I pick my way

Through a tangled forest

I am lost

Yet know where I am

I have no set goal

Yet know where I’ll end

I see a new vine

Stop to study it –

The vine is a snake

It slithers around my feet,

Ankles, and legs

Entangles me

It disappears, I collapse

Once fallen, I see a new path

I must follow it

Where does it lead?

A tiger roars – not too distant

I shiver, but I stand

And walk along that path

Wretched barriers arise

My hand torn by brambles,

My legs by thorns,

My face by whipping branches

I fall down a hole –

I’m not Alice, am I?

I land on soft moss

Green, gently, yielding

In front of me, two tunnels –

Which way?

I am not uncertain

I crawl into one

Then crawl for hours

It is dark and cold

Sides lined with harsh rocks

Yet I crawl on soft moss

There is a light

Only just ahead

I am lured by it

Suddenly I am out

Besides a waterfall

Rainbows dance about

I laugh for joy

And jump in the pool

My hair is wet

My feet sink in cool mud

Fish taste my toes

Something shines

Underneath the waterfall

I dive below

I reach – and am thrown aside

Current’s too strong?

I won’t give up

I try again, and again

Finally, as I become tired

I grab it – a jewel

A precious stone

I sit on the bank panting

Admire my treasure

For a moment I rest

Almost wish I could stay

But there is more

Paths, side trails, all to explore

Wonderful gems

– or not – who knows? –

At the end of each one

And mosspaths in-between

So I stand

Find a new path

And set out

I know I’ll be confused

And uncertain, and stuck

But I cannot stop

For something pulls me on.

 September 15, 2023

It is a dark and stormy night. The wind howls, pounding against the roof of our shelter. The echoes of thunder shiver through our bones. Though it does not come in, the rain strikes loudly and harshly.

Despite the inclement weather, it is comparatively peaceful. I am tired, but I want to finish recording this day, especially while I have a quiet moment, watching Kiana, my five-year old daughter, sleep. I don’t know how many more of these quiet times I will get.

We have been in this shelter for about nine hours. Some are lucky enough to have their whole families; others, like myself, were cut off by the day’s events. I was fortunate enough to have been warned by Louis, my husband, before I put Kiana on the bus to school. I wouldn’t have her with me otherwise. There are few school-age children here. Part of me wonders if it would be less terrifying to be certain of her death than to feel like I will be soon watching it. Part of me thinks of Louis as dead.

I’m not a scientist; I don’t even have a completed college degree. I was an English major. I only barely finished my second year. I don’t know all the how’s and why’s of how this happened. I barely even know what happened. I don’t know how useful this journal will actually be, but I want to leave what information I can, if something happens to me.

Everything started, for me, with a panicked phone call from Louis at almost 5:30 am.

His workplace had been hitting a major breakthrough in one of their main projects, and as a result, for the last month the lab had at least two people working in it twenty-four/seven. Louis worked early morning shifts, midnight to 8:30 am. It made for a quiet house most of the day and upside-down weekends, but he was so excited about it. He didn’t normally work overtime, either; he simply got distracted on occasion when working on something and lost track of the time. It helps that we lived only a few miles from the lab, giving him a short commute.

I don’t know the details of the project. The lab is privately owned, but this project was government-requested, or sanctioned, or – something. Louis is (or was) a chemist, and he had been selected for a management track. He’s one of the four people running the project.

Being government work, strict privacy rules prevented Louis from telling me more than vague generalities. Technically, I don’t think he was supposed to do even that much. I do know is that it was related to the brain and how it ages in relation to the rest of a person’s body. I suspected it to be related to dementia studies, though I couldn’t figure out why that would be secret. Now I know it was related to de-aging – specifically, reversing death.

Here’s our conversation, or as much as I can remember of it:

“Cindy, wake up!”

“What – who is this?”

“It’s me.”

“What – Louis? Why –” I looked at the alarm clock. “It’s, like, five – what’s wrong?” I heard shouting. “Are you –”

Louis cut me off. “There was – an accident. In the lab. We just started testing on volunteers yesterday – no, two days – and then one woke up, in pain, and I was running some tests so Pat went out to them.” (Pat was his usual partner on the night shift) “If the door between us hadn’t been closed… if it didn’t stick…”

He stopped. “Louis?” I asked. “Why are you calling me? Shouldn’t you be calling an ambulance?”

“No – no! This is beyond –” he cursed. (I’d never heard him do that before, and almost dropped the phone.) “Cindy – what we were doing – we were just figuring out how to keep people from dying, or just giving them more time. Reversing age. That’s all. But – I don’t know how it happened. There was no contamination, nothing – nothing cliché!”

“Louis?” I asked uncertainly. “I don’t understand.” He didn’t seem to hear me.

“Run. Take Kiana and get out of town. Get as far away as possible.”

I stumbled out of bed. “But – where are you? What happened?”

“They’ve started breaking out of the lab – there’s nothing I can do! They tore Pat apart. I can try to keep them from getting in to me. I saw one knock some acid over, and they’ve stayed away from that. I’ve got that, at least.”

“WHO?” I demanded.

“The volunteers!” he wailed, over the sound of increasingly loud thumping. “There’s no other word. They’re zombies!”

The phone clicked, and I was left with only a dial-tone.

Louis has never been the type to play practical jokes. He certainly would never have joked about Pat that way.

I sat in the bedroom for a while, trying to call Louis back. There was no answer. I tried calling the lab, but although that phone was picked up, I only heard a guttural groans before there was a horrible crunch, and then a dial-tone.

Sure that something had gone wrong at the lab, even if I didn’t know what, I tried the police department. I received a few irritable comments about people playing jokes about zombies and an uncertain comment about the possibility of a riot near the lab. I was told to stay away in case that was true. Some officers would go there. They probably were, but I think I was told that mostly just to get me to hang up.

Kiana woke up, all set to get ready for school, but I called the school and declared a family emergency. Her excitement about the unexpected holiday distracted me for a few hours, but after multiple failed attempts to learn anything from the lab or the police, I gave up. We ate an early lunch, and then, feeling slightly crazy, I got a suitcase, packed some clothes, food, and money, and started up the car. I turned on the radio to our town’s emergency channel and headed towards the freeway. It was only five miles away. I never got there.

Half-way there, we were attacked by a group of about twenty – they tore the car apart as it was moving. Flying pieces of car slowed them down, giving me enough time to grab Kiana, who was clutching her small backpack and crying, and ran. I left behind everything else.

I’d always thought of zombies as slow. These weren’t. If this was what Louis had described, the de-aging had worked partial wonders. They were fast. Strong. They smelled of decay, though. Except for the activity and the horrible moans filling the air, they looked dead. Bits of flesh fell off when the car parts hit them.

I was grateful Kiana couldn’t see most of what happened until the car came apart. It’s hard to think objectively about all of it, but I know this is important. While driving, I saw them attack three people. Two were ripped to shreds, after which of all the zombies nearest gained speed – it was the second attack that allowed them to catch up with the car, and I was driving as fast as I could by then. Another was merely bitten, and then, after collapsing, he promptly stood up and started running with the rest of them. I didn’t get a good look, but I did see what looked like clumps of his hair falling off.

As hard as I ran, they were faster. Just as I felt a hand slide through my hair – I later found bits of skin that had peeled off from the zombie in it – a loud explosion surrounded me. I stumbled and fell.

“Get up!” a male voice shouted. I jerked and, because of Kiana, lost my balance and nearly fell again. He caught me and pulled me to my feet. “Smoke dissuades them, but it doesn’t do much else, and it affects us too. Keep going – I’ve got a shelter.”

I did as I was told. I almost ran smack into a shed’s walls, and a woman pulled me inside. She hissed all sorts of questions at me, half of which I didn’t understand, asking if they’d touched me and where we had come from, all while patting me down, like I was carrying dangerous weapons. I was too disoriented to object, and now that I think about it, well, I could have been carrying a dangerous infection. It was impressive, actually, to be willing to touch someone who might be a zombie, just to try to help a stranger.

She freaked out when she discovered the skin in my hair, and immediately cut it and threw the affected part out the shed. Satisfied, she opened a hatch in the floor and snapped, “Go, quickly. Put her down – she’s big enough to climb ladders on her own.”

It was fortunately only a short distance down, and Kiana didn’t have too much trouble, and in the wide cellar below we met nine others who had stumbled their way in this direction.

In the nine – almost ten – hours since, fifteen more have joined us. Only seven had brought food. The rest had either no chance to grab anything or, like me, had lost most of our supplies while running. Kiana and I have her bag, which has a single change of clothes for her, this journal, and two granola bars. I say nothing about them. If we have to run again, she’ll probably grab her bag, and then she’ll at least have something.

We’re going to have to figure out a system to manage our food, quickly. The owner of this place, John Sultz, is a survivor enthusiast and had turned his tornado cellar into a storage facility that could last six months for one person. With twenty-eight of us, that won’t last too long. We ate a slightly bigger meal for dinner than we should have, perhaps, but everyone was too exhausted think too hard about it.

Once Kiana recovered from her fright, she and the other four children in the shelter had run around and played for hours as everyone tried to come up with a plan. I mostly stayed out of it.

Sometime in the last couple of hours, just before the rain started, the shed had collapsed, which was likely why no one else had shown up – no obvious marker that other people were here. John has a disturbing amount of weapons, although most of it didn’t affect the zombies. He was delighted to hear what Louis had told me about the acid.

Although everyone else was displeased to hear where the zombies had come from, I think it provided some relief to know how this happened. Some wanted to go fight – and there’s a group that I think might sneak out – but the main argument against it was that we didn’t know how many of them, and what was the point of taking out one if another turned you into a zombie? The other popular idea was digging a tunnel and getting away from the town, which I suppose might work.

In the end, it was decided to wait until morning, and to let everyone get some sleep. I found some blankets for myself and Kiana. I also found some scissors and convinced another woman to help me straighten out my hair, after the impromptu uneven haircut.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Perhaps the worst will happen. Perhaps the zombies will break in. Perhaps there’ll be a solution. In any case, I’ll put this journal in a hole in the flooring, near our bed. I sincerely hope I’ll have a chance to keep writing in it.

At nine am, Bill glanced out of his kitchen window to see a dragon chasing Eric down the alley. This struck him as odd. Eric didn't usually get out of bed until eleven.

Had it been anyone except Eric, Bill’s first thought would have been about the dragon. Dragons weren’t too common in Los Angeles. Or anywhere in the world, really. However, Bill had known Eric for most of their lives, and things like this kept happening.

“Is it really nine?” Bill glanced at his watch, then at the stove clock. “Guess it is. Better go find out what happened this time.”

He finished his coffee, drinking a bit quicker than usual, grabbed his cell phone, left a note for his wife Ellen, and went outside, heading down the alley. There was always a chance that Eric would have already taken care of the problem, but given his track record, Bill pulled up Jess’ number on his phone as he peeked around the corner at the end of the alley.

All he saw was Eric on a bench, panting, and two teenage girls clutching each other on the opposite side of the street, staring wide-eyed, silently, at Eric. Bill was relieved that no one – besides Eric, of course – appeared to have been attacked this time. Since the girls were staring at Eric, and Eric was sitting, Bill assumed the dragon was gone. Well, that was fast. He walked out of the alley over to Eric.

“A dragon, Eric? How’d you dis-vanish that one?” ‘Dis-vanish’ was Eric’s term for making magical beings appear in this world, and thirty years of acquaintance with Eric had caused Bill to absorb his vocabulary. “And so early in the morning!” Bill teased.

Eric ignored the jibe. “But I didn’t. I mean, I don’t think I did.”

“Unless someone else around here shares your abilities, you know that’s not possible. Those sprites said nothing bigger than a fairy could come on its own, no matter how attracted to you they were. What happened this morning?”

“I know. See, last night I accidentally set my alarm for three hours early instead of two – because I had this appointment at ten – can you imagine? Ten AM?” Eric shook his head. “Anyway, when I woke up I was all disoriented.” Eric punctuated his every phrase with an energetic motion of his arms. Bill double-checked that he was standing far enough away to avoid being clobbered if Eric motioned forward, instead of upwards and sideways. Eric continued. “I remembered it was trash day and since I couldn’t remember if I’d put out my trash I went outside to check and all of a sudden there was this dragon roaring down at me so I started running since it didn’t seem happy –” He stopped to take a breath. “And when I got to the end of the alley it flew off. That way.” He pointed up to the sky, and to the right. Apparently the dragon hadn’t vanished, just had continued going forward and had simply elected to do so in the air.

“Huh. Maybe it managed to vanish itself.” It would be the simplest solution. Except that it involved Eric, so there was a slim chance of that actually occurring. But it would be nice.

Eric shook his head, his arms dropping to his sides with twin thumps. “Nope. It’s still around. I’d know if it was gone. My mind really itches.”

Bill sat down on the opposite side of the bench, fingering his phone. “Alright. I’ll call the others.” The phone rang. “Ah, hello?”

“Hey Bill,” a female voice answered. “Thought you’d like to know there’s a dragon sitting on top of the apartment building ’cross the street.”

“Oh! That’d be Eric’s dragon. Keep an eye on it, would you? I’m going to call Jeremy – or have you called him already?”

“No. What’d Eric do?”

“He’s not sure. We’ll meet you at your place, that all right?”

“That’s fine. See you.”

Bill hit Jeremy’s number and quickly explained the situation to him.

“Really?” said Jeremy. “You saw it, right? Was it a European dragon, or a Chinese dragon? Were its scales bright – oh, was it feathered?”

“Jerrrremy. You’ll see it from your twin’s apartment. It’ll take you almost half an hour, so hurry up, ok?”

“Oh – right, right! Sorry. Be right there.”

Bill stood and placed his cell in his pocket. “C’mon, Eric. It’s near Jess’ apartment.”

Eric perked up. “Oh! K!” He sighed and looked back down at his feet. “I still don’t know.”

“Don’t worry. Jess is good with that. She’ll sort you out.” It was a little peculiar to think of an army weapons specialist as a psychologist, but she seemed to view Eric as an unusual type of weapon. Bill looked up at the sky, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. Should he take his car? Finally, he decided that (A) car insurance didn’t cover for ‘broiled by a dragon’ and (B) it wouldn’t protect him or help him escape faster if he really needed to. “We’ll just walk over there, and the whole thing will be sorted before lunch. Hang on. What about your meeting?”

“Um, I’ll put a note on the door.” Eric held his chin, working hard on concentrating. It was an amusing sight. “Sorry, Emergency Came Up…Deepest Regrets…” he muttered, adding and subtracting words as they walked to his house.

Eric’s house was the sort of building people tend to miss. It was next to the large garage he’d converted for his car mechanic business. It was wood, unpainted, one-story, and otherwise unremarkable. He tried to keep his small lawn mowed, but Eric only remembered a few times a month. Currently, all the grass was short. Their last visitor had been a unicorn who had decided Eric’s lawn was delicious. Eric walked in and fumbled around for some paper and tape. Pencils were scattered everywhere, but the paper underneath Eric’s coat and the tape was underneath his worn couch.

As soon as Eric taped the sign “Emergency, will return by noon” to the door and locked his house, Bill hastily walked them down the street, six blocks, to Jess’ apartment building.

Jess’s apartment was on the third floor. Once there, Jess brought them to the kitchen window where they could see the curled up dragon glaring down on the street.

“Oh dear,” murmured Eric.

“Do you think it’ll realize he’s here?” Bill asked Jess.

She sighed. “I don’t know. I hope it waits until Jeremy gets here; we’ve never had to deal with a dragon before. Apparently he just finished researching them.”

“Nice timing.”

“Yeah, well, he’s on gargoyles now. Do everyone a favor and don’t ask about them.”

“Gargoyles? Do you mean those ugly stone statues on castle walls –” he stopped.

“What did I just say? And no. The real thing. People only design after what they see, after all. Or so his theories go. If you want the full lecture, I’d suggest waiting for a month and then asking him.”

Bill grinned at her. “Why, is he all full of ideas right now?”

Jess snorted. “That’s ’bout it.” She looked at Eric, turning away from Bill. “All right, let’s start on the dragon.”

“What about Jeremy?” Eric asked.

“He’ll be here soon. Eric, Bill said you don’t know how it got here.”

“Nope.”

Jess waited in the silence, then, realizing Eric wasn’t going to continue, asked, “Do you have any ideas about it? It doesn’t matter how crazy or wrong they might seem; we’ll put something together.”

“Umm…”

All Bill could think at that was ‘oh, not good’. Eric usually knew. Last time he hadn’t, they’d been stuck with a purple unicorn for three weeks until Jeremy found a way to reproduce the ritual Eric had accidentally caught himself in. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could hide in your backyard. Fortunately, it had been fairly non-homicidal.

“Did you think about a dragon?” Jess asked after pausing for another moment to allow Eric time to think. “Does that dragon remind you of anything, anything at all?” She motioned out the window, drawing Eric’s attention to it. Bill hoped that wouldn’t, in turn, draw the dragon’s attention. Maybe it was really absorbed by the traffic below it.

The doorbell rang.

“Bill?” asked Jess. “Can you get that?”

Jeremy was waiting at the door, holding a briefcase, his blond hair ruffled with excitement.

“So I heard Eric was up before eleven today. Called the newspapers yet?” Jeremy joked.

“What, and forget the dragon?” Bill lightly punched Jeremy’s shoulder. “C’mon and have a look. Preferably before it looks.”

“Yeah, buildings aren’t dragon-proof. Although, I will admit they at least aren’t made of wood nowadays. Back when dragon-sightings were common, most buildings were made of wood with a few structures of stone. Wow, look at that.”

Jess looked up and nodded at her brother. “Hey.”

“Hey. Whoa. Don’t think a machine gun’s gonna’ cut it. Let’s get a tank. You can get one, right?”

“Jeremy!” Jess rolled her eyes. “That’s not the point here!”

“Well, can you?”

“Well, I – concentrate, would you?” demanded Jess, thoroughly exasperated.

Jeremy chucked as he opened his briefcase on the table. “Hmm, let’s see. Dragons… Wyverns…”

“Well, last night, I was looking around for a present for my niece, and I came across this really ornate dragonish creature hanging on to a crystal ball. There were all these decorations on it; it was really nice.”

“Did you buy it?” Bill asked. He rather wished people didn’t sell things like that.

“No, too much money. I got her some mystery books instead.”

Jeremy looked up from his scattering papers. “Did it look like that?”

“Um…” Eric scratched his head. “Sorry, I don’t remember. I didn’t pay that close attention to it. I don’t think it was as colorful, though.”

Bill stood up and studied the dragon, now hanging its head over the side of the building and staring balefully down. A skin-flap rose around its neck, puffing ominously up and down. ‘Colorful’ didn’t give the dragon’s appearance justice; it looked like it was made of colors.

“I believe it’s a white dragon,” said Jeremy, rubbing his lips vigorously.

“It doesn’t really look white,” protested Jess.

Jeremy sighed. “That’s half my problem here. With this research, I have to map reports that have been duly exaggerated and find a single explanation. Now that I’ve been faced with something real, such as this dragon, I have to map backwards to match the real thing with the stories. It’s back-and-forth work, and some guesswork involved.”

“So,” said Bill slowly, “You’re saying that even though it’s not really white, it’s what people have called a white dragon.”

“Exactly. Actually, I believe it’s called ‘white’ because it’s not. In certain parts of the world, fantastical creatures – as they’re often called – are referred to by what they are not. It has to do with superstitions existing around them at the time – and, frankly, it’s hard to blame them. From that flap, I would guess our friend –”

“Eric’s friend,” muttered Jess.

“Most closely matches,” continued Jeremy, ignoring his twin. “Either the African, South American, or Australian stories. Though South American stories often have feathers….”

Bill, glancing at the dragon, saw a large puff of smoke rise from its head. Weaving its head, the dragon slowly and meticulously surveyed the ground. He was certain its next object of study would be the buildings around it. Bill hoped it wouldn’t be too meticulous.

“Okay,” called Jess in a commanding voice, making the other three jump and pay attention. Bill had to consciously resist the urge to stand straight and, maybe, even salute – Eric had nothing holding him back, as that was exactly his response. “No, Jeremy, no more theories. Write them down and share them later, unless you think one of them will help Eric get rid of –”

“Vanish, Jess,” Eric corrected absentmindedly.

She sighed, over-dramatically to show that she wasn’t really annoyed. “Unless it’s something that you think will help Eric vanish the dragon. Okay?”

Jeremy looked excessively put-out, but he nodded and grabbed a pencil and started making notes on her counter, occasionally mumbling and walking back to the window.

“Okay, Bill,” Jess ordered. “Keep an eye out on it, will you? Eric, sit down, and we’ll go through this. When exactly did the dragon show up?”

“I don’t really know,” answered Eric. “See, I was out taking my trash, so it could’ve been just then. I woke up so early this morning that my thoughts were all over the place, and I wasn’t really paying attention, so maybe something about the figurine got in my dreams? Geeze, maybe I dis-vanished it while I was asleep. That’d be new.”

“And disturbing,” muttered Jess, sitting across from Eric at the table. “Stop turning to look at the window, Eric. Focus. Let’s try talking about the figurine.”

“I don’t really remember it… um, let’s see. I think it was darker, and maybe there was a light on it? I don’t think it was like a night-light though. She’s too old for me to even be thinking about getting that as a gift, ’cuase even if she used one she’d be too embarrassed to admit it.”

“Describe it, Eric.”

“Oh yeah. Uh… maybe there was a little wizard there with it? And…”

He went on, often getting distracted as he finally described a dark green-blue dragon that was neither showing it’s teeth nor snarling, and, in his mind, was having almost a friendly discussion with the human figure standing next to it, on a little rock outcrop. Between the two figures was a small pool with a blue light that he guessed was probably an LED.

“It was probably the friendly part that attracted you to it. So even though you didn’t get it, it stuck in your mind. Hmm.” Jess tapped her finger on the table in thought.

“Pity it’s not friendly,” muttered Bill. “There’s a news crew out there – how are they here even before the police? – and it’s snarling at them. Or looks like it’s snarling, anyway. Maybe it’s a smile and we just don’t know.”

“Well… we haven’t actually seen a dragon before,” said Jeremy, practically wriggling in excitement. “Still, comparing it to other lizards in this world and other critters he’s dis-vanished when they’re unhappy… yeah, I’d say it’s snarling. Hope it doesn’t breath fire.”

“Yeesh,” was all Bill could comment on that thought. Pretty much all damage thus far with all of Eric’s episodes had been focused on his property – and once, Jess’ hair (fortunately, she’d been planning on getting a haircut anyway, so she wasn’t too ticked off at him. It wasn’t like he set the goblins on her. And they’d been much friendlier than the stories had implied – it had probably helped that they were really curious about Eric’s tools). “It’s the most dangerous thing he’s dis-vanished so far, at least in terms of immediate damage, isn’t it?”

“And size, yeah,” Jeremy sighed happily, rushing back to the counter to write something else down. “But it’s about the most beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I think those air sprites gave just about everything a run for their money.”

“They confused me,” muttered Jeremy, writing a bit more harshly than he had been a few seconds before Bill mentioned them.

Bill hid a grin. Sprites were the most enigmatic creatures Eric had dis-vanished, and the air sprites seemed to take pleasure in displaying that in the contradictions that they claimed weren’t actually contradictions. Perhaps they weren’t, to them.

“But I’ve always had the item, or a replica, or a picture, even, Jess,” argued Eric.

“You didn’t bring this one over with an actual item, just an idea of what it looks like inside your head. Bill, did you hear his description?”

“Yeah. You have paper I can borrow? I didn’t bring anything – just kind of rushed over here.”

“Uh… Jeremy, give me some paper. And a pencil. That’s a pen,” she said dryly, as he absentmindedly handed her a pen with the paper.

“Oh. Well, where’s a pencil? You don’t have any here.”

“Yes I do, you shoved the pencil holder back when you put your notebook there.”

“No I didn’t – wait, you mean this? There’s just paper inside!” He poked around in the holder, finally finding a few pencils in it. He gave it to Bill. “It’s not a pencil holder if it holds mostly paper, Jess.”

“It’s still called a pencil holder even if you drill a hole in it and put in dirt and grow plants in it outside,” she argued.

Bill ignored the two with the ease of almost thirty years of practice and started sketching the figurine. He showed the drawing to Eric.

“No, the dragon’s wings were bigger. Like this.” He motioned on the paper with his fingers, as, simultaneously, a growl echoed throughout the apartment.

“Whoops,” muttered Bill. “Gotta work faster.” He erased part of the drawing and re-did it. “Okay, like this? Can you describe the rock outcropping to me?”

Once they were finished, Jess let Eric stare at the picture for a few minutes– just until his attention started to waver – and then took it away from him, waving away his protests.

“We’re copying how you brought it here, as usual. If we can’t get this to work, we’ll try something else, but for now, you saw the figurine, you walked away, and the dragon came over later. You’ve seen a picture, and now it’s gone. Let’s go through what you were thinking again before you noticed the dragon. What happened right after you walked away from the figurine before you went to bed?”

“Uh… I decided it wasn’t quite what she’d want, so I kept looking and finally bought something else. I wasn’t thinking about it when I left, I don’t think. Huh. What was I thinking? It was just before dinner, I think…”

As Eric went into one of his tangents again, Jess patiently listening and occasionally pulling him back onto topic, Bill compared the picture he’d sketched up to the dragon outside. What was outside was really much more magnificent than the little figurine. It was almost – very, very much almost – too bad that more people couldn’t see these creatures more often. He supposed that, at some level, people would either get used to them to the point they found them boring, or they’d try to recruit them into fighting a war. It was definitely for the best that Eric’s abilities weren’t common knowledge, or commonly done. Maybe it was even for the best that Eric was the person who had them; he definitely wasn’t someone who would abuse the ability, or the creatures.

“Can you describe any of your dreams at all?” asked Jess. “What’s wrong?”

Bill turned from the window back to Eric, who was rubbing his head like he’d bumped it.

“Dunno,” said Eric. “Feels funny. Like the itching I’ve had before, you know? But it’s sort of stronger. Like… um, like when you’ve eaten too much, and your stomach kind of cramps? But in my head, instead.”

“Let’s try focusing on that.” Jess sounded a bit excited, but she was clearly doing her best to tone it down. Eric got distracted by the weirdest things sometimes, and no one wanted to have to start the whole process over. “Try pushing back.”

Eric frowned, then furrowed his forehead, then went into those little twitches he went into whenever Jess gave him metaphysical directions.

“Getting anything?” asked Jeremy. “Hey, Bill, anything from the dragon?”

Bill looked outside. “Nope. Oh, hey, police. And the fire department. And… gawkers. Half of downtown, from the looks of it.”

“Great,” groused Jess. “Feel anything, Eric?”

“…Sort of?”

“Try imagining the picture again, but leave out the human from it.”

Eric twitched away for a few minutes, lost in his own world. “Um… I don’t think it’s working, Jess. It’s still – oh, hey!” There was a distinct popping noise from outside that temporarily plugged everyone’s ears. “It stopped cramping on me,” as though nothing extraordinary had happened.

“Ow,” mumbled Jeremy, from the floor – he’d gone to the window to check on something about the dragon, and during his rush back to the counter, the pop had happened and knocked him off balance badly enough to trip him. “That was loud. What’s going on, Bill?”

“Dragon’s gone. I think I saw some sort of flash, but it was definitely sitting there and then it disappeared. So unless it can become invisible and make that usual popping noise –”

“It’s gone!” Eric jumped up excitedly, knocking over his chair in his rush to get to the window to check for himself. “And hey, nothing burned! Especially me. How do they always know I brought them over, anyway?”

“Well,” said Jess, picking up the chair and helping Jeremy up the rest of the way, “I guess it makes sense that it would be louder than normal, since the dragon was bigger than anything else you’ve brought over – yes, I know. Dis-vanished.”

Bill couldn’t hold back his chuckle at that. Jess’ dislike of the made-up word had been the source of many arguments over the years.

“Well, all’s well that ends well, and all that,” he said. “So, anyone want to come over to my place for breakfast?”