First of all, Before I say anything else I'm going to point this out- This story will be immensely dark, have lots of angst, Have some rather gory scenes, will be fairly complex, and is super confuzzleing . If you dislike reading about any of the above then this story isn't for you.

Second of all, I have no idea where I'm going with this story. The idea just popped into my head and I couldn't ignore it, so I wrote a first chapter for it. If I don't have the inspiration or ideas to make many more chapters then it will be fairly short, But I am really going to try to make this have a ton of chapters and a bunch of words. But, don't get your hopes up.

Third of all, I do ship Astrid and Hiccup. And there will be slight romance tuned into this story, but it is not the main focus. The main focus rather is the struggles of Hiccup, and all the challenges he faces. Not that I'm saying that Astrid is not a main character, she is very important to this story. And I'm not saying Hiccup won't fall in love with her eventually, I'm just saying this is not mainly a Romance Fic but a Angst and Adventure Fic. And Yes, this will contain some adventure, there will be excitement and suspense as well. There will also be occasional friendship and slight humor, but those moments will be distant and faint.

Fourth of all, This is a Modern AU. But there are still DRAGONS in it. It will have everything totally changed into a modern-version of the characters and places. Except for the Dragons, because honestly, I am pretty incapable of writing Toothless as anything other than a dragon. Now, I'm not saying he isn't good as a cat or a dog, I'm just saying I am horrible at making him in a non-dragon form. Plus the able-to-see-dragons thing is the whole point of how Hiccup got to where he is now.

Fifth of all, This story will also include Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Fishlegs, Hookfang, Barf and Belch, and Meatlug. They will still be in the story and play a role, but it will be quite a small role. They most likely won't play much part in the overall plot.

Sixth of all, I am not a nurse or a psychologist. Or anything medical related. I will do some research, but I am not sure that the medical information will be totally correct. The description of the Psychiatric hospital is probably not correct. Also, I do not think of psychiatric hospitals or people with schizophrenia this way. THIS IS FROM HICCUP'S POINT OF VIEW NOT MINE, so don't think anything in the actual story as my thoughts. They are how I portrayed Hiccup's thoughts, and His thoughts will hopefully make more sense later.

Seventh of all, This Author's Note is way to long. So I'll shut up and let you read on now. Hope you enjoy, and I'll see you at the bottom. ~Leopardfang

They call Hiccup crazy, mad, insane. They give him medication and stick needles into his bloodstream. They tell him that dragons are not real and that he is only hallucinating. But he swears on his life that they are real, after all the dragon roars and morphing shadows must come from somewhere. He believes in the wildly glinting green eyes, and the animalistic sharp yellow ones. He tries to reason with the people that put him here, here in this Psychiatric hospital. He tells them he is not crazy, he just sees reality different then they do. But they won't listen to him, no one ever listens to him… Well no one except Astrid, the beautiful girl who is diagnosed with schizophrenia that lives in the room next door.

Darkness.

That's all I knew, An endless darkness that surrounded me. The darkness was complete and full, the kind of darkness that causes you to not be able to see your hand when you wave it in front of your face. It was a pitch black endless darkness. A darkness so strong that I could almost feel it, a darkness that seemed to weigh heavy on my bones. It seemed to take away my breath, suck all the life out of me. Leaving me gazing helplessly as my gasps pierced the once silent air.

I remember suddenly when I was little and I was scared of the dark. I would always have to have my night light on. Now that I think of it though, it wasn't that I was really scared of the dark, it was that I felt vulnerable without being able to see.

But now I was terrified of the dark.

I was terrified that it would burn me. That it would scratch me and bite me. That it would suck the life out of me though my lifeblood and That it would slowly tear me to pieces.

It had already done all of those things after all. It was inevitable that it would happen again. Sure enough, a touch of freezing cold touched my arm. And then my arm was warm from all the blood gushing out of it. I slowly brought one of my hands to the wound, feeing the warm thick liquid as it squished though my fingers.

I didn't feel any pain, I never did.

I remembered how I had at first tried to escape this small room. I had found all the walls and the floor a cold and smooth concrete. I didn't feel anyone watching me and the silence when I held my breath was to complete to suggest anything in the room with me. I would have heard breathing or, more likely, screaming and begging. I had also felt no creature when I had walked around as well. There was evidence in the favor of me being alone in the darkness.

But then, you never know.

Almost anything is possible. I know it's almost anything, because I remember reading a quote that said "Whoever said anything was possible never tried to slam a revolving door."

I totally agree that there is no way to slam a revolving door. So there's that. That and world peace. That's pretty impossible as well. People are too greedy a species to have world peace. This darkness seems greedy too. It wants everything. Everything.

It wants my breath and it wants the space I take up. It wants me to disappear. It is telling me to leave. It's telling me to leave or it will kill me. I whisper to the darkness that "I want to leave but there is no way out. I am trapped here just as much as you are."

The darkness didn't reply.

I nodded to myself and then looked at where I thought my hands were. Though I couldn't see them so I didn't quite know why I looked at my hands. I looked back up, and for the first time in days I saw something that proved something was here in this darkness with me. It was a pair of eyes, a pair of wildly glinting green eyes. The eyes almost seemed bloodthirsty, a darkness seemed to reside in them.

I leaned closer to the eyes, and they slowly backed away from me. It's horrible that not even a pair of seemingly floating eyes want to be near me.

I slowly reached out my hand, and I shivered when they actually touched something. The skin felt cold and dry and scaly, but still had a touch of Warmth that I couldn't quite explain. The eyes then seemed to narrow, and the pupils dilated down to tiny slits.

The skin was torn away from my touch, and instead I caught sight of fangs. They glittered like fallen snow in the darkness. I caught sight of the dark scarlet blood on the sharp little daggers of teeth. I Instantly reached for my arm, the arm that held just one of the wounds that coated my body.

But for some reason I didn't believe it was my blood. It was someone else's. I knew for sure. And suddenly I felt like those teeth were little bloody beckons of hope. I find it strange that something so dangerous I found so full of hope.

The teeth then disappeared, the small weapons of hope gone from my line of sight. I wasn't surprised. My hope always leaves me.

The eyes had widened again, the eyes losing their bloodthirsty gleam. They pupils has widened became also like thick wide circles. The eyes looked curious now, like a little kid that goes to his first toy store. Not that I knew what that felt like first-hand.

I stared at the eyes for a moment. They stared back. I found myself lost in them. They seemed to have light and hope in them. Yet beneath all that, there was something else. Shining in the bright shades of green, there was loss and pain. The look that expressed someone loved and lost. The look that was gathered from taunts and insults. The look that was gained after you found yourself useless, over and over again. The look was like a scar, an invisible scar only noticed by another with the same emotions running through their veins.

I found my bloody hand trembling as I slowly moved my hands towards what looked like empty air below his eyes. It was there that I had felt the creature standing before me last time. I suddenly felt warm air on my outstretched hand, the air I knew must be his breath. I carefully stretched out my hand, knowing that I had to be close to touching the creature now.

Then there was a sudden burst of light that burned my eyes. I stumbled backwards blindly, my eyes narrowing into slits to try to keep out the sudden light. The small cavern exploded in light, and I saw the creature for the first time. The creature was large, really large. It was as dark as the darkest night. It had long sleek wings folded at its sides. It's head was broad, and its feet were thick and steady.

It was a dragon.

My eyes widened, disbelief and shock wound webs around my heart. A dragon. I had always believed they existed. I had heard dragon roars and seen shifting shadows. And many times I had seen a pair pf animalistic sharp yellow eyes shining in the far dark corners of my room. But I had never actually seen a dragon fully before. My therapist would have a field day if I spoke to her about this- not that I would. I never told my therapist anything. I shook my head to clear those thoughts from my head. I instead focused on the dragon. I stepped closer to the dragon, my hand outstretched, a new feeling of hope filling me.

Then everything changed.

The small room and the dragon disappeared, being replaced by a light brighter than I had ever seen before. The bright white seemed to stain my eyes, leaving me wincing and flinching away from the burning sensation in my eyes.

I blinked very quickly, finally becoming aware of my surroundings. I was laying on the floor beside my bed. The floor beneath my face was cold, and I saw the familiar mismatched cream and light grey tile. I was back in my room inside the Psychiatric hospital. That all had been nothing but a dream.

But then why had it all felt so real?

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw something moving. I turned my head and caught sight of torn-up black combat boots. They stopped right in front of my face, and I noticed someone crouch beside me. My eyes went skyward and I saw a skinny 16-year old girl with long golden blonde hair that was in a thick braid. Her ice blue eyes twinkled with amusement and her pale pink lips were drawn up in a slight smile.

Her smile widened as she said, "Wake up. It's morning."

I groaned sleepily, and she gently punched me in the arm. She was saying something, but I was so tired that it took me a moment to make sense of her garbled words, "Hiccup, Come on, it's already getting late."

I yawned and tried to force myself to focus on her face. I then muttered, "What time is it?"

"Four A.M" she replied, her smile growing so that sharp white teeth were shown behind her lips.

"That's not late!" I exclaimed, and was about to go back to sleep when she carefully nudged my arm. I opened my eyes instantly and fixed her with a glare that I didn't really feel. I let out an exaggerated sigh and propped up onto my elbows.

The girl just shrugged in response.

"You know Astrid, sometimes I wonder why I give you everything you want." I said somewhat sleepily.

Astrid just smiled brightly, standing up and offering me a hand up. I took her hand and hauled myself up. I saw movement at the far side of the room, in the darker corner in my room. There, I saw two pairs of eyes, The animalistic sharp yellow ones and the wildly glinting green ones. I let go of Astrid quickly and walked over to the darkness. The eyes flickered slightly, than disappeared altogether. I shook my head in bafflement, wondering what in the world was going on here.

I must have looked weird, staring at the dark empty corner, because Astrid suddenly appeared beside me. She said, "Whatcha looking at?"

Astrid was the one person that I felt I could trust. I knew I could say anything to her and she wouldn't judge me for it. She almost understood what it was like for me here, her being here herself. It's not like this place is actually all that bad, they give me warm food and the staff is nice, They give me shelter and entertainment. I really shouldn't complain, but I can't help but complain. I should be outside, feeling the wind in my hair and the grass under my feet. They of course let me out all the time, but only to a closed off section that was guarded by security guards that watched everyone's every move, And that really didn't feel like freedom. I believe Astrid believes the same way, maybe that is why she never complains about this place. But whatever she believes about this place, I know that I can trust her.

Because of this trust, I found myself saying, "I actually saw a real dragon today, I think. It might have just been a dream though, it's just so hard to tell, you know, What's real and what's not."

I looked over to Astrid, to find she had a far distant look in her eyes. Almost as if she was reliving a memory. She replied listlessly, "Yeah, it is."

She seemed to jerk back to reality. She looked at me and slowly pulled out about two small books. She reached out and gave me both of them. When I looked at it closer I saw they were sketchbooks, and attached to each of them was a pencil.

"I was waiting for the right time to give these to you. I think that time is now." Astrid paused for a moment, "You can draw your dragon and anything else you see, If you're interested?"

I smiled at Astrid's successful attempt to cheer me up. I carefully took the books from her. One had a tan cover, while the other had a light brown cover. I flipped through a few pages of each one. The pages were a crisp white, a flat pure paper. I realized that I had never replied to Astrid, so I muttered "I would love to have them. Thank you."

Astrid smiled brightly, a content look crossed her face. "Come on, let's eat."

I put the books onto my bed and followed Astrid out the door, only half-listening to her as I heard a confused little gruff noise from one of the invisible dragons in the corner of the room.

Well... That story came out a whole lot worse than I expected. This is the most confuzzling thing I've ever written in my whole life. This chapter just... Doesn't make any sense.

Let me try to explain what happened. So the beginning was a dream/memory/vision. So it didn't actually happen- but at the same time it kinda did... Yeah, I don't really know how to explain it...

As for the books- In the movie HTTYD he has a sketchbook that he draws Toothless in, Which is the tan book. Then the actual 'Book of Dragons' From the movie will be the brown book.

Anyways, I would love see some reviews, follows, or favorites. Positive reviews always make me type faster.

And I hope the next chapter will make more sense and will be posted quickly,

~Leopardfang