Samantha Guenther

The Shadow of a Dragon

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. There weren’t a lot of other things either, for that matter. And as hard as I tried to blink the image away, it remained. Camouflaged against the shadows that ran the edge of the clearing, it’s other-worldly iridescence caught the light and alerted me to its presence. I slowed my breathing and dropped lower to the forest floor. Fortunately, its sights weren’t set on me. Both eyes, dark and flecked with burning ember, were fixated on the deer I had spent the last two hours stalking. My stomach rumbled in protest at the idea of walking away now. It had been days since my last decent meal, but my rational mind knew there would be nothing left of the deer for me to scavenge. Plus, there weren’t many humans left who could say they walked away from a solo fight with a dragon.