Silence. The world had suddenly settled to a deathly silence. I let out an earth-shattering roar as the driving rain battered my wings, trickled off of my scales, washed my midnight-black claws clean of the dark, sticky blood. I had to kill the silence…to distract myself…to take my mind off of what I had done.

The dragon lay in front of me, blood still gushing out of the long gash in his belly, turning the long, tan grass around him a deep red. His golden scales were quickly fading to a dull brown as the life left his body, and his sides heaved with each shallow breath he drew. One of his golden-brown wings hung at an odd angle from his body.

Broken.

I gasped in horror as the light faded from his emerald-green eyes. Those eyes... The two cloudy circles stared lifelessly at me.

Staring into my very soul!

I quickly tried to avert my eyes, but the spell had captured my mind. My eyes were now locked with his. My first kill.

How did it feel, my claws against his belly? What was it like for his soul to separate from his body? What was it like...to die?

In a daze, I rolled the body onto its back, still staring into the eyes of the fallen dragon.

Don't look there! Close your eyes! Watch the rain fall, the grass bend in the wind! Anything but those eyes!

"Yol-toor-shul!" I watched as fire shot from my mouth onto the corpse, crackling as it consumed the cold flesh and climbed the four long, mud-brown horns sticking out from the dead dragon's head. The deep-throated bellow of my voice surprised me.

It sounds like my voice...and yet...doesn't. Something is there that wasn't before, or...is something missing?

I shook myself before spreading my dark wings in the storm. As I pushed myself off of the ground with my two legs, I stole a final glance at the carcass. The fire had completely burned the flesh, leaving behind smoldering, black bones. The empty sockets in the skull seemed to give an eerie, green glow, still staring.

Staring at me!

I quickly flapped my wings until I soared into the pale gray sky, not thinking about where they would carry me. I saw nothing, felt nothing, except for the cold stare of my fellow dovah's eyes.