I stood at the entrance to the cave along with the rest of my class that would be joining me in choosing our dragon eggs. There were screams and hollers coming at us from every angle as the rest of the school stood in the stands surrounding the stadium that connected to the cave. Although they would not be able to watch us in there, they were just as excited to see what dragon egg we would walk out with as we were.
"You must be the notorious Addilyn Zurke?" A man's voice pulled me out of my anxious thoughts. I was currently being dressed in a black garment to go over my uniform. We were required to wear these specialized suits as the cave was a much colder temperature than what any of us would be used to.
"Just Dilyn," I responded, looking over to the guy. He was also dressed in an all-black, form-fitting suit, but his was different from the garment I was given. When I looked at him I seemed to lose my train of thought, forgetting about my nerves on what lay ahead of me, he was quite attractive.
"My name's Dax," he smiled, his green eyes lighting up, "and I believe you may also be my sister's roommate."
"Oh right, she did say her brother was a dragon rider," I smiled back, "you guys don't look anything alike," I blurted out. Sloan had very dark, curly hair, whereas his was more of a caramel color and not at all curly. He had the front of it gelled back, but it still looked quite messy, like he had purposefully styled it that way. She also had piercing blue eyes, whereas his was an olive green, not something you'd find often in two family members.
"I'll also be your trainer," he leaned in a bit, excited. "You look nervous."
"I am," I admitted, "but they're good nerves." I then looked back down the deepening tunnel of the cave. Passed a couple of feet, it was complete darkness, I could only see what the light from outside was allowing me to.
"Don't worry, it is one long tunnel with separate passages veering off left and right once in a while. We give you a flashlight so you'll be able to see the dragon eggs, they usually sit in nests that are scattered in sections of the cave walls, we call them ports," he explained, and it seemed to help calm me, knowing what to expect. "Although, as soon as you step in there you'll already know, it's true what people say about it feeling like a magnet, it's like a gravitational pull."
I nodded my head, taking a deep breath in, it was almost time for us to enter.
"What dragon do you have?" I asked, talking seemed to steady my nerves.
"The Chinese Yellow Dragon," he smiled again, "his name is Algeron."
Dax telling me his name finally seemed to completely calm me. That was his dragon and this will be mine. It didn't matter what people had been saying or what the council might think of me, all that mattered was how I felt and thought at this moment, and I had been waiting for this day for as long as I could remember. This is all I wanted to do. Finally, the buzzer went off, signaling that it was time for us to enter the cave.
Dax flashed me a toothy grin and handed me my flashlight, "Good luck."
I followed my classmates into the cave, me again being at the back of the pack due to my last name. Students seemed to automatically go off down different tunnels, feeling that gravitational pull, all I felt was cold.
For the time being, I walked down the middle of the cave, my eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness. I clicked my flashlight on, pointing it around in different directions, but my instincts told me to continue walking straight, I guess that's what they had meant. Every so often I would feel a water droplet hit the top of my head, dripping from the crystal-like rocks that hung low from the roof of the cave. As I continued to venture down the tunnel, I came across the odd egg sitting in its nest, but none stood out to me in any way.
This seemed harder than I thought it would be. At this point I hadn't seen a single person from my class trailing behind me for at least ten minutes, the majority of them had found their passageway earlier on in the cave. I wasn't feeling anything out of the ordinary for quite a while, so I continued walking straight. Had I passed it? Should I have tried turning down one of the passages and looking down there? I was beginning to doubt if I would ever find it.
Then I heard a sound, a quiet yet piercing tone in my left ear. Walking a little ways further, the sound became louder but there was no tunnel anywhere on my left. I followed that noise though, it drew me to it. I went up to the left side of the cave wall anyways, the ringing seemed to be louder there.
Examining the wall there seemed to be a couple of rock boulders that looked movable, like there was an entrance that was cut off, similar to how the cove was back at home. I pressed my ear up against the stone, listening in, what I wanted was definitely passed these boulders. I placed my flashlight on the ground so I could move them out of place. They were quite heavy, it took most of my strength to even get one to budge out of place. There was just enough room for me to crawl through on my stomach, a small opening as that one boulder held up the rest that was stacked on top and around it. I needed to go in though, I could feel it, my dragon was in there.
I laid flat to the ground and shimmied my way through, making sure not to leave my flashlight behind. I finally made my way through and stood up, flashing my light around what seemed to be a smaller cave on its own. The temperature was much hotter in here, I quickly began to sweat through my suit. Then I saw it, the egg I wanted, it looked like there was a glowing halo around it.
The egg was quite extraordinary to the eye, nothing like the eggs I had come across earlier on. Those eggs looked similar to each other like I could depict which ones came from which breed of Great Dragon. This egg though, the majority of it was a deep grey, like ash after a fire had burnt out, but then there were dividers in it, almost like cracks of red creating only patches of the ashy grey.
I was just about to step towards it when a bundle of movement caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I stepped back against the wall as I watched a massive burgundy dragon get up from its slumber. As it stood on all four legs the thing seemed to triple in size, nearly hitting the roof of the cave. Its red scales had a darker brown tint to them when the light hit it through the cracks in the cave, giving them that burgundy colour.
My flashlight shook in my hands as I desperately tried to turn it off before I drew any attention to myself. I wasn't supposed to be in here, no one told me about any living dragons within the cave. Before I could even think to react, the dragon spotted me, I felt like it was staring daggers straight through me, I was frozen in place. All I could seem to make eye contact with were the two large horns that curved out from its forehead and arched over the back of its skull.
Maybe if I didn't make any sudden movements I could get back to the hole I created and scurry my way out. Then the dragon stepped further out of the shadows, still not breaking eye contact with me as it walked over to the egg. I held my breath waiting for it to do something. This was it, I was trapped, my untimely death awaited me.
It brought its body around the egg facing me, one breath of its flames, and this whole room would be swarmed. The dragon made a low gurgling sound in its throat and brought its head back before finally doing something. But what it did was not what I expected. The dragon lunged its head forward and gently placed its snout under the egg, nudging it forward to me. The egg was hers, she was giving it to me. She continued to nudge it until it was in about three feet of me.
I exhaled, not being able to take my eyes off of her. The gurgling in her throat stopped and she stopped pushing her egg when it was close enough to me. That was the only time she broke eye contact, retreating back to her own nest in the corner of the cave. My heart raced as I looked down at the egg, the ringing tone in my ears not stopping until I finally picked it up.