by Liam Otero (7th)

“Jake! Jake! Jake! Wake up! WAKE UP!” An annoying voice yelled. My eyes forced me to wake up, and of course the first thing I saw was a chubby cheeked kid.

I was woken up, as per usual, by my younger brother, Jack, dashing into my room and jumping into my wool covered bed. Jack looked like me in a way, with even chubbier cheeks; His hair was curled and messy, with a small nose and brown eyes. Meanwhile, I looked a lot skinnier than him, though we were fed the same amount of food.

It was quiet at the table at breakfast today. Mom slowly ate her bread, constantly looking down, and my dad didn’t come down for breakfast until 30 minutes after it started. Definitely unusual, I thought. 

Nevertheless, I walked out of the door to my house, and breathed some fresh air. As usual, the clouds were gloomy and dark. Another storm day, I said to myself. Dragonada, my home kingdom, had been divided into two parts. These are known as the Castletown and the Spiral. My family, along with the  rest of the commoners, lived in the Spiral. It was a spiral shaped town with houses on the sides, and little paths leading to them. It was a smart way to visualize the place, and it didn’t get too confusing. I walked straight to the center of the Spiral, where the school was. It was about the size of 3 larger houses stacked together. Considering it was almost like a college, I entered inside and sat down inside a seat. It was a little cold, considering it rained every day this year.

That's just the climate in Dragonada. My history teacher says that the reason it always storms is because the thunderbird (or god)  was so angry about dragons being enslaved, and vowed for the Crossbone Empire to be forever invaded by horrible storms. Serves them right if you ask me. I looked around. Still no teacher, I said to myself. I mean, I can’t blame them.

After all, today is Drago Day, the celebration of the founding of Dragonada. It also honors Akmenrah, the founder of our city. A gust of wind blew through the nonexistent windows of the school. I shivered a bit. 

After a little bit, the door opened. I smiled at the person at the door. They shut it quietly, saw me, and waved with a smile. It was Jessica, or Jessie as I liked to call her. She had long brown curled hair that blasted to the right with the wind. Her cheeks were red from the cold. She waved to me energetically, her books sagging her right arm. She ran down the aisle and sat in the chair next to me.

“Hey, Jake! Are you excited for today?” She said cheerfully.

I gave her an honest no. Drago Day was often slow and boring, at least for the last few years. It's normally about a 5 hour long service, and then it cuts to this part that everyone in the castle has to attend called The Judging. 

The sorcerers and wizards take newborn babies and take them to the skull of the dragon Akmenrah had befriended, a massive 300 foot tall, 100 ton, dragon giant. Its skull alone was about the size of a commoner house. Don’t know how they carried that down the castle stairs. But, anyways, they would put the baby onto the skull, and according to folklore, the dragon skull judged what they would be best at. And considering the dragon was so powerful, it still had magic within it's bones even after death and 1000 years of decay.

It judged if the kid would grow up to be very rich, magic filled, strong, intellectual, etc. This judgement would influence the babies’ whole life. For example, if they were judged to be magic filled, at age 5, they would be taken away from their parents to Castletown, where they would pursue continuous training to be a wizard. But, there was also a category called failure.

This category was given to babies who were “supposedly” gonna grow up to become failures. In this case, the babies were dumped into the moat, where the sound of freshwater crocodiles growling and rushing water would eventually drown out their screams.

Parents would cover the eyes of their kids, some would look down in grief, and the people who were the parents of the baby were forced to watch it all. It was horrible, but the king claimed it was only so the kingdom could prosper. Still, it was sad. As for me, I was judged to be strengthened. It means I’ll grow up to be a soldier, but, still not seeing that. 

And Finally, after gossiping with Jessie for what seemed like an hour, the teacher walked silently into the room. He looked like he didn’t want to be here. His eyebags highlighted his sagging eyes, and his hair was barely combed. He stood up at his desk, then, with a hoarse and tired voice, he spoke up.

“Class dismissed,” he said as he walked out of the school, shutting the door behind him.

Murmurs filled the auditorium. I stood up, confused, and walked out. Jessie followed and stood beside me. I don’t know why, but I always felt like Jessie had other feelings about me, but I wasn’t sure. It was just the way she looked at me, and the way she acted around me, that made me feel like she was trying to tell me something.

“Hey Jake!” She shouted around the corner of my house. I turned around and looked at her.

“Yeah, what is it?” I responded back.

“Is it ok if I stay at your house today?” She asked. Her blue eyes widened as though she was going to beg if I said no.

“Sure.” I responded. “You can stay. I’m sure my mom would like it.” She smiled and ran towards me. I turned around and continued walking to the house. Jessie followed me while the sound of her shivering from the cold filled my ears. I turned around again to look at the mountain.

I glanced at the castle far away in the mountains. Sometimes I wished I could be up there. But none of us commoners were allowed to ever climb the mountains. I had heard from rumors that Castletown had the latest merchandise, and a museum. I had even heard a rumor that everyone in Castletown got dragon bones. If you don’t know, dragon bones are worth a fortune. The femur of a fire dragon is probably worth more than the entire Spiral and all the commoners’ income combined.

Of course, sometimes the rich fund us, but I know it's only out of pity, because King Archileus does nothing to pay us. Sure, it's better than the king from the old Crossbone Empire, where their castles are outside of town and forbidden to enter. Still, King Archileus could at least pay some attention to us.

Some people believe he doesn’t even exist, because there was a rumor that he isn’t even in the castle as of the moment, but, who knows? Maybe he's just a bit shy, I used to think to myself. 

I continued to ponder as the rest of the background darkened, and the lights of the castle became the only source of light I could see. I started to imagine what the king could be doing there.

Finally, after a long hallucination of the king running experiments on lizards and turning them into dinosaurs, I started hearing a voice.

“Jake…” The voice silently called. It was so quiet that I could barely hear it at first. It started to get louder. “Jake… Jake… Jake!”. The next image I saw was Jessie at my face, snapping, as if I passed out.

“You okay?” She asked. “ You were just staring down at the mountains.” I looked behind Jessie.

The castle stood there, the chandelier lights glistening the halls and reflecting on the common town I myself was standing in.

“Sorry.” I said while clearing my throat, and I turned back towards the house and walked along the stone path. Jessie followed me, walking a little quicker. I opened the door to my house, took a step in, and swung it shut.

**************************

I stepped into my room with Jessie squeezing through the doorway, and I shut the door quietly. I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. I wasn’t looking forward to today. I didn’t want to see any more babies being tossed into rapids. I’ve had to see it since I was 5, and I can’t do it anymore. Jessie sat down on my bed beside me, and flicked her legs back and forth, her arms resting on the wool on the bed. Silence filled the room for some time. I sat there, pondering, waiting for her to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth. I was good at leading conversations, I wasn’t good at starting them. We both sat there, in silence, looking at the white plywood ceiling.

Finally, Jessie turned her head toward me. “Jake, do you think the Judging is true?” Jessie asked. I sat there, processing her question. I didn’t know what to say. I grew up with an extremely religious family, who definitely believed in Judging. But at the same time, we had no real evidence. Considering Judging controls the life of a person, we didn’t actually know. Strengthened people got sent to military school. Magic-filled were taken away, and failures, well, died. I laid there, while Jessie looked at me awaiting an answer. Finally, breaking the silence,

 I said, “Yeah, I think it's real.” Jessie looked at me silently. “I want to think it's real.” Jessie replied. She sniffled. “Every time we have this holiday, I think of all these newborn babies' who didn’t even get a chance at life, and how some have to suffer death after birth just because of the kingdom’s prosperity.” I looked at her. Tears formed in her eyes. Jessie was always the empathetic one, caring about things that didn’t care about her. “Hey, don’t cry.” I said, sitting up and putting my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure the king has good intentions , okay?” She continued to cry. Tears dropped from her eyes, damping her pants. “Jake, when has killing something ever had good intentions?” She said through tears. I comforted her, wiping tears off her eyes. “Jessie, it's okay.” I said. Finally, after she stopped crying, she sat there in silence. 

Suddenly, the door slammed open. It was Jack. He stared at me for some time. I stared back at him. He averted his eyes to Jessie, then smiled. “Jake’s got a girlfriend! Jake’s got a girlfriend! Jake’s got a girlfriend!” He laughed at me, pointing his chubby, food stained finger at me. Jessie burned from embarrassment, slouching down, trying to hide herself. I was embarrassed, but that quickly turned into anger. “What do you want, Jack?” I asked across the room. “Mom wants you to get ready for the service, and also wants you to eat dinner.” He replied. He then slammed the door. Jessie stood up from the bed. “I’m gonna go home, okay?” She opened the door. “See you at the ceremony.” I called her. She turned to me and smiled. “You too!” She said cheerfully, before shutting the door behind her, her footsteps fading as she walked out the house. I took a deep breath. “Ceremony time.”