Jennifer Allan and The Book of Hope

“Zivan,” Desdemona muttered to herself.  “Zivan.  Why does that name seem so familiar?  There’s something about that name!  I’ve heard it before!  I simply can’t remember!”  She continued to stare into space for a moment before speaking again, almost more to herself than the others.  “I think I read it somewhere.  Zivan, maybe he was the one…”

But Desdemona never had the chance to finish her thought.  At that moment, a loud screech pierced through the silence like a knife.  Jennifer looked up and felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.  The sky was full of winged beasts.  The dragons had returned!

The great monsters flew high overhead, forming tight circles around the group on the ground.  This time, the flame of dragons had grown to contain about sixty of the flaming lizards, and their numbers were enough to blot the sun from Jennifer’s view.  As the three friends stood watching the horrible sight, one of the dragons broke from the pack and shot towards the ground.  The friends tried to throw themselves out of the way, but they weren’t fast enough.  The dragon reached out a greedy claw, grabbed a hold of Max, and flew back into the sky before Max could even scream.

“JENNIFER!” Max screamed from the dragon’s claws.  “HELP ME!”  But it was too late, and the dragon was already flying off in the direction that the dragons had come from.

“NOOO!” screamed Jennifer, her heart feeling as though it would burst from the pain.  But she didn’t have time to try and chase after Max, for at that moment, the entire flame of dragons flew down towards the ground and began to circle around them, flying barely three or four feet above the ground.

The dragons were circling around the two girls so quickly that the dragons looked like a great, quick-as-lightning blur.  Jennifer pulled Curagnash out of its sheath, but there was nothing that she could do.  The dragons were moving too quickly for Jennifer to be able to get any kind of an attack on them.  She couldn’t move swiftly enough to hit them with the sword, and she was sure that they would attack before she could cause them any harm.  And then, without any kind of warning, one of the dragons swept out of the circle and grabbed Desdemona, flying out of the circle and towards the horizon.

Jennifer screamed as she saw her only remaining companion being carried off just as Max had been.  Fear filled her heart, but rage was a stronger emotion.  She swung Curagnash blindly forward, but the dragons flashed around her like static on a television, and her blade was always a second too late.  As the dragons continued to circle around her in a flurry, they flew in closer towards her, and Jennifer began to see deep cuts and scratches appear on her body, inflicted by claws that whipped by too fast for the human eye to see.

With every swing of her blade she became more exhausted, and more and more flesh was ripped away from her body as the predators attacked her.  Her vision was beginning to get blurry as the amount of blood she was losing began to increase.  The blur of the moving dragons became a solid wall of brown, and the sky above her was becoming a mass of dark blue.  She could hardly stand now, and she leaned against her sword for support, trying with all her might to remain conscious.  Finally, it became too much for her, and she slammed to the ground, blackness surrounding her.