The hum had grown insistent, making it hard to hear my name being called out behind me. When I turned to look I saw Max, bundled up in a nice coat and scarf, smile wide on his face as he jogged down the hill towards me. Today he was without his posse, and for that I was thankful. I'd had enough social interaction in the past week that could last me a lifetime, and I was getting pretty sick of being yelled at for being a passive observer.

“Stopped by your house earlier,” He says, panting to catch his breath, his grin still ever-present. I struggled not to smile back at him, “I think it was your dad that answered?”

Unlikely, I think to myself, since he died before I was born.

“He said he was pretty sure you went into town. I've been looking everywhere for you.” Max pulled a bag from his shoulder and it took me a moment to recognize it as my own, “You left this under that tree near the track. I grabbed it and was trying to find you when that Eric kid said he saw you in the bathroom. So I went in there to give it back, but then I saw you hyperventilating and Roman was freaking out and it didn't seem like a good time.”

I took the bag back, remembering last minute to switch to my right hand. The left still throbbed and I knew that carrying around my groceries hadn't been the best choice. Max noticed, that worried expression casting over his face again.

“Still hurt?” I wondered why it mattered. Why was Max so insistent on looking out for me. Hadn't the others told him I was clearly faking? They'd seemed so sure of themselves at the bookstore. Even Roman, who'd seen the bruise himself, and had watched over me when my mind had floated away. “Sprains suck.”

I nodded, but still cast my gaze elsewhere, wishing for a speedy end to this conversation. Shame coated my throat. It wasn't that I didn't like Max. On the contrary, I found his friendliness and sheer tenacity almost refreshing. No one had ever tried this hard to get close to me before. But I had always leaned towards realistic expectations of other people. At some point all the positives of letting Max think we were friends would be greatly outmatched by the negatives, and that point was coming sooner rather than later.

He was talking again and it took me a moment to refocus.

“-are gonna meet up a little later, I guess someone is bringing beer, which is completely wild to me because the plan is to hang out in public? But, as I understand it, it's a private sort of public? It being some kind of decrepit old warehouse or something.”

No matter how hard I tried to glean meaning from this, my mind simply wouldn't allow it.

“Apparently no one goes down there anymore, or no one who isn't an underage-drinker because they think it's haunted, which... I don't know, sounds like a really solid reason to not be underage-drunk there, but I'm new so I don't get a say in weekend shenaniganery plans.”

Was that a word?

“But yeah, sounds like fun, and it took a bit of convincing because apparently they think you're a liar or something, but I got the go ahead from the others to see if you wanted to tag along. I think they wanted to see if you have weird ghost powers, so if we plan it right, it would be pretty fun to make some shit up to freak them out.”

Be still my heart. Was I just invited to an actual so-and-so's drug party? Surely Destiny had run out of her copious saliva and was now looking down at me with a glowing smile, and that handful of luck she'd be squirreling away for all these years.

I raised an eyebrow at Max. Did he think I was stupid? He must have, if he thought I'd be willing to go to an abandoned warehouse with a bunch of drunk jocks. That was probably where nightmares were born, and I had plenty of those, thank-you-very-much. At least I knew to avoid that area for the day.

I gave Max a tight-lipped smile and shook my head.

Thankfully he seemed to see that smile as a win, and he shrugged gently, “Alright, maybe next time!”

He waved as he walked away, saying something about school and lunch, and I wondered if he had forgotten about giving me the cold shoulder on Wednesday, or if maybe I'd blown his silence out of proportion. Either way was possible.

I didn't really have anything else planned for the day, so I found myself taking the long trek home. Aside from the crisp wind, today was a fair bit warmer than it had been in months, and the sidewalks were now completely bare of snow. It had all melted to rivulets of water that poured and pooled in low places. I could've used what money I had left from not replacing my bag, and the additional cash in the wallet I'd furiously investigated after getting it back from Max, on public transit, but I knew it was better to horde it away for other emergencies.

It was almost evening by the time I climbed back into my tree-house and secured my food there. The wind had picked up some, and eight feet off the ground I could hear the branches creak around me, gusts whistling through the shoddy wood and old windows. I laid down for a moment, closing my eyes and just listening. The world was easier here – quiet and cold, far away from people and danger, with my mother's old blankets cradling me gently. There were no sharks, no sharp objects with which to prick yourself.

Out there the world was filled with quiet and cold places, but, for some reason, I kept returning to the shark-infested waters as if I thought things might change. I was perpetually in danger out there, surrounded by people who lived securely in a world with no chance of magic.

I could just run away. I could hop a train and let it take me as far from the place as it could. I could change my name and start anew, and maybe I wouldn't be considered so odd. Chances were that I messed up somehow, that someone found out and the whole cycle would start again. No one would go looking for me though. If I died no one would mourn. Mum could finally get some rest, and stop worrying over me.

The humming had grown rather insistent, and I had to wonder if the same thing that killed the pine was affecting the oak I'd taken shelter in. Maybe the earth itself could feel my loneliness, and now my terrible outlook was dragging the whole planet down with it.

Bleak thought, I know, but I'll remind you I was a teenager.

The hum brightened for a moment, a shrill cascade of glittering noise that assaulted my senses, and I had a moment of clarity when I realized that whatever was causing it was nearby. It was getting dark outside my tree-house windows, and I paused for a moment to take in the growing shadows, eyes searching for whatever had disturbed the peace.

Perhaps – and I am only will to entertain this thought as it leaps across my mind between “What the--” and “Oh, fuck.” – perhaps Destiny wanted me to go to So-and-So's Drug Party. Perhaps Destiny was now seeking revenge for having spurned her gift of good luck.

Oh, maybe she'd been hocking a giant dragon shaped wad the whole time.

I say giant only because it's roughly the size of a horse, but it's ivory scales have a clean new glitter to them that reflects the rising moon's glow. Truthfully, this lizard is less than a quarter of the size of the one on the mountain, but its face looks ten times the trouble.

It also has yet to notice me, its noise snuffling against the ground and pressing into piles of leaves. A part of me, one that I truly hate, realizes that I'm going to have to deal with this. If I'm not very careful, that dragon is going to end up in the city, and there will be a lot of questions that I don't have answers for. In the distance the streetlights have just flickered on and the dragon seems interested in their light.

I desperately beg my mind for a spell – something that will make it stop moving, or avoid the city – but the only thing that comes to mind was the one I used on my tree-house. There was no guarantee it would work on three-hundred pound lizards, though. In fact, it was a fair bet that dragons were far too interesting to be made boring. Unless you were Sam Kingsley, of course.

It's an odd feeling, simultaneously loathing someone and wishing they were everyone in the area.

The dragon noticed the lights in the distance and seemed perplexed. I watched helplessly as it bounded down the hill with no regard for branches or bushes. I could just ignore it, let the city freak out about it and pretend it had nothing to do with me. People were bound to get hurt that way, and the amount of attention a Real Life Dragon would bring to the area was more than I was willing to deal with.

Minutes later I was rushing out of the woods, narrowly escaping scrapes and bruises, and running through the back-streets. Thankfully it seemed to be avoiding the residential areas, content to peruse the seedier parts of town where people didn't wander at night. I found it with its head buried deep in a dumpster, sniffing at garbage and eating questionable things, its thin wings batting against the ground.

When it finally pulled its head free, sniffing the air tentatively, it turned its gaze towards me, head tilting as if I was the bizarre fantasy creature who definitely shouldn't have existed. We were frozen like that, just for a moment. Then I remembered I'd come here to stop it and lifted my hand up to direct the spell.

My wrist twitched in pain and the spell misfired, hitting the dumpster in a blast of glittering energy.

The dragon didn't seem to like this. It made a low chuttering noise, its thin wings flaring, before it scuttled up the wall of the adjacent building and quickly disappeared over the top.

Tonight was going to be long.

The following is a list of instructions for catching a baby dragon with absolutely no one noticing.

(I have no data on success rates, so it's probably best to just avoid this type of situation altogether)

Step One; find a baby dragon.

It's important to note that, for most people, this step is the hardest. Dragons definitely don't exist, unless you take that word wildly out of context. This makes tracking one down actually impossible for the common populace.

I've personally never had this issue. I know a dragon already, and I've never had an interest in meeting more, which makes this whole set of circumstances (i.e. the appearance of a dragon) all the more frustrating.

Step Two; Now that you've located your baby dragon, stare up into the sky, maybe shake your fist, and give the universe a few choice words. Things like 'Why me?' or 'What did I do to deserve this?' are pretty cliche, and it's not like anyone is going to answer, so mix it up by threatening the Sky's mother. Really lay on the total universal destruction if you feel it's necessary.

Step Three; Congratulations. You've lost your baby dragon amidst your fist shaking and mental ranting. Don't worry, no one seems to have noticed, but it's only a matter of time before all of society collapses under the weight of 'Oh my god, is that Godzilla??'

Step Four; Run. You're very good at this.

(Four A; as much as it kills you to do this, you have to run in the general direction of the dragon. The point is to not let it destroy the entire city.)

Step Five; Track that winged deviation down. The best course of action here is to follow knocked over trash cans and trails of garbage. If you're very lucky you might find a cat. Cats are magnetically attracted to dragons for reasons unknown and probably very unscientific. Please note that you shouldn't kidnap any stranger's cats just to find this dragon. They won't be happy and they'll never see that cat again.

This step might take a very long time as both dragons and cats are immensely skilled at disappearing at will. They are also fickle creatures who are almost always smarter than they look.

It's also important, while tracking, that you don't think too hard about your fear of the dark. There's nothing you can do about that right now. Probably.

(for reference, step five took me about two hours)

Step Six (and pay attention, because this one is important); Regret every decision you've ever made in your entire life that culminated in you being in this exact place at this exact time.

While you do that, you're also permitted to be both frustrated and relieved that the dragon (and the cat you saw a half an hour ago who was sitting in a window up a fire escape and was not even a little surprised when said window magically opened, and really is handling this whole dragon thing about as well as one can expect from a cat) has escaped your grasp for what feels like the hundredth time that evening.

And, while juggling all of that, don't panic that your scaly new friend has led you right to the So-and-So's Drug Party that the new guy at school invited you to. Or, at least, the closest approximation of a party that you've been to since you were six and all of Roman Miranda's birthday presents opened themselves.

Yes. That Roman Miranda.

The very same Roman Miranda as the one currently standing in front of you, open beer bottle in hand, and look of utter confusion painted across his face. It's important to note that, behind Roman, is Sam Kingsley. The same Sam Kingsley who got mad at you for talking about dragons all those years ago, and is about to get the worst, most scaly surprise of his life.