Running With Scissors Pt. 2

Original photo by Steve

RWS is a serial fantasy story that posts every Monday following Danielle, a regular girl stuck in an irregular world where unicorns serve as judge and jury, gnomes have infested the south district, and a minor god reports the weather on the nightly news. 

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Part 2

I checked my phone. Again. No signal. How could there be even a square foot of space in this city that didn't have cell phone reception? I dropped my head back on the carpet and stared at the ceiling. It looked exactly like every other office ceiling I'd ever seen. That grid of speckled panels stretched from window to wall.

There was one upside to being a hostage of the dragons, they did have a very nice view of the city. One of the tallest buildings around and I couldn't bring myself to enjoy a twenty foot panoramic view. This office was unfortunately sparse. A big desk, a computer I couldn't get to turn on, and some empty bookshelves. No chairs.

I sighed and knew the two guards on the other side of that door could hear me. It was late, I wanted to go home, I had an interview tomorrow... but the Queen wanted a cure and I didn't have one to give her. I couldn't imagine what Yoka was thinking. Handling a week-old dragon when I was fifteen hardly qualified me for medical diagnosis.

Speaking of Yoka. I glanced at my phone again. No reception. The time read just past one in the morning. She only had a few more hours before daybreak forced her into stone. I hoped she was flying back to our apartment already. Although, without her I didn't have a clue how to get out of this. Unless Kender teleported in here to help me. I laughed at the thought and turned away from the window.

A dragon ghost cocked her head at me from above the computer. She didn't fit in the room. I shrieked and backed myself along the window away from the desk. I got stuck in the corner of wall and bookshelf with nowhere to go. Her entire body filled the room, wings, talons, tail, spikes. She was huge, semi-transparent, and followed my movement like a snake. I tried to melt into the book case.

"I can help you." She said.

"What?" I felt my eyes go wide and my voice was a little breathless. I was hyperventilating. I couldn't calm down. There was a ghost in the office.

"You need help. I can help you." She repeated.

There was really no way I could be closer to the shelves without molding to their shape, but I tried. "Why? What's in it for you?"

"I'm bored." She said and it sounded true. "This view is nice, but after a dozen years there's nothing new to look at."

"What." I couldn't even make it a proper question. "Why are you here?"

"I'm tied to this machine." She gestured at the computer I couldn't turn on. Her forearm-long claws went right through it.

I'd sat at that computer for two hours trying to make it work. I'd been poking at a dragon for two hours. Had I woken her up? "What do you want from me?"

"Take me out of here. Show me some place new."

"Take the computer with me?"

"Or let me haunt something of yours."

I realized suddenly we were negotiating. Information for freedom. "How do I know you can help?"

"The Queen thinks she is dying."

"Uh... yeah, that's right." I straightened up a little bit but didn't leave my corner of the office.

"I know why. I can help."

The office door opened and two men walked in. Men with huge iridescent wings and long spiked tails. Dragons in the form of man like a suit. Incidentally, their man-shapes were wearing very nice suits. "The Queen demands your answer. Come with us." The one with more purple in him said.

I shot my attention to the ghost. "Tell me!"

"Give me something to haunt."

I didn't have anything. The two guards approached, walking through the ghost as if that were a normal thing to encounter in a high-rise office. I patted myself down like checking folds of a shirt and pants would spontaneously result in a solution. My hand landed on my phone. I held it up. "Here. This. You can haunt this."

The dragon ghost snaked her head forward in a flash. She dove into my little phone with all the wind and shake of a volcano. The building swayed with the force of it. My phone beeped and went dead. I stared at the little machine. I was going to need a new phone, now, wasn't I?

I shook it. The guards grabbed my shoulders and marched me forward. I slapped the phone on my thigh and shouted at it. "We had a deal! Tell me what you know!" It remained stubbornly unresponsive.

Part 3 or All Chapters

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