text: [Themes: sci-fi, fantasy]
  
  You stand alone in your room staring at your blank reflection in the mirror. You look like every other person in your Community,beige clothing, and blonde hair. Today you begin your morning ritual like every other morning. Y
  ou shower, you dress, you brush your teeth. Today will be like every other day in your community, go to school with all the normal classes. And yet you have a rushing feeling in your stomach, like someone punched you in the stomach and knocked the wind out of you, like you need to punch them back, like you need to hurt someone to help someone. You shake the thought from your mind for thoughts like that are forbidden in the village. You glance out your window before you go to breakfast. You think you see a red-pink flame on the horizon.
  
  [Author's Note: This is a story about a a person who is to curious for her beige wearing robotic society. Their leaders accidentally tell the child that their is tell of dragon fire, so will you defeat the dragon or let your robotic society perish under the dragons breath. What will you decide?]
  
  > sneak out your bedroom to find the source of the flame
  You decide you are tired of this robotic life, and open your creaky window as quiet as possible. Slowly and as gracefully as you can manage you sneak out the window. But where are you going, you remember something at school you overheard by your principles office. He muttered to himself (and you) stupid dragons on north. They will burn our town to ash and not one of the leaders cares. Someone ought to do something about it. You repeat it in your mind and decide that going north is the best bet. But which way is north, something you teacher toldyou, back before we had the Community people had a device called a compass it helped navigate. But what did people do without a compass, there is a saying that pops into your head the sun sets in the east and rises in the west. It is early morning an the sun is in the west. So north is that way you point and say out loud but stop mid sentence so you do not attract attention. You begin to walk north. after only half a mile you come to an ally way to keep a straight course you must continue down the ally way. As you walk a man jumps out of an open door he grabs you and holds a gun to your temple. You have no idea what is happening or what your attacker looks like. But worst of all you are alone.
  
  Your attacker mutters something in your ear, "If you wish to save your society you must tell me where you are going.''
  
  You know that this kind of thing doesn't happen in the community so you reply back in a stern voice "Who do you work for?''
  
  Without a second thought he says "no one, tell me where you are going." You know if you tell him something bad will happen to you and nothing good will come out of it.
  
  > kick your attacker in the ribs
  You decide you must act fast. You twist around he tries to grab you and you duck. Before he can get his wits about him you twist around and kick him in the ribs. He falls to the ground, not unconscious but badly wounded be the blow. You know he can not survive or else he will stop you from saving your village. So you stamp him in the ribs he goes unconscious. But still alive, you notice a gun in his holster, you reach for it cautiously. The gun is already loaded and ready to fire. You don't want to kill anyone but if you don't so many others in your community will perish. So you aim for his heart, that way it will be a quick and painless death. You look away, you don't want to do this. But slowly pull the trigger you hear a groan and then a head hits the cobblestone ground. You must move on but don't want anyone else to die, should you turn back? should you keep going?
  
  > Keep going
  You decide it is more important to save your family and your Village. You look at the sun again to determine which way is north, it is nearly up but you can still tell which way to go. You trudge on another 8 or so miles the sun is bright and is beating down on you, you keep your head lowered to shield your face. For the first time in your life you are thankful for your clothing, it is beige and
  not black or another color, for another color would attract to much sunlight. You glance up and then stumble backward looming above you is a great mountain. The summit extends into the great beyond. Going up and up and up until it pierces the clouds like a subtle knife. This is the greatest most beautiful peak you have ever seen. Yet at the same time it is the most treacherous and daring pinnacle in the world. There is no way you are going to get up there on your own. The moutain is several miles. And the Elder Dragon's cave is all the way at the top. And besides you could meet an unsuspecting dragon in one of the cave mouths. Or get roasted from fire or from an explosion of light (these things were coming from the cave mouths). So there lies the question, how the heck are you going to get up there. And then something astonishing happens. Clouds swirl around the tip of the great looming peak. And then lightning strikes but inches from you, thankfully you have rubber soles, then a creature descends from the heavens, not a dragon. Yet still something immensely powerful. It swoops down to the ground and then oddly it speaks.
  
  "I have herd of your journey, and I the great sphinx am here to help you accomplish it. Climb aboard my back and I shall fly you to the Elder Dragon if you wish. If not I must return home or take you to another dragon.''
  
  > To the Elder Dragon
  "The Elder Dragon is the best choice right now I must speak to him of the fires in the community. But if he disagrees I am in need of a weapon.'' You reply to the sphinx.
  
  "I figured so I have brought two for you to choose from, a rifle, or a sword.'' The sphinx said this while indicating to each the sword and the rifle in turn.
  
  "Well, since you are here, and so it is not such a burden on you, may I take both?'' you ask in question
  
  The great and mighty sphinx replies in a soft yet strong voice. " I don't see why not." and he hands you the sword and rifle as you climb aboard his great back. Then with his mighty wings he takes to the sky, with his powerful wings you arrive to the cave mouth in but a few moments. The mighty sphinx stops and then kneels you climb of his mighty back. " I will wait here for you as long as it takes." Then you turn nervously, for if you go in that cave you may never come out. You force your foot forward and enter the cave. You walk deep in to the cavern until the entrance in but a speck of light. As you walk into the darkness toward nothingness you see a a glowing mass speeds toward your head you duck just in time, but see a green scaled dragon slither toward you. You grab your rifle and shoot the dragon in the leg. It does not delay him at all. This time you aim more carefully toward his eye, it is the only thing that will slow him down, you pull the trigger and he stumbles backward. The dragon is badly wounded and won't hurt you. You see in his eyes that he is ruthless but kind. you feel bad for injuring him but must continue, you run to him and he slithers into a shadowed corner.
  
  Then you speak. "Why do your dragons burn our village what have we done to you?"
  
  "We can no longer tolerate you human filth, polluting the air we breath, you annoy my kind with all your political bickering. And besides we need your ground for farming and resources."The dragon says this with a scowl on his face and a giant paw on his eye.
  
  "That is what all of this is about? All of this murder? About us being annoying, and a few acres of farm land? Humans are not the filth Dragons are." You did not need to hear anymore, this dragon is a ruthless killing machine he could not live. You aimed the riffle at the dragons chest and fired not one, but 5 bullets. They sunk deep into his chest and almost instantly he fell but as you had fired he ran to the edge of the cave and fell of the cliff as he died. You have saved your village. In the future years your village evolved into a free society. Your curiosity was from then on admired and not stomped on. After several years you sat in your office as freely elected president and remembered back to the day you stood on the ledge and watched the dragon fall. You had been chosen to do a great task.