#gaping dragon

It was the last hatchling of its brood.

Bursting its snout through the hard, ancient eggshell, its little nostrils began to widen as it took its first sniff of the outside air. Neither hot nor cold, windy nor dry. The sheer lack of any stimuli nearly made it give up its exhausting pursuit to escape its own egg, until it suddenly picked up a strange odor. Strong. Close. Appetizing. All at once a light pang began to ache within its stomach, compelling the infant to bite and scrape and claw until it at last broke free.

A tiny dragon fell belly-first onto the ashen sand; thin as a lizard, with a beautiful pattern of purple-blue scales, six legs, and two puny pairs of leathery wings which flapped and twitched upon its back. Its snake-like head turned to-and-fro as it took in its surroundings, desperate to discover the source of that irresistible aroma. The scent became clearer the moment it decided to stick out its forked tongue. Cold. Warm. Warmer. 

Upon turning around it discovered three more cracked eggs behind its own, one of which cradled the lifeless body of an older sibling. A limp head laid sideways, neck skewered by a sharp point of its own eggshell, and without any limbs save for its own pair of drooped wings. That strong scent emitted from every speck of its sibling, compelling it to creep closer as it began to open its mouth…

A large shadow then fell over the body, followed by a loud croaking that made the infant stiffen in fear. Towering above it was a dark-scaled creature, with rows of sharp teeth and a pair of gigantic, unblinking eyes atop its head fixated directly on it. The amphibious lizard’s ruby throat then expanded like a balloon before a thick cloud of gas spewed from its mouth and blinded the terrified infant! Survival instincts sent its many legs scampering as it pulled itself over the rim of the nest, kicking up sand and stray sticks along its path as it ran as far as it could until tiring out. It turned back as the cloud far behind it dissipated, watching the terrible lizard devour what should have been its first meal.

The lake it once called home was a land teeming with delicacies just out of the young dragon’s reach. Crystal-backed lizards too tricky to catch. Big-eyed lizards too terrifying to approach. Walking mushrooms which caused searing pain with a single swing of their arms. Thin-legged clams that lay in wait under the sand, snapping at all unlucky enough to approach them. Enormous mouths within the deepest waters that dragged down all within their reach. It learned to make do by nibbling at carcasses and any unmoving fungus growing within the hollowed arch trees, but such meals did little to satiate its constant hunger nor improve its stunted growth. And that was how it lived for much of history. Hidden. Hungry. Alone.

That all changed when it found a most peculiar body.

After daring a swim to another sand island, an unusual scent led it towards a carcass like no other. A four-limbed bipedal creature which laid on its back, its skin grey and wrinkled. Small red eyes watched the dragon as it approached, but it was too weak to move. The dragon flicked its tongue against the thin blonde bristles sprouting from its head, but did not care for the taste. Instead it moved towards its belly, using its boney claws to tear through the hard plating and rough outer skin that covered it until it reached its bare, emaciated flesh.

But it was not the pitiful lack of meat that drew the dragon’s attention. No, it was the pulsating black sprite that slowly rose from the center of its chest.

The dragon wasted no time consuming the tiny morsel. Followed by the body itself; armor and all. Growling in delight upon at last feeling satiated, it did not even notice how its limbs began to stretch, or its back and tail elongate. The instant growth spurt stopped once it had doubled in size, and once again the pangs returned even stronger than before.

Hunting became far easier after that meal. Most of the lake’s denizens could no longer pose a threat to the larger dragon as it expanded its appetite, devouring as many smaller lizards, walking mushrooms, and even the odd clam that came in its way. Soon even the big-eyed ones learned their place, themselves becoming the ones who scavenged from the scraps it left behind. It was a reign of terror which could have lasted another millennium… were it not for another predator that surpassed even itself. 

A massive mouth grabbed hold of the dragon’s body during a swim and came close to drowning it, had it not swung its tail fiercely into one of the predator’s eyes. The force of the hit made it let go of the struggling dragon, granting it just enough time to surface and swim back to shore before a loud SPLASH rang out from behind. It ran to the middle of the sand island and turned around, only to come face-to-faces with the most horrific monster it had ever laid eyes on! A multi-headed serpent coated in blue-grey scales, all seven mouths bearing their long fangs directly at it! Legs stiff with fear, all it could think to do in that moment was lift its front half upwards, making itself appear larger as it expanded its wings and roared at its opponent.

The threat display did little to scare off the monster, instead compelling its many heads to lunge upon the beach in an attempt to grab hold of it again! The center head came close enough to scrape its teeth just under the dragon’s head before it used its wings to leap backwards into the air to escape. Blood poured from the gaping wound that stretched from its lower jaw all the way down its neck. There was no other choice. It had to escape!

Without hesitation it scurried toward the nearest arch tree. Fitting itself between the enlarged grooves of its bark, it climbed up the roots and squeezed itself through a large hole which led into the center of the tree. Bleeding and weakened, the first thing it saw was a family of small mushrooms all walking in a circle around a very familiar-looking carcass. Upon devouring the little ones to get a closer look, its memory was sparked the moment it laid eyes on the black sprite clung to the corpse’s chest, and wasted no time consuming it.

Once again, its hunger ceased for a long moment. So satisfied it was that it hardly noticed how the scales around its mouth and throat cracked and curled, with new rows of teeth slowly piercing through the flesh of its wound until it became its own extension of its mouth. Bigger. Wider. Hungrier.

It climbed to the very top of the tree, consuming all in its path and leaving the unwanted scrapes for the lizards that would inevitably follow it. Though its body was still quite thin for a dragon, that wondrous meal must have given it another sudden growth spurt, for it needed a good bit of time to force its body through the narrower holes which led out of the tree and into a very different world. This new lake was murky and shallow, with many tantalizing odors filling the air! It soon became the undisputed scourge of the swamps, devouring giant leeches, the fire-spewing crawling ones, bipedal creatures of all shapes and sizes who dared to venture into its territory.

There then came a day when the dragon witnessed a large pack of warriors trudging through the bog. Swiftly it charged forth upon the creatures, only to discover far too late that these were no ordinary meals. Their hides were coated in shining silver plating, and in their hands were long, sharp sticks and what could only be described as enlarged singular scales which shielded them from the blows of its claws. These meals fought back with a ferocity the dragon had never seen before, dealing such immense damage to its thin body and tender head that it collapsed to the muddy earth. 

It would have surely died, were it not for the leader of their pack commanding them to cease their attack. Too weakened to escape, it soon found itself bound in chains and, eventually, brought into a large stone cage, only surviving the frightening ordeal from the scraps of meat fed to it by the hand of the armored ones’ leader.

The creature resembled its usual meals in shape and flesh, yet there was not a whiff of the black sprite within its body, only something burning hot with an utterly repulsive odor in its place. Yet still, its hand was gentle as it fed and stroked the poor dragon’s puny head. This being even had small patches of sharp scales sewn into its armor, quite unlike the others of its ilk. Was it a dragon as well?

Once freed of its chains, the ever-hungry dragon settled into a new routine. Crawl around the circular well of the cage. Try to climb the walls but never make it far up. Wait by the iron bars for the scent and sound of the feeder before being given more mounds of juicy red meat. It often babbled to it in its foreign tongue, stroking it whenever it was granted permission and always eager to retrieve the stray scales it shed when commanding its subordinates to attempt to clean the enclosure, then leaving in a hurry. 

Time moved slowly in this maddening existence. Enough for its already puny eyes to degenerate even further and its wings to atrophy. Food had since become its only source of stimulation, but even the meat it was given each day did barely enough to satisfy its appetite. Eventually it grew more aggressive, even to the feeder, as the pit in its stomach began to fill with envy. There was more food out there that the feeder wasn’t willing to give. Why must it stay locked up in this dreadful hole? What did it ever do to deserve this?

Then, one day, the feeder did not come to visit.

It waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. But the feeder never returned, nor did the scant meals that kept it sane.

It grew hungrier. No one came. It chewed the rust off of the iron bars. No one came.

It grew hungrier. It plucked off its softest scales to consume. No one came.

It grew hungrier. It bite off the tip of its tongue and swallowed it whole. No one came. Nothing came.

It grew hungrier.

It grew hungrier.

It grew hungrier.

It grew RAVENOUS!

Finally, it felt it! Those black sprites still lingered inside its stomach! Reaching deep within, it nourished itself on the memory of those meals as its very flesh began to tighten.

The cage was filled with the sounds of cracking bones and loud, distorted roars as the dragon’s limbs stretched longer than ever before, and the expanse of its gaping mouth tore further and further down its slender belly. More razor sharp teeth grew from the exposed innards of the new wound as its older ones enlarged around them, turning its very ribs into a massive, all-consuming mouth reaching as far as its middle pair of legs.

Its new teeth rattled, clenching inward in an attempt to direct its own gushing blood back into its stomach. Even as its head was now shrunken and blind, sight would no longer be needed. Smell had always been its greatest asset.

Then it charged forth, roaring in agony as its bigger body effortlessly broke the iron bars of its cage! There was no creature that could not be consumed! No walls that could not be climbed! No bars that could not be broken! 

It will never grow fat. Never be satiated. Never see another of its kind again. Yet none of those facts mattered to the warped mind of this deformed, gaping dragon. For one who was forced to experience the desire of heat and misery of cold, there was not a thing in the world that could ever satisfy beyond the indulgence of gluttony, fleeting as it is. At long last, there was nothing left that could stop this ancient being.