“WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU REMEMBER?” The woman asked.

“The woods, a canopy of leaves, a green glow all around me, birds chatting merrily…” Reminisced the young man sitting across from her.

“That’s a bit more eloquent than I expected, especially from a sixteen year old.” The woman sitting across from him laughed.

“I suppose so, but one can hardly lapse back into simplicity when they’ve had so much of an experience in their life,” remarked the young man, reclining in his chair.
“What sort of an experience would that be?” Inquired the woman

“Allow me but an hour, and I’ll recount it to you.”

I always loved the woods, and would often spend hours there, alone with nothing but a pocket knife and a carved walking stick, but one day the woods took on a whole new meaning to me.

It was the day that I turned fifteen, and I was walking through the woods when I made a discovery. On the ground in front of me was a large paw print, similar to that of a cat or dog, and yet altogether different. For one, this print was so extremely large that it seemed to belong to a beast the size of an elephant. For another, there were large triangular impressions at the front of each toe, as if this beast had enormous claws each as long as a carving knife.

This find greatly excited me and I at once set of deeper into the woods searching for this great beast, I did not find it that day, but I knew I would, and that when I did I would not be disappointed.

“I trodded along for many hours, losing the trail now and then, but somehow stumbled back upon it. I eventually found myself in a wood I’d never been in before, and that I had not a single clue of where I was. It was then that really looked around, and was amazed by what I saw, dark oaks, towering hundreds of feet off the ground, massive rock formations, with vibrant reds and burning blues. A moss like substance grew pink and white striped flowers, which held more petals than I could count.”

His mind seemed to have been set free from the dimly lit concrete room, away from the strife and suffering of this world, moved to the one of his own

”And you weren’t startled?”

The young man let out a laugh, “You couldn’t be afraid if you wanted to, the land is so beautiful that it simply takes your breath away. it was a kind of land that you dreamed of, a lush rolling landscape , youcould felt, well, you felt as if you were finally home.

“So then what happened?”

His face grew grim, “Then it all started to burn.”

The young man's hands tightened in his lap as he regaled the tale to the nurse standing at his bedside. The wood had been beautiful, plucked straight from the myths, a verdant expanse of tall, dark oaks and soft, mossy outcrops peppered with many-petaled blooming orchids with their soft, alternating blushing petals. He imaged, in a bout of boyish joy, clambering up the trees barefoot and surveying the forest from his vantage point high up above the trees, landing in a soft bed of green and pink and cream. He stood, bathed in chartreuse light, the sun's warmth peeking through the leaves, and saw, dangling from on high, golden fruits and ochre nuts strung onto leaves high above him.

He remembered faintly, sinking to his knees beside a veritable puddle of fresh, clean water, cradled in a dish of rock and moss, and drinking deeply, perfumed with the sweet scent of flowers and rain. He remembers closing his eyes, and the heat rising beyond comfort.

He remembers opening his eyes to fire. Flames ate their way through the trees, crackling angrily upon meeting the greenery at his feet, but not slowing, chasing him out and up into the trees. He looked up, and the sky was covered in a blackened haze, the sun replaced by a single eye, gleaming and purple like an amethyst, bathing him in the light of dawn. The fire remained, eating its way up the tree he had perched on, licking at the naked soles of his feet. He had to move. But where?

All was fire and ash, and the only way was...down.

He braced his head behind his arms and dove.

He landed in an entirely new place, dragon still in pursuit.