"Are you okay?" Luca placed a hand on my back, "you look like you're about to faint."

I felt like I was about to faint, but we did not have time for that.

"You need to hide," I said. She looked confused as I said this.

"The basement, Emily, get everyone to the basement," I said. I grabbed her shoulders firmly and forced her to look at me, "do you understand. You go to the basement and you do not come out until I get you."

"Wait, where are you going?" her eyes were wide and I could tell how scared she was.

"I need to get Luisa," I said, "she doesn't live too far from here. I'm going to get her and come back."

"N-no don't leave!" she grabbed onto me, desperately, and broke down in tears.

"I'll be right back. I promise," I tried smiling so she could feel better but the smile was forced and ineffective.

I then pushed her towards Luca, "Take them to the basement! Now!"

Emily was wiping away the tears and Luca had to put an arm around her to keep her steady. He looked up and we made eye contact.

I nodded my head.

He nodded back and then focused on Emily, "take us there, Emily. We're counting on you."

I ran out of the building and looked around. Chaos. The museum was located downtown. Cars were being abandoned and people were running frantically down the street. 

I looked at the sky. The dragon was not that close to us just yet. The street and sidewalk was too crowded and I would never make it to her place in time on foot.

What I did next was something that I never thought I would ever do in public.

I climbed on top of one of the cars that was abandoned and stood on top of the roof of the car.

I breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. I leaned forward and willed all my energy to go to my back.

I screamed out in pain as my bones started shifting and growing. I felt my eye sight waver and for a split second, I thought I would pass out and fall off the car.

Other people around me also started screaming as they saw me.

"Dragon!" one of them screamed. 

 I did not know what I was until puberty. I always knew I was different, but to what extent? I thought I was an early bloomer, and to humans, I guess I was. I was taller and stronger than my peers. My foster mother took me to a doctor who told her that these things can happen, and nothing was wrong with me. This made her feel better, hearing what she wanted to hear through a doctor's mouth. It was not until I was twelve when I realized exactly how I was different.

I remember the day clearly. I was about to go to a soccer game with my friends. Emily liked a guy named Franklin who also played soccer.

"Thanks again for coming," Emily said.

"Yeah! Of course, Em!" Luisa said. She was almost like the leader of our little group. Emily was the shy introvert and Luisa was the loud extrovert. I found my way in the middle, as always it seemed.

We were walking towards soccer field 8.

"Franklin said they are rivals and it should be a good game," Emily said, "he also said that he would like it if I came to support him."

She was blushing again.

"Ah, he also said that his friends think that you guys are cute," Emily said, "and that we should all hang out after the game. Will that be okay with your parents?"

"I can text them," I said.

"How about you, Sa?" Emily asked.

"My parents don't care," Luisa shrugged.

Emily smiled, "I'm so excited."

The three of us were almost to the field. We knew where it was since we had played there before. The three of us played on the same soccer team. It was called "Storm". I was a striker, Emily was a midfielder, and Luisa was a defender.

"They're about to start!" Emily started walking faster towards the stands.

"Em, calm down, I don't wanna run," Luisa exaggerated her voice.

I laughed at the situation and started walking faster to follow Emily.

"Not you, too. Come back! Elise!" Luisa must have been serious since she used my full name. Usually they called me Eli.

After the game, we went to eat pizza at a local pizza joint. Franklin brought two of his friends, to keep the boy girl ratio even.

I only went for Emily's sake. Even the tallest of Franklin's friends was just barely the same height as me. I could tell that he was not that into me, either, but he was polite, so I continued to talk to him. Franklin and Emily had moved to have their own booth. When they did this, Luisa made eye contact with me and wiggled her eyebrows.

"When did you start playing?" Warren, the boy that was supposed to be my match, asked me.

I turned my attention back to him, "when I was six. You?"

"Five."

We ran out of things to talk about, so I decided to compliment him on his performance during the game.

"You think," he liked the compliment.

"Yeah, they would not have made that goal without your assist," I smiled.

"Gee, thanks, Eli," he scratched the back of his neck and I could see the tip of his ears turning red, "that's nice of you to say."

"Here you go, kids," the man brought out our pizza.

"It looks good!" Luisa said.

It did not look good to me. The smell started to nauseate me. I liked pizza, why did it make me react negatively? I put my hand over my nose and asked Warren to move. He asked if I was okay but stood up, away from the booth. I was not able to reply since as soon as he moved, I ran to the bathroom. It was only a single restroom, so I was able to lock the door behind me. I heaved over the toilet, but nothing came out.

"Eli are you okay?" it was Emily.

"You looked pale," that was Luisa.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." I was not fine. My heart beat was faster than it was ever before. My skin felt sweaty. I touched my forehead and it was burning.

"I think. I think I need to go home," my words felt weak.

"Do you need me to call your mom?" that was Luisa.

"Yes. Call her." My vision was starting to get blurry. It felt like the world was spinning. I looked down at my hands and realized I was now hallucinating. It looked like something was moving under my skin. The movement under my skin was like ripples going through water.

I stood slowly from the toilet, but my body felt like it was made from lead. I opened the door in time for my friends to watch me faint.

I thought that maybe the hallucination was just that, a hallucination. Then something happened the next time I received my period. It was irregular and came about five months after my first period. I did not get as sick as I did the first time, but I still felt hot and sticky with sweat.

My foster parents wanted to go to a family barbeque, but I told them I was not feeling well and wished to stay home. At first, my foster mom wanted to stay with me, but I told her all I needed was to stay in bed and I would be fine. She reluctantly left.

I was thankful for this until I heard footsteps walking up to the house. At first, I was wondering how I could hear that since my bedroom was on the second floor of the house. Then I felt like this person was dangerous. It was like something in the back of my mind was telling me to run.

The person pounded on the door. I knew not to answer it, but it did not help my curiosity. I looked through the window of my room. It was a young man, he looked around twenty-five.

"I know you're in there. Your scent gives you up," the man said. Again, I was amazed that I was able to hear him. He was not shouting, either. It was like he knew that I could hear him with his normal tone.

"You don't have to let me in. I can let myself in," he then kicked down the door. I wanted to scream but covered my mouth with my hand. I started crying silent tears and ran to my closet. I know now that my efforts were pointless as all the man needed to do was follow my scent.

"You're all alone. Aren't you? I don't smell another man's scent here. Well, I mean I smell a human male's scent and a human female's scent. But yours is different from theirs," he was now walking up the stairs. I could hear him pause as he was probably looking at her family pictures.

"They raised you? Humans? Oh, poor child. You probably don't even know what you are," he continued walking up the stairs, "you don't even know what you're going through right now."

"Do you want me to tell you?" he said, "do you want me to show you."

He opened my bedroom door.

"Please come out of there, dear. I do not feel like dragging you out," he said.

Even if I wanted to move, I was frozen in fear.

I had both hands over my mouth and could feel my tears rolling over my fingers.

"You don't have to be afraid," he said.

I could tell that he was lying.

He opened the closet door and I looked up at him.

He was a handsome man with dark curly brown hair and light green eyes. He smiled and his teeth were perfectly straight.

"Do you know why I am here?" he asked.

I continued to stare at him with wide eyes.

"When a female from our species goes into heat, they emit a certain smell that tells the other males in our species that she is ready to reproduce. You're giving off that scent right now," he inhaled deeply through his nose, "it smells really sweet."

I did not say anything.

"I was driving by when I smelled it. I nearly caused an accident," he chuckled to himself.

"What are you?" my voice was small.

His lips turned up in a smirk, "what am I?"

He raised his right arm and pulled down his jacket sleeve, "I, my dear, am a dragon."

Scales started appearing. They were mud brown and looked rough. I stood from the closet and took a baby step closer to him. But as soon as I was put in a trance, I snapped out of it and backed away.

"You know, I could teach you, I could protect you. You should be lucky that I was the one who caught your scent and not some kind of monster," he chuckled.

"No," again my voice was weak, but I was slowly finding my confidence.

"No?" he raised an eyebrow, "why not?"

"I don't need you," my voice was getting stronger.

His chuckle turned more into a hysteric laugh, "you don't? Oh, darling, I was being nice. If you want, I could just mark you by force."

"Mark...me?"

"You don't even know what marking is," more hysteric laughter followed. He took a step forward, "you're so pretty, and soon you'll be mine." He launched forward and attempted to grab me, but I was able to dodge him in time.

"Leave me alone!" I screamed.

"Or what?" his eyes were now bright green snake eyes, "are you going to fight me off? You don't even know who you are."

"Correction.You don't know who I am," I did not know where this courage was coming from, but I raised my own right hand and willed for the scales to come. I wanted to show him that I was stronger than he thought I was.

Hot. My skin was hot. Burning. It felt like someone stuck my arm into a pot of boiling water. I wanted to scream and cry out, but I did not want to give him that satisfaction. I breathed out heavily as if I was running a marathon and my skin was drenched as if I was sitting in a sauna.

He stood there watching me with a smile on his face.

"It hurts. Doesn't it? Transforming for the first time is quite difficult," he was smiling, and I could see that his teeth were pointier than they used to be.

I did not answer him. I could not give him that satisfaction.

"C'mon. You can do it," now he was egging me on. He sat down on my bed and watched me with that smirk on his face.

My vision started to blur, and I felt dizzy.

Please. Please come.

"You know, we didn't always hide. There was a time when we dominated the humans," he was speaking but his voice sounded as if he was under water. What was happening to me?

Please come.

"We used to burn down their villages. For fun," he continued saying, "how are you doing, dear?"

It hurts.

"Kings used to send their knights to defeat us, but in reality, they just sent us snacks," he said, "I would be surprised if you actually did it. I wasn't able to do it until –"

I did it. Sleek black scales appeared from my fingertips to the curve of my elbow. My nails sharpened and were black. My face lit up as I could not contain my excitement.

"....Black scales...."

"What's wrong?" I asked. It was my turn to smile.

"The only one who had black scales was...but...he died. There's no way. He didn't have offspring," he started backing away from me.

"Who had black scales?" I took a step forward, but he took another step back. He was going in the direction of the window.

In the distance, I could hear the sound of police sirens. The house had a security system so the moment he kicked down the door, the police were notified.

He turned around and started running towards the window.

"Hey!" I chased after him, "tell me who had black scales!" I dove after him, but he had already crashed through the window. I looked after him and saw him run on the roof as wings sprouted from his back. He then jumped off the roof and flew away.

After that incident happened, my parents insisted that we move houses, they were scared that he would come back. I did not tell them about the whole dragon thing. I kept that to myself. It was not like we moved cities, but we did move to a different side of the city. They also enrolled me in self-defense classes. It turned out I was good at fighting and I asked them to put me in more fighting-like sports. I stayed in soccer so I could keep in touch with my friends, but I really enjoyed sports like wrestling and ju-jitsu. When I was fifteen, I started training in mixed martial arts, as well. 

When it came to college, I ended up going to a school with a good bio-medical degree program. On breaks when I would come home, I would go back to the gym to practice mma so I would not lose those skills.

I took my MCAT and received a pretty good score. I had many interviews and eventually decided on pursuing my studies at a school that was not too far from my home. It was only a three hour drive away.

I did everything I could to distract myself. I worked really hard in my studies and my sports. I did not encounter another male dragon like I did that day. There was also nothing I could do to stop my heats. I had to treat it like a period and track it. Thankfully, it only happened twice a year, every six months. When I was close to the date, I could not leave my room for the day.

Those days were scary as I was scared that a male dragon would show up at any moment. It was hard to distinguish who was human and who was a dragon.

Those days were scary, but this day was much scarier.

I had only flown two other times.

After encountering that male dragon, I experimented with how far I could go with the scales. That year I was able to get my chest and arms. The following year I was able to also do my lower body. Every time I tried my face, the pain was too much to bear and I stopped. My facial bone structure would change and that in itself caused too much pain.

The day I turned eighteen, I told myself "f*ck it" and transformed my whole body. I went out hiking during a time that I believed no one would be there. I had my water, some snacks and an extra set of clothes and walked deep into the forest.

The pain I felt that day was so painful that in the moment I decided death would be better. At first, wings were being stubborn and did not wait to pierce my skin.

When they did, I think I passed out.