“Thank you for coming and enjoy the rest of your evening” I say with a smile as the last group of individuals leave Glory Days.

The loud bang of the shutting door echoes through the, otherwise, quiet restaurant. It fades, leaving only the sound of the last tv that's still on. Its 2 AM and time to go home before I have to get up and teach tomorrow morning. My good friend Walsh asked me to close up his restaurant due to a family emergency.

I walk across the dark hard wood floors over to the last tv and hit the off button. Silence settles over everything, the chairs, tables, and walls, settle in for the night. Just as I take the keys out of my pocket, I hear a scratching. At first I think it's just the jingling of my keys in hand but then it happens again. It's the unmistakable scratch of something forceful and heavy.

Curious, I follow the sound, letting my black loafers lightly cover the ground to the kitchen, then to the freezer. A rush of cold air assaults my eyes and nose as I open the door. I take a deep breath and walk in with my hands wrapped around my arms. Nothing unusual is to be seen, just the normal boxes of meat and ice. I shrug and turn to leave, when I hear it again. Closer to the noise, it doesn’t sound like scratching, but rather something large and heavy being dragged.

My heart beats a little faster in my chest but I don’t let fear edge its way into my mind; there are too many what ifs that could make me run straight out the front door. The mysterious noise seems to come from the right wall. Strangely enough, that's the only wall not covered in boxes, its completely empty. I examine the corners and find hinges, camouflaged with the walls design. Pushing my blond, curls out of my eyes, I move to the opposite side of the wall, to find an odd grove, its shape near that of a handle. The scraping noise persists. I grab the handle with both hands and pull with all the strength that my body contains. The doors barely crack away from the wall, injuring my pride just a bit. I yank it once more and a time after that until it is fully opens. Hands on my knees, I gasp for the cold air to refresh my stinging lungs.

When I look up, I see my efforts have revealed a tunnel, filled with the kind of darkness that plays tricks on your mind and makes you see things thats that aren't really there; the kind of dark that makes you overlook danger right in front of your face. However dark and foreboding, I am compelled by my very being to further investigate. Before making my way through the tunnel, I make a note to myself, to have my creative writing students transcribe a journal about walking down a dark tunnel, not knowing what's on the other side.

Feeling foolish, I fumble around the wall for a light switch. My fingers falter on a panel, hoping for the best, I press it. To my sheer relief, rows of torches light the way down the long hallway. With the proper light, I see the walls are black cobblestone, covered in moss at the edges. It smells old and damp, like mildew has taken up residence in every recess.

There is a large metal door at the end of the tunnel. Rust covered rivets are bolted around the doors edges; a wooden beam is fastened over the door. I remove it and set it on the floor, behind my feet; there is no handle so I hit the door with my shoulder, expecting it to stay put like the door in the freezer. It doesn’t. I hit the dirty white concrete on the other side of the door with a groan. There is a tear in my white and blue plaid button down, not to mention its new pattern of dirt along the right side.

With a slight pain in my hip, I get up to observe my surroundings. Not two feet in front of where I had fallen, was a complete drop off to the floor, 100 feet down. A shiver runs down my spine and I immediately realize I can see my breath, just as I did when I was in the freezer, it's just as cold if not colder. The stone on the walls, is no longer the shade of night but the blinding light of freshly laid snow. It's not as bright in this large circular room as it had been in the hallway; but its bright enough to see.

Now, with my eyes adjusted, I understand the source of the terrible scraping and it's  staring right at me. An enormous glittering dragon stands below me looking up with bright, hooded eyes, watchful. Her scales glistened like shards of jagged ice, the shade of oceanic pearl. Each one, the size of my hands. She was the most stunning creature that I had ever seen and she’d have been absolutely breathtaking if my mind hadn’t been drowning in fear.

I raised a single hand, not sure what I was going to do. This mere movement seemed to  threaten her. She unfurled her light blocking wings to their full span and let out at terrible roar. It felt as if the walls were going to crumble out from the sheer ferocity that she vocally expressed. I covered my ears with my hands, willing her to stop. Just moments after her ear splitting howl ceased, she bounded closer, dragging her long whip like tail along the concrete behind her. She flapped her wings, causing a rush of strong wind and lurched into the air from all fours.

Before both her feet left the ground, I was running. Back to the metal door, back to the tunnel, back to the safety of the Glory Days that I assumed was still above me. I look over my shoulder in time to see her breathing a frost like mist over the room. Her ice blue eyes caught mine. She opened her mouth just as the metal door rang out its closing, leaving me in the dark tunnel, surrounded by silence.