The events of the clearing left David's mind. He didn't think about them. The questions he had did not keep him awake at night. The words he had overhead held no weight to him. 

After all, the world itself didn't seem to care. The trees grew. The flowers bloomed. 

Life continued. 

But a few years later, in the middle of the night, the world caught up with itself.

David's father picked him up out of bed. The movement woke David up. It had been so long since either of his parents had picked him up, that David thought he was falling. 

He squinted in the darkness. His father's eyes were glowing emerald green, and they reminded David of the stranger who used to visit. 

His father's eyes didn't have pupils or whites. They were just a solid emerald green. 

"Daddy..." David's voice broke the silence. His father didn't respond. 

Jeremy Delmer didn't even react to his son's voice. 

"We have to go, Rachel," Jeremy said after entering the hallway. His voice was solid, filled with urgency but no fear. David thought he could have pulled the words out of the air. 

Closer to the house's entrance, David's mother fumbled with a candle, as if she wanted to light it. At her husband's words, she looked up. The shadows made her face look sunken and pale.

She abandoned the candle, as Jeremy approached the door. She mumbled something David couldn't hear, and then pushed the door to the house open. 

Once outside, Jeremy Delmer knelt down, letting David stand. David grabbed his father's scales. "Daddy..."

Again Jeremy did not react to his son's voice. 

A scream in the distance made David's heart jump. David jerked his head to stare into the forest. His father stood up, forcing David to release his grip. 

Rachel Delmer's eyes widened. "That one was closer." 

"David, run," His father said. 

Rachel started running first. Jeremy pushed David forward. The child hesitated before following his mother. 

Jeremy followed behind. 

The Delmer family raced through the woods. The trees filtered the moonlight. Squinting as his eyes adjusted, David jumped over fallen branches he'd noticed just days before. They were branches that seemed like they were placed to be obstacles. 

He had made that comment to Tucker. Tucker had laughed while watching David practice jumping over them. 

In the moonlight, David could see that his mother was wearing her scales in pants, but her scales had torn. Why didn't her scales fix themselves? Wounds had to heal, but scales were just clothing. Scales could be repaired.

Another scream echoed in the forest. David's eyes widened. He couldn't help that he slowed down.

"Keep running." Jeremy's hand on David's back forced him forward. 

"What about Tucker?" David asked. 

David's father answered, "We can't think about him right now." 

The words landed heavily in the air, but before David could respond there was another scream. 

It was even closer this time.

Or perhaps it just echoed longer. 

"Faster," Jeremy said. 

David struggled to match the speed his mother was now running at. He barely noticed when they turned down the path that led to the human city. Why would they go to the human city? 

Eventually tripping over a growing root, David realized they had left the area he had memorized. His father caught him, pressing him forward. David's mind was racing, trying to memorize the new landscape even in the darkness.

The moon itself started to hide further behind the trees.

A breeze blew past David ruffling his hair. The night seemed to be losing temperature. When David's feet started to hurt, he could see his breath.

There was a scream far too close for comfort. David's skin crawled, and his hair stood up on the back of his neck. Noticing his mother slowing down, David stumbled again. His mother turned in time to catch him. 

Jeremy came up next to David, seeing why Rachel had stopped running. 

The direction they were running had an overgrown thorn bush sitting right in front of them, and thickets blocked them from going off to the sides. The thorns looked trimmed, and if David hadn't known any better he would have assumed they had been planted. 

Jeremy's eyes widened. "This used to be a path. This used to be a path. If we'd gotten to the city..."

They could only go back. 

Rachel stared at her husband, knowing what the blocked path meant. Jeremy stiffened. 

David's father fell to his knees, grabbing David's shoulders. The child stared into the unfamiliar solid emerald green eyes of his father.

David had never seen his father afraid before. Jeremy was afraid now. 

"Take Time. Leave." It was obvious Jeremy was forcing his voice to stay steady. He must have been forcing it. The calm tone didn't match his expression.  

"Daddy..." David didn't understand. He looked to his mother. She merely stared down the path, eyes wide. 

"We don't have time," Rachel whispered. She grabbed her own shoulder, trying to keep herself steady. "Powerless, why do I feel so..."

Jeremy Delmer let go of his son's shoulders. His left eye returned to normal, but it was glossed with tears.

David's father forced a smile. "They can't get you." He gestured to the thicket. David would be small enough to force himself through. "Go. Hide." 

David watched his father stand up. The young dragon didn't move. His father glanced down, and to David, Jeremy's right eye, still solid emerald green, seemed to repeat the order. 'Hide.' 

Jeremy's left eye, glistening with tears, begged. 'Please.' 

David stumbled back a few steps and then turned to force his way through the ticket. Getting on his hands and knees he ignored the branches scraping against his skin. 

A bug crawled over his knuckles, a leaf fell on his face when he tried to push a branch out of the way. He pushed forward.

His parents were going to be right behind him. Right? They had just let him go first.

His parents were not following him. The farther into the bushes he got the more obvious that was.

David's arms started shaking, and he collapsed on the ground.  Not daring to start moving again, he shivered on the ground.

The silence was a promise of protection that didn't last. There was screaming. Two people. They were closer than the last ones. They were close enough that David's skin crawled. Or maybe there were just ants on his arms. 

***

Eventually, the silence returned like water filling the empty air. David pushed himself up. Trying to turn around, he struggled with the branches around him, but he managed to crawl out of the bushes. 

He wasn't sure what he was going to see. He wasn't sure what he wanted to see. 

Far-off screams took away the promise of peace. 

The child peered from the thicket. He stared at his parent's bodies, lying in a pool of their own golden blood. Their faces had been left intact like some cruel joke, but their bodies had been torn with gaping wounds.

David stared at them. There was nothing that had prepared him to process the scene in front of him. 

The child had barely thought of death before. Most of all, he didn't understand why they had sent him away just before it happened. 

And he didn't understand who would have killed them. Who could have killed them? They should have been able to save themselves.

A cry escaped David's lips. He pushed himself to his feet, stumbling forward. He tried to embrace his parents' lifeless shells but only covered himself in their blood.

"Wake up, please." Sitting between them, the young dragon hugged both of his parents' arms. "Wake up. Wake up. Just, please, wake up."

He wished his parent's murderer would come back and kill him. That would be better than this, wouldn't it? 

David's cries turned to roars. His skin turned to emerald green scales, blending with his clothes, and his body nearly doubled in height. He pushed himself off the ground. Branches snapped as he traveled ever higher. Unlike crawling through the thicket, this didn't hurt. The branches couldn't scratch him through these scales.  

When he cleared the canopy he spread his wings to their full span and kept flying towards the stars. He kept flying as if he was going to touch the sky. The child had never taken this form before. He didn't even know how wide his wingspan was. He'd taken this form to die.

He wanted to die with his parents. The Shape Shifters would take him too. He would stay with his family.

They were wishes made by a child who did not understand them. 

The forest below David was only a smudge on the land of Blolanda. His emerald green scales glittered even in the moonlight. 

David let his wings stop beating. The ground circled to catch him as he fell. 

The trees willingly came up to grab him, but when the first leaf grazed his scales, it all disappeared. 

There was nothing.