The man was visibly shaken, “I-I-I have a f-f-family, sir.”
I looked at the man, trying to determine what he was trying to say and asked, “Oh, so do you want to bring your family on the road trip there?”
This thought petrified him even more so than me asking for a ride, he couldn’t even speak, but he did shake his head no so hard that I thought that he was going to unscrew his head. I said, “No, you don’t want your family to go on the road trip, okay. Unfortunately, I don’t have any money, sorry, but I do have the word thank you.” I gave him my best smile, and it didn’t seem to help him calm down much. It seemed to scare him even more.
“Hey, relax, okay? I am not going to hurt you, I have nothing to hurt you with. I am not going to hurt you; what did I just say? Repeat it back to me.”
“You are not going to hurt me.”
“Please say it again.”
“You are not going to hurt me.”
“Again.”
“You are not going to hurt me.”
It seemed to me that he still thought that I was going to hurt him. “Okay, just keep telling yourself that and soon you’ll believe it, because I’m not going to hurt you.”
The entire trip, he was shaking and scared, I was trying to help him calm down. I tried telling jokes, but that didn’t work. The joke that I told him was something to the lines of “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from me.” I realized post-joke that it probably didn’t break the ice, but made it worse.
He ended up dropping me off in Minnesota and, true to my word, I didn’t kill him and I thanked him for the ride, which I truly did appreciate. He drove off like a bat out of hell, or at least trying to get out.
It showed me that no matter how hard I try, I am probably still not going to win these people over. I am trying to make this humorous because I am trying to see the humorous side of life, but knowing that I will forever be hated for an action which I did not commit doesn’t help. Drake is closer than it was before, but I still have quite a while to go now.
Maybe I will almost be hit again and I can get another ride, a ride to where I am going or maybe a ride to my death. A third option is the most likely, and that is both.
Chapter 26: 1/19/???3
Well, nothing much to report after my entry on the 12th. That was a dark day, because I was the closest I have ever been to Drake since it happened 2 years ago. Now, I am right now the outskirts of the town.
I am building up my mental control, calmness, and nerve. I am so scared, but because I am one with the voice now, I know that it’s okay to be scared, it depends on what I do with that fear that makes me courageous or not.
It is not every day that you have to get ready to fight a dragon, well, not for others at least. For me, that has been my life for the past two years.
You know what? I have basically been complaining about this for the past two years, I am going to stop now. I will write again once I have killed the dragon.
Chapter 27: 1/22/???3
The following is an newspaper article written by the Aqua Dragua.
Odd Flares Appearing by Drake
Drake, more infamously known as the town wiped off the face of the map by international terrorist Pollock Drake, has had some odd flares that have been visible from various cities around the town.
It is unknown what caused the odd lights that occurred last night. Some think that it may be UFOs, others think that it was just meteors. The government has issued a statement saying, “We urge the public to remain calm while we try to determine what caused the odd flares. Therefore, just for the sake of precaution, do not try and enter within a proximity of 15 miles of Drake.”
“It was almost like fireworks, it was some beautiful fireworks. It was like the color of the rainbow, but in fireworks. Again, it was beautiful.” Said one citizen who asked to not be named for this story.
Time may or may not tell us what happened here last night, sometimes we are told immediately, sometimes we are told well after the fact, and sometimes, we just never hear about it. Under the new administration of the president, he has promised open and honest information to the public. Polls have been taken for the current president and they show that the president is more highly respected and honored than even Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his day.
There is no denying that the president has helped us get up from a tough fall. We had fallen a long way because we were afraid of a terrorist. We had seemingly gone back to a McCarthy era where we tried people for having viewpoints that in reality they did not have.
Many government officials are saying that they will keep us in the know about the events that take place in the next few days with regards to this situation. And we promise to keep you in the know as well about this information.
Chapter 28: 1/23/???3
It is finished. The world is safe, but I have not long to live. I will write as fast as I can and hopefully finish this so that someone may someday know that I am not innocent.
I mustered all of the courage that my small reserves had left. I called upon nature, my servant, to aid me in this battle against the beast. My voice told me where I could find the dragon. It was on the evil hill waiting for me as it had known that it was supposed to be here just as I had known. The cosmos had destined for us to meet here. Singers may sing until the ends of the earth about our meeting.
I walked through the town, the ashes were all gone as the years show that they had come and gone. I realized as I walked over my home that today was the two year anniversary of it happening. Many things have happened since then, two presidents have been kicked out of office (two, interesting), I have aged two years, I am now 17 years old. The day it happened, the fire destroyed two towns. The same thing that happened here happened on two continents abroad.
I was noticing a theme of two. This dragon was a bit obsessed with the number two.
I was thinking about this as I walked when suddenly, I stopped. There, ahead of me was the evil hill. And there, waiting for me, sitting cross legged was the dragon. It had scales the color of the rainbow. The blue was such a pure blue that I almost wept. I couldn’t even look at the red, yellow, and orange scales because they were so bright. I knew that this was going to be a fight fit for the evil hill.
I sat there looking at it, and it sat there looking at me. We were measuring each other up. I started walking forward towards it, and it started walking towards me. Its facial expression was that of perplexion. “Nature didn’t tell me you would be here.” The dragon said in a voice as deep and warm as the core of the earth.
I said, “That’s because I spent a year dying to earn nature’s trust. Then, I made it my servant. You don’t own it anymore.”
The dragon let out a laugh, warm and mildly condescending in nature and said, “Oh, my dear boy, I never owned nature. Nature owned me.” It let out a long sigh and said, “You have made the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Don’t think for a moment that that will scare me.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, I’m trying to say that there is time to turn back. There is time for you. I am like this forever.”
“You are a dragon.”
“Is that what you have been calling me?” It looked interested. “That would explain why nature had me destroy Naga, Drake, Lindwurm, Drache, Liung, and Tatsu. Do you see the common theme among those?”
I honestly did not see the theme. “There is no theme, they are names of cities that have been destroyed in the same way.”
The dragon closed its eyes and wept. I was incredibly unnerved by this, dragons are not supposed to weep. “I’m not sorry for weeping. I am weeping for you. For you have chosen a path that leads to certain death. That is the same path that I had chosen many years ago.”
“What path is that?” I asked weakly.
“Path? I did say path, didn’t I? It’s not so much a path, so much as a cycle.”
“What
is this cycle?”
“Nature has a cycle for everything. Life for animals are we are born, we live, we procreate, we die and our offspring live, procreate, and then die. Life for water is precipitation, runoff, accumulation, transpiration or evaporation, condensation, and then precipitation again.”
“What does that have anything to do with this?”
“I’m getting there, there is also a cycle, so old that it predates life itself. A cycle that nature made specifically to give life purpose. The life of water is made purposeful by being the thing that holds everything together. The life of monkeys is mostly to survive. Now humans, humans are an extraordinarily hard race to find a purpose for. So nature made a cycle to give human’s life purpose.”
“What is the purpose?”
“You tell me, Pollock. What has the purpose been for the past two years of your life?”
I felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I whispered, “Hunting you.”
“That’s right, for the past two years, the purpose of your life has been to hunt me. I exist to give you purpose. And you,” the dragon stopped talking.
“What about me?”
“You are the purpose of the world. I existed to give you purpose so you could give purpose to the world.”
“What?”
“Nature made you elusive, you couldn’t be caught because nature didn’t want you to be caught. You gave purpose to the lives of the United States, they feared you. They made decisions based on that fear that gave them purpose. That’s why I exist, to give you purpose, to give you the anger that you needed, so you can give purpose to the United States. I guess the cycle can be called the dragon cycle.”
“So I can’t kill you?”
“You certainly can kill me, because my role in creating you in every way is over. But, I know one thing, if I just roll over and die, you’re purpose ends here and now and you turn yourself in. So, I will fight you and you will win, and you will become what you were always destined to be. The purpose that brings the next purpose into the world.”
“And then they kill me.”
The dragon looked sadly at me and said, “The plans for the next purpose are already in play. You are not even worthy of removing the shoes of the next purpose.”
“What was the common theme among all of those names?”
The dragon smiled and said, “All of the names of the cities and towns were names for dragons. Naga, Drake, Lindwurm, Drache, Liung, and Tatsu all represent the same concept, dragons. Nature used me to further your obsession and go deeper into your purpose. Now, let’s stop talking and fight.”
The dragon flew into the air and and started coming towards me. Even though I shouldn’t have done it, I asked nature for help. Immediately, something fell out of the sky and landed right next to me. It was long and had a handle of shivering rainbow that shone like the scales on the dragon. I blinked and tried to see it for what it was and not the colors, and I saw that it was a sword. I grabbed the sword, accepting my destiny. My destiny that I was going to die to bring greater purpose to this world.
The dragon emitted a fireball that came soaring towards me, I ducked out of the way. I got closer to the dragon, and the dragon swiped its hand at me, but I ducked away again. Come on, this is too easy, I thought to myself. As I was thinking that, the dragon swiped its hand again and this time it caught me on the arm that I was holding the sword in.
The sword fell out of my hand and I saw that the dragon was preparing to shoot another fireball at me. I jumped out of the way the right and away from my sword. The dragon lumbered towards me with another hand raised, and I barrel rolled to the left and grabbed the sword. The dragon took flight again and came barreling towards me. My sword plunged deep into the crevice of the ribcages straight into his heart.
The dragon looked at me in sadness, as if to apologize for all the pain that it had caused me. Suddenly, it began to transform into something else. I looked on in confusion as its head became smaller and the shape of an egg. A jaw jutted out, its body began to grow smaller. I realized as I blinked away the cobwebs that this was a human.
The next thing that happened, I was not ready for by any stretch of the imagination. Because in all of my imagination, I could not have expected this. There, standing before me with a sword in his heart was my father.
“I had to get you out of the zone of the city, and so I said I wasn’t feeling too well.” My father gasped while coughing up blood. “I told you, I created you in every way, I wasn’t lying. I’m...sorry.” With that, he slipped from this life and fulfilled his role as creator of me.
I looked in horror as I realized that I had killed my father. I was blinking back the nagging feeling that I was going insane. How could this be?
I heard a sound behind me. I turned around wildly and found a woman with a kindly face. “Who are you?”
The woman’s kindly face looked at me with knowing eyes and said with a German accent, “You killed my mother, you killed my father, you killed my whole family. I am here to seek revenge. You are Pollock Drake, and you destroyed my home, Lindwurm. You have killed my life.”
I remembered the dragon had said that he had destroyed the city of Lindwurm, Germany. “No, that was this man who did that. He was my father. He did that to you, not me.”
“Yes, you did. Look at your father.” I looked down and saw ground. There was no body where seconds ago there had been my father. “When you destroyed my home, I saw a man carrying a sword of rainbow colors.”
I was blinking back the craziness even more now. I thought I was completely losing it. “Who are you?”
“Agnes Zweck. According to the German newspapers, I am dead.”
Something clicked inside of my brain that reminded me of a class that I had taken in German. Zweck is a German word, and it stood for... “Purpose.”
Chapter 29: 1/24/???3
Pollock Drake Captured at Last
A woman named Agnes Zweck brought Pollock Drake into custody at long last. She said that she found out his whereabouts from a man from South Dakota who told her where he said that he was going. Drake is now 17 and is being tried as an adult. He is expected to receive the death penalty because of his terroristic actions in the events following the attacks on Naga and Drake.
Drake stated in open court that he didn’t do it. He stated that it was the dragon. His lawyers are using the criminally insane card, which may or may not work. Colleagues say that it is a longshot for him to be considered criminally insane.
Chapter 30: 1/26/???3
Drake not Insane
According to psychiatrists who examined Pollock Drake, Drake is not criminally insane. He is not insane and is just trying to act like it. There is no knowledge of whether Drake has been treated for mental illnesses in the past, as the records would have been in city of Drake at the time of its untimely destruction at the hands of Drake.
Chapter 31: 1/28/???3
Defense calls Agnes Zweck to the Stand
Today in court, the defense called Agnes Zweck to the stand and asked her questions to determine the mental state of the defendant when she found him. Zweck, a survivor who was reported to be dead, but is very much alive, stated that he was completely out of it constantly talking about the dragon that he just fought. In her professional opinion, she was a psychiatrist in her home of Lindwurm, Germany, which was destroyed by Drake, Drake is mentally insane.
Chapter 32: 1/30/???3
Jury Makes a Decision
“We, the jury, find the defendant, Pollock Drake, guilty of terrorism. We believe that he should be put to death for the crimes that he has committed against the people of the world.”
The execution will be scheduled for March 3 in front of a live studio audience and cameras for all those who are unable to come.
Chapter 33: 1/31/???3
The following is the transcript of a speech given by Agnes Zweck to the people of the United Sta
tes.
Hello, citizens of America. For the past year and a half, I have been trying to figure out what to do with the fact that Pollock Drake destroyed my life. He murdered my family, he murdered my friends, and he murdered my children.
However, I want to publicly attest to my feelings, when I encountered him and saw how vulnerable he was in the town of drake on the night of the two year anniversary of the destruction of his city, I took pity on him. I want you to know that I, a victim of Drake’s pointless violence, forgive him. I ask that you, as a country, and as a world, forgive him as I have done. He needs our help, not our judgment.
Chapter 34: 2/2/???3
Agnes Zweck Deported
The country is in uproar since the speech that Agnes Zweck, the sole survivor of the Lindwurm attacks, asked the world to forgive Pollock Drake for this unforgivable act. The speech was met by two different reactions, one reaction said that it was touching and that they had changed their minds. The other reaction was that she was a Draker and should thus be punished with one of the three punishments.
The federal government was apparently part of the second group and they deported Zweck for not having a travel visa or anything for her to be here. They gave the same warning as they gave the congressmen two years ago, “If you come back and we will execute you.”
Just like there were two groups to the speech, there are two groups for the deportation. One screams that it was unfair and she should be able to stay to fight for the rights of her victimizer. The other screams that it was just and fair as she was clearly trying to convince the public that Drake is not a bad man.
Chapter 35: 3/3/???3
Zweck Returns and Drake Executed
Agnes Zweck made quite a polarizing stir in opinions last month that she was deported by the federal government. The government threatened her saying, “If you come back, we will have no other choice but to execute you.” Since the threat, Zweck has not been heard from. Little is known about what she did during that month.