A Case of Humanophobia

“I hate humans. Something about them just creeps me out.”

My brother looked at me in utter disbelief. “You have got to be the wimpiest dragon ever. Humans? You can snap them up in 2 large bites. You can crush them under one foot. You can swat them so hard with your tail, they will snap their bones upon impact with the ground.”

“But they are squishy and naked and their limbs are in weird places.” I could feel the smoke curling in my throat uncomfortably at the thought. I shuddered and a small jet of flame peeked from my nostrils. “Humanophobia is a real thing!”

My brother snorted, smoke rising from between his lips. “Some dragons eat them,” he taunted.

I felt ill. “I can’t finish it now,” I pushed my barely nibbled on cow at him.

“Don’t mind if I do,” He snatched up the cow between his jaws. “Thnksh frr llont” He called through a mouthful of cow. Lowering his long body towards the ground, he furled his wings, pointing the tips up towards the sky. In one powerful lunge, he sprung off the ground and whipped open his wings, immediately taking flight.

I decided to glide around the mountain, trying to take my mind off the idea of eating humans. I was already the laughing stock of dragons. Dragons were not given names at birth. They earned names, and those names could change. The name I had earned, or shamefully been given, still cut me to the bone.

I glided down to a clearing in the trees. It looked like a nice place to settle down for a nap. I rested my head on my front feet and curled my tail around the outside of it. I brought one big wing forward to cover my face and drifted off to sleep.

I was awakened by something poking into my wing. Still tired, I peeled my eyes open and lifted my wing from in front of my face. Staring back at me, was a round squishy human with bristles of hair all along the bottom of his face. He was holding a long stick with metal claws, which he had used to poke at my wing. His hairless, scaleless, body was covered with various cloths in place of a natural covering. All other creatures had scales or fur. This alone demonstrated just how repulsive humans were.

Behind my attacker stood three other humans, all with various pointed sticks. Despite the fact that they weren’t even tall enough to tickle my belly, should they walk underneath me, I was terrified.

I quickly rose from the ground and backed up, trying to get as much space between me and them as possible. In my terror, smoke started shooting from my nose.

The humans tiny eyes’ grew round and they all started backing up and shouting in their high-pitched mumbling language. One in the back dropped his stick and turned to run, disappearing into the woods. I spit out a small line of flame, forcing them back further.

I had to get away. Throwing myself into the air, my wings clumsily flailed, trying to gain traction and right my trailing body. Not paying attention, my tail caught on a broken tree, jerking me back and almost pulling me back to the ground. Twisting free, I finally took off and sped away from the clearing as fast as I could.

I heard the roar of dragon laughter behind me, I turned to see that Cowgut and Firespitter had seen my embarrassing escape. Little bursts of flame escaped from their mouths as they guffawed.

They didn’t say it, but I heard my name echoing inside my head as I raced away. I truly was, Chickenlizard.