Twice, I've slept for a handful of hours, only to wake on the heels of terrifying dreams with a sense of dread churning through my system. The pain refuses to relinquish even during sleep, but I can't afford to give into it. The grace period has ended.
Dawn is a faint gray smudge on the horizon as we ready the dragons. I look to where the sun is just peeking over, and my heart speeds. The steady silence before an epic battle is haunting. Toothless nudges my hand and I naturally lift it and scratch his head.
I'm changed into my Dragon Conqueror suit with my cloak on and the hood pulled forward so it covers most of my face. I stare down at my hands. The blood from my crescent wounds still stains. I don't know why I didn't bother to wash it. Probably because I didn't want to.
I need it.
I want it.
I deserve it.
So what if they can see the darkest side of me. The secret side of me I never let anyone see, or even knew existed. I keep it caged but I can't control it. It's ugly. That beast, is ugly. When I feel the rage, I just can't hold it. It comes awake and I can't control it. I feel it deep within, it's just beneath my skin. It's almost like it's hiding, in my body and in my head.
And if I let him out, he'll tear me up and break me down.
No one can change what I've become. We all believe it's not the real me. But what can I do? I need someone to help me tame this animal. Save me from it, and make it end.
I hate what I've become. And yet the nightmare's just begun. It's hiding in the dark; its teeth are razor sharp.
There's no escape for me.
It wants my soul.
It wants my heart.
My thoughts cloud my head so much, that when I feel a hand on my shoulder I yelp. I turn and find Dad a little startled.
"Oh, sorry Dad. You scared me." I say.
"Yeah I saw that. Are you okay?" he asks.
"A little on edge." I admit.
"You'll be okay. We'll get through this, together." He says, and as if to clarify, he paces his hand on my shoulder.
Gobber calls the dragons and army in line. I hop on Toothless, and as I lean forward, I see my hand shaking. Soft, dainty hands envelop them and I look up and find Skullette. She looks as scared as I do. I can see it in her emerald eyes. The eyes that mine search desperately for in times of danger and darkness.
We stare at each other as our hands intertwine. I get off of Toothless and I bring her into my arms. For the past few months, my arms have been the only refuge for her from the world. She rests her head on my chest, her arms wound around my neck. She draws a shaky breath. Her heart pounding so strong that I swear I think it'll pop out of her chest. She lifts her head and we face each other.
My hands fall to her waist and hers trace along my shoulders, down to my chest where she feels my heartbeat. It matches hers. The rhythm perfectly in unison. A thousand moments surge through me. We've both been through so much. And together, we forged something new. Something beyond explanation.
I look at her from head to toe. Her hair is the same. Beautiful and long, reaching her stomach. The blue of her outfit that closely resembles the night sky. Her sheath of arrows and her bow slung over her shoulder. Her green eyes that will always find mine even in a crowd. Her fair pale skin that could easily blend with the snow on Berk.
And her lips. Oh her lips. Perfectly soft, smooth. Sensitive. With the ability to consume every fear, every loss, every lost emotion that eats away at me. She takes the pain I feel. Oh how I adore her. How I thirst for her. How I need her.
I lift my hand and slide my palm across her cheek. My thoughts drift back to the first day I even met her. Leading all the way up to now, this moment. How we've bonded. Grown. Matured. Explored the other's emotion, and how we've found love. Our hands find each other, holding fast to a part of our lives that Alvin has somehow failed to destroy.
I tilt her chin up to me, and after she blinks. I lean down, she stands up on her tiptoes, and our lips meet. She tilts her head as if by instinct. The kiss deepens. She tangles her fingers in my hair, and I let out a soft throaty moan. My lips drift to the soft skin on her neck, her shoulder.
She presses her body close to me, not allowing any space to be between us. I find my way back to her lips and receive another kiss. This kiss was different than the others. It was more meaningful, more passionate. And I loved it.
I loved her.
"I love you." I say he minute our lips part.
"I love you too. Always will." She says without the slightest hesitation.
Our foreheads are touching and I can see her smile on her face. A reflection of my own. Her hands go back to my shoulder and we embrace in a hug. I take one last moment to memorize her completely.
Lips red as roses.
Hair black as a Night Fury's wings.
Skin white as snow.
Gobber soon calls everyone and I head Dad give orders to line up. I help her mount Toothless and then I mount too. With one flap we're in the air and heading to the village. The ride ended too soon. While the rest of the dragons stay behind with Spitelout to wait for the signal, Gobber hops aboard Tornado with Dad and Astrid, the twins, Fishlegs and Snotlout and I ride ahead to the city.
When we're about a yard from the wall, Skullette takes one of my explosive arrows and loads it in her bow. She shoots it as a steep angle so it explodes in the dead center of the village. The villagers' reaction is immediate. A guard in a turret closest to us, spots us. He readies his cross bow, but is one second too late as Skullette has shot him dead before he can say halt.
The dragons fly overhead and after the citizens catch a good look at me and Toothless, they run and scream in fear. We descend until we hover a few meters above the ground. The sound of the dragons' fire rip through the crowd, and several people near us slump to the ground. Screams pierce the air as a second round mows down another group behind us.
Fire bursts from the dragons' mouths as they strafe the wall. The stone is scorched black. Suddenly the ground shakes and in an instant, the Whispering Death dragon explodes into the air in a shower of cobblestone, dirt, and fire. He breathes his deadly rings and immediately plunges into the ground again.
Skullette and I drop to the streets just as an alarm has been sounded. An Outcast near me hears my footfall and turns, his weapon drawn and I drop to me knees, grab the dagger in my boot, and thrust it up as his momentum drives his abdomen onto my blade.
Before he has a chance to do more than hiss out a breath, I lunge to my feet, grab his head with both hands and wrench it to the side. His neck grinds and pops, his body goes slack, and I let him drop with a heavy thud.
I race to join Skullette as plumes of thick black smoke billow up from the city. The turret closest to us explodes into flame and slowly topples to the ground in a hail of sparks and fiery chunks of wood.
The citizens of the Outcast village are screaming in agony. The barrels are working well. Too well. My stomach sinks as we take in the chaos. Everything is burning. Everything. Brilliant gold and crimson flames chew through homes, spew thick, black smoke toward the sky, and race blindly for the next piece of dry wood. Windows explode outward, sending hundreds of diamond-bright slivers of glass through the air.
And through it all, the monstrous shapes of dragons coil, lashing out with their tales to crush wagons, buildings . . . and people. Strafing entire streets with blistering fire. Bellowing a hoarse guttural cry that shakes the ground.
The few people still on their feet are running in a blind panic. The alarm doesn't stop. It's so piercing that I feel an impulse to cover my ears. Soon soldiers are pouring from the fortress that supposedly houses Alvin. All we need to do is set it on fire, like everything else. As fire leaps from building to building, street to street, intent on destroying everything the entire South Market, the second armada of dragons soon appear, heading toward the North Hub, blasting anything that moves with flames.
Everything that moves is a target. Outcast, Viking, citizen, who knows? Heart pounding, adrenaline burning through me, everyone is my enemy. Except for Skullette. My hunting partner, the one person who has my back. There's nothing to do but move forward, killing whoever comes into out path. Toothless stays glued to my side. I take notice Skullette's running low on arrows.
We encounter a wounded Outcast. He's been shot in the side, but it's not enough to bring him down. He has a fully loaded sheath of arrows oh his back. I knee him in the side of the head and take his sheath. After a brief thanks, Skullette resumes firing.
Screaming people, bleeding people, dead people everywhere.
As we reach the next block, I pull Skullette toward a side street that isn't yet on fire. I had lost my father and Gobber and practically everyone in the midst as visibility reduces to my hand extended in front of my face. It takes an agonizing three minutes to find what we need. In that time, another barrel turns the North Hub into a blazing inferno. I pray the citizens there heard the screaming of their neighbors and had enough warning to start running.
I grit my teeth and run, leaping over dead bodies, feet slipping in the gore. The wind whips the embers of crumpled buildings and the smoke into blinding swirls. We decide that flying is the best to see what's happening. We hop aboard Toothless and takeoff. The sky's a haze of thick black smoke. Entire streets are nothing but sheets of flame. I adjust my foot and we head dive toward Alvin's compound.
"Hiccup, get down!" Skullette hisses. We drop where we are.
It was a rough one though. I fly off of Toothless and my face lands in a still-warm pool of someone's blood, but I play dead, remain motionless as the sudden wave of fire herds toward me. Toothless covers me in time and I push myself up, vomiting when the blood permeates my mouth.
"Skullette! Skullette" I yell in a panic.
"Hiccup!" I here I reply.
I look and see her trying to help a panicked horse stomping in a double-stall animal shed. Next to the horse was a wagon. I stare at the wagon and shake, but I sprint over and help Skullette hitch the horse to the wagon as fast as we can. She takes the driver's seat as I hop back on Toothless. She cracks the reins against the horses back and we thunder toward the destruction.
A few people still stagger about, and we stop and haul them into the wagon. They don't even hesitate when they see me. Most of the east quarter is in shambles, but set apart from the rest of Alvin's dungeon, untouched by fire. I calculate less than ten minutes before the flames bridge the distance and begin destroying it. Which means Rachel and the other prisoners face a terrible death if I can't figure out a way to free them in time.
"Skullette!" I scream, and she turns. "We need to find my Dad!"
She looks and sees the compound and nods. While I know it's risky and deadly, I have no choice but to take off into the sky and try to find Dad or Tornado. If I find one, I'll find the other. The wagon soon gets enveloped in the smoke and I lose sight of Skullette. I remind myself to worry about it later. I need to find Dad.
Instead of finding Dad, I find an alley. One of the undercover Vikings. I swoop down close to him. The man rides a sturdy-looking donkey.
"Hey!" I call out, and he turns.
"Hiccup? Is that you?!"
"Where's my father?!"
"Down by Alvin's compound!"
"The prisoners! In the dungeon! They won't be able to escape without help. Can you-"
He turns his donkey toward the prison without waiting to hear the rest of my words.
I hurl Toothless higher to get to the compound. The northern roads are all impassable by horse-back. But I turn Toothless and head south. The ground shakes as the Whispering Death turns southwest and bellows, lashing at buildings with its tail.
It's official to say I've lost Skullette, but I finally manage to find Dad amongst the crowd and fire. I land Toothless a few feet away and run to him. He's taken shelter behind a fallen piece of the wall as men with crossbows fire continually. I take them all down with arrows and jump in front of Dad.
"Dad!" I scream.
"Hiccup!" he pulls me down and hugs me. But when he pulls away and sees my face he becomes horrified.
"I'm fine I just fell. Skullette's collecting villagers. We need to get them to the gates!" I say.
We take off on our dragons and head for the iron gates that have been blown to bits. The streets in front of us are clogged with wagons, people on donkeys or horses, or families hurrying toward the gates on foot. At our backs, a wall of impossible heat that precedes the flames that race toward us.
Toothless fires a plasma blast opening another hole for the villagers. People scream as tons of debris come raining down around them. They don't even question it. They begin to inch their way through the streets, surrounded by sobbing and screaming people and the thunderous roar of Outcast village succumbing to its fiery death in our wake.
Dragons are a black blur in the distance – twisting, lunging, and roaming their triumph as they consume the South Edge. A closer look reveals the dragons that must've gotten loose from the burning arena.
"Hiccup!" someone calls.
I turn and see Gobber running toward us, blood trickling down his bicep, but still alive. "Gobber!" when he gets to me I say, "Help these people out of here! I've got to find Alvin!"
He nods and Dad tells me, "Be careful." Before he goes and helps Gobber.
I leap on Toothless and we fly off. It's a sea of wreckage, blood and chaos. Beyond the ruins, the outside gleams like a jewel-green beacon of safety. The Whispering Death incarcerates the last block of buildings between it and the gates, then burrows down and leaves the city. The other dragons continue to set fire, as they have gone into a craze far beyond my ability to calm them.
They've gone rogue.
They just want to see everything burn. They'll destroy everything in sight. I need to find Skullette and get out of here. I don't care about Alvin anymore. I remember seeing Skullette's old wagon near the gate with people. She must've taken off and ran toward the compound since she knew that's where I would be heading. I descend on Toothless and even when I hop off, he follows closely. I arrange my hood so it covers my face, grasping my bow close to my chest and survey the block.
There's only a handful of dazed-looking stragglers. I trail behind on hunter's feet, Toothless close by my side, bow loaded. Near the compound, people are milling around, wailing or just sitting there and letting the smoke cover them in soot. I begin to weave my way around the flames and people, across to the compound. Tripping over forgotten treasure and burned limbs. Most probably came here thinking they could seek refuge from their leader.
I can't seem to find her anywhere. Where is she? Suddenly someone screams, "The Vikings! The Vikings!"
I whirl around and look and see it was a woman, but she wasn't pointing at me. She was pointing to the sky. Dragons of all the species – Gronckle, Deadly Nadder, Monstrous Nightmare, Zippleback – fly in a "V" formation above the compound. There's at least three waves. Something's wrong. They're not supposed to be here, the ambush is over. What are they doing? Did Dad accidentally send them thinking I was already out? No, this isn't part of the plan. Not my plan.
This, is their own agenda.
Panic sets in and my drive to find Skullette increases. I begin to call out to her, headless of danger and my exposure. My momentum slams me into a flagpole and I cling to it. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what to do. But Toothless never leaves my side. I scan the area and see barrel upon barrel of the saliva piled high.
This is bad, and my body goes numb. I know because Toothless is the only thing that keeps me up. The dragons descend. In five seconds, the barrels all simultaneously explode. A wail rises from the crowd. A wail rises from the crowd. The ground's red and littered with body parts. Many die immediately, but others lie in agony on the ground. The barrels continue to explode left and right. Toothless suffocates me in his wings, and I've never been more reluctant for his fireproof skin.
But one explosion separates us and I fall, bouncing like a stone on a water's surface. Skidding across the dirt. My back, elbow and shoulder all experience the impact of the hard earth. Suddenly the roar increase and I hear the voices of multiple people calling me.
"Hiccup!"
"Hiccup!"
"Hiccup!"
I would reply, but somehow I've lost the ability to form words. Instead, I find another flagpole and cling to it for dear life as the world becomes nothing but fire and destruction. Suddenly a flock of people from my army power through the flames and debris and retrieve the people who manage to survive and haul them into the wagon that materializes from the smoke, with as much care as they can.
They swarm among the people, wielding swords to knock off concrete or rocks or even wood from them.
First I get a glimpse of the long back hair that reaches down her back. Then as she carries a wailing child in a dirty bed sheet, when she goes back, I see the blue of her outfit. And her pale skin glimmers in the flames. In the midst of red, orange, and yellow, I catch a glimpse of green. I must go limp because I find myself at the base of the flagpole.
She's been burned and cut all over her body. I see her lips, red as the inferno. A bow. A sheath.
And a hint of green.
The green that my eye could find anywhere, and through anything.
Even smoke.
Even fire.
Even chaos.
Suddenly I'm trying to remember how to breathe. I'm unable to speak. Totally stunned as the green flashes through my mind. I'm unable to account for the last few seconds, and I'm desperate clawing my way back up the pole. Trying to find use of my feet. Then I'm aggressively pushing through the crowd.
Trying to shout her name over the roar. I'm almost there. Almost there. When I think she hears me. Because for a moment, she catches sight of me.
Her emerald eyes gleaming with many emotions I can't decipher. I've lost that ability too.
Her beautiful lips form my name, and she extends a hand
A barrel explodes behind her.
And the flames swallow her whole.