Alex was back in the room. This time, it was empty. No table, chair, or rings could be found. Just him curled up on the floor alone.

Alex recoiled in shock when he looked at his body. Before, he still had a human form in his dreams, but now he had almost entirely changed into a dragon! He frantically searched himself for something, anything human to cling on to. All he could find were a few strands of lighter hair on his head and some patches of uncorrupted skin. He had wasted all that time mucking around in the woods, and now he was almost out of time.

He needed to do something. He was done with being carried around in backpacks and riding on shoulders. No one was actually trying to help him. No one even knew he was gone, and he wasn’t sure anyone would even care if they did. Parker left him alone, and Lasair just wanted him as a pet. He was utterly alone. He needed to solve his problem on his own now.

He needed to wake up.

Alex tried pinching himself, but he felt nothing. Just in case that just wasn’t enough, he tried biting himself too, but it yielded the same results.

Just then, he heard a voice. It was muffled, like someone speaking through a thin wall, just distorted enough to where he couldn’t make it out. He recognized the voice, though. It was the student’s. Was he trying to talk to him?

Alex tried calling back, but any sound he made was swallowed by the void surrounding him, not even leaving an echo.

He tried listening for the source of the voice, but couldn’t find it. The sound was coming from all around him.

Screw it, he might as well try finding it. He started sprinting, but no matter how far he ran, he couldn’t reach the end of the room. It was as if the wall in front of him was moving away faster than he could chase it. Not only that, but the wall behind him was catching up.

At once, the wall in front of him stopped moving. The voice was getting louder, but this time, it wasn’t the student’s.

It was Parker’s.

Alex reached the otherworldly barrier and started slamming on it, calling out.

“Hey! You asshole! Why’d you leave me out there?” he shouted, but the words were erased by the void before they even reached his own ears.

Alex turned back and noticed the wall behind him never stopped moving. He then looked up and saw the ceiling was closing in, too. His pounding became more frantic as the walls approached his back and head until they grew so close he could no longer move.

All the while, Parker’s voice kept getting louder and louder, yet no matter how loud it got, it was still unintelligible.

Alex covered his ears as the room closed him in, crushing him tighter and tighter. Whatever stopped him from feeling pain earlier had worn off, as he felt his body being crushed by the rising pressure.

Until suddenly it was gone. He was awake, and Parker was shaking him and yelling.

“Alex! Wake up! Come on!”

Alex weakly cried out. It felt like all the energy he had was sucked out, and he was left with nothing.

Once Parker saw Alex’s eyes had opened, he stopped shaking him and put him down on the table. Alex flopped down like a ragdoll, no strength left in his body to even hold himself up.

“Oh, oh man! You’re alive! I thought I lost you there! You stopped breathing, and, and I couldn’t hear your heartbeat, and you wouldn’t respond, and-and”

“Calm down, Mr. Phillips! See, I told you he was fine!”

Fine was a strong word. Luckily for him, it seemed bones could be healed during dreams, but not crushed. However, the lingering sense of claustrophobia filled his mind, and the aches of being crammed so tightly remained, as if they’d really happened. But what struck him the most was how Parker referred to him. He didn’t say Sparky. He used his real name.

He said Alex.

“How long did you keep him in that bag? Did you even realize he wasn’t breathing in there?! How did you get him? Wha… Oh man, I need to sit down…” Parker fretted before falling back onto a nearby chair.

Alex picked himself up, lifting himself upon his shaky forelimbs, before collapsing back down.

“How was I supposed to know that would happen? I just wanted to bring him here to you! I was just trying to help! I swear!” The student sputtered back.

“Well, you’ve helped enough. You don’t need to get roped into this. Just go, please. For your own good. Just forget this ever happened.”

“What? Why? Come on! This is totally unfair-”

“Ryan, would you for once just listen to me? This isn’t a punishment! I’m doing this for your own good. Now, please, just get out of here and forget this ever happened! Don’t tell anyone what you saw, ok?”

Parker wasn’t demanding, he was pleading with Ryan

“Alright, fine. Sheesh.” Ryan left the room, mumbling under his breath.

Parker pulled his chair up to the table Alex was resting on and leaned in close.

“Alex! Alex, I know it’s you in there! What are you doing here? Why did you come here?! I’m supposed to be meeting up with whatever that… that thing posing as you is, and we were gonna track you down! It wants to kill you, and I was gonna try and help you, but now you’re here, and I thought you would be out there with Lasair, and we would have to chase you, but you’re here now, and I don’t know what to do! Why are you not you? Why is that thing you? Why did you bring its fingers? Or, your fingers?”

Parker was very close and speaking very loud, and Alex already had a headache. Parker’s incessant yelling wasn’t helping. Alex reached up to his head and covered his ears.

Parker backed up and spoke in a quieter voice.

“Sorry, sorry about that. I just… I have so many questions… I don’t think it’s just Ryan’s sleep spell that did this to you. I have some food if you want it.”

Parker reached into his pocket and dug around until he found a small sack. He opened the sack and put it right in front of Alex’s face. Inside were some pieces of the academy’s “special” beef jerky. Alex always hated the stuff. Instead of smoking it, or curing it, or drying it on a rack, or any other acceptable version of preserving meat, they overcooked the meat and used magic to draw out the moisture. What was left was a piece of food with an almost indefinite shelf life, but absolutely no flavor.

But right then, that didn’t matter to Alex. What mattered was that Parker knew, and he was trying to help! Besides, Alex was starving, and the combination of the sleep spell and whatever curse he’d been afflicted with in his dream had drawn out all his energy. He stuck his snout into the bag and devoured the jerky as quickly as possible to minimize contact with his tongue. Oddly enough, it had a similar twang to the thing’s fingers. They were both flesh that had been tampered with by magic. Only the taste was significantly less prevalent in the jerky.

That much food may have tided him over a week earlier, but not anymore. He’d grown, and so did his appetite, but it was still something. He was shocked by how quickly that little bit of food gave him energy. With trouble, he was able to lift himself off the ground and sit.

“Are you feeling any better? When Ryan pulled you out of his bag, you were basically a corpse!”

Alex knew he couldn’t respond with speech, so he tried his best with charades. He tried drawing a box in the air, and stuck his head through the area. Then, he tried motioning his claws inwards to show the box closing, momentarily forgetting he needed them to support himself. He fell forward, slapping his head on the table.

“Ok, I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Let me grab a pencil and paper.”

Parker got up from his chair and rifled around a desk in the corner.

Alex now had the chance to scope out the room. It was one of the academy’s labs, made for dissection and live observation. He remembered them being quite cramped before, but now it seemed as large as a warehouse. He was currently on the operating table, where magical creatures were picked apart and observed. He was never one for that kind of research. He was fine with slaying beasts, and didn’t mind skinning an animal for its hide and meat, but poking around its insides and picking it apart was too far for him. Next to him was a large steel cage. Well, it was large compared to him. In reality, it was probably only about 2 feet all around, but that was more than enough for him to fit inside. Of course, he would never let anyone put him in one of those things again, so it didn’t matter much.

Parker returned with the pencil and paper and placed them in front of Alex.

“Alright. So, I guess I should start with the biggest question. Why are you a dragon?”

Alex knew he wouldn’t be able to write anything, but Parker didn’t, so he put on a show anyways. Alex fumbled around with the pencil, trying to find a way to hold it in his claws. It was a good thing reptiles didn’t adopt the paw-style of extremities. He was able to grip the pencil with his claws, holding it like a staff with both hands. As expected, when he tried writing, his mind went blank, incapable of finding the words.

“Well, go on! What are you waiting for?”

Alex dropped the pencil and continued with the charades. He pointed to the pencil, and then to his mouth. Then, he wrapped his claws around his maw, holding it shut.

“This again? Well, alright. Uh… So the pencil, and your mouth is held shut… You can’t write it?”

Alex sighed and furrowed his brow. This wasn’t going to be easy.

He waved one claw around in the air and made a casting motion. Then, he raised up a single claw to his lips in a shushing motion.

“Ok, ok, so, magic, and then quiet…”

Alex could almost see the gears turning in Parker’s head. Finally, Parker’s eyes went wide in realization.

“Oh! I got it! A silencing curse! You got cursed by the thing that stole your body, and thats why you can’t talk!”

Alex was worried Parker would never figure it out, but was ecstatic that he did. Unbeknownst to him, his tail was wagging, and before he could correct it, he had already swept the pencil and paper off the table.

“Oh, you’re so lucky I took a class on non-combat magic. Let me get rid of that for you.”

Parker took one finger and placed it on Alex’s forehead, similar to how Ryan cast the sleep spell. Only this time, there were no words. Alex watched as magical energy glowed and pulsed at Parker’s finger before shifting into his forehead. Alex felt it split, one half traveling to his head and the other to his throat, before dispersing.

Alex’s head was suddenly flooded with thoughts. It was as if the curse had been locking holding trapping them, and now that they were free, they all rushed through his mind at once. Only, they didn’t feel like his thoughts; they were much more… dragonly. On the other end, it felt like a band restricting his neck had been cut off. He felt different now. Almost like he was… more comfortable in his body. The thought was equally as comforting as it was disturbing.

But the important part was that the curse was gone. Alex opened his mouth and spoke for the first time in weeks.

“Awrraa ahbahoo arrhh bauawhh”

Alex pulled back in shock before drooping his head and turning away.

Well, that was embarrassing. It seemed dragons weren’t built to talk. Forming words in his maw was completely different than in his regular human mouth.

“I… Can’t tell if that worked. It should’ve; it’s not usually difficult to remove that kind of curse.”

Alex turned around to write something instead, but remembered he had just accidentally knocked them off the table. He would jump down to retrieve them, but he still felt so drained. Instead, he peeked over the edge of the table and pointed to them. While Parker bent over to pick them up, Alex thought of how easily he could pounce on him and tear a chunk off his neck before he could stop him.

Alex was taken aback by the gruesome idea. It was another one of those dragon thoughts. He quickly disregarded it, shoving it away into the recesses of his mind.

“Here. Now can you tell me? This whole situation is completely absurd!”

Alex was overjoyed he could finally converse with another person after so long. It was difficult to write in his body. The pencil was almost half his height, and such an instrument was unwieldy for a task as dexterous as writing, but he prevailed. The story was a little paraphrased, but it should suffice.

“Cleared orc camp

Stayed at inn

Innkeeper cursed me stole my body

Woke up like this

You know the rest”

Parker looked relieved more than anything.

“Oh, I am so glad you wrote that. I was really worried I’d gone crazy! I mean, you don’t blame me, right? This is all a bit nuts, isn’t it?”

Alex gave Parker a sly glare before writing again.

“Just a bit?”