Strange Sounds in the Distance

The hot sun shone down, warming the little squirrel nestled among the pines. The fresh scent of pine needles filled his nostrils as he relaxed in the branches. He stretched lazily in the heat, enjoying the quiet.

He was startled awake by the sound of another squirrel’s scream and a strange, other worldly sound that sent chills down his back. It was a frightening sound, but one he had heard before. The sound of the Black Dragon!

Just the thought of it’s scream and howls was enough to make a squirrel’s fur stand straight up. He had heard many stories of the Black Dragon, how it flattened squirrels with it’s roar! It seemed everyone knew someone that had been lost to the Black Dragon’s angry hunger.

Only now did he realize how far he had wandered. He must be closer to the Black Dragon than he had ever been before! Thoughts whizzed and darted like fireflies in his mind. “Maybe that squirrel needs help? What does the Black Dragon look like? Maybe I’m fast enough to beat its roar…”

The little squirrel pricked up his ears and listened as best he could. He could still hear the echos of the scream and the rumble of the Black Dragon as it sped away. His curiosity got the best of him and he leapt down the tree and ran like a flash across the forest floor, springing over branches and twigs without a thought. The roar of the Black Dragon was fading quickly, just as the stories had told, but he could still hear it, and that was the direction he charged.

• There were many squirrel legends about the Black Dragon, no one knew how true they were, as only very few had seen it and survived. And their stories of round teeth and different sounding growls from the front and back of the head made little sense to the squirrels.

  What the legends did tell was just as incredible. The Black Dragon lays in wait, never moving, indifferent to the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The Black Dragon has many heads, all look different, yet they are all the same, with glowing eyes of fire, sometimes 2, sometimes many, some shine so bright its as if the sun is inside them. It’s four teeth are black and round, although some tales say 6, some even say 2, but all agree, it doesn’t need any more.

  The worst thing of all, it doesn’t eat you for food. The squirrels know well of the circle of life and death and the need for some to kill to survive. This is the way of the world and is accepted by the animals. But the Black Dragon’s head just bites you down to it’s body, it kills, but not to eat or survive. It just bites you to death and then moves on.

  These and other tales of the Black Dragon have entertained and horrified squirrel pups for countless generations.

Here was the opportunity to show he was as good and brave as any other squirrel, thought Chakik. If he could help the squirrel he heard screaming, and bring back a true tale of the Black Dragon, his family might never ask him to gather food again. That seemed more likely than growing cheeks as big as the clouds. All of this he contemplated as he leapt and jumped through the leaves, branches and scrub on the forest floor.

Faster and faster he ran as the sound of the Black Dragon faded into the distance. “I just need to find it’s body…I just need to find it’s body…” his brain echoed to the thumping of his heart in his chest. Faster. The roar grew fainter. Higher. He cleared a bush with a single bound. “Almost there, almost there.” His heart was beating in his chest so hard it made his ears ring. He quickly cleared a hill and saw it. There it was!

The Black Dragon.