fire monster
Jeremy awoke in a hospital bed. It was a sensation so familiar he didn’t even have to open his eyes before he knew it - the clean, tight sheets, the numbed, cold pain in his arm where the IV attached, a muffled beeping coming from somewhere. He kept his eyes closed and waited for what came next. “My, my. What have we done this time?” The voice was old, rasping, and inexplicably British. Jeremy pressed his eyes shut tighter and tried to focus on why he couldn’t feel one of his legs below the knee. “They may put you away for this one. Two times is bad luck. Three is arson.” “Was anyone hurt?” “Just you, my boy.” Jeremy let his guard down and looked across at the dragon where he knew it would be, small and quiet, curled gracefully at the foot of the bed. “You could tell them, you know. About me.” “No.” They’d had this conversation a hundred times over the years, ever since it became clear that the fiery monster wasn’t just a childhood imaginary