Chapter One:

Unleashed

H

OLY CRAP! This thing's huge!" Veronica was carrying what seemed to be a huge white rock, but shaped like an overbred chicken's egg. She even thought of the possibility that she would have found the oldest dinosaur egg that people would praise her for and even award her the Nobel Peace Prize for. She then thought of how she would eat the egg Sunnyside up the next morning for breakfast if it really was a genetically-modified chicken's egg, but didn't think she had a pan large enough. She wasn't the kind to fantasize about a rock as her imagination only went so far, so she confirmed with herself that she was only carrying a unique shaped rock. The rock was the size of her forearm in length, with a really wide circumference that she would guess to be around 24.7 inches. Yes, Veronica was a nerd like that; constantly scoring the highest marks in all of the years she has attended school, even now in her first year of university.

Veronica was five foot seven with a thin bodice, but a large head filled with lots of brain. She had curly brown hair that smoothly flowed down her shoulders to her lower back, and her eyes were a greyish greenish colour that stood out in the middle of a large crowd of one thousand men crammed in a barn in the middle of the night. Her lips were thin, but her smile had the magic ability to miraculously stretch out to her ears and back.

"Drop it Veronica, we have to carry on with our hike. You're acting like you've never seen a dirty old rock before." Jacob was Veronica's best friend for as long as she can remember having one. No one was ever really willing to stick around with someone who made them feel just so damn stupid, but Jacob knew he was stupid so Veronica's company never really bothered him. Over the years, however, Veronica had learned to keep her smarts to herself and just go with the socially accepted conversational style, thanks to Jacob. Jacob was a six foot one male with a 6-pack and broad swimmer-like shoulders. He had long locks of brown hair and golden/hazel/brown eyes that sparkled under the sun's radiance, or at least he wished they did. Veronica wasn't really sure what colour they were since she saw a different colour each time she glanced at him. As she turned her attention to him as he spoke, she saw them to be the golden colour that she rarely observed.

"Can we keep it," she said, turning her attention back to the rock, "as a souvenir from today's hike?"

"NO!" Jacob was quick to answer, and it seemed odd to Veronica that he would object since he usually didn't give a two cents about what she collected on their "adventures." Hiking has been a tradition for them on every single Tuesday morning ever since they were in the ninth grade when Jacob was going through the I'm-going-to-be-the-strongest-boy-in-my-grade phase. Which also turns out to be the my-voice-is-going-through-puburty-so-I'm-going-to-save-myself-the-embarrasment-and-hideout-in-the-forrest-with-the-only-other-outcast phase. Jacob and Veronica were roommates at Western University where they had both been studying mythology, making them inseparable since childhood and easier for them to hike weekly. Rain or shine, they would be up every Tuesday at 5 o'clock in the morning ready to hike for an hour, and with each hike came a new treasure that Veronica would bring back.

"Well, why not? It's sick looking!"

"I don't care about how sick it looks! We are not bringing that disgusting thing back to our dorm room!"

"It's a rock that looks like a dinosaur egg! Maybe we can sell it to the museum for them to put on display in order to trick little children into believing that they managed to get their hands on a dinosaur egg."

"We will not bring that back, you hear me? Now lay it gently down on the floor and let's move on. I'm pretty sure you will find something better to take back."

"Fine. Let me just take a picture of it and I'll let it go. Don't blow your top just yet." Veronica was furious with Jacob, but didn't bother arguing with him because she wanted to save herself from precious time being wasted. She reached into her pocket, and passed the tropical flavoured gum and the random bus token was her iPhone wrapped in a pink case. Unlocking the phone, she realized that in her rear-view Jacob looked rather nervous and she didn't understand why. "Did he have a phobia against big dirty rocks?" She thought to herself. Just as she was about to tap on the camera app on her phone, the big dirty rock in her hand shook. "Did you see that Jacob?"

"What?" Jacob looked as if he was waiting for his boss to fire him or for the dean of the university to expel him as he sprung up closer to Veronica, taking hold of her left elbow.

"This stupid rock moved!" She said with a tone filled with excitement, yet fear. She didn't know what to think; maybe her dinosaur egg hypothesis was going to be proven correct. Veronica was smarter than to believe in such unrealistic baloney, but she was so sure that she felt the slight shake.

"I say we put it down and go, you're starting to hallucinate Veronica."

He saw it. She was so sure that he had saw it because the look on his face displayed signs of fear and urgency. Staring at Jacob's eyes, that were now more golden than ever, she felt it yet once again. This time it was so strong, that the rock dropped to the ground resulting in a crack just down the center of it. Veronica was sure that Jacob saw this one because he looked as if he soiled his underpants as he began yelling for Veronica to leave the premises as fast as she can, but she didn't budge. In fact, she stood wide-eyed before the egg observing the crack spreading into multiple cracks across the egg.

Jacob charged at Veronica, lifting her by the waste with his left arm and sprinting as fast as he can though a path that they had never taken before. Veronica was taken by surprise, for she had known that Jacob was strong, but not THAT strong. She didn't understand why he was fleeing so fast from a sight that would probably make history and them famous. She wanted to witness something incredible and this was it. To her luck, there was a tree stump just ahead of them that would make Jacob fall flat on his worried face, and he did. Veronica managed to escape his hold and run back to where she had dropped the egg. She ran as fast as she could hoping that she didn't miss the entire show, and knowing exactly the path that Jacob had brought her through due to her award-winning memory. Reaching the precise location as to where she dropped the egg, she stood still in awe. There it was.

A dragon was creeping slowly out of the egg, and Veronica heard the screeching sound it made between each panting breath she made. She was so sure it was a dragon as it fit the perfect description of one written in all the fantasy books she had read and all the movies she had watched. The creature was a mahogany colour with an overly detailed textile-like scale pattern all over it, and a beak similar to that of a hawk's. It was unravelling its wings slowly as it stretched out from the stiff position it obtained for the time it spent within that big dirty rock. With her full attention on what seemed to be the impossible, Veronica hadn't noticed the footsteps of her good old friend until he had stood panting right beside her left shoulder. Jacob was a holding a large tree branch in his hand, causing Veronica to panic.

"Please don't hurt it. I know you might be afraid, but this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to us on a hike." Veronica noticed that Jacob was staring at her and his attention, from his eyes now as golden as they could be, was nowhere near the dragon.

"I'm sorry," he said as he swung the branch. That was the last thing Veronica saw.

It was dark and quite. Veronica felt a throbbing sensation in her head as she realized that she was laying with her eyes closed, awaking from slumber. The image of Jacob swinging the branch with his extremely golden eyes kept on replaying in her mind. She couldn't comprehend how here lifelong friend could hurt her so badly out of the blue. Jacob was the sweetest man she had ever met and it just didn't make any sense to her, unless he wanted the reward of finding the dragon all to himself, but not even that sounded like him.

Veronica thought it was time to slowly swing open her eye lids in order to know where she had been laying all this time. Her vision was blurred at first as she saw what seemed to be a figure of a man in front of her, and within a few seconds she could she Jacob sitting by her bed in the dorm room patiently waiting for her to awake. She wanted to get up and beat him up for the pain that he had put her in, but she felt way too weak to make that happen.

"Are you okay Veronica?" Jacob sounded worried, which confused Veronica even more.

"Why the hell did you do it?" Answering a question with a question was a typical Veronica move that was a great deal of a hint that she was mad pissed.

"Do what?"

"HIT ME WITH A STUPID BRANCH, YOU IDIOT?" Veronica was frustrated with the stupid act that Jacob was trying to put on for her, but in a way his tone and his expression seemed more than just an act to her.

"Veronica, you fell vigorously down a hill when we were hiking and hit your head when you reached the bottom. I brought you back here because you remained unconscious. You must have had a bad dream." She believed him. How could she not? This was Jacob and Veronica never knew anyone so honest. Plus the entire thing seemed like one big dream to her anyways, but she didn't want it to be.

"So there's no dragon?"

Jacob laughed hysterically, and when he finally found the breath to do so, he said, "You must have hit your head REALLY hard Veronica!" He continued to laugh as Veronica couldn't help herself, but do the same. She suddenly laid still as all her energy went into the few phrases she spoke and the tiring laugh she fell victim to. "Go back to sleep Veronica, I really think you need to rest. A few hours ain't enough for the beating you took down that hill." It was the smartest thing Veronica had ever heard Jacob say.

With that, Veronica closed her eyes as her oversized smile remained flat on her face, and she was never gladder to have a nightmare than at this very moment.