Chronicles From the End of an Age

The Last Shadow - 6Yrs BTA

WARNING: GRAPHIC SCENES AHEAD. IF YOU'RE A LITTLE SQUEAMISH, YOU MAY NOT LIKE THE BEGINNING OF THIS STORY

ALSO, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE ON THE NEXT STORY BELOW :)

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All-consuming pain. That was all Shade was aware of. It ran down his back in red hot waves. It blinded him, deafened him, drowned him, blocking all other senses, all other thoughts. It punctured deep into his body, agonizing his soul and mind. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. All that escaped was a low moan as his body tried to release the pain through sound. He was stuck in an endless array of agony, where the outside world no longer existed. An eternity seemed to pass before the pain started to dwindle.

Shade's senses slowly cleared. The first thing he noticed was the scent of burnt flesh and sulfur. It seared his nostrils, causing his stomach to gurgle in repulsion. Light slowly broke through the red haze of pain. A black and white snout inches from his face blurred into vision. As his sight returned he was frozen by what was before him, eyes wide in horror. Next to him lay the remains of a shadow dragon, its black scales having been melted through flesh, charcoal, and deformed instead of the glorious starlight darkness that they usually held. But what really held Shade's vision was the white bone of the dragon's skull protruding from what was left of its face, still attached to the vertebrae through dried and burnt tendons that were barely holding together.

Shade stared at the dragon for but a moment, before letting out a gagging cough, his stomach not able to hold the combined sight and smell of the horrors around him. He closed his eyes, forcing his legs to move as he struggled into a sitting position, sending all new agony rolling through his back and wings. He ignored it, desperate to get away from the dead dragon. A slight resistance in his right wing cause him to panic, and without thinking he pulled away from the resistance. A tearing rip followed, and a cry escaped his mouth as he staggered, falling to the ground, nearly blacking out for the second time.

He lay where he was for several minutes, gasping for air, trying to breathe through his mouth as to not catch the scent of the burnt dragon again. As he slowly recovered he forced himself to look down at his own body, frightened by what he would see. Much as he suspected, the scales along his back had been melted into his own flesh, ashen and deformed. The black scales running along his legs and underbelly seemed to be fine, or at the very least they weren't the cause of his pain, but as he looked over his wing he let out a pitiful whimper.

The actual limb was still there, stretching out from his back, along with the small blade at the elbow of the wing, but the leathery flesh that allowed a dragon to catch the wind and fly was nearly all gone. There was a bit left toward the very end of the wing, and the beginning where it joined with his body. One of the skeletal fingers of the wing was still intact though, but none of the skin covered it. All that was left of the other two fingers were bony stumps that looked as though they had been melted through. The drake gulped, forcing himself to remain calm as he looked at his other wing. His left wing hadn't suffered nearly as bad, though had several holes burned into it.

Shade forced himself to remain calm as he finally took in his surroundings. He was in a cave... or what was left of one. The lips of the cave were pealed backward, leaving the exit wide open. Throughout the cave were puddles of what had once been molten rock that still radiated a stifling heat. A small pond that had once been filled with water now lay barren and dry at the back of the cave. The walls had taken on an abstract distortion, stalactites dripping from the roof like icicles. It also seemed lower than he remembered. The sun overhead shone directly into the cave, its light illuminating everything.