Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over. Arthur had been passing in his room: back and forth, back and forth. Soon the rubber of his shoes would start to smoke.

  The problem? There were two dragons waiting outside Arthur's room. An adventure awaited yet he was indecisive in action.

  Arthur could hear the dragons speaking outside. A green British northback and blue Chinese aqua-ine. The green serpent could breathe fire, had massive wings, and was of a more aggressive personality. While the blue dragon was of a more gentle nature and preferred spending time in the water -- both could, of course, fly great distances.

  They did not come all this way to receive dismissal from the boy. Yet every magical beast knew that the potency of magic lay in the heart of desire. No implicit magical adventure or explicit use of channeling the life energy that permeates the universe could be had unless one willed it.

  The blue Chinese dragon spoke to his green serpentine companion, "I have an interest in the outsider."

  "Why?"

  "He seems like an underdog. There is much room for growth." Said the blue one to the green."

  "I promised I would find us a human to help us immigrate to the Nether realm. I never said that they would actually help us." Spoke the green one.

  The blue dragon peered into Arthur's room through the window. Then spoke, "you have been wrong before old friend."

  The green dragon had used her magical flames to craft a kinetic stone. A kinetic stone was a type of rudimentary magical device that glowed when it came near a human with an open soul.

  They were waiting for Arthur to make his decision and as always he was paralyzed by indecision. The issue was not that he did not know what he wanted but that he simply never found the courage to act on it.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  It was an issue of trust not judgement.

  Arthur grew nervous and tense over his own indecision. The two dragons continued their conversation outside his window. Indiscriminate sounds of claws rubbing against gravel could be heard.

  Arthur had felt like he had been ready to move on for a while now. He looked at the shaker on his cabinet. It lay covered in dust and rust. The coatings were cheap and the steel flimsy.

  He had started a new job as a bartender and within a few weeks, one day as he was running late to work he had been hit by a car.

  He flew five meters but miraculously survived. After weeks of being in intensive care, touch and go, and then months of grueling physical therapy. Arthur had made it home to his country cottage. It was there on the first night he found two dragons looking for him.

  They explained to him they needed him as part of their next step in life. That all magical beasts as a rite of initiation into adulthood needed a human to help them enter the Nether realm.

  The Nether realm was where dragons could meet their ancestors and decide where they wanted to go in their next life. To not enter the Nether realm and choose their next life, meant a dragon would live forever until the present universe it was in expired.

  A dissipation into a loose nothingness awaited them; and, while the inner flames of all great dragons contributed to the formation of new stars in the next universe that would be reborn in the cosmic cycle.

  It was a fate that was undesired because the dragons would lose their dragon soul in the process but worse be afflicted by an impairment known as dragon-mentia. Where their personalities shifted into dark-evil characters that lusted for gold and sought only destruction. The well known archetype.

  Evil dragons are not born, they are made.

  To become an evil dragon means to forego the rights of initiation to find their next life. It means to lose their dragon-soul and experience a slow and painful death.

  The dragons had explained all this to Arthur, and promised him an adventure that would enrich his life and even partially heal his damaged spine that he had suffered in the car crash. They explained that he would never be physically whole again but that he could be better, that he could live an empowered life.

  Dragons do not usually help humans in this manner but finding a human with an open soul is a rare event. Like an orchid that blooms once every nine years. To find a human open to the divine is a beautiful but rare and short-lived cosmic event.

  Arthur wanting more of the world but still so scarred and traumatized by it, thought to himself: "I am haunted by humans."