Desolate Interrogation

I opened my eyes to be welcomed by darkness around me. I jolted and sat up, taking fast breaths. I turned my head around and remained in darkness.

"I died." I spoke out loud in disbelief. "I died without achieving anything huh.."

After everything I expected that I would be surrounded by my family after death, but this was just darkness. The same kind as the one I spent years experiencing.

As I completed my line of thought, 

A pair of giant yellow eyes opened before me.

"You are not dead idiot."

I wasn't dead?

Wait... that voice.

I stared at the eye looking at me, its glow illuminating a little of the creature's face. Well I was convinced that I wasn't dead at least.

And the dragon didn't kill me.

Why didn't it kill me? 

Why did I not die right then and there?

I was stunned and I remained that way for a little while. And the dragon didn't move to shake me out of my mental state, it just watched me flounder about in an effort to stand up in this darkness, something which I normally would have been able to do in my prior experiences.

My mind was running fast. Not in an effort to escape, but simple because I was panicking. 

I was mentally struggling. I was afraid of the torture I would now have to face from this dragon. This wasn't a fun feeling. 

Making up my mind I said," What do you want? Why are you after me?"

"I need you answer some questions boy... and then I will give you an answer to your second question."

The eyes flew into the sky and the cave lit up, the bio-luminecent plants coming to life and illuminating the cave. The dragon came into full view now, still as intimidating as it was. Alongside the light, the pressure decended onto me again.

Collecting whatever remained of myself, I faced the dragon. 

"First question. What is your name? You do have one right? Or did they stop doing that?" The dragon asked as it coiled in the air.

"My name is Stryke." I answered, a little confused by what it meant by the second half of the question.

The dragon seemed pleased at my answer, either from finding out my name or from knowing that I would answer every question it posed to me.

"Second question Strrrrryke... Why are you here? This is not a playground for children. What are your motives?" It said my name this time, rolling the r's as it did.

"I came here to get strong." As I said that I knew it was wrong, Mama's words replaying in my head. "No, I came to survive and get a shot at revenge." I corrected myself a second later and let my thoughts of revenge slip through.

The dragon's head tilted.

"Hu Hu innnteresting... Now third question. Do you know what this is? And where did you get this?" It asked, an item floating infront of it as it moved its fingers.

I squinted at it, the little floating item was still hard to see but I recognized it instantly. My pendant. Why was it asking about my pendant? It was only an item with sentimental value.

"Its a pendant, I made it for the children of the orphanage."

"You dont know what this is made out of? Where did you get this metal?"

This time it asked instantly, surprise evident in its eyes.

"I got this after stealing it from one of the supply truck drops in the melting lands thats it. It was in the shape of a pole and we cut into pendants."

"So, there are kids with this metal everywhere?"

Was this metal something useful? Why was the dragon so interested in it?

"No..... they are all dead. I have almost all of the metal with me right now."

"The box in the truck..." The dragon stated, letting me know that it knew where the rest where.

"Well Stryke, final question. You said that you made this pendant.... so why is this symbol on it?"

The pendant flew close to me and the symbol we etched on it stared me in the face. 

My thoughts sped up.... this creature knew something about the symbol. A lead in my investigation. Alongside my daily preparation and studies, I searched everything I could about this symbol but nothing important popped up. Or rather nothing came up at all.

I was close to letting the thread go and focus on whatever Project Piercing Darkness was.

But this was an unexpected windfall.

Looking the creature in the eye, I explained how we chanced upon the symbol and explained why we etched it on the pendant.

"You did something this dangerous because you thought it was cool? You ARE an idiot, no doubt about it."

So the symbol itself was dangerous, Mama had made that clear when she had us have the other end of it face outward as well as hide the entire pendant under our clothes.

"Do you know anything about this symbol?" I asked, almost pleading. My face had so much hope on it.

"Why?" The dragon asked intrigued now.

I then explained the last moments with my family and the conversations betwee Jaguar and Mama.

"They are my enemies and I will have my revenge one day, whenever that is." I concluded.

The dragon didn't reply this time, but flew closer to me. It stopped a few inches away from my face. Its eyes observing me.

I felt it scan me, searching for any hidden intentions. A shiver ran down my back and goosebumps popped up on my forearms. The scan wasn't a metophorical, I felt a foreign energy enter and pass through me.

It didn't hurt, but it was just uncomfortable enough for me to actively dislike it. My body twitched in response to the probing.

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A little while had passed since the 'examination'. I was hunched over eating some of the food the dragon brought over with a wave of its claws.

Now that I thought about it, was that the dragon's waking or was it just a standard ability. Its eyes were constantly glowing and I didn't know if there would be a difference if it used its ability. And there was no doubt about it, the dragon was a Waking as well. There was no way the dragon wasn't one, it was the King of this place, other than its natural disposition it probably had something greater alongside it otherwise there would be more competition.

I licked my fingers as I completed the last of the fruits and cooked meat, the moment I moved my fingers in front of me a small stream of water flew through my hands cleaning them. The stream then landed on the ground a little away from me.

Looking up, the dragon had its claws pointed in that direction. 

"Thank you." I said." Now..... can you answer some of my questions?"

The dragon nodded.

That was nice. It was willing to answer my questions. The immense fear I had toward the creature lessened a bit. 

I asked it, still seated," What is that symbol and who does it belong to?"

"I can't answer that yet boy. Some information needs strength to back up and you are no where near the strength required. Letting you carry this sort of information is akin to giving a baby a gun, nothing good can come out of it. And more importantly...."

It made itself comfortable among the vines behind it and completed, " I am not going to let my new source of entertainment try and run to its death this fast."

Rage bubbled inside me, "I am strong, I am stronger than both Mama and Jaguar, they knew this information, so I deserve to know it too!"

The dragon's voice came in reply," Are you going to kill all the foot soilders? The bottom of the barrel? I thought you aimed to bring the whole organization down and not just the ants at the bottom."

Trying to answer, I clenched my fists but I couldn't bring forth a reply. It was right. My aim was lofty but what didn't sit right with me was the fact that to this creature I wasn't strong enough to even know the name of the organization.

"Ask your next question Stryke."

"What is this made of?" Showing the pendant, I asked. "Is this something special?"

The dragon lazily waved its arm.

WOOOSH

I turned around and from the end of the cave a large object came flying through. My Jager. The dragon had brought the Jager along with me. My chances of survival were increasing every moment, this creature was surely not going to harm me after doing all this. The Jager then floated next to me and landed.

"Take out the rest of the 'pendants'." It said. It ordered. I wasn't in a position to disobey. And I did as I was told.

Pulling out the box with the memorial items from the Jager, I opened it. The pendants all flew out in front of the dragon, the strings detaching and falling back down.

The dragon then brought both its claws together and the pendants in the sky followed. I perpared myself for a crushing noise to follow this action but nothing happened.

The pendants just seamlessly combined into one floating black mass. The pendant in my hand slipped out of my grip and flew to the mass, combining with it.

"This..." The dragon waved the mass in the air. "This is Null. After the Cosmic Radiance, discovery of new materials followed. And Null is one of the rarest and most valuable materials."

My face displayed an expression of surprise, not at the fact that the pendants were extremely valuable and rare but because the dragon knew about the Cosmic Radiance. A beast... a monster knew about the Cosmic Radiance. I was underestimating the dragon's knowledge unconsiously, this revelation stopped that line of thought almost immediately.

"And..." It continued. "It is a metal with no form, hence the name Null. It changes form as per the will of its owner. It can become harder, softer, heavier, lighter, longer and shorter if the owner wishes for it. But there are limitations, it is limited to quantity. It can't infinitely grow longer or shorter. The other issue, not for you, is that it only responds to the energy of a Waking."

Apparently I wasn't underestimating its knowledge, I was severely underestimating it.

The black mass landed in my hands.

"Are... you... giving it to.... me?" I asked, I had come to the conclusion that I had let this slip through my hands and felt a pang of regret. But I was just given it back?

"Its yours is it not?"

I nodded, feeling thankful.

The mass didn't feel heavy, in fact it felt as heavy as a singular pendant. My attention shifted to it. And I tried changing its shape. It wiggled a little. I sent a little energy into it and it moved as I willed. Transforming it into the same coin shape and size as my pendant, I examined it. What I felt sad abot was that I didn't have that symbol on me anymore, I remember it but memory could always fail at any point in time. 

As I thought that, the symbol smoothly appeared on the pendant.

Ah, well that solved that problem. 

But with no string I couldn't wear it around my neck anymore. I needed something different. Something that I could have on my person the whole time.

And I molded it into a bracelet. It slithered onto my hand and shaped itself into a bracelet.

And that was the end of that.

Now only one thing was left, I stood up mustering all the courage I could scrape out of myself.

Maintaining eye contact with the dragon, I asked,"My final question is..... Can you make me stronger?" 

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Hey Manager here, stuff has come to a conclusion, not in ways I would prefer but it is closure nonetheless. So, we are back to normal schedule now. Also leave a comment or review.

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