Wings of Freedom

Chapter Three

My eyes flutter open and I take a deep breath. My head is pounding and the world is a little blurry. A couple of blinks later, my vision seems to work again. I immediately notice the change. My eyesight is much better and every little detail catches my eye.

Something to my right moves the slightest bit and I whip my head around in alarm, rising my haunches in the air and baring my teeth in a silent snarl. I blink in surprise as the dragon stares at me curiously.

Dragon is the only word I can think to use. It looks like I did when I checked the mirror, but with shining green scales instead of my red ones. It's underbelly is a barely noticeable lighter shade, something small but that would undoubtedly help it camouflage perfectly with the forest. It has no spots and it doesn't fade into any other colour besides the lighter green underneath.

I frown. Why do I have two colours? Am I the abnormality or is it the abnormality? I should really stop calling it an 'it'.

I slightly relax, remaining low to the ground as we both continue to examine each other. Our cages separate us, but that doesn't mean I'm going to completely let down my guard.

The dragon, I've decided it's a she, spreads her wings and twirls purposefully allowing me to see her completely. Her wings are narrow and long, built more for agility and speed than strength like mine. Her blue eyes urge me to twirl the same way.

Slowly, I unravel my wings and try to spread them evenly. They're light and it feels completely natural to use them like I've had them all my life. I glance back at the other dragon uneasily and cautiously twirl around in a circle, my wings scraping the edges of my tiny glass cage.

"Wow! They're so pretty!" The voice in my head causes me to spin around quickly and face the green dragon with wide eyes. I don't know how, but I know it was her. She's baring her teeth in, I'm assuming, a parody of a human grin. I watch her cautiously.

She tilts her head, "Think of what you want to say and try to mentally push it towards me. I should be able to hear you and then we can talk back and forth." I nod curiously and close my eyes to try and centre myself. Taking deep breaths, I think of my greeting and push it into the expanse of nothing in my mind.

"Hello? Are you there?" I ask hesitantly. Immediately I get a reply.

"Yeah! I'm right here." She exclaims happily. I open my eyes and stare at her excitedly. She fluffs out her wings and curls up on the floor, laying her head on her arm so she can still see me. I try to do that too, relishing in the sand under my claws and the heat lamp that shines down on me.

"So, what's your name?" She asks with a small tilt of her head. I think back through my fuzzy memory, slowly piecing everything together until I get to my name.

"Zara Bennet. Yours?" I faintly hear some doors slamming and cages clanging in the distance. I take a deep breath in awe of how my ears twitch in the exact direction of each sound. Who knew humans were so deaf?

"Alissa Callie." I'm broken out of my trance by Alissa's soft voice penetrating my thoughts. I look back up at her in admiration.

"That's a beautiful name," I say honestly, kind of jealous of her pretty name. I wish I had a name like that. She ducks her head bashfully.

"Thanks. I love your name too." She replies meekly. I let out a grateful trill and she responds with a happy chirp. I stare at her and listen as she goes into depth explaining everything that has happened from the beginning.

The oldest dragonets have been here for five years. Everyone here, which is around 106 dragonets, were studied for a long time before being kidnapped. When they woke up, each and every one of them was in a glass cage underneath a heat lamp.

Even though the scientists have been doing this for around seven years now, the chances of a dragonet surviving are very low and thus the scientists are careful to tend to us with care. They don't actually care, they just know their boss will have their heads if they hurt us.

She warns me to never show any level of intelligence above an animal's or I'll be put down. I have to convince them I'm just a mindless animal.

Alissa also tells me about the different mindlinks. There's a general one, where everyone can speak and access it, and then there are private ones. Private mindlinks are ones that you establish directly and that no one can access besides you and whoever you're contacting.

According to Alissa, you can tell another dragonets gender immediately based on colour. Gold, red and green dragonets are female while purple, silver and blue dragonets are male.

If you ask me, the males got the best colours. I mean, I would kill to be a silver or blue dragonet. Maybe even a pretty purple if it's real nice. According to Alissa, they're even more dazzling colours when they're on glimmering scales. I'm jealous, to say the least.

When I asked about the eggs that were in the cages around us, Alissa explained that we hatched from those eggs. When the eggs don't hatch in time, they're destroyed and the dead dragonets are left exposed. Hundreds of thousands have been kidnapped and killed in cold blood.

According to Alissa, they target people who won't be missed and, while it kind of hurts to admit, I fit in that description pretty well. I was taken on September 20 and it's supposedly January 15 today. I've been gone for 3 months and a few days.

I'm sure no one has even noticed.

Alissa explains that she had been here for around a month before I was brought in, meaning a new person wouldn't be kidnapped for at least a month or so.

Alissa and I keep talking for at least a couple hours and she introduces me to the others. A long while later, we both settle down and murmur, "Goodnight."