CHAPTER ONE
THE GREAT DRAGON
I was tricked, a doomed mind destined to wander the darkness for all eternity. You may ask yourself who I am. To put it simply, I am the villain of the story. It was I who first let the Great Dragon into the world, and set forth the chain of events that follows.
My name is Morpheus Draklore, and I was the Great Dragon’s first victim. I was gullible. The dragon offered me strength. Foolishly, I accepted, and he took over my body, and mind. Fortunately, my spirit remained intact, though it, along with the dragon, were trapped inside the darkness. A fate worse than death. It is a world that was never supposed to exist, a Neverworld. I am its caretaker.
Now, all I can do is watch as good people loose themselves, becoming, like me, nothing more than a vessel for the Great Dragon inhabit. There is hope, however, in the form of a young girl. I believe she may be the one who finally breaks the curse that, for so long, has plagued this fairy tale land. Her name is Katie and this is her story:
* * *
Katie sat in the branches of a tree overlooking the grassy cliffs of her uncles’ home, half wishing she could jump into the crashing waves below. The house her uncles lived in was a creaky old place about two stories in height.
It was a sandy color with a mahogany trim and overlooked the Anglopolitan Sea. The tree she sat in was all knotted and twisty, making it easily climbable for her. Its leaves had only just begun to grow back and were a vibrant green. Katie lay her head on one of the branches, listening as the waves crashed into the cliffs below. The sound always seemed to sooth her when she felt troubled. Katie spent most of her time looking out over the vast waters. It was the last thing she and her father had done together before he and Katie’s mother left her forever. That was a long time ago.
Chander, Katie’s uncle, came out onto the long porch. Katie didn’t even bother looking at him.
“He’s not coming, is he?” she said with a saddened expression. Only now did she look upon her uncle. He adjusted his timekeeping monocle in his left eye and spoke.
“Not today, I’m afraid.” He was a balding man with a thick, silvery mustache that hung down all the way to his chin. Katie looked out at the sea once more. She missed her parents so much that it ached.
“When?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Youh motheh and fatheh brought you to us because they knew you would be safe. Bahumaku and I have always been close to youh motheh. When she asked us to look afteh you, we just couldn’t say no.” He stood next to her now. Katie slowly made her way down the twisting trunk of the tree and into her uncle’s arms.
She wrapped herself around her uncle’s green corduroy overalls. He smiled and in turn wrapped his arms around her. “Youh parents love you. Don’t eveh think otherwise,” Chander said. Katie nodded. Her head did not move from her uncle’s waist. Chander lifted Katie in his arms and let out a horrible groan.
“Oh, gawd, youh wicked heavy,” her uncle said.
“I’m not that heavy,” Katie answered. She dared a smile. It was the first one she had made all day, though it wouldn’t be her last. Katie rode in her uncle’s arms all the way back into the house. The house was very ordinary. It showed evidence of life from the bulging of the old tan carpet to the infinite stains. Katie could describe the reason for almost every stain in great detail.
From the living room, where she stood, there were three doors leading out. Two led to her uncles’ rooms. The third door Katie had entered only once. No sooner had she opened the door when a chill ran down her spine. Closing the door, quick, she never entered again. She knew the room as the guest room, though, since she had arrived, there had never been a single guest. Katie could see why.
Sitting at the table, Katie could see behind the island counter her other uncle, Bahumaku, who had just finished making her a cake. Flour covered his skin. Katie couldn’t tell if there was any flour in his hair or beard. Bahumaku wiped his hands on his sweater and pulled down the cuffs to his collared white shirt. He picked up the cake so that Katie could see it. White frosting surrounded it. The words Happy Birthday scribbled the top. Katie sat beaming at her uncles as they sang. She didn’t mind that they were out of tune. Katie got the first piece. She took a bite. The smile on her face told her uncles that she enjoyed it. Chander got the next piece. Bob, the plant who was whimpering in the corner, got the third. Bahumaku set a slice down in front of it. Bob ate it, plate and all. He belched out the spoon when he was done.
The plant was a product of botany. It was a combination of a Venus flytrap and a snapdragon. It lived in a red clay pot. Katie’s uncle Bahumaku was an accomplished botanist. He had made the plant with Katie’s assistance. Katie loved the plant as if it were a puppy. She came up with the name Bob. Bahumaku, on the other hand, loathed the plant with all his heart, which he reminded it of daily. That was the fifth plate it had eaten, and it was only the beginning of the bright season.
“How many seasons is this now?” Bahumaku asked, sitting down at the table. He dusted the flour off his mossy brown sweater. Katie shrugged in answer to her uncle’s question and took another bite of cake. The wizard stroked his white beard and thought aloud. “Let’s see, you were fouh seasons old when youh parents brought you. That’s fouh, carry the one, yeah, I have no idea.”
“Katie was born on the first day of the bright season, nine seasons ago, give or take,” Chander said. He beamed as he spoke. Bahumaku took his white and black pipe from his pocket and grumbled under his breath as he put it to his mouth. The pipe lit itself as if by magic when it came in contact with his lips.
“Aren’t you gonna have any?” Katie asked, noticing that her uncle had not cut himself a slice of cake.
“I’d betteh not. I already ate most of the batteh as it is,” Bahumaku said in answer.
A bird crashed through the front window only seconds later. Katie shrieked. Chander and Bahumaku both shot up to protect her in a single motion. They were surprisingly agile for their old age. Bahumaku was the first to investigate. He walked slowly over to the futon, where the bird had fallen. It walked back and forth into the arm of the chair, flapping its wings and making strange high-pitched noises until finally it flew into the air and rammed headfirst into the wall.
Katie held Chander tight in fear. Bahumaku dared to go after the bird. He held out his hands and tried to catch it as it fell, but he was too slow. The bird began vomiting, continuing to fly into the wall. It was dead before Bahumaku could reach it. He picked it up by the wing and examined it carefully.
“Why did it do that?” Katie asked. She watched her uncle cautiously as he picked up the bird, her hands still wrapped tightly around Chander.
“I can’t be sure, but I think it’s poisoned,” Bahumaku said. He examined the bird further, taking off the straps on its back. A piece of parchment rolled onto the table. It was bent and twisted in all different directions. It took Bahumaku almost five minutes to open it. On one side, in small, curvy handwriting, there was a note, on the other, a hand-drawn map.
“That’s strange, how did a bird get in here?” Chander said. Katie and Bahumaku both looked up at Chander. Neither of them said a word. Chander gave an innocent smile, which he covered with his silvery mustache.
Bahumaku read the note and looked up. “It’s from Alex. She hasn’t written to me in almost ten seasons,” he said. He held the note out for Chander to read, which he did aloud.
“This doesn’t sound like Alex at all. Something’s not right here,” Chander said after reading it. His eyes found his brother.
Bahumaku looked up from examining the bird. Between his thumb and forefinger he held what looked to be a small dart. His skin turned as white as his beard. “This message has been intercepted. We may no longeh be safe here,” Bahumaku said. He threw on his tan trench coat, which had hung on the back of the chair he had been sitting in, and flung open the door. Chander magically packed everyone’s things. Katie remained where she was.
“Come, my deah, there isn’t much time,” Bahumaku said hastily.
“I don’t want to,” Katie said.
“There isn’t time foh this. Let’s go,” Bahumaku said. He held his hand out to Katie, who recoiled.
“No. I’m not going,” Katie whined.
“You don’t have a choice in the matteh,” Bahumaku said in a stern voice. He took Katie by the arm. “Right now, Alexandrir’s house is the safest place to be,” her uncle added. Katie screamed and shouted as she tried to break free of her uncle’s grip.
“I can’t go. I have to wait for my dad to come back,” Katie cried. She broke free of her uncle’s grip and stood in the doorway.
“Youh fatheh is neveh coming back,” Bahumaku snapped.
Katie’s lip quivered. Her eyes began to water.
“You’re lying. He said he would come for me,” Katie cried. She held back her tears as best she could.
“You can write to him when we arrive. Right now we have to leave,” Bahumaku said. He pulled Katie out of the doorway and into the forest beyond. It would be a long trek, one which would have to be made on foot. If it was true someone was after them, then using magic in the forest would lead their pursuers right to them. Magic would have to be kept to a minimum. The only way to cross the forest unnoticed was to walk.
Katie cried silently as they made their way through the forest. She knew in the back of her mind what her uncle said was true, but she still didn’t want to believe it. Her father had told her he would return. That was the only hope she ever had of seeing him again.
Chander slowed down to Katie’s pace. Katie looked up at him. “What?” she asked through her tears. She wiped her eyes with her fingertips as she spoke. Chander handed her a small green backpack with only a few things inside. Katie took it.
“You’re very brave, you know. Youh fatheh would be proud,” Chander said.
“Whatever,” Katie answered. Her uncle gave a smile but spoke nothing else.
This was the first time Katie had been in the Sapphire Forest since her parents had left her with her uncles. She vaguely remembered having been lost in it for days with her parents. Katie remembered the day after her parents left much more vividly. She had been trying to catch up with her mother and father in the forest when a noir wolf heard her cries. Katie would have found a way to escape, she always did, but she was grateful for her uncles’ help all the same.
The forest looked almost exactly as she remembered. Each tree in the forest was a different shade of blue. Some were so old that a gray moss covered up their trunks. The trees bent in all directions, some even made an almost U shape, the way they folded up. Those trees that still had leaves, of which there were few, were the only signs of life within the forest. Most of the trees looked dead. Some had even fallen over, taking much of the ground with them.
Sometime after the incident with the wolf, Katie took up reading. She did it to take her mind off her parents. The books she read weren’t the most thrilling or most exciting books in the world, in fact, Katie often told herself how dull they were, but it was all she had. The books at her disposal were dictionaries and encyclopedias.
If Katie had not had such a fascination with learning, her life would’ve been a very boring one indeed. She could sit in her room for hours memorizing words and events. Now, at length, she had been torn from her precious books. The true test was about to begin. Katie would soon see just how much she had learned.
She walked with her uncles through the forest for the remainder of the day. They made it to a small clearing. Katie’s uncles began to hum. She watched as two tents and a fire sprang up in the middle of the clearing. Katie had seen similar things many times back home, but somehow it still amazed her.
A can of beans cooked over the fire. As they sat around it waiting for the beans to finish, Bahumaku told one of Katie’s favorite stories. She had heard the story more than a dozen times. Each time she heard it, her love for the story grew.
The story began at the turning point of a young boy’s life. Upon coming home from school one day, he finds his parents dead. He runs away, afraid of being placed in an orphanage. By nightfall he comes across a large, deserted temple, and, after much exploring, he decides to make it his home. One day another boy, Grismack, enters the temple. With no one else to turn to, the two boys become fast friends. The two of them explore the temple and discover all sorts of secrets. One secret they discover is so dark that they vow never to speak of it again. This secret eats away at one boy until he can no longer bear it. He goes behind Grismack’s back and learns celestial magic anyway. The magic consumes him, turning him into nothing more than a monster. It is up to Grismack to bring his friend back from the darkness. It was a heartfelt tale filled with action, adventure, betrayal, love, and, above all else, hope. It told Katie that no matter how bad things got, there was always hope.
Though she didn’t yet know it, Katie, and the two boys in the story were linked. An endlessly wavering battle raged on between them, that she was a part of. She knew of a prophecy, one in which she was a major part of, her uncles’ had made sure of that, even if they’d never recited it to her out right. What she didn’t know was why.
Not yet.
Katie was too tired to hear the whole story in one night. She ate her beans quietly and went off into her tent. She tossed and turned. Katie was tired but couldn’t sleep. She closed her eyes and tried not to move. She saw something through the darkness. As it came closer, she could see what it was: eyes as red as blood. She felt as if the eyes were watching her, like a spider waiting for its moment to strike. Katie fell into an uneasy slumber.
She found herself making her way through the forest, though she had no clue where she was going. Katie could just make out the faint humming of her mother’s voice as she sang her sweet lullaby. She followed the voice to her home in the Gogeska Valley. Her mother and father were waiting for her outside. She ran to them. They welcomed her warmly. Katie looked up at her parents and smiled. Tears trickled down her cheek. Everything was perfect. If this was a dream, she wished it could last forever. She could almost feel her father’s warm embrace. She could almost smell her mother’s cherry perfume. For the first time in a long time, Katie was truly happy.
Then, everything around her began to fade. She looked around frantically. What’s going on? she wondered. She looked up at her parents, hoping for an answer. They, too, were fading. Katie tried to grab hold of them. It was like trying to grab hold of air.
She called out to her parents. She begged them not to go. A soft, shrill voice whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry.” Katie looked around to find the voice, but all she saw was her parents as they faded off into blackness. She stood there waiting for them, alone.
Katie woke with a start. She tried to go back to sleep. She wanted so badly to see her parents again. Try as she might, she could not fall asleep. She walked outside and sat down by the fire instead. Chander was stirring something in a large cauldron. Katie didn’t care to ask what. Her mind was fixed so intensely on her dream that she didn’t notice her uncle watching her.
“You seem troubled,” Chander said, startling her.
“It’s just a dream, that’s all,” Katie said.
“A dream? That is troubling,” Chander answered in surprise. He spoke more to himself than to Katie.
“What do you mean?” Katie asked.
“The last time someone had a dream, the Great Dragon nearly destroyed this world,” Chander said.
“Where did the dragon come from anyway?” Katie asked. She had heard the name practically every day since birth. The only thing she knew about the Great Dragon was that she was destined to destroy it.
“No one knows foh sure. He comes to you from youh dreams, feeding off of our deepest desires, building youh trust. Then, he takes you oveh from the inside. Many people refeh to him as the Dream Masteh. Do not let the dragon’s words fool you. He will show you no mercy,” Chander said. With that, he headed back into his tent.
“But—” Katie spoke before she could stop herself. All of the questions she wanted to ask she dared not. It wouldn’t be the first time they had gotten her into trouble.
“Yes?” Chander pressed her.
“Forget it,” Katie said.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Chander.
“I’m fine,” Katie lied. Chander stared into Katie’s deep blue eyes for a long time. Katie could feel her uncle’s suspicion, even when she turned away from his gaze.
She wished now that she were invisible. Katie retired to her tent. She sat in silence thinking of what her uncle had told her. To say that Katie missed her parents would be an understatement. She wanted her parents more than anything in the world. She hadn’t stopped missing them since they left her with her uncles. Katie would never stop missing them. Now, she was beginning to have dreams about them. This made her longing for her parents almost triple. Only in her dream could her desire for her parents be quenched.
Perhaps this Great Dragon was not as bad as everyone made it out to be. If it let people dream and find comfort, no matter how small it might be, then surely this dragon could not be so purely evil. Katie had seen her parents, even if it had only been for a brief moment.
That was all that mattered.
Katie woke a little while later and went back outside. Bahumaku stared long into the boiling cauldron. “This is mud, isn’t it?” he said.
“I think there’s some moss in there as well,” Chander said. He stirred the contents of the pot, lifting the spoon to show a glob of gray and blue. It plopped back into the pot, spilling out boiling water as it did so.
“Forgive me if I choose to starve,” Bahumaku said bitterly. Chander would ask him several times if he wanted any. He asked, not to be polite, but because he had forgotten that he asked in the first place.
Katie couldn’t help but smile.
Her uncles packed up the camp in the same musical fashion they had set it, and the three of them were on their way through the deep forest once again.
Katie and her uncles treaded through the forest and stopped only when the need was dire. Katie was silent for the entire trip. Her mind focused on her dream. The dragon let me see my parents, she thought. He can’t be all that bad. Can he?
The dragon was evil, Katie knew. It was her destiny to destroy it. How do we know the dragon is evil? she thought. What if he’s not evil? Maybe he’s just lonely. Katie wasn’t sure that she could destroy the dragon even if she wanted to. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Why should I have to do it? What’s so special about me?
By the end of the day, Katie and her uncles could go no further. They made camp in the same fashion as the previous night. Katie watched the orange-blue flames as they danced before her. Bahumaku stirred his wand in the boiling pot and tapped it on the rim when he was done. So into her own thoughts was she that Katie did not notice the silence.
“You haven’t said a word since yesterday. Are you all right?” Bahumaku confronted her. Katie looked up at her uncle, feeling confused. For a moment, she had forgotten that they were there.
“I was thinking.” Katie hesitated a moment, biting her bottom lip, and continued. “Is the dragon really so bad? I mean, the dream I had wasn’t bad.”
“The Great Dragon wants you to feel you can trust him. He comes to you with compassion. And when he has gained youh trust, he destroys you,” Bahumaku said softly.
“But I didn’t see the dragon in my dream. What if he wasn’t controlling it?” Katie said, trying to make sense of everything.
“The Great Dragon doesn’t control ouh dreams,” Bahumaku said. Katie looked into her uncle’s eyes. He went on. “The reason the Great Dragon and dreams are connected is this: In ordeh to stop the dragon, he has to be trapped within his own magic. The world is known as the Neverworld. It is the world of dreams.” Bahumaku slapped Chander’s hand away from the pot. “Don’t touch that.”
“And the dragon is stuck there?” Katie asked.
“Yes. Howeveh, he can reach out to people’s dreams. If that person succumbs to the dragon, he can transplant a part of his spirit into them. It’s shadow magic in its purest form. Only a powerful sorcerer could undo a spell like that.”
“Can the dragon ever be freed?” Katie asked.
“There are those who serve the dragon. As long as they exist, they will find a way to free him,” Bahumaku said in a stern voice. He gave Katie a firm look to make sure that she understood. Katie nodded but said nothing. Her uncle gave a smile.
Chander touched the rim of the pot repeatedly. Bahumaku glared at his brother and shook his head. “I really hope you burn yourself,” he said. Katie laughed silently at her uncles. The meal was ready shortly after. When they had eaten their fill, Chander and Bahumaku went off to bed. Katie stayed up watching the purplish-pink sky through the branches of the trees. The pale glow of the sun was soothing to her jumbled mind. She wondered how she could kill something she knew so very little about. And would it be worth it in the end?
The stars sparkled against the curtain of pink and purple light. When her eyes grew heavy, she, too, went off to bed.
Katie woke the next morning to the smell of smoke. She left her tent and at once began to cough. The smoke was everywhere. Waving the smoke away, Katie coughed her way to the fire. Chander stood at the center of the smoke holding something utterly charred.
“Breakfast is ready,” Chander said with a cough. Katie couldn’t help but laugh.
“That’s it. You’re not cooking anymore,” Bahumaku said harshly, coughing up balls of smoke. He whistled, flicking his wand in the air, and in an instant everything was packed. “Let’s get out of here before ouh backpacks burst into flames.”
“Bahumaku,” Chander said in a serious voice.
“I know,” the wizard answered.
“What?” Katie asked.
“We are being tracked,” Chander said in a low whisper. Katie was about to ask by what, but Chander forced her along. The three of them made their way hastily through the forest. The only sound was the crunching of violet leaves beneath their feet.
Buy Neverworld on Amazon now to see what happens next: https://www.amazon.com/Neverworld-Great-Dragon-M-Draklore-ebook/dp/B074HFN7VN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14T77S0FM3RPV&keywords=neverworld+the+great+dragon&qid=1656625739&sprefix=neverworld+the+great+dragon%2Caps%2C362&sr=8-1
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