Dragon Skin

Chapter 2: "Noticed"

Chapter 2: "Noticed"

The next morning, I carefully stepped out of my home. If someone watched me, they would probably think that I was going insane. Hell, I kind of thought that I was going crazy as I desperately searched the sky for the dragon from yesterday. Once I finally calmed down last night, I realized that running straight home was probably the worst idea possible. What if the dragon followed me home to kill my entire family? That thought kept me up all night staring at the ceiling in fear that the monster would rip the roof off to eat us.

Sighing, I stopped my paranoid search to begin my trek to school. For not the first time, I wondered if I imagined the events from yesterday. It could have just been a random panic attack. Maybe the forest had weird mushrooms releasing toxins or something. Those ideas made a lot more sense than the thought that an actual dragon had appeared and was my classmate. Such simpler theories would also keep the people around me from thinking that I've lost my mind. Last night at dinner, my parents were already concerned about me.

"Are you okay, Eli?"

I looked up from my plate to see the worried face of my mother across the wooden table. The beginning of her age had just began to show on her soft features. People always told her that she could hide the results of time with a bit more makeup, but Mom was a rather simple woman. Her light brown hair was pulled up into a tight bun. Similar shaded eyes gleamed with care.

"Yeah, Mom."

"You sure?" my father peered at me through his thick glasses with his blue eyes narrowed. His trimmed hairline had more gray than his old blonde in it at this point. The squared jaw which I shared had the lightest of hair stumble dancing across it. Like always, he seemed tired but refused to let his fatigue overcome him at home. "You look sick."

A quick glance to the dining room mirror which hung above the wooden floor showed that he was right. My slicked back blonde hair had the gross shine of dried sweat. The face which I shared with my father was unnaturally pale. Heavy bags hung under my azure eyes. I looked every bit as sick as I felt.

"A girl rejected him," Mom mentioned.

"Mom!" shame surged through my chest. I felt bad enough that I lied to my mother, but I now had to expand on it with Dad.

"Oh."

"Don't 'oh,' Carl. Say something to make him feel better."

"What exactly am I supposed to say, Sharon? Nothing I can say will make him feel better. Did you really like her, bud?"

Really like Rebecca? Not really. She was good looking if you could actually see her face with her constantly looking down her nose at people, "Err, I guess."

"Well, some things aren't meant to be," Dad mentioned. "You're going to find a bunch of girls that won't give you the time of day. Eventually, you'll find someone you click with well enough. Like your mother and I."

"Oh gee, hon," Mom's voice was laced with amusement. "We click well enough, huh? That has to be the most romantic words ever said."

"Do you want me to comfort my son, or do you want me to woo you? I can't do both at the same time," Dad smirked. "I can bring out my moves after dinner if you want."

Mom giggled, "And what moves are those?"

"Oh, you know…"

"Oh God," I placed my face in my hands. "Surprisingly enough, this is not making me feel better."

Dad's eyes sparked at the opportunity, "You don't want to hear about a potential younger sibling? You always said that you wanted a little brother."

I had a mental block on the rest of the meal. While the talk with my parents did get my mind off the whole dragon thing for a few minutes, it might have left a few other scars in my brain. Fortunately, they did believe the fake girl rejection story, perhaps a bit too well for my pride. I had to wonder what they would think if I told them the truth. They would probably believe that I remember a magical dragon in the woods but would try to convince me that it was a dream. Hell at this point, I wanted it to be a dream too.

"Hey!" an arm swung around my shoulder. "You get that homework done?"

I looked over to see my friend. Axel Burger stood a solid head higher than my short self. His blonde hair was buzzed close to his skull. While my face had a few zits, his forehead was littered with craters. The natural athlete tried everything to eliminate the imperfections, but the only option which cleared his face for a few weeks was not training in one of his numerous sports. He refused to slow down his work ethic though, so his rounder face seemed permanently covered in zits until the pains of puberty came to an end.

"I did," I smiled at the man who I called Burg. "Thanks for sending pictures of the textbook pages. I would have been sunk if you didn't."

"No problem, my man," Burg shook me a bit. "I was concerned though. You never lose your stuff. I thought that I would have to cut off your arms to get that bag away from you. What happened?"

"I, uh, panicked and left them behind."

"Panicked? What happened?"

I decided to try to be consistent with my lie, "A girl I liked shot me down."

"Wait!" Burg stopped. He removed his arm from my shoulder to jump in front of me. "You liked a girl enough to ask her out? Why am I just finding out about this now?"

"I didn't want to jinx it," I sighed before slinking around my friend to continue my walk to school. "Doesn't matter now. I don't want to talk about it. Let's drop it."

"Damn, the rejection must have been absolutely brutal," Burg let out a low whistle. "Do you mind if I ask who it was?"

I gritted my teeth to push down the strange bubbling rage in my stomach. Seeing the school come into my vision, I sighed, "Not right now, okay? I'll be sure to tell you later when I feel better about it."

Burg shrugged, "Hey, I can understand that. If you ain't up to it—Woah!"

My friend's shout of surprise made me stop my walking. Turning away from the school, my eyes were blinded for a brief moment by a flash of silver. A grunt escaped my lips as something was shoved into my chest. When my vision cleared, I saw the face of Rebecca glaring at me. Up close, I could see every gentle curve of her face. Her mismatched eyes shined in the morning sun. Like always, she appeared like a perfect beauty carved out of stone.

"You left this behind," she hissed in my ear. "Be careful what you say and do. Keep your head down until after school, then we are going to have a long talk."

Without waiting for my response, Rebecca marched away. Her strange holy halo of silver hair whipped around her with each step. Once the girl was far enough away, Burg leaned in close, "Wait. Rebecca Silverback? You seriously asked her out? I mean, she's hot, but you always look pissed off whenever she gets snooty. How did this all happen?"

"It just did," I looked down to the backpack that had just been returned to me. A quick glance inside showed that everything was still safe. "Let's just say I got caught up in a strange moment."

"Well, she seemed pretty intense. What did she say?"

"She said not to tell anyone."

"Then keep your mouth shut. She's got the money to make us disappear if she wants to." Burg's words were said jokingly, but my gut churned at the truth in his statement.

"That's what I'm worried about."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

School sucked even more than usual. The boring pointlessness of my classes was only intensified by the seriousness of my situation. Luckily, I did have my homework done thanks to Burg, otherwise the whole day would have been unbearable. Everyone including the teachers left me alone as usual. I was never more thankful for being ignored because I would probably try to snap someone's head off if they pressed on my exposed nerves.

The day crawled along as slowly as possible. I tried to distract myself by doodling in my recently returned notebooks. Normally, this would have calmed me, but little notes by my drawings made my mood grow even worse. The criticism of my work was written in perfect, swirling handwriting. Rebecca obviously thought that my drawings of elves were inaccurate and that the cat person that I designed didn't actually exist.

Ready to pull my hair out, I turned my gaze across the room to glare at the young woman, err, dragon to find her staring at me. Curiosity danced across her face. My rage deflated slightly upon seeing such strange interest directed at me. Huffing, I turned my eyes to the clock to watch the time slowly tick away. How come she got to look at me like that? She was the secret dragon. I should be the one gawking in awe at her.

After a full day of slugging through the dread, the final bell rung. I exhaustedly dragged myself to my locker. As I pulled out the books I needed, my locker neighbor stepped beside me. He smiled down at me with perfect teeth. And perfect hair. And a perfect face. Just perfect, "Hey, Eli. Can I ask for a favor?"

I sighed, "Um, I'm kind of really busy today, Jason."

"Please," Jason pressed his hands together in mock prayer. "I really need some help with my homework. We've got a game tomorrow, and coach is really pushing us hard. I don't have time, and you're a really smart guy."

Annoyance racked across my mind, "I can't."

"Oh come on! The school needs you! I'll be benched if I turn my work in late again."

"Ugh…fine. What classes do you—"

"These!" Jason stuffed a list into my hands. "Thanks in advance!"

I watched him rush away. He intercepted an approaching Burg. Jason grabbed onto the other basketball player to drag him away despite Burg's protests. Considering that they had practice in a few minutes, Jason eventually forced him to relent. When they were out of sight in the sea of people traversing through the hallways, I went to turn back to my locker only for it to be slammed shut.

"You're a real pushover, huh?" Rebecca slid in front of me.

I groaned, "Yeah. Whatever. I don't want to cause controversy."

"Well, it's not my problem," Rebecca grabbed my arm to begin pulling me to the exit. I didn't argue with her aggressiveness until she began to pull me away from the school.

"Hey," I yanked my arm free. "I get that you don't want to do this where other people can hear, but I'm not dumb enough to get pulled out to a place with no witnesses."

Rebecca glared at me. I was suddenly reminded of her massive dragon form towering over me. Despite my heartbeat increasing, I refused to relent. She sighed, "So you're not a complete pushover. That's good. Fine. I know a good place."

We made our way to a bench on the far end of the track field. While we were out in the open for others to see, we were at a good distance to avoid being overheard. Sitting on the bench, I watched the students in the distance go about their business. Rebecca leaned against the side of the bench. Her arms crossed over the front of her furry white coat. The wind caused her knee length black skirt to wave slightly over her smooth legs.

I was the one to speak first, "Thanks for bringing my bag back to me."

She looked at me in surprise, "You're welcome, I guess. It's not a big deal. Did you expect me just to keep your stuff?"

"You did look through it all," I mentioned.

Rebecca frowned, "You learned my biggest secret. I thought that it was fair that I look through your private thoughts. You're a huge nerd, you know. All those magical creatures and science equations were super boring. Some of it was inaccurate too."

"I'm sorry that my private notebooks aren't juicy enough for you," I muttered bitterly.

"But you were surprisingly close, though," Rebecca flicked her hair over her shoulder. "You humans are often narrow minded. It's either pure science or complete spirituality for you. None of you ever notices that both sides work together."

"So you're admitting that yesterday wasn't just me going nuts," I released a breath. "You're a dragon."

"Yes," Rebecca nodded. "While there's not a whole lot of us, there are enough. We hide ourselves as humans to keep watch and interact with you without the risk of you deciding to hunt us…again."

"Geeze," I shook my head. "How—Wait. Is all this stuff like 'I have to kill you if I tell you' type of information?"

"Pretty much."

"Then I definitely don't want to know," I clenched my fists. "Look, I'm not going to say anything to anyone about what I saw. Not that they would believe me anyway. I just want to forget about what happened yesterday. Don't worry, I'll stay as far away from that forest as possible."

"Well, I figured that much," Rebecca bit her lip. "I'm not going to tell my dad about this or anything. It would somehow end up being my fault anyway because I couldn't bring myself to kill you on the spot. By my family's standards, I'm pretty soft on the puny little humans."

I snorted, "Soft? You talk like we're bugs."

"You pretty much are to us," Rebecca hissed. "You're like mosquitos. Despite being so insignificant, you somehow end up killing us with your stupidity."

"Yet you didn't squash me," I argued.

"Like I said, I'm soft," Rebecca blushed slightly in embarrassment. "I do want to let this all go, but I have to know something. How did you get in there?"

"The forest?" I blinked. "By walking."

"From which direction?"

"Um, straight from the rear exit of the school."

"I thought so," Rebecca shook her head. "I checked the barrier in that spot. Nothing was off there, yet you could enter. How?"

I snorted, "How would I know?"

"Hmm," Rebecca eyed my back pack. "You're surprisingly perceptive. You might be an oddity that can see what others can't. When did you come up with that stuff in your notebooks?"

I rubbed my forehead in thought, "Err, this year."

"I see. Most humans close their eyes to magic as they grow older," Rebecca pushed off the bench. "There's a chance that this might not be your limit. You could start to see more than us dragons."

"There's more?"

"A lot more," Rebecca gave me a hardened gaze. "You seem like a nice enough little pushover, so I don't really want you to get killed. Just ignore anything weird you might see, and you'll be fine. Make sure not to let anyone see your notes either, or the elders might notice you."

"Ignore it?" I frowned. "If there are dragons, elves, and ogres or something going around, how am I supposed to ignore it?"

"It's either that or die," Rebecca shrugged.

I looked away in fear.

"I thought so," Rebecca turned away from me. "I won't come talk to you again. Be careful, Eli. We live in a harsher world than you know."

The dragon girl began to walk away from me. I watched her leave for a bit before turning back to the school. Some of the students gained a strange shimmer around them as their ears extended or their skins changed color. Some of the birds in the sky transformed to look almost humanoid. Hissing, I smacked myself across the head before looking down to the dirt. Ignoring all this weirdness was going to be impossible.