Shadows

Fire.

Intense. All-consuming. Swallowing anything and anyone around it in its deadly dance. It fills his vision with shades of red, orange and yellow. A hint of copper.

There’s a scream of pain. Despair. Desperation.

With the fire come shadows. Dark shapes, cast by the light of the blaze. Threatening. Taking over every part of his vision not already swallowed by the inferno.

He runs.

His ears are filled with the roaring of the flames. Of the shadows.

He runs. But not fast enough.

He feels the shadows creeping closer. The marking on his spine burns, licked by the flames. His legs beg to give up under him.

Still, he runs. But the shadows run too. Faster. They lunge.

A glint of steel.

A fading voice. Familiar.

---

Rydel wakes up in a cold sweat, finding his hand clinging to the handle of his sword, pointed straight towards the darkness beyond the light of his campfire.

He takes a deep breath. It was only a nightmare. Yet, even through the veil between reality and dream, he feels the heat on the dragonmark running down his spine.

He looks to his side, to the small egg laying within his satchel. He wonders, both about what it has already brought him, and what it will bring him in the future.

There’s a sadness within his chest, and yet, deeper within, there is hope.

With that, he wipes away the single tear making its journey down his cheek, and goes back to sleep beneath the stars.

The shadows watch him.