It was a cool clean night at the center. The lifeless lifeless soil lay below us. It was just before dawn, yet no light shone down on us, no stars shined down on us, but deep down in the earth's heart, the only speck of light that had remained intact was the moonlight. I was left alone with thoughts of what had happened to us. It was my fault, really.
I wondered if the reason this had happened was intentional or accidental, or some unknown fatality of love, or some weird kind of natural occurrence.
I tried not to look up for fear I would see something that I would have never wanted to see. A combination of panic and shock overtook me, and I feared that my lack of ability to move only made my situation even worse. I looked about my surroundings, but it was impossible to see what was in the surroundings. It was too dark to see anything. All my eyes can make out was the shape of objects when close by, but anything more than that was incurably dark. I had not noticed it in the past, but when things are dim or in my periphery, my lack of sight somehow makes them seem worse than they used to be. A kind of uneasiness surrounds my thoughts whenever I am in low light. A kind of lurking, burning sensation that is unaffected by logic or reason. I shivered as this sensation overtook me.
And as the burning sensation descended upon me, I suddenly sensed a presence I could not see.
Even as I could not see, I knew that someone was there. I sensed a glimmer of a shadow that I deemed much larger than a person. It was much larger than a dog, a horse, a cow, a bear, a rabbit, a bat, a raccoon, a skunk, a porcupine, a groundhog, a man, woman, boy, or girl. To my astonishment, I could find no facial features, no arms, legs, or anything to indicate what kind of animal or person it was. I could not see anything at all.
But I knew. I had no fear. Before I realized what I was doing, before I could even ponder my ethics or morals, I opened my mouth to speak, but I ran out of air. I couldn't talk! I needed air, but I couldn't breathe! My lungs were not taking to breath. I needed the oxygen in the air to live, but I was unable to inhale it.
As I panicked, I began to hyperventilate, and then the familiar burning sensation spread from my nerve nerve to my brain. I must have been extremely lightheaded from the lack of oxygen to my brain. I suddenly felt the glimmer of scales on my back.
I spun around, and immediately realized what had happened. I had become a dragon! I was suddenly aware of the scales on my back, and the fearsome spikes lining my head. I started to panic. I suddenly became aware of how terrible my dragon head was. The head of my dragon head was not very beautiful at all.
I suddenly realized that my body was not my own. My body was that of a dragon that had belonged to the owner of the entire valley. That dragon's body was placed in my arms. That dragon's body was hanging over the cliff, and I was down here. Both of us were down here.
Suddenly, with no warning, I was engulfed in fear. I couldn't breathe, but I felt the need to scream, but I kept my mouth shut, so no sound escaped. I had become another dragon who had lost her own body. Suddenly, I felt my own melting away, I was about to disappear into nothingness. I would disappear into nothing.
Even before my dying breath, I realized that I had become one with the other dragon, and had no control of its determined fate. Brief flashbacks of the past passed before my eyes. My entire life passed before my eyes.