Just Dreams and Shadows

John Hoggard

 Hezizag gazed down at his next victim. His big blue-green eyes, the size of dinner plates, glowed in the darkness of the bedroom, illuminating her slight frame. His reptilian tongue flicked through the air gathering her scent and slid back into his blood red mouth. His dark, scaly lips quivered as he tasted her sweetness. The lips peeled back revealing the sickly yellow flesh on their inside, revealing thousands of long, needle thin, ivory white teeth. Their serrated edges rasped as they slid apart. Blood red ichor ran between them and dripped onto the floor like hot strawberry jam.

 Sssslowly, orrrr iiinn one guuullllp, pondered Hezizag as bent over her, the flesh covering his entire sinuous body trembled with excitement and anticipation. It had been so long since he had ventured forth, crossed the void from one realm to the other, but it had been so long since he had sensed a morsel so tasty and so pure.

 His tongue lolled out and the tip touched a bare human shoulder, electricity flashed through him, tingling every fibre of his demonic, hell spawned existence. Eyes blazed, turning first purple and then red, fiery windows into the utter void, the deepest, darkest, most putrid underbelly of the universe.

 “You’re funny,” said a tiny, jingly, happy, if slightly sleepy voice.

 Hezizag froze, the red, fiery blaze diminished to a hesitant flicker and the shadows, driven to the very corners of the little bedroom flooded back.

 Whhhaaaattt?

 “You’re funny. Are you a dragon? I like dreaming about dragons. You’re a funny looking dragon. Where are your wings? You need to have wings or otherwise you’re not a proper dragon. You’d be a very silly and funny dragon if you didn’t have wings. Have you forgotten your wings? Have you lost your wings? Would you like me to help you find your wings? I’m very good at looking for things and finding things. Except bear, daddy says I’m rubbish at finding bear, but bear hides and daddy gets cross when bear is found where he’s already looked. But bear is clever like that and he only gets found when he wants to get found. But your wings would be easy to find because they wouldn’t hide like bear hides. Would you like me to help you find your wings? Is that why you’re here? Have you lost your wings and you’ve come to me to help you find them because I’m so very good at finding things?”

 The happy, sing-song, jingly-jangly consonants and vowels, syllables and words whirled about Hezizag, jabbing at him, stinging him. His tongue flicked about his head attempting to swat them away.

 Draaagooon? Iiiii aamm nooott a draaagon. Iiii aamm oldeeerr thaann the oldesssstt offf draagonsss. Iiii aamm Hezzziiizzzaag, Iiii aamm the ssssteeaallleeer of ssssoulsssss, the maaaawwww of Hellllll.

 “Have you not lost your wings then? Can I help you find anything else? I’m so good at finding things. What else can I help you find? I like your voice, you have a funny voice. Your voice is just like the eyeball monster. Are you just like the eyeball monster? Is that why you don’t have wings? Coz I don’t think the eyeball monster has wings.”

 Heizizag’s tongue, swished and slashed furiously, but still the happy, tingly sound penetrated his mind. He was worried, had the child already been marked? Was she already destined for another fate, to fill the belly of another of the Horde? He reached back into the mists of time and replayed all of history in the blinking of an eye. The continents swirled about the surface of the Earth, morphed, stretched, clashed and were torn apart. Mountains rose and fell like waves on a pebble beach. All knowledge of everything poured through Hezizag’s mind in front of his eyes. There was no eyeball monster, not in all of history.

 Whhhaattt iisssss thiissss eyebaaaallll monnnsssstteerrr thhaat youuuu sssspeeaak offff?

 “Oh he’s a silly old monster, he comes sometimes when me and daddy are playing at fun fights. He tries to eat my eyeballs and he makes me laugh. But only for a bit. Then he gets my face wet and I get cross and I shout ‘I want my daddy back’ and sometimes he goes straight away and sometimes he doesn’t and if he doesn’t then I get really cross and I shout, ‘I WANT MY DADDY BACK!’ and then the eyeball monster knows he’s in big trouble and that I do not want to play with him anymore and he goes away and my daddy comes back and daddy is really funny because he’s pretended that he did not know that the eyeball monster has been. But I know he is funning because he is smiling and sometimes he winks at me and that’s good because I can wink back now I taught myself and everything. Can you wink?”

 Hezizag looked across at the child-thing and was deeply disturbed, she had such power in her words, to command a beast to depart with such ease, with such conviction. He understood too why he knew not of the beast known to the child-thing as the eyeball monster, for it clearly needed to possess a body to manifest itself. It was not a true demon, not of the Horde. A spirit then, perhaps older than Hezizag himself, spun out from the earliest of stars as they blazed through the void, conjoining realms with their power. Dismissed at will. He blinked, worried, flickering pale blue eyes.

 The child-thing tutted. “That’s not winking silly, you just need to close one eye when you wink, not both. You really are a silly dragon. You have lost your wings and you didn’t know how to wink. Silly, dragon. Silly, Dilly, dragon. Do you like your new name? Silly-Dilly-Dragon, Silly-Dilly-Dragon, Silly-Dilly-Dragon.”

 She leaned over her bed and looked down at Hezizag and Hezizag looked up and trembled.

 IiiaammmHezzziiizzzaag, came a little whispering voice. No longer spewed from Hell itself it barely travelled the distance between them.

 “Oh Silly-Dilly-Dragon, you have lost your wings and you didn’t know how to wink and you have forgotten your name. You really are the silliest of little dragons aren’t you?”

 Silly-Dilly-Dragon lay quietly on the floor, his scales had fallen away and now his fur ruffled in the air as the bedroom door opened.

 The light came on and the child-thing sat up and looked at the figure stood in the doorway.

 “Are you alright baby, I heard you shout. Was it a nightmare?”

 “Oh no daddy, it was a funny dream I was just telling Silly-Dilly-Dragon about it. He thought he was a big nasty monster, but he was just a silly dragon who lost his wings and didn’t wink and forgot his own name.”

 There was some brain-fuddled 3am head scratching from the figure stood in the doorway. “Silly-Dilly-Dragon?”

 The child-thing pointed down to the floor at a small soft toy, where once had stood a monstrous demon. “Can you get him for me daddy? Pleeeaaaase.”

 “Ok, ok,” and Daddy crossed the room and Silly-Dilly-Dragon was plucked from its resting place on the floor. Daddy looked down and wiggled his toes. “Have you been eating jam and crumpets in here again Milly?”

 The little girl sighed, she knew her daddy wouldn’t believe her but she tried anyway. “No daddy, Silly-Dilly-Dragon made the mess.”

 “Milly.”

 Well she had tried, sometimes it was just easier if she told daddy wanted he wanted to hear. “I’m sorry daddy, it fell off the plate, I will clean it up in the morning. I promise. Now can I have Silly-Dilly-Dragon?” There was ‘a look’ from daddy. “Please!” she added quickly. Daddy shook his head and smiled and handed over the ugly little toy-thing to small expectant hands. It squeaked as she grasped it tightly.

 “That’s one ugly toy Milly-mops,” said daddy.

 The little girl tutted and stared sternly at her daddy. “Now daddy, that’s not very nice. Mummy says, if you can’t saying something nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

 Despite his tiredness, and his sticky toes, daddy smiled. “You’re right my princess and I’m sorry. But it is an ugly little toy.”

 “Daddy! Silly-Dilly-Dragon has very beautiful wings and you will see when we find them that he is not ugly at all. Poor Silly-Dilly-Dragon.”

 “Ok. I really am sorry this time. Now snuggle back up you, it’s school in the morning. No more monsters. What do we say to the monsters in our dreams and in the shadows?”

 “Go away you silly monster, you do not scare me one little bit you silly-billy-monster.”

 “Good, because the monsters in our dreams cannot hurt us, it is the bad people who can do that. Which is why…”

 “I should never talk to, or go off with strangers,” the little girl finished off enthusiastically.

 “That’s right. Now snuggle up. Good night princess. Sleep tight.”

 “Night Night daddy-waddy-baddy.”

 “Milly.”

 “Night night Daddy. Love you.”

 “Love you too princess. Night.”

 A small kiss was placed on her forehead and then he was gone. The light was switched out and the door closed and when it was the little girl sat up in bed. She looked at Silly-Dilly-Dragon and then pushed him into a pile of soft toys that ran along the edge of her bed next to the wall. “I shall put you here, next to bear. Bear will look after you. Bear, you look after Silly-Dilly-Dragon.”

 She lay back down and went quickly to sleep.

 Silly-Dilly-Dragon snuggled up against the rest of the toys. Fluffy Dragons, silky unicorns, pink furry things and blue furry things who may or may not have once been part of the Horde snuggled back.

 Silly-Dilly-Dragon understood now. Monsters from the shadows had no power here and he was glad. He very much looked forward to finding his beautiful wings.