Hello!/ Literature

Greetings!  I have been super non-finishing-novel-y, and I have started SOMETHING ELSE! (NaNo 2011, anyone?) So here's what I've written. Yes, I dreamt something VERY similar to this. It happened on Saturday night. I don't remember the details very well, except it was a mix of really scary and really cool. I didn't wake up at the same point, but the scene did change at the same point. So here it is.

The enterprise began in the late afternoon. Every year near the Winter Festival, the dragon comes and terrorizes our town. It has happened for hundreds of years. Nobody really knows why, but everybody is powerless with terror to stop it.

Except for now. My friends and I have decided that enough is enough. This dragon – we do not even know his name, he’s just The Dragon – has caused enough damage, enough pain, enough suffering. Every year he comes and causes enough damage to take the rest of the year to fix, and yet he comes again the next year and destroys it all again.
Every year, he takes a few young women as well – teenage girls normally between the ages of thirteen and seventeen – to take back to his lair to either eat or torture.
My friends and I, we’re sick of being sick with terror. We have made a plan.

Early in the evening that the Dragon is destined to arrive, we all meet up at my house. Everyone – all seven or eight of us – is armed with some sort of heavy weapon. Jeremiah carries a battle axe. Samuel is armed withhis great-grandfather’s magic sword. I carry my bow, a small pouch of pine sap, and a torch in order to fight fire with fire.
Although I am the only girl in the group, that is no matter. All the boys know that I am the best shot in town.
We’re all nervous as the time ticks onward. Although we’re frustrated with the Dragon, the large beast still holds the spot of “Most Feared” in all of our hearts.
Soon we hear the normal, terrifying sounds of the Dragon’s approach – his roar, his heavy footsteps, his deep breathing. We spread out. My heart pounds.
Jeremiah, Samuel, James, and Damian are going to be the close-range fighters, while Max, Hector, and I are going to be the long-range fighters – I have my longbow with the fire; the boys have their crossbows. The sounds of the beast grow closer. The time is nearing midnight.

The screams start when the beast has reached the top of my street. I see the house of the Millers go up in flames at the top of the hill. That was Jeremiah’s house. He’d just finished rebuilding it from last year.
I stand behind the shrubs in front of my house and draw an arrow from my quiver.
The Dragon’s nearing us now, breathing heavily.
The smell of smoke from Jeremiah’s house comes down to my nose.
I dip the tip of my arrow into the pine sap and then dip it into the flame of the torch until it lights. I keep the arrow pointed downwards until I’m ready to draw the bow.

And suddenly, there’s the Dragon. He’s massive, with bright green scales and spikes all down his back and around his eyes and mouth and nostrils.
My heartbeat quickens. I’ve heard the commotion this dragon causes many times, but I’ve never actually seen the beast until now.
I draw my bow. The flames from the arrow burn my hand slightly as I take aim.
Soon the beast is near enough so that, if I plan my shot correctly, I can hit it right in the eye.
The dragon turns its head, fixing one yellow-orange eye on me. I’m paralyzed the moment our eyes meet.

And that’s when the loud beeping of my alarm clock pulled me out of my dream.



Every other night since summer break began I’ve been visited by the same dream of fighting a dragon that has been terrorizing a town. And I’ve always woken up right as I draw back my bow and meet the eyes of the beast. My feelings about it? They’re in a delicate balance – on the one hand, I’m glad I’m not about to shoot a dragon in the eye, because, even in Dreamland, that thing is absolutely petrifying. On the other hand, however, I’ve been terrorized by the dragon so much – oh yes, I meant to use the word “terrorized” – that I want to shoot it already so I can stop having dreams about killing dragons and start having dreams about eating peanuts in the Amazon and finishing my college applications.
I mean really, is it normal to have a lot of dreams about dragon-slaying? I don’t think it would be for someone my age – unless, of course, the dragon is some sort of subliminal reference to college applications and my fire arrow is a pen or something. But I doubt it.