—Little Drakeling—

  Uncontrollable shivers racked my body as I listened to the fighting outside, and I realised just how terrifying it is to be helpless. To be nothing but a bystander to the fight that’ll probably decide whether you live or die.

  It made me want to run, run-run away until I couldn’t hear the screams of Mother and Father, the pain in their voices from what I could only assume was them being hunted with arrows and swords. But I could barely move, being crammed into a tight space that restricted me as much as my egg—it was almost worse than listening to the fighting going on outside.

  It was torture, being torn between the need to hide and hope that my parents could weather the storm for me and the desire to run. Slip out behind the stone, sneak out of this cave and take back control over the situation. That's what I wanted—authority over what could happen to me.

  But the thing that probably scared me the most—for now and the future—is that the voices shouting outside were distinctly human. My new parents' voices—while I could understand them—I knew that they were actually animalistic hisses and howls, my brain just translating them for me. But the voices—the ones shouting in excitement every time my parents cried out in pain—they sounded like human—not in English or any language I’d heard before, but distinctly human.

  And if the people hunting me were at the very least humanoid—I'd consider elves, orcs and dwarves close enough to humans to count—then I'd become prey to my previous species. Humans were a race that took a cruel kind of delight in exterminating everything that could ever threaten them—and eating the rest at least once.

  But before I could think further about the terrifying realisation that I’d been demoted down the food chain, the outside world went extremely silent, the faint lights that'd been slipping between the cracks also disappearing. For a tense minute I listened to the outside world, hearing only the scuffing of boots against stone and panicked breathing.

  “Ayvion? No-no-no. You can’t be- AYVION!” I heard Father scream, the raw grief in his tone making it clear that someone had died. The only person who… that means Mother, Ayvion is dead.

  I began to lose control of myself from that point onwards, shaking with a sea of emotions, most of which I’ve had the pleasure of never having felt before. It only got worse as Father’s screams of both pain and rage collapsed in intensity. The screams quickly became wheezes, having no more meaning than struggling breaths coupled with wet coughs could.

  “I-I’m sorry.” Father choked out, before a wet noise silenced him, sending me spiralling mentally. What happened? Wasn’t this supposed to be an adventure? Where I get to live freely, without having to worry about stupid things like what degree would give me the best job availability.

  It must be some kind of mistake, a bad dream that’ll go away when I wake up.

  B-because this isn’t how the stories go, i-it's meant to h-have skills and o-overpowered abilities with c-cheating? W-why i-is this happ-penning to me?

  *Tap*

  My shallow breathing caught in my throat when I remembered that there were people out there, people who just killed my new parents. Then I heard another step towards me, and I clamped my mouth shut with a talon to stop any more of the hiccupy breaths from escaping. After a few moments of hopeful silence, the stepping resumed, rapidly encroaching on my position.

  At that point rational thought stopped being a priority to me and I tried to scramble backwards, trying desperately to find if there was anywhere to hide, a corner, nook or cranny that’d be able to protect me.

  But there wasn’t anything new that’d magically appeared, just cracked rock that didn’t budge under my desperate scratching, offering no new way to escape or flee from the threat. I pressed myself against it, using all of the pathetically little dextrous control over my limbs to move myself away from the entrance, like it’d protect me somehow.

  Everything started feeling tight, as if the walls were squeezing me, instead of staying static like the stone should. The darkness, which wasn't something that bothered me or stopped me from seeing before, was suddenly encroaching on the edges of my vision. The dark creeping up on me from every angle terrified me more than it ever had before.

  With a jarring flash of light, the stone was shoved aside, and I flinched backwards, smacking my head into the back of the alcove, the pain from it immediately sapped by the shock. I blindly tried to hide myself away from the threat looming over me, scratching at the walls of the place that'd just been turned into a prison. It took a few seconds for the panic to get diluted by curiosity, and I opened my eyes to what'd ripped off the wall of my hiding place.

  I saw a giant, a tall figure silhouetted by a bright light behind them, all of their features obscured by shadow. The only thing I could make out was that they were at least twenty times my height, my body couldn't've been bigger than their boot.

  The sight of them reignited the terror temporarily smothered by their sudden appearance, and an instinctual part of me took over when my brain failed to come up with anything. It demanded that I stand up and spread my wings, make myself look bigger, harder to kill. I tried to do that, but my legs weren'table to even fully support me, trembling at the effort of only keeping me half-off the ground. The sounds coming out of my mouth without my conscious permission sounded like a fox stuck in a bear trap. The pained, high-pitched whines reeked of desperation incarnate, and echoed loudly in the cave.

  Before I could try and do anything else, I was snatched by something truly dwarfing me, the rough leather holding me firmly enough that I couldn’t move but not enough to truly hurt me.

  Then it lifted me up, the dizzy vertigo I felt reminded me vaguely of roller-coasters, the jerks and acceleration terrifying for my size. After a few seconds of being flung about at the whims of the titan with its leathery appendages pinning me against some clothes, I began to put together what just happened. I’d been picked up, by a person, not by some species of giant, but a regular old Homo Sapien, or at the very least some variety of one. I never put together just how small I was compared to the rest of the world, that a human could snatch me with a single hand, and that two were enough to capture most of my body.

  The fact that I couldn’t be much larger than a pet lizard didn’t help the panic attack I was experiencing, it only reinforced the absolute helplessness I felt. Both my body and existence as a whole suddenly at a random person's mercy, my life subject to their whims.

  Then they started moving, every thud of their massive steps was felt by me in every bone of my body. In that moment of desperation I truly gave into the desperation and thrashed like a wild animal, trying my best to inflict any kind of pain on the person tormenting me.

  The person clutching me began to hum, a simple yet primal tune, and stroked my body with a thumb, clearly attempting to calm me down. It did not work. I don’t even know why they thought that it would work, the finger touching my body only agitated me even more.

  I flipped my head around—showing the most control I’ve had over my body since I’ve gotten here—to latch onto their thumb and bite down as hard as I could. My teeth easily pierced the leather and went straight through the glove, and the bloody taste of iron flooding my mouth.

  I felt the person immediately tense up and start walking faster as if they were trying to hide their reaction to getting bitten, and I personally wasn’t going to let them. So I clamped down harder and began to thrash a bit, relishing the fact that I brought them pain.

  With a hiss the person finally tried to drop me, but I refused to let go of them so easily, hanging from their hand limply as I put all of my strength into holding onto them with my teeth.

  “Ouchyay, etlay ogay ofyay emay” A distinctly male voice pleaded, and out of the blurry corner of my eye, I could see that it came from the person who I was clinging to.

  “Orionyay, atwhay ethay uckfay isyay atthay?” Another man called out, higher and reedier, but still male and pissed off by the sound of it. But before I could try and spot who it was, the blood of the thumb I was biting started to fill my mouth, making it hard to breathe.

  After sputtering for a few seconds I let go, with no other choice I fell to the ground, landing roughly and crying out in pain from the pain of falling so far. My body ached as I tried to stand, but I could only just manage to flip myself upright, let alone prepare to flee from the giants surrounding me.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  All around me I saw people, humans that is, not anything fantastical like orcs or elves, but people of ethnicities from all around the globe. The man standing closest to me reminded me vaguely of Robin Hood, but with a good tan, dressed in green with leather padding over his shoulders and vital areas. The one shouting at him was the opposite, pasty white with a black skintight suit covering everything from the neck down, with clerical robes that sat above it on his hips and shoulders, coloured white and gold and somehow not a single stain on them while in such a dirty environment.

  “Isyay atthay ayay abybay akedray?” A woman cooed, like she saw something adorable. I turned towards the voice, spotting a women dressed similarly to the male cleric reaching towards me. Immediately I reared back and hissed, using the only tool available to me to display my absolute refusal to be touched, rejecting her with the universal language of beasts.

  After hesitating a moment she continued reaching for me, like I was destined to like her. So I politely told her to fuck off with the Disney princess bullshit with another hiss, which she of course ignored again. Just before she got close enough to touch me, the man in green intervened, holding a hand between us and cautioning her off before I could bite her.

  “It'syay eesedstray andyay illway itebay ouyay” The man cautioned her, showing her his hand, which curiously the hole in the glove I made, but the injury had already stopped bleeding somehow.

  “Eway eednay otay etgay idray ofyay ityay, it'syay angerousday!” The cleric angrily interrupted their conversation, stomping towards me and winding back a foot, like he was about to… kick me.

  I closed my eyes and flinched away from it, holding no illusions that I’d be able to get out of the way in time. With a crack my body was sent flying, engulfing me with pain as I limply bounced on the gravel floor, sliding to a stop as I let out a yelp of pain. But this time there wasn’t anyone here to comfort me after I fell.

  I opened my eyes without moving anything else, not that I was capable at this point, and saw the cleric moving towards me again with anger in his eyes. I closed my eyes again, wondering if I’d get a third chance at life and if that reincarnation would have access to good therapy.

  “Onay, ackbay offyay” The man in green shouted, and I peeked at the outside world to see him push the cleric back, standing in between me and the sweet release of death.

  With a huff, the holy man backed off, leaving me alone as he and most of the other humans backed off, leaving me and the man in green by ourselves. But now that I look at him, he looks like a ranger, at least the bow and camouflage seemed to suggest that. Maybe he tends to and protects nature or something, not that I care, he’s already helped kill my new parents, so it’s not like he could care that much about nature.

  With a sigh the man turned to me, looking tired as he gently scooped me up with his hands. This time I didn’t bother fighting back. I didn’t have the strength left to even try to struggle.

  He took me only a few dozen metres away, and placed me on top of a bag, which was barely more comfortable than the floor. I listlessly watched the ranger assemble a tent from another in record time, and then he retrieved me again and brought me inside, placing me in a nest of blankets.

  I tried to think of reasons why he'd even want me alive, but too much of me hurt, and the rest was full of bone-aching exhaustion. Without enough energy left to panic or cry, I fell into a deep, and thankfully dreamless sleep.

  ***

  Some unknowable amount of time later, I was dragged to consciousness by the quiet muttering of people around me. I blearily opened my eyes and saw a few girls whispering to each other, like I was an exhibit to gawk at. The surroundings had changed, but I saw that I was still on the bag the Ranger had left, both the rucksack and myself must've been moved inside the tent he'd built while I slept.

  I watched them watch me for a bit, not bothering to do anything, not much I could do.

  “Oohyay, et'slay ytray andyay eedfay erhay!” One of the girls squealed, and one of the other ones, I think the one that tried to touch me earlier, held out a piece of meat, it was a deep red and extremely juicy, practically perspirating blood.

  My stomach rumbled as I remembered that I’d yet to eat anything, and I was so very tempted to take a bite and give in to the all-consuming hunger. Tantalised as I was, I turned my head away from it, my remaining pride refusing to be fed like some sort of wild animal to be tamed.

  The woman moved the meat closer, the smell overwhelming me with pangs of hunger and the simple desperation to fill my stomach. But my pride and determination were a finite resource in the face of the opportunity to sate my starved body. I was already convincing myself that I'd only be giving in once, and that after I chased away the hunger, I wouldn't ever let them degrade me like this again.

  I almost bit into it when she shoved into the front of my mouth, flooding my senses with the smell, sight and touch of it against my lips. My mouth began to salivate and open when the man in green walked into the small tent while holding a freshly hunted rodent, everyone involved in the scene freezing with surprise.

  “At'swhay oinggay onyay? Andyay erewhay idday ouyay etgay atthay eatmay?” He asked, deadly serious, as the girl trying to feed me retreated, giving him a shrug as she took the meat away from me, and I almost felt disappointed.

  After staring at the meat the girl was holding for a second, he became overcome with rage, snatching it from her and throwing it out of the entrance of the tent.

  “Outyay, etgay outyay!” he demanded, his voice even and flat, but you could never mistake it for calmness. He started grabbing the girls by their shoulders, hoisting them up and practically throwing them out of the tent one by one.

  Once we were alone he sighed, collapsing onto a bedroll with the dead rat still in his hand. I watched him as he seemingly did nothing but sit on a slightly padded bedspread. Until his attention eventually returned to me, and for the life of me I couldn’t tell if he was excited or disappointed to see that I was still alive.

  He then brought out a chopping board and knife, and with the boring mundanity of completing a routine chore, began chopping up the rat. Skinning it, removing the guts and carving the flesh from the bones with accuracy and a steady hand that screamed familiarity with the process.

  As I watched the man prepare the rat for eating, some small part of my mind started moving again, slightly recovered after the nap. It began to put some of the pieces of the scene I just witnessed together, the anger the ranger showed when he saw the girl try to feed me that meat. Why did the ranger bother to go hunt a rat when there was obviously meat already here at the campsite.

  Where did the meat come from?

  The man got up from his spot, leaving the chopped meat in a bowl as he left the tent. Through the pinned open entrance he walked out of, I could see a number of the other humans happily milling around a pot filled with some sort of stew. I could also see a cook scraping a board full of the red meat into the cauldron.

  Where did that much meat come from?

  The ranger returned, holding a couple of bowls, with one filled with water. When he noticed me staring through the gap in the tent, he quickly got up and closed it, purposely cutting me off from the visual.

  Why did he want to hide that from me. What was so wrong with the meat. Where did the meat come from. Where did it-

  Then it clicked, the realisation that I’d been subconsciously resisting flooding my mind with such visceral disgust that I gagged in the same instant. They had already just completed a hunt, it would probably be waste for them to leave my new parents' corpses lying around, and why wouldn’t they dissect them and eat them.

  They were probably just wild animals in their eyes—foreign in both mind and body—so that meant that they could take everything from them, their lives to the very meat on their bones. Some part of me understood it, how could I not, having lived a life as a human. The same part demanded that I forgive them, knowing that I wouldn’t have acted that differently if I was in their shoes.

  But the rest of me cried out in despair and anger, it doesn’t fucking matter how good their intentions were, or if they just didn't know, they murdered them. Those wonderful creatures that welcomed me into this world, they killed them, butchered them, and put them into a stew. Not knowing that we are just as intelligent and alive as them doesn't excuse the fact that the cleric kicked me, for reasons I can’t even pretend to understand, and that woman tried t-to-

  t-tried to f-feed me… A-a p-piece o-of.

  A high-pitched cry escaped me, the undeniable knowledge of what happened scraped against the depths of my mind and soul in a way that couldn’t be reasoned away. I felt disgust crawling through my insides like maggots, anger demanding that it do something to avenge myself and them, mixed with the helplessness that knew I couldn’t do jack-shit.

  After a few seconds I felt something brush against my head, and through bleary eyes I could see the man now seated next to me, trying to placate me. It felt pathetically hollow, both his tender expression and his actions incomparable to the love I received not even a few hours ago. But compared to everything else it was the least egregious action I’d suffered today.

  It made me feel pathetic, but I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that it was them. Like nothing had been ruined forever, that everything was still new and perfect.

  ***

  After a while I ran out of emotions to purge, and all that was left was emptiness, a hollowness to everything I was feeling. I returned my attention to the outside world, and noticed that the ranger had backed off at some point, leaving behind two bowls within reach of my mouth, one filled with water and the other with the rat I watched him chop up.

  I dunked my head into the water, and it took a few tries to figure it out, but I eventually managed to get a few mouthfuls of water down into my stomach, alleviating the hunger a little bit. I turned my head to the meat, and tried to steel myself to at least eat a single chunk.

  But as soon as I imagined myself eating it, the disgust crawled back out of the recesses of my mind, reminding me of the sin I almost committed. I gagged again, turning my sight away from it before I threw up the water I’d just managed to drink.

  The ranger, previously forgotten, thankfully took away the bowl before I could look at it any longer. For a moment I let myself feel thankful that he was the one who'd ended up caring for me, and not that psychopath who tried t-to do that, at least he cared. Not enough though, and not in a way that mattered to me.

  I took another gulp of water before curling up, hiding my head from the world. I prayed to whatever cruel god that put me here to have some mercy and spare me from having dreams tonight.

  Even though I was completely exhausted by every metric it still took a while for sleep to come creeping into my mind. Even after the Ranger gave up watching me and left to go outside, I laid there unmoving, dead to the world—and to myself. At some point my eyes closed and I passed out, leaving one form of torture for another in my dreams.

  Okay, that's all for now, but chapters will be uploaded twice a week for the foreseeable future. On Tuesdays and Saturdays at 3~5pm Australia time.

  Oh! and if you're curious about the sudden abundance of em dashes, I saw a lot of people say that they were indicative of AI use like a year ago, and that made me curious enough to find out how they worked while editing this. Long story short, love 'em, so I've made an effort to use and get used to them.

  They are not a product AI, that I can guarantee!