5/9/12
So here's the first part of my story.

Dragons and jetpacks

A SHORT STORY BY Khoo Wui Seng, M12206

Chapter 1

There was once a world called Asjrib. Asjrib was a lot like Earth, with mountains, deserts, seas, rainforests and weather systems. It had an abundance of rare “Earth” metals (since we’re not talking about Earth anymore), and a lot of valuable metals and minerals, being right in the middle of a star rich nebula where massive supernovae had occurred billions of years ago. The supernovae had pushed many elements together, orbiting around a star. Eventually the elements formed into a rocky ball that eventually became Asjrib. Asjrib had two natural satellites, in a solar system that consisted of twenty planets.

Ajrib was a peaceful world, far removed from the times when wars broke out almost every ten years, and weapons of such destructive capability had been developed that not many leaders chose to use them. That had been a long time ago. Not many people remembered those times, and those that did tried their best to forget them.

After the wars, the people had come together. They promised not to ever fight again, and to solve their issues peacefully. Advances in technology occurred that greatly improved the people’s lives. Now, robots helped people with their daily chores, and people rarely went to offices to work, as they could work from the comfort of their high rise apartments. Electric cars plied the highways, and massive airships ferried passengers and goods across the world. Also, almost everyone had a jetpack. The jetpack was basically two extremely small jet engines attached together, and they ran on an extremely volatile fuel, which allowed them to run for at least 10 hours at a time, before being refuelled. Of course, dropping it was not a good idea.

Chapter 2

Now, there was this boy by the name of Quincy McFlannigan, who lived in the Aplewican mountain range with his family of 2 sisters and their parents. Phil lived in a tiny village, on the side of a mountain. It was rather accessible, and most people got there by the cable car or the train. Quincy had a jetpack, which he would often use for quick trips to school or to explore the caves around the mountains.

One day, Quincy went exploring as usual. He took his jetpack out, and started it up. He flew around the mountains, looking for any caves that he hadn’t spotted before. Then he realised that the sky was getting darker. Apparently a snowstorm was brewing. He thought he had better get back to his house before he got caught in it, and froze to death. He quickly set a course for home, but the storm was faster. Soon he was trying to avoid the majority of hail that was fast approaching. Seeing no other option, he quickly landed near the mouth of a cave, and went in.

Chapter 3

Inside the cave, it was rather dark. Quincy used the torchlight in the safety kit to light up the place. It went into the mountain for quite a distance. Quincy decided to stay at the mouth. Outside, the snowstorm had turned into a blizzard. His parents must be worried, he thought. But in this weather, there wasn’t much that they could do, other than pray that he was safe.

Inside the cave, he found plenty of wood. He wasn’t sure how they had gotten in, but he was glad that they could be burned and provide heat. Underneath the pile of wood, he found a gun, made of brass. It had s series of interlocking gears, a key that could be wound up, and a knob that could be turned so that it pointed towards any of 3 settings, “Stun”, “Pierce” and “Vaporize”. There was also an odd looking wand, with a button on it. Quincy wasn’t quite sure how to use any sort of weapon, so he put it aside for the moment and started thinking about how long the blizzard would last.

There had been several major blizzards since his family had moved here. They often lasted for days. He could only hope that the food in the emergency kit lasted long enough for someone to reach him.

Chapter 4

Just then, a distant rumbling came from inside the cave. Quincy was startled, turned around, and looked. Nothing there. Then heavy footfalls, and the sound of pebbles tumbling down a steep slope. The “clink, clink” of something that was now climbing up, towards him.

What came out was something that looked nothing like a dragon, to say the least. It closely resembled a massive tuatara (if you don’t know what that is, look it up), but instead of skin, it had a moving, almost chainmail like texture, composed of individual pieces of something that could have been cobalt, only darker. Two big, green eyes stared at Quincy. Then a huge, gaping mouth, full of neatly arranged rows of teeth, opened up, and it appeared that the inside of the dragon was on fire, with a green flame that hissed and threw off sparks even better than Quincy’s own fireworks.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Quincy screamed. There was no other way to describe it.

The dragon merely blinked, and looked at Quincy in interest. A low rumbling came out. The dragon moved closer to Quincy. It took a sniff at him, seeing if he was food. Then it decided that he was not.

Chapter 5

Then something happened. A voice that sounded remarkably like that of a young girl’s popped up in his head and said “A human! Cool! I’ve never seen one of them before! Mom used to say that they were tiny. But you, you’re so cute!”

Quincy wasn’t sure how to reply.

“Aww…You don’t need to. Gosh, what’s it like outside? I’ve never been there before!”

“Erm…Rather cold, snows all the time, lots of people?” Quincy said that out loud, since he hadn’t mastered telepathy yet.

“That sounds cool! What’s snow?”

“That white thing that’s falling outside.”

“Cool! Can we go outside now?”

“No, because right now the outside is incredibly cold, so if you go out now you’ll probably freeze.”

“Oh. Ok.”

The dragon walked over to where Quincy was, and lay down, tucking its legs underneath its body.

“Is there going to be enough time for me to take a nap?”

“I guess so.”

An enormous rumbling seemed to fill the air. Quincy almost thought there had been an avalanche, but it was just the dragon snoring.

RRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…RRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr…Eventually the dragon’s snoring made Quincy sleepy. He thought he should take a short nap too, since there wasn’t much he could do in a blizzard. And anyway, the sides of the dragon were warm.

Chapter 6

Quincy woke up to see that the blizzard was thinning out. He had probably slept longer than usual, helped by the fact that the dragon’s body was warm and made for a comforting nap.

“Can we go out now?”

“Not yet. We still have to wait until—Eep! That was scary. Sounded like I was hearing echoes of myself.”

”Yay! You can finally talk with me!”

“Still feels kinda funny.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll pass. So, what’s your name?”

“Quincy. Quincy McFlannigan.”

“Hey, that sounds kind of cute!”

Quincy felt something pressing against his head, even though there was nothing there.

“Oh, just me. Could you let me in?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I’m not sure. Mom didn’t really teach me. Just relax, okay?”

Quincy relaxed. And suddenly he felt that there was something inside his head, walking around it.

“Ooh...That’s so cool! There’s this, and that, and—“

“Ow!”

There was a sharp pain in his head, and the taste of his mum’s roasted chicken.

“Oops! Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that. (But it looked kinda tasty.)”

“That was my mum’s roast chicken.”

“Now, that sounds tasty. What’s a chicken?”

Some more walking about.

“Oh...That. Seems kinda weird why you can’t just eat it. It grows from an egg?! Hey! That’s just like me! Well, at least mum said I came from an egg. I don’t remember much about my birth.”

“Me neither.”

“So...Can we go out now?”

Quincy looked outside. The blizzard had stopped.

“I suppose so. You want to come over to my house? I’m sure my sisters will be excited to meet you.”

“Yay! What’s a sister?”

This continued all the way to Quincy’s house. It was relatively easy going, with Quincy showing the way with his jetpack and melting any snow that got in her way.

Chapter 7

Quincy’s family reacted extremely well to the inclusion of a fire-breathing dragon in their household. “She can have her room in the garage.” His mum said. “Aww...But mum, can’t she sleep with us?” Quincy’s sisters pleaded. “No! The floor’s probably going to collapse if we let her sleep with you.”

And so the matter was settled. For something her size she ate rather less than expected, which led to Quincy’s parents heaving huge sighs of relief. She also gave the sisters piggyback rides, which they loved. It was rather difficult to get them off.

Quincy also set about the difficult task of making his dragon a set of jetpacks that she could wear on her feet so that she could fly about. Getting her weight wasn’t easy (she broke most of the industrial scales he used) but eventually he got the measurements. It was also during the building process that he found out one of the more important bit of information about her.

“So, do you have a name?”

“My mum used to call me darling. Is that good enough?”

“No, that won’t do. You have any ideas for names?”

“Well, how about Zanina?”

“Ooh! That sounds neat! Could you call me Zanina from now on?”

“Sure, Zanina.”