The Swamp of Death

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Friends go camping in a swamp and encounter a dragn that tells them their destiny. (The story is better than it sounds, I promise.)

The Swamp of Death

We were camping in the Swamp of Death. Not smart, right? We were bored, wanted to camp, but wanted to have an adventure while doing so. When I say we, I mean my (most of the time) friends and I.

Gabe, Kylie, David, Matt, Hannah, and me, Jezebel. We’ve camped a lot, but never here, in the Swamp of Death or anywhere like here. This place was just downright creepy.

Why we chose here, where there were rumors that dragons still roam, and there are elves and fairies that are helpful half the time? Rumors we knew to be true? We had no idea, except that we could tell there was something powerful pulling us to this place, to the certain spot of land we decided to camp on.

We camped on the only bare spot of land for miles, and we thought it was like that for a reason. We were right, but we had no idea back then.

“I guess we can consider ourselves lucky.” David said, so close to my ear that I jumped.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I told him “And, why?”

“Why what?” he joked.

“Don’t be stupid. Why are we lucky?” I asked again.

“Because we haven’t been eaten yet.” Gabe said, laughing like an idiot with Matt.

“Be serious.” I told them, annoyed.“What were you saying, David?”

“We’re lucky because we found this campsite.” David replied.

“Duh” Kylie and Hannah said together under their breath.

“But also because we haven’t been eaten yet.” David joked

“Oh, shut up.” I said, punching him lightly on the arm. “You boys are so ridiculous. You totally need to get out more.”

“Chill out guys. Now help me.” Kylie whined

“We all know you need help.”Gabe said quietly, which led to a burst of silent giggles.

“I need to find a stupid pixie! I need a new pet.” she said, as if she hadn’t heard them.

“They’re fairies. Pixies eat people. If the fairies had heard you say that, they’d call the dragons.” I told her, and, as if on cue, a jet of flame shot up in the air about a mile away. It was followed about seven more, each a little closer then the other. Seven, the unlucky number.

That was when everyone started to get scared. Hannah, Matt, and Kylie just stared, dumbfounded. It was up to us, Gabe, David, and I, as usual, to get us out of this mess. At least we were the sensible ones (no offence to Matt, Hannah, and Kylie).

Then we heard a loud, mighty, unearthly, roar, right behind us.

We turned around, startled, and what we saw showed us that our chances didn’t look too good.

What we saw was a dragon. Its hide was as blue as the ocean, and it's eyes looked just as deep. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and I know that the others felt the same way. We knew this was a female dragon because, when it spoke, it’s was as soft and flowing as water in a river.

The one thing we didn’t notice until later was that the dragon didn’t come from where the flames were shooting in the air. She came from the opposite side of the forest. We started screaming like crazy, even though we knew no one would be able to hear us.

The dragon shushed us and said “I came here not to harm you, but to request your help. My name is Lisakella”

“I’m Jezzie this is Kylie and David. They’re brother and sister. Those two are Matt and Hannah, they’re twins. And this stowaway is Gabe.” I said, gesturing. to each of them as I said their names. Gabe gave me a ‘look’, so I told him to get over himself.

Kylie, who was getting bored and wanted to get to the point, asked “Why are you here?” which was a question we were all wondering.

“I am here,” she replied kindly, “because when fate calls us, we must follow its path. Where that path leads, we know not now, but when our journey ends, if it ever shall end. All I know now is that you six are here for a reason, and I shall guess what that reason is. I believe you are here to help my kind, or at least the people of my kind whose hearts are true and pure.”

“And we should help you because. . .” Matt prompted her expectantly.

“Because all dragons will be in your dept. You would be stopping a war that has been going on for centuries. Might I add that this is a war that is slowly killing your race and ours? Must I go on?” she inquired.

“No, I really don't think that that's necessary.” I said tiredly.

“But I want to know why we're needed.”Hannah complained.

"You know, she does have a good point. Care to answer?" This last part was directed at the dragon.

"All in good time, young ones. I shall be sure to tell you everything once we embark on our journey." The dragon said.

And with that, we set off to our first destination, Dokonet, to find the weapons master, who goes by the name Frondolleo. Over many hills, across many rivers we traveled. Miles and miles of swamp.

Somewhere along the way, Lisakella told us what we had to do to help the dragons.

"You see," she said "There is an evil dragon controlling us, he believes he is our king. His name is Charismatic, yet he is anything but. He is evil and polluting all of our waters and food, not to mention killing all our trees, at a very alarming rate. You humans call it global warming, and you think that it is all your fault. But it isn't. It is all Charismatic and his minions. You must defeat Charismatic, but after that your job doesn't end. You must continue to help repair all of the king's damage. Oh, and you must only defeat Charismatic using swords. He is invulnerable to everything else" The dragon's story was met with an impenetrable silence. We were all very clearly shocked.

After that, we arrived at Dokonet, although it took much longer than any of us would have liked. Lisakella was going to find the krokrong (swordsmanship) master for us. We trained almost constantly for three days, yet we were still nowhere near as skilled as the master. We could only hope for the best, but we knew that we weren't likely to prevail.

We then went to get our swords. Each one was custom made, and each was strong enough to strike through a foot-thick wall of steel. They were fast enough to parry the quickest attacks. Flexible enough to never brake, no matter how far they bend. But they were only like that if we were. The swords were only as good as their owners. Their powers could not surpass our own. And that's when I just KNEW that we were in trouble.

Each sword contained a different power, a power that no one, not even the sword maker, knew what they were. When they needed them most, the powers would reveal themselves. Each sword was a different color. David’s was a brilliant, fiery red, and his sister, Kylie’s, was a radiant, dark, ocean blue. Matt had a vivid, colorful orange color, and Hannah, his twin, had a sparkly, pinkish color like the inside of a lobster's shell. My sword was a cool, icy blue, kind of like me, so I guess that was pretty accurate. Gabe’s sword was colored in the strangest way, like when the light reflected off of it, it was a rainbow of colors.

Now that I think about it, the colors of our sword kind of reflected all of our personalities. David was fiery, Kylie was deep when she tried to be, Matt was focused (vivid) and was a colorful type of person. Hannah had a happy, bubbly, girly personality, hence the pink and sparkles. I was always cool and calculating, and no one could ever quite discover what Gabe was thinking and he had many different personalities. Anyway, back to the story.

We tested our swords out for a little bit and then started our search for the dragon king that was causing the planet Earth to die.

We found Charismatic in a cave on the Peak of Dead Magic Mountain. We fought him there, in that cave. We knew we didn't have even a chance of hope. We just didn't have the skill and grace needed to wield the sword, nor had we had the time to acquire those things. The swords knew this, somehow, and their powers kicked in. They gave each one of use remarkable sword moves. These moves were things that had been forgotten millions of years ago. The swords also revealed the powers that each individual one contained. Once we had unleashed some of out kick-butt sword moves, of course. We each had a different power. David: Fire, Kylie: Water, Matt: Air, Hannah: Earth, Me: Ice, and the most powerful, not to mention the most likely to prevail, Gabe: Pure Power. We had always known Gabe was special, but everyone had refused to believe it up until that point.

Only if we combined our powers, we would win the battle to the death, this fight to the finish, this final battle. With all of these elements and power used together, Charismatic started to lose his invulnerability. And then he fell and was conquered. We never knew who landed the final blow, but I believe that it was Gabe, and I think that the others do, too.

But we still had work to do. We had to revive the planet. But that was a project for tomorrow. At that moment, it was time for a victory celebration. The friends and dragons partied well into the night.

And at that point I woke up to see my friends staring at me.

“What?” I asked, curiously.

“Did you just have another nightmare?” David asked, worried.

“Whyy . . . ?” I inquired suspiciously.

“Because you look really pale and you were talking in your sleep. Will you tell us about it?” Gabe asked, and then he asked “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Like what?” I said.

“Like I’m an alien.” He replied.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out in the future.” I said, and then added as an afterthought, “At least, I think so.”

"Oh, get on with the story already!" Hannah demanded impatiently.

And so I told them the whole story. Well, almost. There’s one thing I left out. I wasn’t telling anyone about Gabe’s power. I replaced it with lava. I mean, there's no reason that they would need to know that, is there?

And I know you're wondering "If it was all a dream why would they find out in the future?" The answer would be because all my dreams are psychic. They either told a story of the past or the future. The only problem? I could never tell the difference between the two.

Submitted: June 08, 2010

Flash Fiction death destiny swamp dragons the swamp of death