As I walked towards town, I began to wonder if Moondancer had been lying about other former humans being here. There was literally nobody around as I walked the rest of Park Road, and I looked in every house I could get into without breaking in. They were all empty, and a lot of them had been looted by somebody. The most commonly stolen things were blankets, canned food, and batteries. It was like the houses were all being robbed by a crazy doomsday prepper who probably had an emergency bunker or something.
But, hey, if crazy doomsday preppers were all I was going to find, then I'd just have to deal with that. At least I wouldn't go hungry. It was eerie how quiet it was. This street should have been bustling with activity, but it was a total deadzone, with the only life being the crows and the cats they were fighting with. I shuddered as I passed a garden with a dead dog lying in the yard. It was still tied to its post, unable to get away and reach food. What kind of horrible person would leave their dog to starve in the garden?
The dead dog reeked, so I left it and hurried on. The route was familiar—I had to walk it every morning to get to the bus stop. But unlike those mornings, the grey sky overhead cast a shadow on an empty world. Why was I alone? Had everyone else left and just forgotten to take me with them?
After passing my usual bus stop, I realised how hungry I was. Since our mysterious thief had been so kind as to break into the Outlet Centre for me, I just went in through the broken window. I hadn't noticed it before, but the shards of glass weren't leaving so much as a scratch on my scales. I guess dragons are more resilient than people. Once I was inside, I immediately went to the cafe. Everything had rotted, like the shop, but there were a few granola bars left. I tore one open with my teeth and tried to eat it, but it didn't smell, look, or taste appetising, so I spat it out.
That was odd. I usually loved granola bars. I nosed around the cafe some more, but there wasn't anything that wasn't rotten in there aside from granola bars. My search for food would have to start elsewhere. Thankfully, I was in town now. Maybe the other people were all hiding out here.
I found a shop with intact doors and took a leaf out of the thief's book by smashing them, though I'm sure that the thief didn't break the glass by throwing their whole body at it like a battering ram. Once I was inside, I poked around looking for something to eat. The fresh food was rotten (as usual), but there was canned beef that probably hadn't gone off. Now the problem appeared of how to open the can without a can opener. I tested my new sharp teeth but all that happened was I started crushing it like one of those compressors at scrapyards, and the beef just kind of exploded out of the ends and all over the floor. What little did end up in my mouth was delicious, so I grabbed another can.
This time I tried my claws. That worked. The aluminium can didn't stand a chance. My claws sheared through it like a hot knife through butter. Lacking any silverware, I just dumped the whole can into my mouth. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to cook it first, but it tasted fine to me, even raw. I ate another full can and left the shop. Like my neighbourhood and Park Road, town was deserted. Animals that would never normally be in town, like foxes and deer, were wandering around, but they ran when they saw me. I guess that if I was a deer the sight of a giant lizard with sharp teeth and even sharper claws would probably terrify me as well.
I was starting to think that maybe I was alone. That everyone was gone, and Moondancer had lied when she said there were others. Were they dead? Maybe whatever turned me into a dragon was so strong that it just completely vaporised everyone else. There weren't even bodies, at least not that I'd seen. I still couldn't believe that this all happened overnight. How had everything managed to go so wrong over the course of twelve hours?
A droplet landed on my snout, followed by several more up and down my back. I glanced up at the depressingly grey sky. It didn't look like it was going to be a sudden shower, more like one of those patented Irish days where it rains steadily all day and you can't do anything. According to some statistics I'd looked up when I was bored, it rains 225 days of the year in the southwest. And here in Killarney, the heart of the southwest, it rains more than it does anywhere else in Ireland because there's so many mountains and we're fairly close to the sea. A chilly wind was whipping up as well, so I figured I'd best find somewhere to wait it out.
I went to the nearest hotel, a nice place called the Royal. It was open, but not broken into, so I pushed the door and went in. It looked, weirdly enough, like someone was living in the lobby. There was a pile of blankets in one corner, and a massive heap of cans in another. A couple of phones and radios were strewn about behind the receptionists desk, as well as some books, mostly on outdoor survival. There were also a few books on caring for farm animals, particularly horses.
Whoever had set up camp here didn't seem to be around, so I decided to wait for them to come back. If I could talk to them, maybe they'd be more willing to share information than Moondancer was. I laid down on my belly, my legs naturally folding under me like a cat and my tail coming up to lay alongside me. I sat like that for a while, watching the rain drip down the windows, daydreaming about nothing in particular, when a flash of movement and bright colour caught my attention.
Outside, standing on the footpath, was another pony like Moondancer. This one was pink, with a short purple mane and tail. It didn't have a horn, and I couldn't see if it had a tattoo or not, but I did notice it seemed kind of muscular. Leaner than Moondancer had been. Still very cute, and according to that little suggestion at back of my mind, an ideal snack/slave.
The pony stared at me for a second, and then it dropped the bag it had been holding in its mouth and bolted. My legs uncoiled in an instant, sending me forward in a bounding leap that I hadn't been aware I could do. An exhilarating rush of adrenaline filled my brain.
I gave chase.
The pony was fast. I was fast too. Faster than her.
She turned a corner. I did too. I was getting closer.
She turned another corner and skidded. I didn't skid.
She couldn't see in the rain. I could.
She ran down an alley.
She didn't see the dead end.
She stopped. I caught her.
She raised a hoof. I opened my mouth.
The hoof came forward at blinding speed.
Everything was black.
I woke up feeling as though I'd been kicked in the face by a very angry horse. I slowly cracked an eye open. It was still raining, but it was almost getting dark. How long was I out?
A blurry pink and purple shape standing over me came into focus. The pony from before, I guess. Wait. The pony I had chased around town and almost killed!? Why had I done that? I had wanted to talk to her, not fucking eat her. She was glaring down at me with a look of contempt.
"Don't move," she said, placing a hoof on my nose. "Or I'll crack your stupid scaly snout." She snorted, then added, "Again."
"Wasn't planning on it," I mumbled. She still didn't remove her hoof.
"So you can talk?" she said, the venom dripping from her voice. "I didn't expect the murderous predator to want to converse with me."
As the world around me finally decided to settle on one image, I saw that the pink pony did have a tattoo, and it was a pair of boxing gloves. How fitting.
"What's your name?" I asked. Half of my face was still lying on the ground, so it sounded a little slurred, but she seemed to understand.
"Why should I tell you, predator?" She spat the word out like it left a bad taste in her mouth.
I ignored that, though and instead said. "My name's Deirdre. Why do you keep calling me a predator?"
"Oh well, maybe it's the fact that there's a horrible feeling in my gut telling me to run away from you, the fact that you appear to be some sort of dragon, and hmm, what's that other thing? Oh yes, the fact that you tried to eat me!"
I winced. I still didn't understand why I had done that in the first place. It had just felt so natural. She had run, and I had chased her. Something told me to do it, the same thing that popped up when I met Moondancer. But then why didn't I chase Moondancer? Was it because she didn't run like this pony did?
I still wanted to talk to this pony and share knowledge with her. And to do that, I needed to apologise. "'m sorry," I said, slurring a little because I still didn't dare to move my head.
The pony snorted again. "Hmph. Not really accepted. But it's a start, so I suppose I'll tell you my name. I'm Tina O'Sullivan." She lifted her hoof. "Don't try anything funny, or I'll knock you back out and this time I'll make sure you don't wake up."
This Tina sure was violent. 'Tina' sounded more like a normal human name, so maybe this pony had been a human at some point as well. I lifted my head. "Were you ever a human?" I asked, getting straight to the point.
She grimaced. "A while ago. I've been alone like this for a month."
"A month?" I said. What the heck? She'd been alone as a pony for a month? How had no one noticed and tried to help her?
"Unless I've been keeping track wrong, yes. You're the first person I've seen since I woke up on May 23rd. Figures the first person I'd run into would try to kill me," she said.
"But isn't today May 23d?" I asked. She must have been wrong. There was no way a whole month had passed without me noticing.
"Today is June 23rd, if I'm not mistaken," said Tina. "Where the heck have you been?"
"In my bed asleep until this morning. I couldn't find anybody. You're the first person I've met as well." I didn't mention Moondancer. I'm sure she had a good reason for wanting to be a secret.
"If you were sleeping through this whole month, I'd have found you for sure. I broke into almost every house up and down Killarney, and I didn't find any sleeping dragons." Tina narrowed her eyes. "I think you're lying."
Seemed I'd found my thief. And that meant I couldn't deny that she had been in my house. Someone had clearly broken in, and I was guessing it was her. "I'm not lying!" I said. "I swear, I just woke up this morning. You were definitely in my house at some point, so why didn't you see me?"
"I don't know, and quite frankly, I don't care. As nice as it has been talking to someone other than my reflection, I'm not going to deal with a dragon who makes me want to run screaming and who may or may not try to kill me in my sleep hanging around my area. You'll have to carve out another place for yourself," said Tina.
"What? Shouldn't we stick together?" I said. No way. I'd finally found somebody, and then instantly made them hate me. Good job, Deirdre.
"I'm not 'sticking together' with someone who'll try to eat me. Sorry. Stay out of town, would you?"
With that, Tina turned and strutted away like nothing had happened, leaving me alone in a smelly, grey alleyway with rain pouring down on top of me.
Tina had been alone here for a month. She hadn't seen anyone else. So that meant that my parents weren't here. None of my friends were here either. They weren't anywhere. They were gone. And now I was alone again.
I curled up in a ball and rested my head on my claws. That moisture on my face?
That was just rain. Honest.