Ignitus

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Art:



Art by raynefall!

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It was a bleak midwinter night. The moon was nowhere to be found, and the cloud cover was so heavy that it blotted out any faint light from the stars. A tiny rabbit hopped across the barren desert, looking for a place to hide until morning.

It had been travelling for hours with nothing but dunes and the suffocating air. The rabbit felt its consciousness wavering, and was about to give up when it heard a rustling of sand. Its ears immediately perked up. Nose quivering, the rabbit’s eyes darted across the desert, looking for the source of the sound. The rabbit attempted to stand perfectly still, but it shook violently.

Suddenly, it began to dart across the sands as fast as it could go. As it passed a particularly large dune, the sand began to tremble, before falling away to reveal an enormous dragon. The rabbit squealed and ran faster, but the dragon was already after it, flapping its wings and creating a cloud of dust. In a final attempt to survive, the rabbit dove into a small pile of sand and dug down. It sat and waited for what felt like hours, until it was sure the dragon had gone.

Just as it was about to dig out, however, it heard a distinct snuffling, and then the tramp of large feet getting closer and closer. The rabbit tried to stay still, but it knew that the dragon would sniff it out. There was no escape.

The footsteps rumbled closer and closer, and the rabbit could hear a tail shifting through the sand. The rabbit could feel the sand above it shifting as the great head of the dragon moved about systematically. But the dragon’s footsteps seemed to be moving away. The rabbit sighed in relief, when without warning a claw exploded through the sand, dragging the small mammal up. It tried to struggle, but the claws were an inescapable cage, and the rabbit was doomed.


Short story by oldjammerj!

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work in progress

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