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It was just a typical day and I was not taking any classes this summer. As usual I was bored as hell and looking for something to do. When I turned on the TV I was surprised to see that the news was on. I am not the type to look at the news, but the headline about mysterious disappearances caught my attention. There was a reporter interviewing some country hick about what he knew. To me, the guy sounded like a complete loon and I found it amazing that they would play something like this on a serious news show. It all sounded like something you would expect to hear on one of those comedy news shows instead.

"You can't be serious sir," said the idiot reporter.

"I'm telling you that's what I saw," responded the hick. "There was this bright blue circle that appeared out of nowhere and when they drove through it they just disappeared. Damnedest thing I ever seen."

"Are you sure you weren't drinking that night sir?" asked the reporter.

"If you thought I was drinking would you be here talking to me?" asked the hick. He did have a point. "What I saw is what I saw. Those people disappeared through that thing and they sure as hell didn't come out the other side. Now, I don't figure myself as one of those alien or conspiracy theory nuts, but I don't now how else to explain what happened."

"Of course sir," the reporter said with a condescending smile on his face. I did not get the reason for the way the idiot reporter was acting. He was the one that chose to interview the crazy hick. "Well, as you can see, this string of unexplained disappearances is starting to draw out all sorts of stories." I changed the channel after that. If I wanted to here about crazy theories I could always pay a visit to the internet. Still, that was the first time I had heard about any disappearances, it might just have been fun to see what the conspiracy theorists had come up with by that time. I wondered if anyone had come forward after disappearing saying they had been abducted by aliens yet.

Just as I was about to check up on those disappearances my cell phone rang. I saw that it was one of my friends so I picked up. "Hey Jerry," I said.

Jerry asked, "Johnny, what are doing?"

"Nothing, why?"

"Just calling to see if you wanted to hang out with me, Miguel, and JT."

"Sure, it's not like I have anything better to do. Where are you guys?"

"We're already in the city. Just give us a call before you get here and we'll meet you at the normal place," Jerry said before hanging up.

I went to put some clothes on. Since I had not planned on doing anything that day I had only been wearing my underwear and socks up to that point. It had taken enough energy to drag my six and half foot tall body out of bed; I did not want to get dressed if I was not going to do anything. I did clean up a little bit and I tried to make my unruly brown hair look like it was a little bit under my control before heading out. Then I thought about driving to the city but changed my mind. My parents had gifted me with their old SUV before heading to college and it was nice, but that thing was sure expensive to fuel up. I was taking the train.

Of course the train was crowded as it always was. By the time I was able to get on it the thing was standing room only and even then it was packed. It was still better than driving from what I could see though. Apparently, a pipe had burst along some street and the roads that way were closed until they fixed the pipe. As a result, it was bumper to bumper traffic along the roads that were open. More people were also taking the train than normal and I had to wonder if it was really safe for people to pack themselves into a train like everyone was trying to pack themselves in. My nose did not seem to think that it was safe for me to be in there with all those hot sweaty people. It was still better than being in traffic though, so I got on.

It does not take that long to reach the city from where I lived and that was definitely a good thing. The train did not have the best air conditioning system in the world and it was a hot day. I just tried to think about what a good thing it was that we were not stuck in the traffic that the cars we were flying by in the window were. When I was around half way to the city things started to go horribly wrong. A violent tremor reverberated throughout the train at around the same time I saw a bunch of cars break suddenly. I was witness to a pretty bad pile up as cars tried unsuccessfully to dodge each other. The lights in the train were flickering badly and I wondered if something had hit the train.

It was impossible to tell what was going on further up the train, but it was easy to tell that something was not right. There was another violent tremor and I heard someone scream. Cars were honking furiously outside and I thought I heard the train's breaks come on. The problem was that the train did not seem to be slowing down at all. If I did not know any better I would say that something was dragging the train forward. I could not think of anything that could drag a train like this with the breaks engaged.

Then I saw the very edges of it. It was the edges of a bright blue wall and it was huge. It looked like it stretched all the way from one side of the street, past the train tracks, and all the way onto the other side of the street. Any vehicles straying to close to the thing were getting pulled through the thing and I had a good idea of why the train was still moving. There was an especially violent tremor and this time and the train seemed to get pulled off its tracks. Anything that was not nailed down went flying, including me. I was not sure what I hit, but it was hard enough to knock me out just before I saw a glowing blue portal approaching my body.

I came to some time later lying face first on the floor of the train. The floor was still the floor, so even if the train did derail at least my part of it was still upright. My vision was a bit blurry, but even then I was able to tell that there were a couple of people that had been knocked out as I had. There was a knot in my head where I had hit it and that was about all that was wrong with me. I tried to sit up slowly and the world seemed to twirl all around me. It felt like I was about to throw up, but the world stopped spinning just in time.

As I looked around I guessed that I had not been out for that long. People were still trying to force a door open so they could get out. A few seconds after I managed to stand up they had managed to get the doors open and were flooding out. As I was about to thank them for all the help they had given me and all the other unconscious people on the floor something caught my attention. It was a lot darker outside than it had been. The sun had been shinning brightly overhead, but now it was like there was an overcast sky because there was no sunlight shinning through the windows. That made me a bit curious and I ignored the other passed out people as well.

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the train was that we could not have been where we were just a short time ago. For one thing, there were no roads or train tracks anywhere to be seen. People were just milling about, looking confused. There was a lot to be confused about as well. We were surrounded by giant brick walls that did not look like they belonged on any skyscraper I had ever seen. The individual bricks also looked too big; any one of them was larger than even a train car. Then, the next thing I saw really made me wonder if something had been knocked loose in my head.

It was a simple balled up piece of paper. The problem was that the piece of paper was taller than the train was, about two or three times tall actually. Then I saw the dumpster that that piece of paper was supposed to have been thrown into. It towered high into the air and I thought I had to be hallucinating. The looks on other people's faces said that they were seeing the same thing though. Then I heard a few startled gasps, quiet screams, and an, "Oh my God!"

I turned to see what they were talking about and was greeted with something far more spectacular than a giant dumpster. What I saw made things start to connect to my mind. We were all either in a giant alleyway or we were shrunken in a normal sized alleyway. It was hard to tell since the things walking out in the streets were not humans which made it hard for me tell how larger we were supposed to be compared to what I saw. And what I saw could only be described of as dragons. There were all sorts of them too. Quadrupeds and bipeds, eastern and western, furred, feathered and scaled, and their colors varied widely as well as the style and amount of clothing they wore. The bipeds seemed to be in charge here. They were walking the quadrupeds as if they were dogs. And all of them, no matter what they looked like, were absolutely huge. I doubt we would look like we were more than a half inch tall compared to the residents here, probably closer to a quarter inch tall.

Just about everybody started backing away from the large reptilian residents of this place. It would be an understatement to say that people were panicking. Nobody knew where we where or how that blue thing brought us here. Since that blue thing was no longer present we had no idea how to get home. There was not a single person here that wanted to be stuck on a world full of dragons. Well, actually there were a couple of dragon lovers on the train that did seem a little excited about the prospect of actually meeting a dragon. I did not see what they could be so excited about. These buildings looked a lot like something I would expect to find back on Earth. I could think of some sadistic people I would not want to meet on Earth when our sizes varied so greatly.

Even the people that wanted to meet a dragon had to admit that it might not be a good idea to try and approach one right now. All of the dragons we saw were just walking along and not looking down. Any of us trying to get their attention now would be like an ant trying to get our attention back on Earth. Nobody wanted to end up as a stain under some scaly foot. Nothing was bothering us at the moment so everyone felt safe having pointless little arguments about what to do. I just took the chance to actually look around at all the stuff that was pulled through that blue portal thing. The train was all here and I was surprised that none of the train cars had fallen over since there was no longer a track beneath it. There were plenty of cars as well. A news van caught my eye and I smiled when I saw the idiot reporter from the news standing around outside of it. I doubted he had any reason to give anyone a condescending smile now.

Our peaceful little sanctuary in this land of titans did not last for long. A noise came from the dumpster that I had seen earlier. When I looked at it I saw a bronze scaled dragon emerging from it and dropping to the ground with a resounding thud. Fortunately, it did not land on anyone. The four legged dragon looked just as surprised to see us as we did to see it. Its expression of surprise quickly changed to a hungry one and I realized that I was looking at the equivalent of a hungry stray dog or cat. There was no intelligence in its eyes and I knew we could not reason with the hungry giant even if we could speak the language of this world.

One thing was for sure, it was every bit as fast as many of the reptiles back on Earth. In the blink of an eye it had seized a few people in its jaws and was gulping them down before my eyes. I doubt the thing had even bothered to taste its prey. That little treat was not enough to satisfy it though. It was ravenous and the only meat that stood before it was insect sized. I was not willing to stick around and see how many people it took to fill the belly of a monster that large. Apparently, nobody else was either. Everyone scattered and that seemed to confuse the feral dragon. Its head swiveled about as it tried to pick out a target. The dragon darted one direction and then the next. That little maneuver ended up trampling more people underfoot than it had eaten so far. The sound of bodies being crushed spurred me blindly forward. I was not concerned with looking back.

Then I felt as well as I heard something thudding in my direction. I knew the dragon was darting in my direction, but I had no idea what to do. It is not everyday that I came up with plans on how to avoid a hungry dragon after all. Then a bronze foot showed up right in front of me. It slammed down on three people that had been running in front of me. The sight of them getting slowly compressed and then just kind of popping before disappearing underfoot burned itself into my mind as I ran into that same foot before bouncing off as if I had run into a brick wall. I found myself staring up at the dragon's underside and watched as it darted of in yet another direction. As its foot passed over me I was able to get a look at the gory remains of whatever pieces of bodies managed to stick to it. I turned over just in time to keep from throwing up in my mouth.

When I was finished emptying my stomach of what I had eaten that day I looked up to see the dragon had finally picked out some targets. I was just glad that I was not one of them and decided to push aside my guilt for feeling that for now. The dragon had picked out some people that were running toward the back of the alley. It led to a dead end. Even if they could have outrun the dragon they had nowhere to run to. The dragon had them trapped and it knew it. It was picking up people at its leisure and tossing them down its gullet. I could not even call it a slaughter, it was just a feast.

There was nothing I could do for those people, so I started to make my way out of the alley before the dragon could turn its attention to us. Plenty of people were still running blindly by the time they made it out. While the ones of us that did have some sense left just tried to huddle up against a wall, the others ran right out into the middle of the sidewalk. That sidewalk happened to be a very busy sidewalk full of very large feet and the occasional thick tail dragging across the ground.

What happened to the people that ran out there was messy. I could hear and see people being turned into bloody pulp with each passing second. A red furred foot would come down and four lives came to a messy end. A white feathered foot came down and ended three more. A blue scaled tail mowed down two people and left a bloody streak behind it. A pet sniffed at six people while passing and lapped them up like a dog before moving on. It was a grisly show that I could not tear my eyes away from until it was over. There had to have been a good 60 or 70 people that ran out there and none of them had made it to the end of the sidewalk. If I had anything left in me I would have thrown up again, like most of the people trapped against the wall with me.

There had been a lot of people on that train and quite a few cars had been pulled through that portal as well. That meant that even after all of those shocking losses there were still a lot of us left. And not a single one of us had a clue about what to do. The first person to suggest that we get some distance between us and that alley was pretty much accepted as the leader of our band of survivors. That feral dragon was still in that alley and it might just decided to come in search of the rest of its easy meal if it was still hungry.

Truthfully, I thought a group of ours would get noticed by some of the dragons in the street, but it was not happening. Even though we were small we still constituted what would be a pretty large insect swarm moving across the ground. The only things that seemed to notice us were the pets and it was just a good thing that none of their masters were letting them stop to investigate us. When we eventually came across a small stoop we decided to stop and rest in its shadow. From there we tried to decide what to do, which was not much.

Things came down to a decision about whether or not to try and contact one of the residents of this world. Just about everybody had heard one story or another about dragons and a lot of us were convinced that they were fire breathing monsters. There were a few in the group that said they thought the eastern ones were supposed to be friendlier, but they were not certain. The dragon lovers did not think it mattered too much and just wanted to try and meet one of them. They were certain the intelligent ones would be willing to help us. The rest of us just decided to try and get in contact with an eastern one just in case.

Getting in touch with one of those jumbo sized dragons was easier said than done. The previous events of the day were still painfully fresh in everyone's memory. Not everyone was willing to contact the dragons anyways. I was one of them and it was not so much that I was scared of them; it just seemed strange that not a single one of them had noticed us while we were moving along the sidewalk. It was decided that most of our group should hold back since there was no point putting everyone in danger. When I noticed the idiot reporter going out with the group that planned to talk with the dragon I felt like I had made the right decision. The day I started making the same decisions as idiots like that is the day I would start to question my own intelligence.

Picking out a likely target to talk to was not an easy thing to do. They pretty much had to wait until one of them stopped walking while it was close enough to us that they did not have to worry about getting stepped on by other dragons that were still walking by. Then we happened to get a little lucky when an overburdened eastern dragon happened to drop its load of papers which no other dragon seemed to be interested in helping it pick up. It was a golden scaled dragon with a lush black mane and a tiny pair of glasses perched on its slender whiskered snout. I'm going to guess and say that it was a he and that he did not look that mean. He was still huge, though, and I had no interest in walking up to him and seeing if he wanted to shake hands.

The group of brave fools that was supposed to try and talk to the dragon walked right up to him. I wondered if the reporter went out because he wanted to be the first person to interview an actual dragon. At least the dragon did not swat them like bugs when they came into his field of vision. In fact, he did not react at all. It was like they were not even there to the dragon. I wondered if the dragon was so wrapped up in picking up his papers that he had not noticed the people, but that did not seem likely. There was something wrong here and I thought those people should have left after they could see the dragon was not paying attention to them.

They stuck around the dragon for too long and the inevitable happened. Another dragon was walked by while not paying attention to where he was walking and bumped right into the golden dragon picking up his paper. The golden dragon became unbalanced and did a marvelous job of trying to stay on his feet. In the end, all he could do was perform a 180 degree turn on the ground and he fell on his rump. It was unfortunate that the group trying to talk to the dragon also happened to be under his rump. Not everyone had been completely crushed. I could see the reporter screaming in pain. Both of his legs and one of his arms were trapped under the dragon and the free arm was clawing at the ground as he tried to pull himself from under the dragon. It did not work and when the dragon stood up the reporter went with the dragon. The poor idiot's body was stuck to a scale. That problem was solved by the dragon when he tried to brush himself off. If the reporter was not killed by the large hand rolling over him then the drop to the ground sure did.

After that, no one was too anxious to talk to a dragon anymore. It looked like we were on our own if we were going to figure out how to get out of this place. All we could do was find a good place to hunker down and wait for the traffic to die down. We might be able to find something useful if we explored this place, but only if we could actually survive wandering around in the open. The stoop we were already hiding next to was as good a place as any to wait for night to come and, hopefully, for most of the dragons to go home. Sitting against the stoop was no fun since all I could do was think about all the things that had happened. There was nothing I wanted to think about at the moment. My emotions were all mixed up, but I thought if I had too much time to think I would become paralyzed with fear. I was fairly sure that I was shrunken, I knew I was stuck on a world of dragons with no obvious way home, and the intelligent residents of this world did not notice us while the ones that thought of us as edible were able to notice us. That is reason enough to be afraid as far as I am concerned.

Despite all my worries I eventually managed to fall asleep. I never could stay awake when there was nothing to do. The thing that woke me up was someone screaming bloody murder shortly after sundown. That was one hell of a wake up call. I figured some hungry predator had managed to find us, but it was only some woman screaming in her sleep. I noticed that there were other people sleeping restlessly in the area. It looked like a lot of people were stuck in their own little nightmares. That woman was not the only one to wake up screaming. I found it too hard to get to sleep with all the screaming. The traffic on the sidewalk was dieing down, so it was not like I needed to wait long before we could start moving again. When we thought it was safe we went around and woke everybody up so we could try to find something to help us.

This place looked a lot like a city back on Earth. The only big difference was that all of the posters featured dragons instead of humans. Then we passed by a bookstore. In the display of that bookstore was a book that featured a dragon fighting a much smaller human opponent on the cover. That made me wonder if humans were the mythological creatures on this world. I just hoped we were not viewed as wicked little creatures on this world or we could be in a lot of trouble if the residents of this world ever did notice us. We thought about trying to get into the bookstore to see if we could find any useful information, but we heard a dragon approaching and tried to hide against a wall until it passed.

The western dragon that we heard looked like a villainous dragon if I ever saw on. It had scales so black that he looked darker than the darkness that surrounded him. He sported some wickedly long claws that gleamed in what little light there was. His bat like wings were folded up against his back. The tip of his tail was tipped with spikes that looked as if they were meant to impale an opponent in a fight. His eyes were blood red with black slits. Two long horns protruded out the back of his head while thick plate like scales marked where his spine ran down his back. I expected him to be three toed more like a dinosaur, but he had a fourth toe for some reason and an equal number of fingers. The only thing that was not evil looking about him was his emerald green belly and matching strips on the back of his limbs and body. His neck was long and serpentine and that wedge like head on the end of it along with his long pointy ears seemed to be pointed right in our direction.

I thought it was just a coincidence that he was looking at us. But then he stopped a short distance away from us. His eyes scanned over us and I could tell he was able to see that we were there. "Ah, so this is where you got off to. I was starting to think that stupid mutt ate all of you," said the black dragon, clearly addressing us. Then he lowered a carrying cage to the ground large enough to hold us all. "Get in," he commanded us. It was clear that he was not asking us a question. Thoughts of trying to run away popped into my mind, but one look into those eyes of his told me that would be a mistake. Everyone else must have thought the same thing because they went along with what the dragon said.

One person did try to run for it before he could get in the cage. The dragon did not do anything except give the rest of us a withering look. That was enough to keep all but three people more people from running away. When the rest of us were in the cage the dragon locked us in. The windows in the cage were too high up for us to see through so I could not see what happened. I could hear the sound I had come to associate with humans being crushed on four separate occasions. That was when I filed away an important piece of information. This dragon was not to be disobeyed.

When the dragon lifted the cage he was not gentle. The walk to wherever we were supposed to be going was not very pleasant either. Our captor did not seem to care that when he swung the cage around it would send us sliding across the floor of the cage and into each other. I received my fair share of bumps and bruises from my fellow captives. Things with this dragon did not seem like they were going to be the least bit pleasant for us. I had to wonder why this dragon spotted us so easily though. In fact, he seemed like he had been searching for us. It was possible he had seen the train and the cars in the alley and come looking for us. That book in the store indicated that they had at least heard of humans on this world, but it seemed like the other dragons should have noticed us. There had to be something more going on here and that black dragon probably had some answers. I doubted I was going to be able to work up the courage to ask the questions I needed to get the answers to though.

It felt like forever before the dragon finally came to a stop. The cage opened into barren room. I could see the doorway into another room in the distance, but it was blocked off by a glass wall that the dragon could walk over but we could not possibly climb. There was no furniture in the room and I thought that was a very bad thing. It meant there was nowhere for us to hide if the dragon should decide to crush us like ants. The dragon waited for us to exit the cage and I noticed a few people try to hide in the shadows of the cage. That turned out to be a huge mistake. When the dragon lifted the cage off the floor he shook the cage so that anyone left inside dropped into the palm of his hand. After he finished shaking he checked inside the cage to make sure no one else was there and then threw the people in his hand into his mouth and swallowed without the slightest hesitation. That managed to get a gasp out of a few people. It was one thing for a beast to eat someone, but this dragon standing before us was obviously intelligent. That looked a lot like murder instead of a creature simply trying to survive.

"Greetings humans," said the black dragon. "I am Tzakiel, but you should call me Master from now on. You are all probably wondering what you are doing here so let me tell you. From now on you will serve my every need. You will live and die at my whim and you will all die, eventually. Loyal service will stretch out your pathetic little lives though. If I actually start to like you then you just might survive and if I take a disliking to you, well, you've seen what happens.

"While you are staying with me you will also learn a thing or two about dragons. Let me tell you now that our colors actually mean something about us unlike your backwards little race. Some of you may have seen my black scales and assumed that I was an evil dragon and by human standards you are exactly right. I love tormenting humans. It brings me joy to put your arrogant little race in its place. You will find out the reason for the color of my belly and the meaning of my strips as well when the time is right. For now, just realize that I was not expecting such a good catch and that I only feel like taking care of half of your number at the moment."

I started running instantly. It took most people a couple of seconds for those words to sink in. The dragon was only willing to give us a couple of seconds. Then he started stomping. He was totally merciless. That dragon did not care about whether he stepped on men or women, the old or the young, the guilty or the innocent; everyone was the same to him. And there were definitely guilty and innocent people among us. There were people among us that were pushing others down in what I could only think of as an attempt to make them more tempting targets to get stepped on. The dragon was above it all though. He would just bring that black clawed foot down at random. Each stomp was always followed by a loud crunch.

Then that foot was over me. I tried to dart out of the way, but I felt an elbow hit me right in the head. Stars exploded in front of my eyes and I feel to the ground. I was mad as hell. There was no point in that person to have done that. It was not like we were outrunning a hungry predator where that might have helped. That person was trying to sacrifice me for no good reason. My anger was the only thing that let me reach out a leg and trip up the person that had hit me. The dragon's foot came rushing down and I was a little happy that I was at least going to take one bastard down with me.

When the foot came down it did not sound as loud as I thought it should and I felt no extra weight on top of my body. I did not even realize my eyes were closed for about three seconds. As I opened them I could see that I was surrounded by two mammoth toes and the person that had elbowed me was pinned beneath one of them. I looked up to see the dragon's intense eyes looking directly at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. "That was a good move human. Would it please you to see me crush this one?" he asked as he put just enough weight on the still uncrushed man to snap a bone or two.

I could not bring myself to respond, but I saw anger in his eyes. If I did not respond I knew I was going to be next. A few seconds ago I was happy that I made sure that man was going to die with me. Now it was a completely different matter. The dragon was asking me if I wanted him to kill somebody for me. Then the man trapped under the toe reached out and grabbed me by my ankle and screamed, "I'll get your for this you bastard. This is all your fault." Then he tried to drag me under the dragon's toe with him. He was one strong guy and I thought he just might succeed. I doubted the dragon would show me any mercy if I got dragged under his foot so I started frantically nodding my head in affirmation to his question.

"This is for you then human," the dragon said with a smile on his face. I heard the bones start to shatter within the man. His screams went on for a long time as the dragon slowly crushed him. I was just happy that he had let me go and I backed away from him. The seen was so horrible that I just kept backing away from it until I ran into the wall that was the dragons other toe. It took a while, but the man's body eventually exploded like a grape, spattering me with bits and pieces of what had once been another human. My vision went dark and I passed out.

I was surprised that I did wake up again. That dragon did not seem like the type to give mercy to helpless victims. He was not gone though, just crouched down hovering over me and the other survivors that were gathered in a group once again. "Ah, back with us again human. I wanted to wait until you woke up to say congratulations to all of you. It looks like you will survive the rest of the night. If you have any questions for me then figure out how to ask them in a polite way by the time I come back to see you in the morning," said Tzakiel, or Master as he wanted us to call him. Then he departed without anyone saying anything to him out of fear of upsetting him. He turned out the light in the room on his way out and we were left in total darkness. A few people broke down crying and I felt like doing the same myself. Barring a miracle we were now all knocking on death's door.

I had once again managed to fall asleep by the time morning came despite how anxious I had been last night. The dragon turning on the light in the windowless room is what woke me up this time. It was not a pleasant thing to be woken up by a giant monster that planned to eventually kill me first thing in the morning. "Wake up, wake up, my little playthings. It's question and answer time."

Some lady rushed to try and please the Master, "Could you te-"

That was as far as she could get before the dragon stepped on her and ground her remains into pulp before glaring ominously at us. Another woman stepped up and asked, "Master, you said you did not expect such a good catch. Does that mean you are responsible for bringing us here?"

"Yes," he said. It was obvious we were going to have to ask specific questions if we wanted answers from him.

"Master, how did you bring us here?" asked someone else.

"That would be a little too complicated for your tiny human brains to understand. All you need to know is that I created those portals and brought you to this world."

"Master, are there others of your kind doing this?"

Tzakiel actually looked into the air as if giving that question some thought before responding. "I don't think so, not yet anyways."

"Master, why did you bring us here instead of coming to our world?"

This time the Master looked a bit vexed before responding. "Because those golds forced us to stop visiting your world as a part of some treaty. They seem to be of the opinion that you humans should be left to develop on your own. I would visit your world like my ancestors did all those centuries ago, but it is not possible to get to your world without being detected and punished. But I am a genius you know. I figured out a way to get you humans to my world without being detected."

"Master, you are very clever. Why did we show up in an alley and not at your home and why couldn't the other dragons see us?" I asked.

"Ah, you noticed that. The other dragons can't see you because they aren't the ones that brought you here. I made the summoning so that it works that way. And you showed up in an alley because I have not quite managed to figure out how to get you to show up where I want you humans to show up. It took me three tries to even get you to show up in this dimension instead of some different one. I have managed to get you to appear within a mile of my home."

"Master, do you plan on letting any of us live?"

"Well..." The doorbell in the house went off before he could answer the question. I was not sure if I wanted to hear the answer to that one anyways. "It looks like our little Q and A session is over. It is time for you to find out what the green stripes mean though." The dragon smiled maliciously at us before departing to answer the door. We were in a panic. The last time the dragon told us something about himself half of our numbers wounded up getting crushed underfoot. I somehow doubted finding out about the green stripes would be any more pleasant for us than finding out what the black scales meant.

I could hear what sounded like two or three extra voices in the house. There were a few people literally praying that we were not about to meet some more black scaled friends of his. We had to sit around waiting for a while and listen to the dragons talk. It was hard to understand what they were saying, but they just seemed like a bunch of friends having a normal conversation. Then the black dragon fell silent and I saw him walk past our room a few seconds later. He was gone for a little while before he stopped in front of our room with three bowls of salad.

The Master started to speak silently enough not to be heard by his guests but loudly enough to be easily heard by us. "The green strips mean I have a, uh, twisted sense of humor. To other dragons, that means I can be a little annoying, but funny sometimes. To you humans, that means my sense of humor can be deadly. And do you know what I think would be hilarious? Why, feeding a few pieces of invisible meat to my vegetarian friends."

We once again tried to scatter as the dragon sat the bowls of salad down to start picking us up. Since there was nowhere to run that made our escape attempt pretty short. Tzakiel was able to easily gather all of us up in threes or fours. He would drop people into the smooth salad bowls and there was no way they could climb the smooth walls, especially while covered with salad dressing. I was one of the last people to be caught. It was actually surprising how gentle the dragon could be as I found myself pinched between two leathery fingers. I expected to be crushed by something so large, but he did not so much as bruise me. The drop into the salad bowl was no fun though. From the height he dropped me even a fall onto the soft vegetation beneath me hurt quite a bit.

The Master could have cared less. He had us all where he wanted us and now he was getting ready to serve us to his friends. When his friends came into view I wondered if their light green scales meant they were vegetarians like black scales seemed to mean that a dragon was an evil jerk. It did not matter though. Despite screams for help and pleas not to be eaten it was obvious that the other dragons could not see us. "Go on, eat up guys," said Tzakiel.

The other dragons looked at him suspiciously before one of them said, "You aren't trying to get us to eat meat again are you Tzy?"

"Of course not Yil. You know that one time was just an accident," said Tzakiel.

"Of course it was," the dragon called Yil said sarcastically. That happened to be the dragon in front of me and he used a fork to prod the salad and I narrowly avoided being skewered by the thing. Despite his obvious suspicions he still started to eat. The next few minutes taxed every athletic ability in my body. Not only did I have to dodge the fork, I had to get off of every leaf I was on before the fork could lift it to the green dragon's mouth. There were a lot of us in the salad and a lot of us were not that lucky. People were lifted up to the dragon's mouth and disappeared past its pebbly lips. The dragon would chew and I would imagine the crunchy noises that I heard were bones being chewed into mush.

I was exhausted and there was still half a salad and three other people left. Our collective luck ran out at the same time. The next time the dragon picked up a fork full of salad we came up with the fork. As the angle of the fork changed I nearly slipped off the salad and one man did go sliding right past me. I grabbed his hand before he could fall to his death, but I only thought I was stretching out his life for a little longer. The dragon's mouth opened to reveal teeth that did not look like they belonged to any vegetarian I had ever heard of. My vision was filled with razor sharp glistening fangs, one of which still had an arm impaled on it.

As we were moved into the dragon's mouth I felt my grip on the man slipping as he pleaded with me not to drop him. There was not much I could do for him as he fingers slipped out of my grasp and he fell onto the dragon's slender pink tongue. I saw the other person slip onto the dragons tongue as well, but I managed to stay on the piece of salad. Just as the dragon started to close his mouth I heard a loud beeping noise. The dragon yanked the fork and me out of its mouth and quickly swallowed what happened to be in his mouth at the time. I was disoriented, but I could tell the dragon was checking on something. "Oh man, I've got to go and pick up my girlfriend. Sorry for leaving you with the mess Tzy. The salad was good though. Thanks a lot," said Yil as he rushed out the front door.

I was dropped back in the salad bowl and, thankfully, none of the other dragons decided to finish off his meal. After they were done the other two dragons let the Master know that they had to leave as well. When they departed the Master started checking the bowls. I could hear him snort after he checked the first two bowls and said, "Not a single one survived. They really are pathetic little vermin." Then he looked into my bowl while I tried to hide as deep in the salad as I could. It was a futile effort and the black dragon found me quickly.

He smiled when he found me and said, "Oh, so at least one of you did manage to avoid being eaten. Aren't you a lucky little thing? You're the only one of the few that gets to find out what my green belly scales mean." Since I was the only one left I wondered what he meant by few. Then I remembered that he had eaten a few of us earlier. Chances were that his belly scales really did have something to do with his belly. "Let's go get you washed off. I've never been much for that rabbit food and salad dressing," Tzakiel actually stuck his tongue out at me in what looked like mock disgust. Then he winked at me as if he were a buddy just joking around with me.

He held me in the palm of his hands as he walked over to a sink and then held me firmly as he turned on the faucet. It was like getting hit with a small waterfall. Despite the Master's grip I felt like I was going to get washed away. Fortunately that did not last for long. Then the Master dried me off with a cloth before taking me to what I thought was his room. He laid down on a bed and hooked a claw under my shirt before dangling me over his head. His maw opened to admit me. Even the inside of his mouth looked evil. His fangs were noticeably longer that the other dragon's had been. They were also yellow along the gum lines compared to the other dragon's perfectly white teeth. The tongue was a sickly looking grayish color. Patches of black covered the rest of his mouth and thick strings of saliva dripped into the back of his throat.

"Master, please don't eat me. I'm the only one you have left," I pleaded with the dragon. Of course I was terrified. My heart was racing so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. I was literally staring down death and there was nothing I could do. At that moment I would have been willing to do anything in order to survive.

The dragon just laughed at me. His rancid breath washed over me and I was forced to gag on it. "You're the only one for now, but there are billions more of you back on your world. My method of summoning you here may not be perfect yet, but it is good enough. As far as I am concerned I now have an unlimited supply of playthings. And you are just a nice little treat before lunch."

Then dragon tipped his claw so that I started slipping off of it. I tried to grab onto that claw, but a little shake was all it took to dislodge me. Air rushed past me and I screamed for all I was worth as I fell. I fell through a string of drool before landing on his rough tongue. Then he licked me against the boney ridges on the top of his mouth before swallowing me whole. Slimy walls of flesh forced me down the dark tunnel that was the dragon's throat at a dizzying rate of speed. I hit a soft wall that opened up beneath me to admit me into a larger chamber, what I knew had to be the dragon's stomach. Liquids started to well up around me and I panicked as I realized I was about to be digested. The thing was, as the liquids came in contact with my skin it only tingled. That was enough for me to hold out hope that I might actually survive Tzakiel's digestive process.

I felt myself pulled into another tube and I thought I was in the dragon's intestines. Then I came to a stop in another chamber. More liquids were added into this chamber and it made the ones that had been pulled from the stomach burn a little more. I realized I was in a second stomach. There were animals that I knew had multiple stomachs, but I did not think they worked this way. I wondered if the dragon's with green bellies developed this way just to torture their more intelligent prey. Never knowing which stomach would be your final destination would be enough to drive some people insane.

As it turns out the dragon had a total of five stomachs. I knew that because when I was deposited in the final stomach I encountered the people that the dragon had eaten the previous night. They were still alive too, but just barely. The fifth stomach was slightly luminescent and the digestive acid was not corrosive, just incredibly painful. I figured that was so we could see ourselves getting digested. If those people were still alive after all this time then I figured it was going to take me a long time to die. I frantically tried to find a way out of this belly. I kicked, punched, and clawed at the fleshy walls of the stomach with a fanatical vigor. The only reaction I ever received was when the dragon petted his stomach and I heard his voice echo all around me, "Calm down human, it could have been worse. Just feel lucky I am not a red stripped dragon with a red belly and a red mane. Those are the worst dragons a human could encounter. Speaking of which, I should probably call Reban the next time I do this."

Time dragged on and I was slowly digested. After a few hours I was too tired and hurt to do much. My mind was drowned in pain and I did not even notice when the other people trapped with me died. I probably would not have cared if I did notice there passing. In fact, I might have been envious. Something about the dragon had to be dragging the process on. He had to be keeping me from dieing long after my body should have given out on me. When I did finally pass on two days after being eaten by the dragon I could have thanked him for letting me go.