Prologue

"Well, here I go..." Gareth smiled as the ship set sail, "I can finally look for that dragon. I wonder what happened to it? Ah well...find out when I get there, I guess."

"Well sir? Are you ready? It's time to cast off."

"Certainly." Gareth nervously combed his hair with his fingers. It was time! It had been twenty years...he'd been trying to get this far for twenty years, and now that he was going, he wasn't sure, "Maybe they were right. Maybe I did just imagine the whole thing...What am I thinking?! After twenty years of ridicule, I'm having doubts now?! I must be nervous! I wonder what the dragon looks like now?" He slowly let his mind drift back to that day...

"Mom? When is dad going to be done?"

"He'll be done soon, dear. He was called here because some of the men under your father's command found something."

"What did they find?"

"It's supposed to be top secret. Your father didn't tell me."

"Can we go look at it?"

"Oh, I doubt it, honey. Your father is the commanding officer here. What he says, goes. Maybe he'll tell us later, okay?"

"But I want to see it!! What if it's a cool new airplane, or an alien!"

His mom laughed, "I don't know about the airplane, but I'm sure it was no alien, Gareth. C'mon, let's get back to the car and wait for dad."

"But--"

"If you come along, I'll buy you some ice cream!"

Gareth needed no further prompting. About the time they shut the car doors, rifle shots rang out. Gareth crawled forward onto his mother's lap to look out of the front wndow. Outside, just flying through the clouds, something covered in white scales. He pointed up at it, but it vanished before his mom had seen it.

"Gareth, let's go! Your 'crew' is getting impatiant!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Gareth ran onboard the ship, "Sheesh. You'd think the crew would be a little more patient! I am paying them triple salary for this little expedition!"

After three weeks aboard the ship, Gareth found the crew ready to turn back, with or without pay. He sighed, "I guess I really did imagine it. Damn! I thought for sure--" He slumped over, knocked unconscious by one of the crew.

"Idiot. That man is a crazed idiot!" The sailor thought as he dragged Gareth's limp body away, "We should have gotten rid of him after the first week!" On the deck, the sailor picked Gareth up, then shoved in in a lifeboat. He cut the ropes, then watched as the small vessel slowly sailed into the sea. Before the ship sailed away, he threw a small canteen filled with poison into the boat after him, "Can't let him live now, can we?" The sailor still had no idea of what chemicals he'd poured into the thing, just that they were either deadly, or completely new to him. The boat drifted off into a mist, carrying with it, the victim, and what he hoped would be the victims death.

That sailor had no idea what he had just done.