How Dracano Came To Be Part 5

  I landed in Alex's back yard, near the forest, and was soon met by him; apparently he had been waiting for me. He saw the look on my face, and asked "What happened, man?"
"I think I killed somebody."
"What? Who?"
"One of the men in black, it was a reflex, he had me at gun point, I cooked him alive."
"You can breathe fire?"
"Apparently so…he was still screaming when I left…he might have gotten away with first degree burns."
"Let's just pretend he did, look, my dad's gone right now, and Allison is in the computer room, I should be able to sneak you in."
I nodded, and he led me inside, luckily their German Sheppard was in the basement, and I didn't have to worry about them, that dog didn't like me before, now, I don't know how it'd react.
  My taloned feet clicked on the hardwood floor, and Allison called out from the computer room "You know you're supposed to keep Axel in the basement until dad gets back."
Alex replied "he's not up here, you're hearing things." And ushered me into his room.
  Once inside, I sat down on the floor, staring into the terrarium at his pet horny dragon, a type of lizard that lives in the desert, about a foot and a half long, and covered in spikes. He saw me staring at it, then said "he's not gonna blink before you do."
  I snapped out of the trance, then looked at him and asked "What do I do now?"
He picked up a TV remote and said "relax; wait to see if anything pops up on TV."
  He turned it on and changed it to a news channel, we watched it until I fell into a daydreaming trance, but I snapped out of it when I heard the reporter:
  "…a very horrific pile-up. Thankfully, no one inside the cars involved was harmed, however, the pedestrian who caused the accident was horribly mauled beyond recognition, and dental records will be required to identify the body."
I shook my head in disbelief, I knew the intersection the reporter was at, it was only a short distance from my house…my teeth! My old teeth had fallen out, and had been sitting in the trash can at home, dental records my ass, they were faking my death!
  Apparently Alex was thinking the same thing, and he said "so much for that, then."
"Yeah, I bet the story will go like this "it was later found out that the victim had recently contracted a lethal disease, and it has been ruled that this was a suicide.""
"Yeah, sounds about right…so, now that you don't exist, what are you going to do?"
"I have no idea…"
  We sat silently for a while. Quite a while, in fact. Until we heard his parents get home. His dad and his step mom. Rather than panicking, he tossed me a large blanket, and I curled up in a ball underneath it in the corner, blending into a pile of toys that Andrew, his younger brother, had left lying around.
  Alex's dad came in, checked up on him as he was watching TV, and left, then, the dreaded noise, Andrew. He casually walked into the room, and towards the pile of stuff. He lifted up part of the blanket to search for his toys, completely ignoring the scaled hide he was looking at. He pulled out a transformer, put the blanket back, then plopped down on top of me, like I was a beanie bag or something.
  Alex tried to convince him to leave, but he wouldn't, he seldom did, this room was technically both of theirs, so he had a right to be in it. My pulse was skyrocketing, I didn't know what to do. After a while of only lightly breathing, so he wouldn't notice, and of not moving at all, I felt and odd sensation, but not one that I hadn't felt many times before, I felt the need to cough. The pressure of him leaning against me was growing uncomfortable, and the restricted breathing was causing a small amount of fluid to build up in my airways.
  I could have held it off, but he began shifting to get more comfortable, and then elbowed me in the chest. I let out a cough, and he noticed that what he had been leaning on was alive. He jumped up and ripped the blanket away. I looked at him and gave a weak smile, before Alex said "I tried to get you to leave."
  Andrew wasn't shocked, though, he was excited, he fell down to his knees and started investigating every part of me "Dude, you didn't tell me you had a dragon!"
  I looked at Alex pleadingly, hoping he had an idea what to do next, but he just shrugged. Andrew started feeling my scales, and the membranes of my wings, and everything, there were very few parts of me he didn't touch. I just sat there until his curiosity was satisfied, then he asked "Can it talk?" and I looked at Alex, shaking my head so that only he noticed, and Alex said "Uh, no, he can't"
  Andrew began looking at me closer now, like since he thought I was just an animal, he could take more liberties and get closer. I tugged away as he felt one of my horns and let out an animal snort, surprised at how authentic it sounded. He recoiled a little, afraid he'd angered the giant lizard, then demanded "dude, you gotta let me ride it!"
  Alex just replied "I don't have to let you do anything, it's not your dragon…" I knew what he was about to say next, he was about to say I was his dragon. I glared at him and he cut himself off before he finished his sentence. Andrew just felt my green scales again and asked "do mom and dad know?"
"No, they don't."
"I gotta tell 'em!"
  He jumped up and ran for the door, but I tripped him with my tail and Alex restrained him, then said "you can't tell mom and dad! We have to keep him secret, if they find out, the governments gonna come and cut him open, do you want that?"
Andrew shook his head, his mouth being covered by Alex's hand, and Alex let him go. He immediately stared at me, then asked "where'd you find him?...and why is it wearing pants?"
  I just now realized I was still wearing pants. Alex just said "well, he can't just go walking around naked, can he?"
"but since when do animals wear clothes?"
  I snorted at him again, and he took a step beck, then said "okay, it wears pants, whatever."
  Alex just replied "I found him in the woods, alright, he wanted to come home with me."
"how would you know what it wanted?"
  I stood up, on four legs, and walked over to Andrew, then cocked my head to the side, mimicking every animal behavior I had ever seen, then made a clicking, purring noise, and rubbed my head against his arm, If this didn't work, I was just gonna come out and tell him what I really was.
  Thankfully, it did, he got the message, as he started rubbing my head like a dog's. Alex was obviously suppressing a laugh, so I glared at him again. Eventually, Andrew left to go to the kitchen, hopefully just to get something for himself, if he brought me back a piece of raw meat or something, I'd be really pissed.
  Once he was gone, Alex shut the door, and I fell to the floor before saying "That was close."
"close? That was perfect! You sure you're still Daniel inside there?"
"Yes, I'm just a good actor…we can't do this forever, we need to tell somebody."
"Who? You know if you're discovered, you'll probably be dissected."
"I know…but…I…I'm just so confused right now."
"I am too."
  We sat there for a little while, not knowing what to do. To pass the time, I got back up off the ground and began testing my flexibility. I could still walk on two legs if I wanted to, but it felt so much better to walk on four, with the exception of the pants, which didn't fit right when I was on all fours, so I removed them, thankful that all reptiles had their reproductive organs concealed, and naked wasn't technically naked.
  After casting the pants aside, I was able to better test myself, seeing just what I could and couldn't do. On one particular stretch, where I was actually looking at my own back, Alex said "damn, that looks painful."
  I straightened back out, then said "well, it isn't…I guess I have more animalistic joints now." I thought about this for a minute, then pulled out my laptop and powered it up. I took some more pictures of myself. I noticed my neck was slightly longer than it was that morning, and that my chest was more round and less flat. I hoped it was finally finished, because walking on two legs was the last shred of humanity I had left, I didn't want to lose that.
  Once I was done, I plugged in the Ethernet and got online. Scales was already online. I brought up the chat box, and after zipping the folder with all of my documentation in it, I sent him a URL link, before typing "hey, Scales, I think it's over with."
"Really? Are you a dragon now?"
"yes…I'm even having trouble wlaking on two legs instead of four."
"man, I can't wait until this download is finished, I gotta see what you look like now."
"Alright, but just promise me you won't tell anyone, things have gotten a little dangerous."
"how so?"
"the government came after me, they faked my death, I'm at Golem's house right now, he's hiding me, if they find me, I'm gonna get dissected."
"0_o  Well, nobody wants that, I won't tell anyone, but you gotts tell me, what's it like?"
"It sucks."
"how, you're armored, big, tough, you can fly…tell me you can breathe fire."
"yes, I can, but, I don't want any of this, it's not like in a TF story, this stuff just doesn't work in the real world."
"then explain to me how it already did."
"I don't know…look, I'm trying to lay low, so I gotta log off now, I just wanted to let you know, I'll contact you again when I can."
  I logged off of the chat box and then closed out my e-mail. I put the laptop away just in time to see Andrew returning with a plate. I smelled nachos and cheese.
  He sat down on the bed as Alex closed the door behind him. Even when they were trying to hide a lizard, he couldn't keep it shut.
  We sat there for quite some time, Andrew sharing his nachos with me, surprised when he saw me using my talons to hold them while eating. Eventually, it was getting late, and we had to sleep. I was tired, but couldn't bring myself to sleep, I was afraid someone might walk in at any minute.
  After a while, we decided I should do what I did before, and hide under a blanket near the closet. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, but awoke before daybreak, a nightmare about running from the smith agents form Matrix waking me up. I looked around, Alex and Andrew were both still asleep, I looked at the clock, it was 5 AM, they'd be getting up for school soon.
  I knew that nobody in the house was awake, so I took the opportunity to leave. I left my computer behind, I knew Alex would take good care of it. I also left a note:
"Dear Alex,
  You can't hide a giant lizard forever, and I can't spend all of my time living in fear. I'm going to head into the wilderness, who knows, I might find other dragons, and maybe they can help me. DO NOT look for me, if you want to see me again, hang a red flag in the trees behind your yard, I'll check that area every now and then to look for it. I know how to hunt and prepare food, and I obviously have fire for cooking, so I should be alrght out in the woods.
  Your friend, Dracano Sapien"
  I was near tears as I wrote the end of the note, and placed it in front of the TV. I then snuck out of the house. I left the black pants behind, I wouldn't need them, I might as well have been an animal now. As a matter of fact, when I tried to stand on two legs, I couldn't. I was a dragon, not a half dragon, not a dragon variant, but a traditional European Drake. As far as anyone, including myself was concerned, Daniel died in that car crash, I was now Dracano Sapien. I tried in vain to laugh at the irony, my avatar on so many websites had been a green dragon, and now that I was one, the very sight of scales disgusted me.
  I flew off into the mountains, deep in thought, I had genuinely no idea where to go next, or what to do when I got there.