I'D LIKE TO SAY I'D AWAKENED TO CHAOS, and pain, or some other heroic crap like that, but when I opened my eyes to the weak hospital smell, the only thing I could sense was solitude, the type of solitude that comes with being gravely, and deathly alone.

Yet that didn't seem right at all. I wasn't alone. I could see Madi sitting across the room talking to a white lab coat, and I could hear my parents somewhere outside out loud how I managed to have such bad luck that I was one of the few people in the vicinity when a bomb went off in the football stadium.

Bomb?

I closed my eyes again. So that was the story they were going with. A bomb had gone off. This was why everyone went on about the United States being unsafe and full of violence. One dragon gets slaughtered and suddenly it was just another attack on a public high school.

And why did everything feel so lonely?

I sat up with a jolt. "Selphon."

"Took you long enough, you insufferable louch."

"What's a louch?" I muttered as I rubbed the drowsiness from my head, forcing my eyes to focus on the voice before me.

Her blond hair was like a curtain hiding a face of disappointment. "Welcome back to the world of the living." Madi smiled but it looked like it hurt, she reached over to the wall and it took a few seconds to realize that she was trying to ring for a doctor.

"Wait." I reached toward her with one arm only to find my hand covered in a mass of bandages.

She paused.

"Is everyone okay?"

She paused. "Mark will live, though he probably won't be able to stand brass instruments for a while. Saida is fine –"

"Saida?" I repeated in confusion.

"She was the Muslim girl up there with you," she clarified with a short click of her tongue. "You didn't know? She's in my graphics communication class with me, an upper class-man."

"How can she be an upperclassman if we're both seniors."

"She always seemed to outclass us..."Madi snorted and shook her head. "You know what. never mind."

Okay I was never fully aware of the people around me -- especially those who valued computers over loud obnoxious instruments.  That being said, she was still human and deserved to be concerned over. "She's okay though, right?"

Madi nodded and looked down at her hand.

"And what about....um the other one?" My mouth grew dry and my tongue stumbled to stop.

Madi took a deep breath as she appeared to search for another place to rest her gaze. "Um...well I had a quick talk with Saida. The other girl, Kiara, is her friend or cousin or ...something. She wasn't exactly talking full phrases with me, but..." She stammered off and looked at every location but me.

"C'mon, be straight with me."

She blew a lung of cold air out at my face. "Kiara got knocked off the bleachers and um...she landed on her neck. Her spine is damaged, I think and she's in surgery right now. They're trying to save the mobility in her upper half."

"Oh my God," I whispered and buried my face into my hands. "That girl saved my ass back there. I would have gone over too if she hadn't pulled me back up."

"I only know Saida from class but." Madi's eyes were dark under her hair. "I've never seen her quite this distraught before."

"That was dragons," I hissed in the same uneven tone. "That was more dragons than I've ever seen in one place."

She flashed me a cracked smile. "You've only ever seen one dragon."

"Exactly my point." I paused and looked down at my hands. I couldn't flex my fingers and a part of me could still feel the jagged metal sinking into my palms. "And are you alright?"

"Well." Her smile widened into something more genuine. "I got clubbed in the back by a dragon. I will have stories to tell my kids for ages to come."

I gave her a look that was supposed to be intimidating but considering I didn't have my glasses and my vision was just not-that-good-at-all, it probably wasn't the death glare I'd meant it to be.

"I'm fine – just won't be hitting the gym as hard for a while."

I let out a loud, obnoxious I-didn't-study-for-this-exam sort of sigh. "When can I get out of here?"

Madi reached for the button.

~

Saida's hair hung loose around her face. Her headscarf had come undone hours ago, but she couldn't even bring herself to walk to the bathroom and pin it back up. She had always convinced herself that she was a solitary creature who only needed her computer and a cup of coffee to keep her going each day.

She never felt lonely before, even when there was no one to talk for days or weeks or months. Her parents were always on business trips (for months on end at times) leaving her alone in the darkness of her loveless home, wondering if they would bring back something cool from their travels. 

She never felt lonely then.

She worked alone. That was her....thing. She didn't have a need for a constant thorn in her side, a companion that made her attention waver from the task at hand. She never felt lonely; not when she spent nights in her room locked on a chore that was bound to lead to nowhere.

How bittersweet it was to learn.

Sadie pressed her knuckle into her bottom lip and frowned. That frown was painful. It was the only thing holding back tears.

All around her the world was dark except for the sign that was a bright red flareinto her subconscious. They had been to that school a hundred time, a thousand. Why of all times, this time...?

She paused and looked up wearily as a nurse walked briskly across the hall and touched the arm of a man in a white coat. The words she spoke were soft, like she was used to breathing sentences instead of speaking them. Saida just stared at them, watching not listening as the two of them continued on their back down the hall to the emergency wing.

David is awake.

The words meant nothing to her.

She tilted her head up slightly and stared with hollow eyes at the sign above her.

O...

R....

O.R.

Her best friend was in surgery.

Saida's nails dug into her palm.

The doctors said it didn't look good...

Sadie felt a soft tap on her shoulder. She glanced up to see the same nurse smiling down at her with a smile too tired to be genuine. "You should get up and stretch your legs a little."

"I'm fine here," Saida replied without skipping a beat.

Maybe a little too fast.

"It'll be a while before we have any news for you. Walk around, drink and maybe eat a little something."

The looked that crossed the muslim girl's face was probably one mixed of shock and horror because the nurse let out a small chuckle as she tugged Saida to her feet. "Your friend would want you to take care of yourself right?"

"More than you would know." Saida quickly wrapped her scarf around her head, more for convenience than for cover, before reaching down to collect her briefcase into her arms. Then with a brief nod and a thank you, she started motoring in the first direction her she saw. Her nose was following the smell of horrible hospital coffee (so much for taking care of herself) when a ding from the back end of the hall made her pause.

In a hidden alcove almost completely covered by a large potted plant was the elevator up to the floors with the more permanent residents. Maybe it was force of habit, but Sadie stopped in her tracks to see who was coming down. The doors slid open, and the man inside was out almost before she had a chance to get a look at him.

But she did get a look at him. And it was a face she had hoped she would never see again. The skin on her knuckles stretched tight against the bone.

He wasn't tall. Average height, average build. But that's where the normality stopped. The stranger's coat was slicked tight to his body as if he had just run there in a downpour. His hair clung to his face in drenched navy strands that bounced up and down as he raced across the platform. The left side of his head was shaved close to the scalp revealing a long, jagged scar ripping from the back of his head almost to the corner of his left eye. He threw his head to one side as if the rain was still blinding his eyes.

He didn't even have the nerve to change, she could see the long metal spikes hanging from his belt, the type that sent dragons plummeting from the sky.

She took a step to confront him, to pain and confusion for everyone to hear.

But then she stopped.

He was running in the direction of the emergency care.

And there was a child in his arms.

Was he hurting children now too?

Sadie turned her back and swallowed her anger like a pill so that it could rest deep inside, and grow until she found the truth.

"Please! Some help! He needs a doctor, PLEASE!"

A/N Okaayy long time no update! But here we are. I'm setting up for something (or at least I was) yay! Lovely new cover is by Guild fam rachelS8766 I can't appreciate enough how much I love this cover. It embodies the story I want to tell and I want to give you all the cookies and sheep. My new years resolution is to never stop writing like this again. This is the longest writing hiatus I ever took and it hurts like a bomber.

LET. THERE. BE. DRAGONS!

Matthias! Take it from here *puts sunglasses on his face* Love me.

David: Another dragon

Selphon: *interested in the other dragon*