with her parents. Other times she saw the dragon eat her parents after they'd been burned. But the worse was when the dragon revealed itself as one with green scales and yellow eyes, a variation of her imagination she knew was false.

She clawed at her skull. No! She did not want to think about that right now! She groaned. There was only one place she liked to go that always cleared her head. She hopped out of her cot. She didn't bother to put on any shoes or socks for her feet. The cold bare floor helped drag her back to reality.

This wasn't a rare thing for Amy to do. In fact, she had snuck out more often now then she had previously. Her first few months at the orphanage served as absolute hell for Amy. Usually you got an orphan whose parents died from some disease, murder, or freak accident. And of course Amy's parents had to be killed by dragon. For months there had been all sorts of knights or knights-in-training asking Amy about the awful accident, when all Amy really wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there. Every person who visited Amy pledged that they would kill the dragon and avenge her parents. Amy didn't want them to do that.

She wanted to kill the thing herself. That dragon and every other dragon she met.

It was a vendetta that brought a fire from her loss, one that sewed her broken self together, creating a bitter, vengeful Amy.

She crept through the room of sleeping bodies. She had done this enough to be silent while walking across the room.

Though she never ceased to wake one person up...

“You going out again?” she heard someone whisper from behind her.

Amy turned to see Bethany upright in her cot. Even in the dark, Amy could see Bethany's red curls fall in disarray around her face. Bethany was the one of the most compassionate orphans. Her parents had disappeared mysteriously when Bethany was ten. They were never found, therefore assumed dead. She came to the orphanage when Amy was eight, two years after Amy's parents had died. Unlike Amy, she cared about the other children and did everything she could to make their lives easier. There were families who fell in love with her kind attitude that sought to adopt her. Unselfishly (or stupidly as Amy thought) she begged them to let her stay. It was something that always confused and frustrated Amy. This place was hell. The food was awful, the people were awful, the conditions were awful, and the caretaker, Donna, was the most awful. It had only frustrated Amy more when Bethany became fond of her, seeking every opportunity to talk to Amy, give to Amy, catch her when she was sneaking out, and cover for her when she had been caught. Such kindness annoyed Amy at first, but then she became accustomed to Bethany and accepted her as the only friend she had in the orphanage.

Amy nodded wordlessly at Bethany's question.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bethany asked.

Amy shook her head.

Bethany sighed. “All right. I'll cover for you in the morning.”

Amy shrugged and crept out of the room.

She slyly slide her way through the halls, silently tiptoed up the stairs, and cautiously opened the roof trap door. She pulled herself through the hatch and climbed up on to the roof. She had built this contraption herself when she was ten. She had often scaled the wall when seven to get to the roof. There was a strong rain storm, and Donna had charged Amy with the job of fixing the roof. For being only a decade old, Amy proved to be skillful with a hammer and nail and had fixed a trapdoor in one of the roof holes, so she could access the roof more easily.

Six years later, Amy still used the trapdoor for a place to escape to after her usual nightmares. Bethany was the only other person who knew about this. Her fondness for Amy eventually led her to the roof. Fortunately, Amy only needed to say, “Leave” for Bethany to understand that this place was Amy's place, and her place alone.

The cold air awakened her senses. She looked up at the stars. They sat in the sky like holes in a black blanket blocking the sunlight. She counted them, connected them into shapes. She looked at the town of Grestling below her. The tops of the houses in Grestling fascinated her. Though she had been looking at the town for sixteen years, it still interested her to see it from above. She could almost pretend that she was outside it all, outside the misery and pretend that she was merely looking at it from the outside.

She let herself pretend, letting herself, even if only for a few moments, be the observer, not the victim. What a pathetic town! she thought. She recalled what Bethany always said to her: Everything can change. Everything can be redeemed. They just need a light.

Amy laughed to herself. What a lie! Grestling was a place of thieves, murderers, betrayers, and vagabonds. No one paid heed to the king's law. It was a selfish town. Bethany was just a rare exception. Her thoughts drifted to her dreams as a young girl. She still remembered them. They were far too vivid to forget. She remembered the green dragon nestling with yellow eyes. She remembered how he had told her about the race of dragons and how they protected the humans.

She also remembered how it was a lie!

She remembered too how it had been a dragon to attack and kill her parents! How it was a dragon to destroy their home!

And the nestling didn't even warn her!

A burning fury boiled in Amy. Her hand went to her head, and she ripped at her hair, using pain to block out the memories. She didn't want to think about that right now! She concentrated on breathing, letting that focus seize her full attention.

Finally Amy felt her fury dim, and let herself fall backward against the roof. The coolness of it was strangely reassuring to her. It kept her in reality, away from the dark thoughts of her past. She closed her eyes letting her sense of touch take over. She explored the rough texture of each roof tile with her fingers. She noted the edges, and pressed her fingers against the corners. She brushed over all the imperfections. She noticed the damp mist kiss her cheeks.

A pigeon flew over head. It landed on a rooftop in Amy's view. Animals were always so interesting to Amy. They were so different from humans sometimes, yet so the same. It was always compare and contrast with them. Bears were one example. Mothers of both species cared for their young, but the bear defended her cubs herself, and the human depended on town law enforcement. Both had homes, but humans were social, living near other humans, and the bears were solitary.

Both species had orphans, but the bears actually adopted orphaned cubs, and the humans put theirs into these hell holes called orphanages, Amy thought bitterly.

She felt something soft begin to rub against her arm. She sat up with a start.

The culprit was a cat with brown and white fur and pale green eyes. It purred as it rubbed against Amy's forearm, begging to be petted. Amy laughed. “It's been a while since I've seen you up here,” she said, itching the cat behind the ear. “Thought you grew bored of me. That or you got eaten by a dog.”

The cat shot Amy an unamused look.

Amy laughed again. “You know. It's almost like you know what I'm saying.”

The cat seemed to roll his eyes and nudged Amy's hand for more pets. Amy complied. “Such a curious cat you are. Hmmm... maybe that's why I haven't kicked you off my roof yet. You're too fascinating.”

The cat meowed in response and curled up on Amy's lap. Amy began to stroke him absently and watching the horizon. “Can't sleep again. Same as usual.” She sighed. “Same memories. Same nightmares. Same damn place I'm usually in. Of course, not like you care. You're probably thinking about that mouse you ate today. Or maybe a lady cat you got your eye on,” she said slyly, wagging her eyebrows.

Amy saw one of the cat's ears flick as a reply.

Amy shrugged. “But what do I know? I can barely get my own thoughts straight. Let alone guess someone else's.”

The cat snorted, almost sarcastically.

She sat there with the cat on her lap for a long time. Her thoughts dwindled into nothing and soon there was just peace. Peace on a rooftop. The cat eventually hopped out of Amy's lap and jumped down gracefully to the ground before it ran off into the night.

A couple hours passed before Amy's thoughts began to take form again. There was a nagging thought, the one at the back of Amy's head that kept her alive. Don't turn around! Don't turn around! Amy felt an awful and eerie presence at her back. Her instinct was of course to turn around and face it, but like always, Amy clung to that survival voice in her head telling her to not turn around. She waited and waited. She clenched her fists to keep her head straight and control her fears.

Finally it passed, as silently as it came.

What the hell! she thought. She dared to turn around. There was nothing. She shivered involuntarily. She decided it was probably best to go inside right now. She stayed on the roof for a few minutes longer, admiring the scene below. The sky had become paler now, indicating the coming morning.

Amy got up from her spot, stretched, and crept back through her trapdoor, down the stairs, through the hallway, and back into her cot. She closed her eyes to at least pretend she was asleep, but something kept on bugging her. There was something wrong about this place when she entered. Instinct told her to open her eyes and scan the room. She did. She found Marcel's cot, the cot next to hers, empty...

And the sheets were drenched with blood.