Infectious

“Tag, you`re it!”
Casmir laughed as he sprung away from his sister, Evangaline. “Ooh, that was a dirty trick,” she said with mock anger, “sneaking up behind me while I was hiding! I`ll get you!” Casmir laughed again. His younger sister wasn`t the best at sports, but then again neither was he. It made the game more based on strategy and trickery, something he excelled at.
He raced away while his sister counted to twenty. Where`s a good hiding place, he wondered, scanning the area. There was a rock he could hide behind…and another rock…and another…and- ooh, a withered shrub!
Living in the desert that was Dragonhome had its ups and downs. Mostly downs.
Casmir decided to go farther away and hide. He saw a huge crystal in the distance and sat down behind it. He was sat in a way that he could easily run if Evangaline came behind the crystal. And now, we wait.
Casmir had run quite a bit away from where his sister was counting. He expected it to be quite a while until he was found.
So he counted to 100 and back again. He thought of stories, making all of them about him. He simply laid down and waited. Counted to 100 again.
“Okay, I`m done waiting around,” he muttered. “Evangaline can try to catch me by chasing me, instead.” Tentatively he stepped from behind the crystal. There was no one around that he could see. He stretched his wings, wondering if he should fly and look for his sister, even though it was cheating.
By this time, the sun had nearly been swallowed by the horizon. Long shadows were cast by the rocks, making everything dark and hard to focus on. Casmir decided that since it was turning night, his sister must have gone home. She could be a wimp sometimes. He decided to go home to the Earth Sanctum.
Walking in the desert was refreshing to him, somehow. Was it the constant heat? The crunch of the cracked earth beneath his claws? Or simply because it was all he`d ever known? It could be all three, but he didn`t want to do a deep dive into his mind. Not while night was falling and creatures came out of their burrows. He had to stay alert.
The familiar glow of the giant gem on top of the Sanctum greeted him. He felt a rush of relief at being home and sprinted the final meter.
The doors swung open, and his parents smiled at him. “Heya, sport!”, his father called. Casmir skidded to a halt in front of his parents. “Did you have a good day?” his mother asked. “Yeah! But now I`m tired.” His mom glanced at his feet. “Casmir, your claws are filthy! I`ll go get a bath ready for you if you wait out here. I don`t want dirt inside the Sanctum, understand?” He nodded as his mom scurried inside. She`s such a neat freak, he thought.
His dad looked around. “Where`s Evangaline?” Casmir`s thoughts screeched to a halt. “She didn`t come back already?” he asked worriedly. Hid dad slowly shook his head. He said, “We thought she was coming back with you.” Casmir stared at him; bug eyed. He squeaked, “It`s my fault she`s not back yet! We were playing hide and tag and I guess she never stopped looking for me, but I thought she would head home because it was getting dark and- “
“Casmir, calm down,” his father said, patting his shoulder, “I`ll go get your mother and we can all look for her together before the moon comes up, alright?” Casmir nodded, but as soon as his dad left, he flapped as hard as he could and took flight. He had lost Evangaline all by himself, and he could find her himself too.
Keeping a short distance from the ground, he scanned the terrain. He himself had bright white wings that could be seen in the day or night easily, but his sister`s black and brown body would be tough to see. Silently he wished he were a Shadow dragon so he could see in the dark.
He flew past the place they had played hide and tag. She wasn`t there, confirming she was still out looking for him.
Casmir kept flying and calling out “Evangaline! I`m done playing! You win, just come home!” But there was no reply. His worries and fears rose with each second, like the big, bright full moon rising higher in the sky.
Casmir had flown so far away from his home, he barely recognized the landscape anymore. He saw a large formation below him and landed. He recognized it from the map of Dragonhome he had in his room. It was the Cairnstone Rest. Surely Evangaline couldn`t have gone inside, right? After all, there were all sorts of terrifying creatures in there, even she knew that. But no possibility should be avoided. He had to check.
He slowly padded closer. “Evangaline?” he said quietly, hearing it softly echoed back to him. Casmir was on edge. Something felt wrong.
But when a cloud drifted away from the moon, shining its blue light in full, the feeling dissipated. Evangaline was sitting right there!
He rushed toward her. “Evangaline! Great Earthshaker, I was so worried! Look, I`m so sorry for leaving you during the game, but it was getting dark so I thought- “Casmir paused. His sister had shown no signs of hearing him. “Sis, you good?” he asked, placing a claw on her shoulder. But at the touch, she fell over, and he saw it.
An entire half of her ribcage was ripped away, but her lungs were missing. So was her heart.
Casmir scrambled away, wings flaring up in surprise. After he got over the initial shock, he collapsed on the ground, crying. Evangaline was dead.
“All my fault,” he kept whispering, “all my fault, all my fault…”
He was so wrapped up in his grief that he didn`t hear the loud footsteps getting nearer and nearer. He heard a snarl and finally looked up. He barely saw a huge snout open to reveal pearly white, bloodstained teeth before everything went black.
Casmir shot upright. The last thing he remembered was Evangaline`s body. Him getting attacked didn`t even register. He looked around. He was in the infirmary at the Sanctum. “Wha…”
His parents burst in and hugged him tight. “Oh honey!” his mother cried, “we were so worried! Why did you go off on your own like that?!” Casmir barely responded. He was still trying to process the fact that his sister was gone. “Evangaline…” he started. But then he noticed his parents` eyes were incredibly bloodshot. They must have seen her body. Suddenly, the creature`s attack flashed back to him. He shouted, “There was a creature! It attacked me from the cave! It might have hurt Evangaline too! We should go find it-“
He stopped when his parents looked at each other. “Casmir”, his father said, “It was a full moon yesterday, right?” Casmir nodded. “What did the creature look like?” Casmir struggled to recall. “I didn’t get a good look before I blacked out, but I remember it had a snout like a dog.” His parents` expressions hardened unexpectedly. “Mom? Dad? Are you okay?” They replied, “Honey, we have some bad news. Based on the evidence we gathered, we think you were bitten by…a werewolf.”
Casmir`s mind swam in disbelief. He of course knew what they were, and that they infected dragons by biting them. He just never thought…
“So,” he said quietly, “what now?” His parents looked at each other again. They were having a silent conversation, he gathered. Seeming to reach a decision, they said in unison, “You have to go.”
Casmir`s parents dragged him in front of the clan, saying how Casmir had been bitten and since there was no cure for being a werewolf, and he was possibly infectious to the other dragons, he had to be banished. Everyone agreed, especially because he had recently come of age, and could take care of himself.
Casmir sat outside the Sanctum for a day or two, trying to process his sister`s death and his abandonment. Concluding that he should start a new life, he donned the name his parents had declared him as, Infectious. He wandered around Dragonhome, eventually crossing into Arcane territory, where he settled into a nice forest.
Unfortunately, he infected another dragon like his parents said he would, which only caused him more grief and suffering. But he soon moved past it, accepting that this was his life now.
Vyrek was not having the best of times.
It had been two months since he`d gotten bitten, and so he had transformed two times. But simply waiting it out in his room wasn`t working. He grew more feral when he was a beast, and had nearly gotten busted by his parents when he almost destroyed his room.
It was time for a new approach.
“Hey mom, dad, I was wondering if I could spend the night at Damien`s on the last day of the month,” he said at dinner. Damien and Vyrek went to the same nature club. They didn`t talk much outside of it, but his parents and Damien`s parents were good friends. He figured it was a good excuse to leave the house and secretly spend the night in the woods.
“Of course!” his mom said happily. “I`m glad you`re making friends. Did Damien`s parents agree?” Uh oh. I didn`t think about that part. “Uh…yep! And they told me to tell you that you don`t need to worry about anything!” His parents seemed satisfied with that answer.
After excusing himself, Vyrek curled up on his bed. It was getting easier and easier to lie to his parents, something he wasn`t exactly proud of. They trusted him completely. He closed his eyes to try and get some early sleep, but it wouldn`t come. He got out of bed. I should walk in the woods for a bit. That always calms me down. He quickly grabbed his nature journal and headed out.
Vyrek approached the woods as the sun was sinking low. “Going into the woods at night with a journal,” he said to himself. “Sounds familiar.”
Casually plodding among the trees, he thought about how much he had changed. He wasn`t the happy, carefree dragon he used to be. He`d never hidden something this life-altering from his parents before. And he found himself naturally drawn to the wild more and more each evening. He`d heard about werewolves, but he had never stopped to think about what they were like outside of that.
It was a lot to process.
Vyrek shook his head to clear it. He needed to focus on other things. He immediately opened his journal. He wanted to find an unfinished project to complete. Skimming the pages, he was lost in thought. He snapped out of it when his book hit something solid that went “Ow.”
Vyrek stopped walking and peeked over the edge of his book. The dragon in front of him had a black body accented by a Ghost tertiary. He also noticed that their wings flared up when they bumped into him. Maybe an instinct when they were surprised?
His train of thought was again stopped when the dragon began rubbing its nose and saying “Sorry, sorry, I didn`t see where I was going…but fancy meeting another dragon in these woods, huh?” The presumably male dragon looked up at Vyrek. “My name`s Infectious,” he said with a small smile, “may I ask yours?” Vyrek, a little overwhelmed by the thought of actual social interaction, quietly replied “I`m Vyrek.” Infectious swept in a mock bow and said, “Nice to meet you, Vyrek.” Vyrek only nodded back, to which Infectious laughed.
Now a little less nervous, Vyrek asked tentatively, “Where are you from? I haven`t seen any other dragons in these woods before.” “Really?” replied Infectious, “Wow. I`m honored to be the first dragon to disrupt your peace.” At that Vyrek chuckled, which in turn made Infectious smile. This guy`s actually not that hard to talk to, Vyrek thought. “To answer your question, I hail from Dragonhome. And with your pink eyes, I can tell you`re from around here. Do you practice magic?” Vyrek answered, “No, I`ve never been interested in it. My parents joke that I must secretly be a nature dragon, because I love nature so much!” Infectious smiled politely but didn`t laugh. Social interaction failed. Man, why am I so bad at this?
Vyrek finally noticed the moon peeking from the trees. Panicking, he told Infectious “Sorry, but I have to go. My parents want me to come back home before moonrise.” Infectious nodded and replied, “Your parents are smart. You never know what things come out under the light of the moon…” Vyrek was caught off-guard. Did Infectious somehow know his secret? He quickly said “Maybe we`ll meet tomorrow? I don`t know. Okay bye!” He scurried back through the trees without waiting for a reply. He thought he heard a “Sounds good!” but that could have been the wind.
Vyrek stepped through his door, gasping. His parents were thankfully not around to scold him. Creeping into his room and laying on his bed, he drifted into sleep thinking about Infectious and how little he knew about him.
Five days later, it was the day of the full moon. Vyrek had talked to Infectious and found that they had a lot in common. They both liked solving riddles and puzzles. And they genuinely liked each other. Vyrek had found his first friend since being bitten.
He packed his satchel with a few random odds and ends. He wouldn`t really need them when he went into the woods, but he needed to look like he really was going to Damien`s.
His parents followed him to the door. “Have a fun time!” they said in unison. Vyrek tried to look happy as he walked out the door and took flight. He flew a distance over the woods before coming back around in a wide circle and landing in the forest. The moon was rising. He would transform soon, his thoughts lost to the madness of being a beast.
The moon reached its apex, showering Vyrek with a pale light. He closed his eyes and felt his form changing, growing, his fangs growing longer. The transformation complete, his consciousness faded away.
Vyrek`s primal senses took over. He smelled so much prey, but there was an underlying scent. It was so different and sharp, something he only smelled on himself.
Another beast stepped from the shadows. Vyrek`s claws sharpened. He didn`t know this beast, but there was something familiar about it. A good familiar.
The beast showed no signs of attacking. It didn`t challenge him by making eye contact. It simply looked…lonely. Beast-Vyrek decided this could be a new companion and hunting partner.
They spent the night chasing prey and sharing kills. They somehow knew the other was familiar, but didn`t know how. As the sun rose, they curled up together in a patch of slowly fading moonlight, sleeping until the sun emerged from the horizon.
Vyrek blinked when he awoke. This was not where he had transformed. He stretched his claws and saw drying blood on them. He only vaguely remembered last night, but he definitely remembered the beast he had hunted with. It must have been the werewolf that infected him. No wonder it seemed familiar.
He jumped as he felt something stir behind him, brushing against his wings. He scurried to stand up and saw, to his immense shock, Infectious lying on the grass. He racked his brain and remembered curling up with the other beast before he fell asleep. So there was only one explanation.
Infectious was the beast that bit him.
Vyrek flew away before he even realized what he was doing. He stopped at a river to wash of the blood and flew out of the woods home. His parents greeted him and asked lots of questions about the sleepover, but he only answered vaguely, saying he needed to unpack his satchel. He went into his room and closed the door.
Vyrek crumpled on the floor, trying to comprehend everything that had happened and failing. He stayed a sobbing, confused mess for a while before he sat up, numb, head pounding. He certainly wasn`t about to go back in the woods, so he put the knickknacks from his satchel away, cleaned his room, and read one of his books.
Vyrek and Infectious did eventually reconcile, but it took Vyrek a very long time before he considered himself Infectious`s friend again.
But Infectious was sorry too. Getting past their differences, they salvaged the broken pieces of their friendship and put them back together.