Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and all it's characters, creatures, magics and locations are owned by Hiro Mashima.

Hello and welcome to my first Fanfict. I hope you enjoy it.

The story in it's entirety is written solely from Lucy Heartfilia's perspective, with the italic text being her thoughts.

Chapter 1 - Awaken to Despair

Lucy woke up with a terrible headache. The cell she was locked in was in ruins... Not just the cell, everything in sight was in ruins. It looked as if the entire section of the castle had collapsed.

What happened? How did I get here? Why am I in a cell again, after Natsu, Mira and Happy just got me out of one? The blonde mage was confused.

Oh right. After we beat those guys... those "Hungry Wolves" we ended up too close to that gate and got re-captured because we couldn't use our magic... this is so humiliating, being captured by normal soldiers, but why is everything in ruins? And how am I even able to see anything? Where does this light come from?

The iron bars were bent far enough that she could slip through a gap between them. By a stroke of luck one of the small enchanted crystal spheres that were used to light the castle's lower levels had survived and provided Lucy with enough light to see at least her immediate surroundings. Hurting all over, she proceeded to check herself for injuries but was surprised to find nothing serious. Just bruises and scratches all over and a massive lump on the back of her head.

I must have been hit by something and that's why I blacked out. It's a wonder I wasn't crushed!

When she heard someone crying she carefully made her way through the rubble toward the sound. In the remains of another cell she found the source of the sound. It was Natsu.

Natsu crying? What could possibly get him to cry?

And then she saw the small body he was holding.

Wendy.

"Natsu! What's going on? Why are you crying? How is Wendy?"

He looked up at her with a mixture of surprise and despair on his face: "Lucy? Is that really you?"

Worried she rushed over to the pair, not even noticing her surroundings anymore... or the other occupant of what was once a prison cell. Since Natsu seemed too out of it, she decided to check Wendy herself. She looked terrible. Wounds and broken bones all over and she... she wasn't breathing!

Quickly Lucy's hand shot to Wendy's neck to check for her pulse.

There was none.

Wendy was dead!

In desperation she snatched the small body from Natsu, laid her down on the most even and clear place she could find nearby and started to administer first aid. But it was too late. No matter what she tried, the small body remained lifeless.

Crying Lucy crawled back to the still weeping Natsu only to finally notice what was behind him. Mirajane. Her body was buried under a big pile of rubble with only her chest and head being in the open. Her eyes wide open, but empty. A small stream of blood had run out of the pile, but was already dried up. Next to her an unmoving blue tail with a white tip stuck out of the rubble. She couldn't see any sign of Carla or Pantherlily.

After sitting there frozen for what felt like an eternity she felt arms reach around her. Natsu had finally started to move again and was hugging Lucy for dead life.

He was hugging her so hard that it was a little painful, but Lucy didn't complain. She slung her arms around the Dragon Slayer and they cried and grieved together.

"Lucy. I'm so glad that at least you survived. When the wall came down... Happy and Mira... they... it was over so fast... and then... Wendy..." he began to stutter, until words left him again.

She didn't know how long they were sitting like that, hugging each other, crying together, but eventually they stopped their long embrace.
"Natsu, we need to get out of here. We can't carry them around without even knowing the way, but once we know, we'll come back for them!"

After a long pause Natsu just nodded. They both knew that leaving their comrades' bodies behind for now was the right and the necessary thing to do, but they couldn't leave them like this. Together they dug Mirajane's and Happy's bodies out of the rubble and also found the corpses of Carla and 'Lily. They cleared a small area of all the debris and laid Happy, Wendy, Carla, Mirajane and 'Lily down next to each other, folding their hands over their chests. After saying a short prayer they started to make their way through the collapsed castle.

As they walked through partially collapsed passages strewn with rubble all over the place they occasionally heard growls off in the distance. Since Lucy's keys and whip were taken from her when they were recaptured the day before and both of them already being in a very battered state from the collapse even Natsu agreed that they should avoid whatever made those growls. But no matter how much they moved, the growls seemed to always stay at the same distance, as if they were being stalked by a predator.

Mercurius was labyrinthine to begin with and all the collapsed and blocked off corridors made matters even worse. It took them more than two hours until they managed to make their way up out of the dungeon level and another until they finally found a breach in the outer wall through which they could enter the gardens.

The first thing Lucy noticed was that rather than the green she expected, everything as far as the small light sphere could illuminate was black. Why was everything black? No, not everything. The hedges that used to make up a labyrinth for the people to enjoy were gone and most of the flower beds too, but here and there a few patches of green and the occasional tree had survived. When her eyes started to gaze further into the distance she froze.

Once this place must have given a spectacular and lovely view of the beautiful city. But the vista that now stretched before her was one to total devastation. The entire city was razed to the ground. Where once elegant houses and towers stood proud, only rubble remained. Where once the buildings were adorned by flowers of every colour and shape, now fires blazed providing the only illumination, since the moon and the stars were hidden. She couldn't tell if they were obscured by natural clouds or whether the darkness was caused by the smoke from all the fires.

"How could that happen? What could have done this?" the Celestial Spirit Mage exclaimed shocked.

Lucy jumped in surprise and fear when she heard a terrible roar above them. Her head jerked in the direction of the sound and again she froze.

Illuminated in ominous shades of red and orange from all the fires on the ground massive bellies, long claws, big leathery wings and long necks could be seen circling above the city ruins.

Dragons!

Not just a few or dozens or even hundreds, but too many to count. There had to be thousands of them up there!

Afterwords: Which concludes chapter one. I hope I was able to entertain you. Please let me know how you liked it.

23.07.2014.: Grammer and spelling fixes.