I was a failure. Complete and total. I didn’t get a dragon. Sure, I was the fastest runner. Who cares about silly stuff like that? Not me. I cared about who bonded to the best dragon in the whole world! When I saw that ice dragon… I knew she was for me. But apparently she had other plans! Plans to do with Aurora.

  Someone knocked on my bedroom door and I begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed to open it. But before I could open the door, it flew open and missed me by a millimeter! “Hey!” I yelped.

  “Sorry.” Aurora said in her usual tone. Brushing me off as usual. I stared her in the eyes defiantly when I noticed something off. I noticed her eyes were a different color! Normally they were poop brown, but now they were an ice blue. The exact same color as the dragon.

  “What do you want?” I snapped. I was still in a grouchy mood.

  She looked surprised at my anger. “Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to meet some new people.” New people? Aurora and Emerald were the only two people I’ve ever known, besides Director, of course.

  I walked out of my room and Aurora ran in front of me. To show me the way, I supposed. I felt a wave of annoyance, but pushed it down. She was being nice.

  I saw a guy out there, probably our age, with shiny navy eyes and dark brown hair, dressed simply and looking nervous. “Hello.” I said simply. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Storm.” He kept looking over to his right. “Oh, and this is Willows.” He gestured behind him and I saw a white dragon. It was shorter than the ice dragon and probably shorter than me. Willows bowed magnificently. “He says hi.” Storm told me then winced.

  “Hi.” The sight of Willows made me grouchy again and overrode my excitement at meeting a new person, until a thought occurred to me. If there were two dragons on Earth, why couldn’t there be more? Maybe I could bond to one of those. Come to think of it, why hadn’t I ever been out side?

  “Step aside.” I told Storm and Emerald poked my back. I glared at her. Stepping around the dragon, I peered around. The terracotta color rock stuck out to me. So did the magenta sky. Wasn’t the sky supposed to be blue?

  “This isn’t Earth.” Storm said behind me. “This Hekate. The planet four hundred light years away from Earth.” He said it in such a haughty tone that I was tempted to punch him in the face. “Oh, hush you.” Storm said.

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  “What did you just say?” I said, wheeling around to glare at him.

  “No, I was talking to Willows.” He explained.

  “Right, and he blinked morse code at you. You and me are the only ones talking!” I snapped. Why did I ever want to meet someone else?

  “No, he transmitted it into my brain!” He protested.

  I huffed. “It happens, Rin!” Aurora said from behind me. I gave her a glare that clearly said, “Look, I know you’re sad you didn’t bond to Snow, but that doesn’t give you the right to snap at Storm!” She said soothingly and put a hand on my shoulder. Storm’s eyes widened and that made me even madder.

  I tried to come up with a comeback but I saw Director in the doorframe and chose to shut my mouth. She glared at us so intensely that I felt my skin drip off of my face.

  “What are you doing?” She said, her voice shrill.

  “We’re just fraternizing with the local wildlife.” I said.

  Storm put his hand over his heart and staggered back a few paces dramatically. “How rude!” He said. I shrugged.

  “Get back inside right now!” Director snapped. Aurora and Emerald started to go in, but I held steady. I would not listen to Director after she got my hopes up and dashed them.

  Storm looked to his left and started running over there. I turned my gaze to where he was running and saw a boy about Storm’s age acting really weird. He was jerking around like he was a mouse and there were two cats batting him around.

  Storm caught the guy before he fell down. He was kind of far away but you could hear the scream. I ran over there to see what was wrong. It was a short run but seemed longer with Director yelling her head off at me.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “I-I don’t know! This hasn’t happened before!” Storm said, looking up at me, his eyes scared. His arms were trembling from having to hold up his friend. I felt a wave of exasperation.

  “What’s his name?” I said. If he was dying, at least we should give him a decent burial with the right name on it.

  “Sawyer.” I looked down at Sawyer. He was now laying ominously still. Storm sat down. I followed suit.

  “Storm?” A voice said softly. Sawyer opened his eyes and was staring at his friend.

  “Yeah?” Storm responded.

  “I’m scared, man.” He said quietly.

  “Why? What happened?” Storm asked, alarmed.

  “What, you didn’t see it?” Sawyer asked in alarm. “But I don’t want to!” He said randomly. “I know I should but I’ll have to relive the whole thing!” He protested to no one.

  “Did you hit your head or something?” I asked. “You don’t seem like a normal human being.” Then again, who am I to talk? I’ve only met Aurora, Emerald, and Director, and those hardly count.

  Sawyer shot up, looking around in horror. When he spotted me, I could see the panic in his purple eyes. “You.” He rasped. I stared at him. This guy was creeping me out. I started backing up.

  He started running away from me. “Wait!” I called. I only backed up! I didn’t start running away from him! “What did I do?” He didn’t stop running, and he never looked back.