There were noises that didn't belong in the forest that day. Crashing, chainsaws,
machinery at work. And whenever there was something wrong with that small forest, his
only escape from the human world, he had to investigate.
The boy ran, his feet pounding on the forest floor. This shouldn't e happening. From the
sound of it, they were developing this land. Didn't his parents own it? He had asked
them so many times to protect it!
He stopped abruptly in a clearing that wasn't there before. Trees were being cut away,
stuck in trucks and driven to who knew where. There were crumbling holes where
his favorite trees once stood. He had named those trees. They were his friends. He had
talked to them.
And then he was struck with a horrible panic. The lake. What if they had drained it?
What if they had crushed the most precious part of the peaceful place?
He practically flew over the ground this time, rushing for the part of the once-forest that
he knew would have the lake. It was even worse than he had imagined.
A drum of gasoline had tipped over, and the oil had flowed out and into the earth and the
lake. He stuck his hands in the oily water, the gasoline fumes making him light-headed
and dizzy. Then his finger was pierced by something, and he pulled his hand out of the
fouled lake, rubbing oil off the sharp shard of…of eggshell. They had hatched in this
water.
And then he saw them, seven of them, seven lumps protruding from the black water of
the lake. Seven eggs, seven deaths.
He dug his fingernails into his arm, not caring about the pain. He had found the eggs, he
had known that they would hatch into Dratini. He had taken them to the lake, so that they
could grow up safely, with fewer predators. He needed to save them, if they could be
saved.
He checked every one of the Dratini for signs of life. There were none at first, no
heartbeats, no breath. They had died choking on oil, unable to swim through it. But the
last one still breathed, still hung on to life by a slim thread. He could save her. She might
live.
The boy looked around in panic for pure water, some clean pool where he could clean
her up. He found none. He lifted her from the filthy lake and shouted.
"Please," he yelled, "I need water! I need to save her!"
A few heads turned, muttering, nothing. The boy's eyes filled with tears of rage. Dammit,
they didn't care. She was innocent, they were killing her, they didn't care. Just because
she wasn't human, when she was dying they didn't lift a finger to save her.
There wouldn't be time to bring her to the house. She would die before he got there.
So he decided to try something that his parents forbid him to do, even if someone's life
was in danger. He didn't care. He laid both his hands on the Dratini and willed her to
live.