10:00 PM.
A brown haired man with short, side parted hair walked to his car. It was a dark night, with clouds in the air and a quiet atmosphere. The man, first name Arthur, took out his small blue cellphone, giving someone a call.
"Hey. I'm on my way back, I just got off of work. Can you boil the water?" He asked.
To be completely honest, and to his discredit, he spoke in a typical nerd voice. His face wasn't much better off either. His glasses were literally taped together after being broken when he fell down while trying to ride a skateboard with his friends.
The person on the line told him a simple "'Kay," and he hung up. Arthur continued to walk to his car, a shabby Toyota Corolla with a couple stickers on it that related to various forms of media.
With his hands in his pockets, he noticed a glint of light in the corner of his eye. He looked up, seeing a small dot of orange in the sky.
He instinctively thought it might somehow be a firefly, but it wasn't moving around like one. It was in fact getting bigger and bigger. It took a few seconds before it reached a size that unsettled him.
'The heck is that big ol' thing? Is it an asteroid or something?'
It got closer and closer, seeming to get exponentially faster. Arthur's instincts told him to run, and he did, leaving his car behind. Two seconds later, his worries revealed themselves to be warranted.
It was a large ball of fire. It slammed into the ground, luckily not hitting his car directly, causing a thunderous explosion. Arthur himself was blown away, being swept off his feet and lifted up, before crashing back down onto the pavement hard.
He rolled around a bit, his ears ringing as he covered them, coughing up with an intense sensation of heat covering his body.
'I'm burning, I'm burning, I'm burning, I'm gonna DIE!'
He opened his eyes, staring up at the sky. The stars weren't visible due to light pollution. He gazed at a full moon, gasping for air as he rolled to his side. He looked down, seeing his elbow bleeding from road rash.
He stumbled to his feet, moving his body upwards as he coughed and gasped up. He felt a tender pain in his joints, thinking he might have dislocated or broken something.
Arthur held his elbow, feeling a boney pain and a flesh pain. His hand had blood on it from just a touch and he looked down at it with an aching heart.
As the ringing in his ears faded away, the next sound he heard was the dozens of car alarms that went off from what was similar to a bomb being let off in a parking lot.
Arthur turned towards where the "bomb" had gone off. A field of fire was present in the middle of a parking lot near the grocery store he worked at.
'What the actual fuck was that? Ow, everything hurts. My ribs, my shoulder… I guess I'm lucky I didn't hit my head on anything, or else I'd be toast…'
Arthur stumbled to a wall, leaning against it for support. His hearing had returned nearly fully by now, and he heard a voice.
"Huh? You sure he's like us?" A voice asked. In contrast to the sheer nerdiness of Arthur's voice, this voice was a bit deeper, seeming to be quite normal for a male.
"W-wha…? What, hey, who's there?!" Arthur yelled.
'Are they terrorists or something? Gah, I've fought against terrorists many times in my head to save people, but the one time I actually fight against them, they drop a bomb from the sky!'
A small snicker.
"Did he just ask 'who's there?' What's he expecting to hear?" A second voice responded. It seemed to belong to a woman.
"Well, since he asked so nicely…" The male voice responded.
Arthur saw before his eyes, drop two people. A man and a woman. Both of them had black hair, and fangs, the same red eyes as well. Arthur tensed up, wondering if he was dreaming.
"I'm Oliver Onoreq, descendent of Astrid Onoreq," the man said, grinning at Arthur.
"And I'm Misty Onoreq, descendent of Astrid Onoreq as well," the woman said, her face not bothered to show any hint of amusement.
Arthur tensed up, reaching in his pocket to call the police. In a flash, Oliver reached him, grabbing his hand and grabbing it before he could reach his phone.
"No one's coming to save you. Just hurry up and go to sleep, will you?" Oliver said. Arthur panicked and went to knee Oliver in the nuts, but Oliver blocked with his other hand. Arthur leaned his head back, then attempted to headbutt the man.
But Oliver evaded to the right, grabbing Arthur by the throat and lifting him up with one hand effortlessly. It was a feat right out of fiction, and Arthur lifted his leg up, being flexible enough to bring his knees to his chest before launching them out right at Oliver's face.
Oliver was struck by the blow, though his head refused to budge.
"Tch. A filthy descendent of that impure Assas daring to put his shoes on my face. It's quite hard to resist the urge to slaughter you, do you understand?" Oliver spoke, his face grimacing behind the shoes and his tone one comparable to that of your little brother doing something you hate.
It was then that the ground below his arm was split apart. Arthur fell first, his back hitting the concrete as he gasped in pain, looking up. Blood launched out of Oliver's arm–well, both the severed one and what was still attached to the rest of his body.
The blood launched in spurts, splashing onto Arthur's face and clothes, dirtying his employee uniform. Arthur began to crawl away in terror, before seeing a look of pain on Oliver's face. He held his arm, dashing backwards with speeds that Oliver didn't believe possible for humanity.
A figure hit the ground. Wings sprouted from their back, black with purple in betweens. The wings contorted and compressed, fitting inside of the body. That led to Arthur being able to grasp the gender of the figure before him.
It was that of a woman, and from what he could tell, she had short brown hair. She turned around, looking at Arthur with a small smile. Yet, that smile was not the grin that he'd seen before. It showed no teeth, but it seemed more relieved than malicious.
"W-whaat the fuck is going on?! Seriously, what the actual fuck is this?! Am I dead yet?!" Arthur screamed.
Before this, he'd had to deal with an annoying kid who tagged along with his mom to go grocery shopping for the night. They were a ginger kid who jumped around, constantly asking for his mom to buy more things.
He bagged the groceries as he was paid to do, but it was still annoying to have to listen to the kid constantly yelling, and making a fuss. It honestly was not a high note for the night, and he was relieved when he left.
But now, he'd seen a fireball thrown from the sky, superhuman strength, and now a winged creature that then went fully human.
'Ah, I'm dead. I'm already dead. I died when the explosion occurred, I'm sure of it. This is probably just my brain trying to have some excitement before I kick the bucket. Man, that's sad.'
"No, you're not dead yet. My name is Alicia Assas, and you're my brother. I'll explain more later, but for now, just try not to die." the woman, previously winged and proving to be not fully human, said.
'Ah, that makes sense. Yep.'
Arthur relaxed his body. He closed his eyes, and went to sleep, hoping that the fear in his heart would disappear once his brain died, since it clearly was lagging behind his heart when it came to the death race.
…
To his surprise, he woke up. Arthur sat up, rubbing his eyelids and looking around.
It was his dorm room, one he shared with his roommate, Tyler. The walls had posters of shared bands they liked, a couple each of ones they liked that the other didn't, shows and games they both enjoyed, and some figurines and stuffed animals.
The two got along really well due to their shared interests. Since Arthur was in a new location, Tyler was technically his first friend he made in the college, which led to him gaining a stable friend group which made him quite happy.
The main man, Tyler, a tall lanky boy with black hair, glasses and acne went over to Arthur, who was on the couch.
"Hey, you good bro?" Tyler asked. His voice was like that of a rockstars, if that rockstar never actually trained their voice.
"Oh… yeah, I'm good, I just…"
Arthur didn't have anything to really say. Everything was a blur, nothing made sense and he had lost all stability for the time being mentally. Well, there was actually one question.
"Did you boil the water," Arthur asked. "Yeah, I did," Tyler responded. "But you came home passed out being carried by your sister, so you didn't even eat any ramen."
Arthur tilted his head. In his mind, he was an only child, so the idea of a sister was just flat-out wrong.
"What do you mean?" Arthur asked. Tyler looked at him with confusion, before looking behind himself, seeing a woman on the floor snoring with her head on a pillow and a blanket over her.
"Ah! What the flip, who is that chick?! That your—wait, no, I saw her last night!" Arthur exclaimed, his eyes drawn to the woman's face. Her skin was pale, like his, and her hair also happened to be brown, like his. But that was nowhere near enough to prove that the two of them could possibly be siblings.
Slowly, his eyes were drawn lower, seeing two "mountains" poking from the blanket. He then looked down at his own chest, before remembering that no, he was not a woman.
The yelling seemed to wake her up. She sat up straight really quickly, instantly meeting Arthur's eyes with her own.
"Oh, good, you're awake. C'mon, we got a lot of talking to do," she said. She got up, tossing the blanket away before grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him up, carrying him like a bride out of the dorm without another word.
Tyler was left speechless, but was also envious, wanting a woman to carry him like that too.
She carried him out of the college building, taking him outside and on a bench that was still on campus. He grimaced with pain when she set him down hard, as his body still ached.
His wounds, overall, didn't heal magically overnight.
"What's this all about? Who are you? You can't be my sister, I'm an only child," Arthur protested, before sighing and leaning back. Ultimately, while she was linked with the scariest night of his life, she didn't kill him, at least not yet, so she was somewhat trustworthy.
"Aha, glad you asked. My name is Alicia Assas. You're… how do I say this?" She said, before putting her finger on her mouth, looking up and seemingly thinking.
"What, you gonna bully me?" Arthur grumbled. "I've already had enough people talk bad about me for being different, so you're gonna have to move to the back of the line."
"No, no… Well, I'll put it simply. Basically, your dad isn't actually your dad. Truth is, you're a percentage dragon, but you might as well be half-dragon. If you really wanted to, you could sprout wings and all that cool stuff." She spoke, quick as if trying to cover up for a lie.
It was quiet for a moment.
"Are you on crack? No, wait, am I on crack? I saw you do that stuff! Did my drink get spiked? I'm not a girl, who would spike my drink?" Arthur yelled, grabbing at his face and pulling it in all sorts of directions, trying to "clean himself" of any drugs that might be in him.
The girl, Alicia, laughed before crouching down and looking up at him. She extended her hand and grabbed his, pulling it closer to her face.
"No crack. I'm telling the truth! We're both descendents of a dragon, and even if dragon blood isn't particularly high in either of us, it's so potent that we might as well be considered half dragons," Alicia whispered.
Arthur wanted to throw her hand away, but he couldn't help but believe her. He sighed, looking away. Luckily, it was so early in the morning that there weren't too many people out to see him talking to a clear lunatic.
"Prove it," Arthur challenged.
Alicia stood up, clearing her throat.
"Imagine that you're a dragon. We're descendents of Assas, the dragon of blood. I'm sure you've felt it, right? A connection to 'blood' all your life, right?" Alicia asked quietly.
The talk was clearly insane, especially to an outside observer, so keeping her words quiet was courtesy to not ruin Arthur's reputation.
Arthur shook his head.
He hadn't felt much connection to blood as a whole other than licking his wounds and feeling like a vampire when he was a kid. However, that behavior was normal, so it couldn't be said that he was special in that regard.
"Really? Um… wait, are you even the right guy? Your mom, her name is Anastasia, right?" Alicia asked, sweating a tiny bit out of worry.
Arthur shook his head once more. She nodded her head and let out a "huh…"
"Well, I dunno what to tell you then. You've got a whole family of dragon-descendents waiting for ya, so if you accidentally grow a tail and wings in your sleep, gimme a call. Just think about it for a bit, and go on with life, I suppose," Alicia said, shrugging her shoulders.
She took out a piece of paper with her number written down on it. She'd taken it after she got Arthur home, since she intended from the start to leave him of his own accord in order to set up a proper meeting with the family later.
Arthur took the paper, pocketing it.
"Wait, will more of those guys show up? What do you know about them?" Arthur asked, reaching out and grabbing her shoulders.
"Well, I don't think so. I didn't manage to kill those two, so they won't be out for blood. Haha, get it? Out for blood? Since we're descendents of the dragon of blood?" Alicia laughed, smiling at him.
Arthur's face was quite unamused.
"Oh shut up, I'm funny! The rest of our family can agree that I'm a comedian. Ah, whatever," she said, taking his hands off of her. She gave him a thumbs up and a toothy grin.
"See ya 'round, little brother. You've got more than a few siblings, want me to tell them you said hi?" She asked. Arthur was exhausted mentally, so he sighed and shrugged his shoulders before nodding his head admittedly.
She turned around and walked off, leaving him behind. Arthur sat down on the bench, looking up at the morning sky.
'The heck have I gotten wrapped up with?'
He got up, wanting to go back and relax in his dorm. He went back and saw Tyler playing a game, before laying down in bed and pulling the blankets up.
"What's today, again?" Arthur asked quietly, not fully expecting Tyler to answer. He had an idea of what the day was, but his beliefs in reality were kind of broken, so he wanted some semblance of clarity.
"It's Saturday. We're going fishing tonight, you gonna come?" Tyler responded nonchalantly.
'Fishing… Well, I've never really done that before. Apparently it's really relaxing, and it'll be fun to hang out with everyone. With how I almost died last night, I feel like I should appreciate the life I have a little more.'
"Yeah, I'll come. Or at least I'll try to." Arthur said, yawning. He checked his phone, which was, very luckily, not broken. At least, not beyond use, as the screen was cracked a good bit.
It might've been the explosion, or maybe getting sent flying by that explosion, or, perhaps, dare to say, him falling on his back with his phone in his pocket after that Oliver dude's arm got cut like an apple. Whatever it was, it cracked his screen, which was quite annoying.
'Wait, my car! The flip happened to my car?!'
Arthur gave the number a call and Alicia picked up.
"Yello?" She answered.
"What happened to my car?!" Arthur yelled, no longer in the mood to sleep.
"Oh, that thing. Uh, I dunno. Might be at the shop? Or maybe it's still in the parking lot? Who knows?" She said, laughing. Arthur groaned, leaning his head back on the pillow.
"It's not funny, I paid thousands for that thing… frick my life, man," Arthur groaned. He sighed, leaning back down in bed. "Whatever."
He hung up, and put his phone away, closing his eyes and heading to bed.