To say the war department was in chaos was the understatement of the century.

  Last night, Giro came under heavy artillery bombardment. The majority of the east facing city was destroyed leaving many of the west facing civilians to flee. That was how they knew it had happened.

  Gr?sen never really was on good terms with Cervius, or the majority of the east, but they never knew that they would do this without any escalatory action from either side.

  The war department being in complete shambles ordered the department of propaganda to immediately take action and make more enlistment papers. Their particular favorite had the words "Han Kalinshed!" printed onto them. Han kalinshed was a part of the old Gr?se language, meaning "For Liberty!" When translated.

  William had already seen the effects beginning to take place. Enlistment offices were filled with volunteers on a scale they had never seen before. William couldn't even begin to count the amount of new grey uniforms being mass produced and handed out. He saw two people who he learned loved to hunt with each other and waited from the earliest hours to get a chance.

  He returned to what he was doing, which was basically just racing down the halls and hoping to find the right place to go. "Not now!" He shouted at someone who asked "Coffee?"

  He felt the black carpet sink under his boots and the diamond patterns on the walls blur passed him. He really wasn't running, those diamonds were just really damn small.

  He stopped to open a door and walk into a room. Inside was a bumbling mess known as "coworkers" wondering what they could do to resolve their predicament.

  Their leader, Korv, was sitting at the wooden table with his right hand to his forehead. He lifted his hand off of his face and looked at him.

  "Good," he said, sounding very stressed and frustrated, "we finally have everybody."

  William pulled out a chair and took his seat. Korv was somewhat of a legend inside of the war department. He was convincing with his words and he knew how to get things done. Korv had gotten to take the lead as "Head of External Relations" in a very quick amount of time. He showed great ways to compromise and stay on the best terms with other nations, but Cervius was an exception.

  "Now," he chuckled, "can somebody tell me WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!?" He yelled immediately after.

  Oh yeah, he could also be sort of a nutjob.

  "I know we weren't on the best of terms, but they attacked us damn it! Not only that, they took us completely by surprise, they bombed some of our railroads and they have taken Giro! Our biggest producer of coal!"

  A women from his left opened her mouth, "We know this escalatory act-"

  "ESCALATORY?! YOU CALL THAT 'ESCALATORY?!' THEY NEARLY DESTROYED AN ENTIRE CITY! THAT'S NOT FUCKING ESCALATORY! IT'S AN ATTACK!" He yelled, cutting her off.

  Korv slammed his fists against the table, far beyond enraged. He was sweating and was steaming red. Now that William thought about it, he had no clue why he ever thought he was likable.

  "Sir, maybe we could work something out?" Said a man to his right.

  Korv just looked at him blankly, then said a singular sentence. "I hired a team of dumbasses."

  William began thinking of what to say while Korve rambled on.

  "We can't work things out with them, there is no hope in that. They have our most important producer of coal, they slaughtered our civilians and it looks like they're moving artillery into Giro!"

  William thought of options, moving troops to secure the border was a no-brainer of course. They could strike back, shoot some artillery across the border. They could also send some of their army to take Giro back.

  There was a crash! And William looked up to see a chair on the floor, and an angry Korv kicking at it.

  William, now nervous, decided to speak up. "How about we send our army to take Giro back? Maybe bombard their position to weaken them, then we strike?"

  Korv stopped kicking the poor, beaten up chair and just looked at the ground. He appeared to be biting his cheek now. "Well, we should've thought of that earlier. Any other amazing ideas from the one functional person here?" Korv asked.

  "We should also send our army to other parts of our border to strengthen it, or even invade them back. They strike us, we strike back, you know?"

  "Good. Good ideas. I like you, you know how to think." Korv replied.

  William wasn't sure if we wanted to be liked by Korv.

  "How do you like your coffee? Get this man some coffee! He's earned it!"

  Apparently Korv could switch his mood really fast.

  "Just whatever has sugar I guess." He answered.

  "Good! Now, our meeting is declared over. I do not want to see any of you here in 30 seconds! Ready? Go! Leave! Scram!"

  Well, that was his que to leave.

  ***

  If he had the chance, he would use a spoon to saw his leg off. It felt like the power of 1000 suns was beating an inch away from it. He got away from Giro in the nick of time and was now in the forest. Some hours ago, he painfully managed to take the rod out of his leg, use it as a part of a tourniquet and keep moving. His leg didn't feel broken, he just needed to stop the bleeding.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The night was incredibly cold with the added bonus of no light coming from any of the moons. The trees and their canopy added to the darkness, leaving him almost blind.

  Sometimes, when walking, he could still hear the occasional artillery blast. There was nothing he could do to stop thinking of what had happened. He had lost his home, his friends, his life and his mental state.

  He could still hear the first impacts, they haunted him. He didn't remember much after that considering he was knocked unconscious by the strikes.

  He was also incredibly hungry. He couldn't scavenge any food from anywhere in the city before he left. Hunting would be completely useless as his leg was crippled badly enough to slow him only to a walk. He was also afraid that animals could smell the blood pressing through his cloth. The cold night was making the red liquid unbearably frigid and cold.

  He decided to just eat some bark off of the trees and then find some berries. He examined a brown trunk looking for any loose husk. He was successful, with some difficulty he tore a big chunk of it off. He broke it into smaller, more manageable pieces before putting one into his mouth. It tasted awful. There was grime covering it and it was hard and tough. It wasn't even crunchy either, nor was it flexible.

  He wrinkled his nose at the solid matter but kept on chewing it. It kept his mouth moist and gave himself something else to focus on besides the pain in his legs.

  Now was the perfect time to sleep. The plan was simple-put cover himself in leaves to try and conceal himself from predators. Well, mainly any Cerviun's that might wander into the woods.

  First problem, he was going to have to get the majority by picking them off of bushes. The ground bare little to no leaves for him. Fuck.

  So, he went and gathered leaves from bushes and low hanging branches. It was the longest and most tedious job he had ever done, but it was worth it in the end, he had constructed a small place to hide.

  He laid down inside his little leaf pile. The ground was cold, hard and unwelcoming but it would have to do.

  He thought of the day's events with deep sadness and anger. Rightfully, he was pissed off at Cervius. He felt something, like he wanted to hurt them in a way never felt before. He wanted to do to them what they had done to him. He wanted them to suffer.

  His thoughts disappeared and so did his vision as he fell into the darkness of sleep.

  ***

  Crack! Crunch! Ternan sat up as quickly as possible, completely forgetting to be careful and quiet. He rubbed his dry eyes with his dirty hands and crouch-walked to the noise. Well, he tried to anyway. His leg didn't exactly like being in a crouched position and he was forced to stand taller than he would like.

  He walked through the forest being careful to avoid any twigs and sticks that could snap and give him away. His heart skipped a beat when something sharp stabbed his arm. It was just a branch.

  He was getting closer to the crunching. The noise seemed to come in a slow rhythm, much slower than how a normal person would walk. Why the hell do they sound so heavy? He thought, there is no way even a bear could make that noise!

  Now he could see something moving, multiple somethings for that matter.

  He saw blue, then tan, then some form of bluish-white and then multiple colors on one creature.

  Wh-what the hell?!

  They were dragons.

  While the 8 nations had many differences, they all had the same stories of dragons. It was said that some thousands of years ago, they lived in another land. Then, the dragons that lived there banded together and pushed them off of it. Of course, everybody pointed this out as a myth and a fairytale story instead of a factual, historical event.

  It could also just be a lack of blood just causing hallucinations.

  Ah, shit! His head screamed as his leg began to flare with pain. He clawed at it with his nails which was probably the worst idea possible when it just made the pain worse. His leg began to shake and his body began to tremble. He fell forward, making quite the noise from the bushes.

  The "dragons" that were walking stopped to turn and look at him. Their eyes were strangely human-like, unsettlingly like humans actually. They were also not as large as described or what he thought them to be. He thought they were going to be these massive school sized creatures. But in reality, they looked to only be around nine to thirteen feet tall. They were also told there was ever just one type of dragon, but here, right in front of him stood 4 different types.

  They were giving him curious looks, one looked like it was feeling more cautionary. The cautioned dragon was the blue one he noticed, it had gills and what appeared to be webbed talons. Can it breathe underwater? Ternan thought. Strange.

  There were also stories of trying to travel and find more land, that the sailors on the wooden ships never made it back, going west or east.

  The multi-colored dragon began to somehow change to a yellow color that hurt his eyes. That was the one that seemed the most excited. Well, it looked like an excited creature if they even had emotions.

  The blue-white and tan dragons just looked surprised but also non-caring at the same time.

  Oh yeah, he also needed to confirm that he wasn't having a hallucination.

  He painfully stood up, grunting and nearly collapsing as he did. This prompted a reaction from the rainbow one that he could just say was 'concerned.' He looked up to see a scaly face a couple inches away from him.

  He jumped and gave out a little scream, not expecting that. He breathed out a sigh and looked at it straight faced. He finally lifted up a shaking hand and placed it on the face.

  It was physical, it was cold and it was very real.

  He backed away not expecting to feel anything. He wasn't hallucinating then, these dragons were very real and dangerous if the stories were true. They didn't exactly look like they wanted to kill him though, nor did they even look malicious. In fact, the tan one looked like it just had a hard time staying still like some children at schools.

  Ternan had no problem staying still simply because his leg was going numb, also the fact that he was also curious about them. Part of him told him to run, but he was so invested with them he didn't. They were supposed to be mythical and yet, they stood in front of him. Breathing the same air, seeing the same sights and being just as real as him.

  They were also growling, but not in a wild animal way that sounded deranged and unintelligent. They responded to each other and he could sometimes hear them growl in the same way, like a word.

  Do they have a language?

  ***

  Right in front of him was a scavenger.

  It had lighter skin like the one in the metal box and it looked tired, like on the verge of collapse tired. It wore some dark cloth on its top and even darker cloth on the bottom. It was also wearing some strange stick thing on one of its legs with extra cloth wrapped around it.

  He needed to be cautious though, the last scavengers made Thunder disappear and he didn't want the same to happen. The scavenger mainly seemed confused, like it hadn't seen a dragon before. Actually, it probably hasn't considering they've seen a huge lack of dragons too.

  Aardvark was vibrating with excitement, becoming a yellow rainbow that spelled death to eyesight. "Hey," he whispered, "you're going to make my eyes melt!" Hurricane complained.

  She looked slightly offended, "Sorry that I get excited for seeing something new!" she whispered back.

  "Just tone it down a little, ok?"

  "Ok, fine."

  Looking closer again, he noticed that the cloth on the leg was red and smelled of blood. A lot of blood.

  The scavenger put its head down, and placed its hands on the ground. It began to lift itself up with some apparent difficulty, making pained groans. "Aww, is it okay?" Asked a concerned Aardvark.

  Hurricane leaned down to check, but when the scavenger looked up to see the dragon's face so close, it jumped a little and gave out a scream that was eerily deep. They stared at each other for a good moment before it... touched his snout? It backed away right after like it was in a tiny panic. This was the strangest experience of the entire journey.

  It also seemed incredibly curious of them, too.

  If my note got to the queens, how could they explain any of this? Weird scavengers, even weirder activities... What is going on in this place?