I glanced down the dark stairway that led to my cellar. My dear friend Elizabeta stood next to me.

A few days ago my mother was having the cellar refurbished, but when one of the workers went to work on one of the walls, it collapsed to reveal a passageway. I had not seen it yet, for my mother wanted me to stay away from it. Leaving my friend and I home alone probably wasn’t her best idea then.

I looked over to Elizabeta, or Lizzie, as she likes to be called.

She was fidgeting with her dark, short hair, her eyes filled with nervousness and a bit of adventure. She looked back at me, and sighed. “Are we going Anna, or are we just going to stand here and stare?”

I looked back at the stairway, flicking on my flashlight. I began to descend down the stairs; Lizzie walked quietly behind me.

My basement had quite a revolting musty smell to it; it was also damp and a bit cold. Cobwebs hung from the beams and the corners of the walls. I didn’t see any spiders, which didn’t bother me, since I have arachnophobia, like every other teenage girl.

I shined my flashlight around until its bright beam came across the entrance in the wall. The opening was quite small, easy enough for someone like me or Elizabeta to crawl through, but too small for any full grown adult.

Lizzie got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl through. I hesitantly followed her, but not before putting away my flashlight. The ground was dirty, and small pebbles kept pushing into my hands as I crawled. I couldn’t wait to get off the ground.

Thankfully it only took us a few minutes to crawl through. I wiped the dirt from my hands, and I looked at Lizzie.

She was shinning her flashlight around. We were in a dark tunnel; the ratchet smell of mildew lingered in the air. It was also chilly, and it made goosebumps rise on my arms

“This is kind of cool,” Lizzie said as she turned to look at me. “I mean besides the smell and the cold.”

I nodded as I pulled my flashlight back out and turned it on. I shined it on the walls to take a look at them. They seemed to be made of some sort of rough looking gray rock. Water droplets were running down from the ceiling of the tunnel to the walls.

I sighed and began to walk farther into the tunnel. Lizzie followed not too far behind.

We walked for what seemed like an hour or so. We didn’t see anything of interest, and we found nothing that seemed like a way out. We also didn’t hear anything besides the sound of our shoes and panicked squeaks whenever a drop of water would land on either of our heads.

“This is pointless,” I muttered. “We haven’t seen anything - just a bunch of rocks and dirt.” I sighed and turned around to look at Elizabeta. “We should just go back.”

She narrowed her eyes in disappointment, but then nodded. She turned and began to walk back, but she suddenly stopped. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.

I tilted my head in confusion. I then cupped my hand around my ear and listened closely.

In the distance I could hear a small grumbling sound.

“Do you hear it,” she asked again, sounding impatient.

I nodded. “What do you think it is?”I asked, as I went to stand next to her.

She shrugged her shoulders and motioned me to follow her. We walked slowly this time and made sure to keep the beam of light from our flashlights pointed at the walls. Eventually we came upon a wide, dark opening. How either one a of us had missed it, was beyond me.

Though we shined our flashlight on the opening, it was still too dark to see anything. I walked a bit closer to it; my hands shook a bit, making my flashlight shake as well. It was still too dark to see anything.

I moved closer, so I was only standing a few inches from the entrance. Lizzie stood only a few feet behind me. I shined my flashlight in once more. Though it was hard to make out what I saw, I could at least tell that it was alive and that it was asleep.

Lizzie walked past me and through the entrance to get a better look. Though nervous, I followed quietly behind her. She seemed fine, compared to me. She wasn’t shaking with fear or nervousness. She wasn’t hesitant and was very calm.

I continued to follow her slowly. As we got closer, I could see the creature more clearly. It was large,very large, roughly the size of a car, maybe bigger. It had beautiful lavender scales; in the sunlight they would have shined brightly, making even the most beautiful of gems envious.

“Holy crap!” Lizzie whispered as she turned around to look at me. “Dude, I think we just found a dragon.”

I raised my eyebrows, in surprise, and walked till I was standing next to her. There was no lie in what she said. What was laying sound asleep right in front of us was indeed a dragon.

I could feel my already pale face, paling even more. “What to heck,” I whispered to her. “I thought dragons didn’t exist.”

She thought for a second. “Maybe they did exist at one point but were killed off by something.”

I took this into consideration and nodded.

The dragon flicked its tail in its sleep, causing some dirt and dust to raise into the air. This caused both of us to sneeze rather loudly.

“Uh-Oh,” I thought, as I watched the once sleeping dragon, open its eyes, blinking away its sleepiness.

It made an irritated grunt sound, and lifted itself up into a sitting position, making the ground shake ever so slightly as it moved. It slowly moved its large head so it could look down at us.

Screaming couldn’t even describe what I wanted to do at that moment. I could feel the muscles in my legs and back stiffen up, making me as stiff as wood. Elizabeta’s reaction was different. She was staring at the dragon with awe and amazement, she looked like she was to explode with joy.

“Who are you?”

I blinked, confused. Did the dragon really just talk to us?

“I wish to not, but I will repeat myself. Who are you”, the dragon repeated very irritated and a bit tired.

Lizzie perked up and began to go into great detail about who we are and how we had come there. I relaxed the tightness of my muscles as I, along with the dragon, listened to her.

“Interesting,” the dragon hummed when Lizzie finally finished her long-winded story. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen anyone, especially humans.”

I watched as the dragon moved to lean down; this caused me to flinch and take a few steps back. Obviously the dragon had noticed. I could hear a small bit of laughter coming from it deep in its trough. It moved itself closer to me, lowering its large head to the same height as mine. Though it was dark, I could slightly see the color of its eyes, an absolutely beautiful sapphire color that seemed to shine like gems.

“Don’t be so afraid human; I don’t plan on hurting, nor eating either one of you.”

I relaxed a bit at the truth I could hear in its voice.

For a couple of weeks we visited the dragon mainly to make sure it was real, but also because of how amazed we felt when we saw it. Over time the dragon began to warm up to us, and both Lizzie and I felt we could trust it not to harm us.

On one of our visits it decided, kind of out of the blue, to tell us a few stories and legends about its kind. It told us about a knight who had once befriended the dragons, but betrayed them for the hand in marriage of princess, and about how dragons, in medieval times used to be hunted for their scales and eyes. It also told us of an ability that dragons had.

“If a dragon was to ever be slain or to die before its meaning in life was fulfilled,” he told us, watching both of us cautiously making sure he had kept our attention, “its soul would embed itself into the heart of a human that it felt was pure. Then the pure-hearted human would be forced to make a journey to the dragons original hatching ground. There the dragon would be reborn and be able to relive its life once more.”

This amazed me and made me want to hear more. Lizzie, on the other hand, seemed like she could care less.

Eventually Lizzie stopped coming with me, for she felt the dragon had become a bore. I thought otherwise.

About a month after the collapsing of the wall and the discovery of the large lavender dragon, my mother informed me that the workers, who were to refurbish our basement the month before, would be coming back to finally patch up the hole and get back to work.

I felt a sad pain strike my heart. I had only one more chance to see my scaly acquaintance.

The day before the workers were to show up, I crawled through the tight hole once more. I quickly made my way down to the den that the dragon lived in. I looked inside and saw that the dragon was sleeping.

I walked in a bit further, hoping the sound of my shoes would stir it from its slumber, but nothing happened. I then noticed that it wasn’t moving. Its shoulders weren’t even moving to show that it was breathing. My nerves went into overdrive, and I moved even closer to it, so that I was only a mere four inches away from it. Placing my hand out in front of me, I placed it on the dragon’s back; its lavender were scales smooth and almost soft to the touch, but very cold. I knew almost instantly that it had perished.

My heart felt heavy with sadness and seemed to almost weigh me down. Small tears cascaded down my face. The sadness that filled my heart, made my chest ache with pain, like I had been stabbed. I had never felt anything like this before. It began to worsen a bit, causing more tears to run down my cheeks. I thought I was dying, but this thought was immediately shot down by a voice in my head.

“You’re not dying; so enough with the crying, human!” it shouted at me, irritated.

I wiped away the tears on my face and calmed myself down. I knew that voice.

My heart thumped loudly with happiness (though it still felt weighted down). It was the dragon; it was alive!

“Yes, yes, human, in a way I am alive,” it stated bluntly after hearing my thoughts. “Now if you were paying attention to what I told you before, you would know what this means, and would get going.”

I felt a wide grin spread upon my face, and placed my hand over my heart. Yes I did remember, and I knew what I had to do.

Listening to the dragon, I left its den and walked slowly down the dark tunnel, not realizing that the biggest journey in my life had only just begun.