Levi walked up to him and pulled him in close for an embrace. “If it gets too much for you, you can always come back to Ridgeshire, we can fight on the same front, okay?”
“Sure,” Axle replied, chuckling. “Now get out of here. I’ll keep in touch.”
He watched as the dragons turned and made their way out of the caves, running faster than any human would ever be able to. They had to return to Ridgeshire and help stop the demons that were still terrorizing the area.
Axle turned to the woman, still unconscious on the floor. He took another look at her face, smiled, and picked her up.
“Let’s get you home.”
Chapter 1 -Natalie
Natalie woke with a start, sitting upright as she realized she was still in trouble. She looked around, trying to find the monsters she had seen at the dig site, but all she could see was her own bedroom. She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She looked down at her body and saw that she was still in her pajamas, and noted that she was on the floor beside her bed.
“What the hell?” she said out loud, out of breath.
She got to her feet quickly and rushed to the window, looking out to see her car still parked in the driveway. She looked at the clock on the side of her bed and saw that it was late evening. Nat fell back to her bed, shaking her head over and over again. There was no way she had slept all the way till five pm. She was a heavy sleeper, but she had several alarms that got her up.
“I left…” she whispered to herself, looking down at her pajamas again.
She could recall everything that had happened clearly, waking up early so she could take a shower and make the drive. She remembered stopping by the office before making her way down to the site.
Nat quickly reached for her phone and began scrolling through. As she did, she felt a sharp pain in her head and she reached up to touch it.
Using the front camera as a reflective surface, Nat could see the small cut on the side of her forehead from where she had banged her head. As she touched the injury, she recalled how she got it. The monsters were fighting, and then there had been a blast, or something had exploded.
Nat remembered flying through the air and bumping her head against a rock. That was what had knocked her out, and then she had woken up in her home.
Her phone dropped from her hand as she realized what that meant. She began to tremble, turning around to look at the entire room. She scanned it quickly and then made her way to the bathroom, breathing heavily.
When she saw that the bathroom was empty, she turned and checked the rest of the house as well, making sure she was alone. She checked the door and saw that it was still locked from the inside. She touched the bolt and tried to make sense of it. If someone had come in, how had they locked it when they left?
It was clear that the monsters knew exactly who she was, and they had returned her to her home and changed her clothes, so she would think that she hadn’t left the house. But the feeble attempt didn’t work, and Nat knew she had stumbled on to something. She rushed back to the bedroom and grabbed her phone, quickly dialing Eric Swalwell.
“Eric!” she almost yelled into the phone. “Eric, are you still at the office?”
“Who is this?” the man asked.
“It’s me, are you at the office?”
“Me who?” Eric asked.
“Me!” Nat said, panicking. “Nat! I need to know if you’ve gone to the dig site.”
“Ma’am, I have no idea who you are, or why you have that privileged information, but I will have to make a repo—”
“Eric! What are you saying? Natalie Clements! Me! We were out by the canyons digging just a few days ago, what’s wrong with you?”
There was a palpable silence for a moment, making Nat wonder if Eric had really forgotten who she was. Had the monsters done something to make people forget her? The silence felt electric but was cut short by a sniffle, followed by a restrained chuckle from Eric.
“Jesus you fuckin’…Eric!”
The man laughed. “Woah, what the hell, Nat? Oh my God, why do you sound so…what, did you think you’d been total recalled?”
“What? That’s not even the right movie, and why would you do that? Forget it, forget it. Did I come into the office this morning?” Nat asked.
“Yeah, did you forget something?”
“No, but you saw me, right? I didn’t call?” Nat asked, not hiding the terror in her voice.