Dragon Island Read Free Page A

but I know eventually I’m going to have to go looking for food and water. Having a sword in hand just might make getting them a little easier.
    I yank on the sword. The dead samurai resists a moment longer, then gives up his blade.
    I brush away more of the dust and webbing lining the sword and hold it up. The black scabbard is unbelievably smooth beneath my touch. Whatever sealant the maker used on it has more than withstood the test of time. My gaze moves to the dark leather woven around the sword’s hilt. Small reliefs of tarnished gold run its length. They match the golden, round hand-guard separating the scabbard from the hilt and the oriental dragon’s head pommel at the latter’s end. I polish the pommel with my thumb and it immediately begins to gleam.
    At last, I notice the remains of a small paper tie attaching the hilt to the scabbard. The tie must be some sort of seal—one obviously more symbolic than functional.
    I look at the dead warrior.
    “Sorry, dude.”
    I tug on the hilt and the sword abruptly slides a few inches from the scabbard. The action is accompanied by a brief ringing sound. The remains of the severed tie fall to the ground and I feel a pleasant, originless wind sweep over me on its way out of the cave. Despite the warmth of the breeze, I shiver as though someone has walked on my grave.
    I look down at the exposed blade. Amazingly, the steel is free of rust. It gleams in fact, seeming to pulse with a silvery, white light. The only flaw is the thinnest line of crimson running along its bottom edge. A portion of the red line drips to the floor and I realize in opening the sword, I’ve sliced the hand I’m holding the scabbard with. It’s just a small cut along the end of my thumb, but it’s bleeding profusely.
    The sword must still be as sharp as the day its owner first carried it onto the battlefield.
    I slide the sword back into its scabbard and prop it against the wall. I suck away the blood spilling from my thumb only for a new batch to come pouring out of it. I rip off a thin strip of cloth from the bottom of my semi-dry T-shirt and use it as a makeshift bandage.
    Then I huddle back against the cave wall. Sword or no sword, the closest I’ve ever come to being a samurai is playing Dynasty Warriors on my Xbox. I sit there, watching the light outside fade to black.
    Not the black of your room at night, with the light from street lamps coming in through the windows, but the complete and uninterrupted dark of the wild. Night in its rawest form where you are utterly alone.
    And with it, the roars come.
    None are as loud as the one from the night before. But there are hundreds of them. Unfamiliar howls from every direction.
    I really wish Bear was here!
    I try to convince myself that this isn’t happening—that the plane crash, the giant eye, the black man’s death, and the roars coming from outside are all just a dream and soon I will wake up, at home in my bed, mom griping at me because I’m not ready for school.
    But I can’t.
    This isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare. And it’s real!
    I cry, my body shaking with great, heaving sobs. I cry for how worried my mother will be when she hears my plane went down. I cry for the black man and all the other passengers who were aboard my flight. But most of all, I cry for myself. I cry because I’m scared to death and I don’t know what to do!
    I try to make myself go to sleep. It should be easy. Like I said, sleeping like a rock on command is my second greatest talent—what my mom calls my superpower. But for the first time in memory, my superpower fails me and sleep refuses to come.
    I thank Heaven when the pitch beyond the cave begins to give way to the predawn light and the roars fall silent.
    Normally I greet every day with a song in the shower. But right now, singing is the last thing I want to do!
    The scene outside slowly begins to take form and, tears still drying in my eyes, I decide I have to leave. I could probably go without