Part 2
Jonathan

“Hey John wake up, your going to be late for school again”, Jonathan’s father shouted. Jonathan stirred around in bed trying to get up, but sleep felt so good, he just had to lie down for at least another minute. “Don’t make me come up there and pull you out”, his father shouted again. “Come on, just a few more minutes”, Jonathan whined. He looked up and saw his father at the foot of his bed. “How about now”, his father said, as he picked Jonathan up and carried him to the shower. He then tossed him into the tub and turned on the cold water spraying the boy and waking him up. “Ah, hey, stop I’m up, I’m up”!

Jonathan walked down the street after school. He was thinking about his birthday that was coming up in a week. He was going to be fourteen soon. He thought to himself about all his previous birthdays hoping that this one would top them. All, except for that one birthday he had. It would be seven years next week since that fatal accident. He remembered it clearly, and the strange events that took place that day.

Jonathan was seven years old back then. His father had just come back from an archaeological dig in the artic. He was trying to find evidence of an ancient creature that he believe lived beyond myth, a creature of legends and fables known only in story. It all started when his father, Roy, found a few cave painting in the frozen north. He had found many painting before, but none like this. The painting showed the image of a creature that was supposed to have been legend within the middle age. They depicted large dinosaur like creatures that had wings on their back and breathed fire. “Why would this appear on a cave painting”, Roy thought, “most paintings told of the hunt or wild animals, not fantasy”. Yet what happened next was beyond belief. He found evidence of this creature’s existence. A perfectly intact scale buried within a rock. The name he gave to this creature was Dragon.

Jonathan woke from his day dream when he almost got hit by a car. “Watch where you’re going kid”, the driver shouted. Jonathan continued on walking home. He approached his house and went up to his room. Right away he fell into bed and just lay their. He could not get it out of his mind, that tragic event that had happened a long time ago. He turned his head and looked at the dragon scale on his desk. There it was, even after seven years, the greatest discovery in existence, on a teenager’s desk. Jonathan slowly dozed off, still with the images of the past within his head.

Jonathan looked around. He was no longer in his room but an airport. He looked down at his hands. They were a lot bigger a few seconds ago. His clothes were different too. He was wearing a shirt he had not seen in years. He looked up at the woman next to him. Without even thinking he tugged at her pants. “Mommy, when’s Daddy going to get out of the bathroom. I want to go on the plane already”. The woman looked down at him and smiled. “Don’t worry, well get on the plane soon”, she said. Just then Roy came and took the two of them to the plane. They took off from the airport and began their trip home. In his seat Roy was fidgeting with something in his hands and when Jonathan’s Mother noticed she said, “Roy why do you have that with you, you should have put that with the luggage”. He looked up at her and smiled. “I can’t let anything happen to it, it is too valuable to place it under”. Jonathan took a look at his father beside him. “Can’t I look at it”, he said. “Sure thing son”, Roy replied. He held it out at an arms length for his son to see it but he would’t let go. Jonathan held on to the other end just to imitate his father. Suddenly a loud bang was heard outside the window and when Jonathan looked he saw that the view was different. “Oh my god”, Roy shouted, “The wing’s gone”! The plane started to spin out of control and dived down. Jonathan and Roy each held on tightly to the seats, but also had another hand on the precious rock. Bang!

Jonathan woke up on the floor of his room. He was covered in sweat. He was shaking uncontrollable. The dream felt so real. It was like a he was really there, in the accident again. He got up from the ground, still shaking. He looked at the rock containing the scale on his desk. Had it really been that long? Had it been seven years since that horrible day? He took his eyes off the rock and walked towards the door. Jonathan turned the handle and stepped out of his room and down the stairs.

He walked down the steps slowly, taking everything into view. He turned to the wall and saw the family portraits hung up. They lead up from when he was one till now. As he passed each one of them, he counted the people in them. Six times he counted three as he walked down the steps. Then he stopped counting at portrait number seven. “Two”, he said softly. Jonathan looked back at portrait number six. He saw how happy the three people in the picture were. He then turned to portrait seven once again. He looked at the eyes of the pair. They were different than the other ones.

Jonathan could see the images clearly in his mind again. The lights were flashing. The plane was roaring furiously. Everything was being tossed around. People were screaming. Yet the whole time Jonathan just held on to his seat tightly while his other hand was still on the stone. Then an earth shattering noise exploded through the air. Fire erupted from all ends. All of a sudden everything was black. Nothing existed any more. There was no noise, no people, no nothing. Jonathan couldn’t hear, smell, see, or feel. There was just nothing. Then the light slowly came back and Jonathan found himself in the middle of the ocean floating on something. He turned his head and saw his father next to him. Surprisingly they were both still holding on the stone. His father noticed that he was awake and said with tears in his eyes, “Don’t turn around”. It was too late, because at that moment something floating in the water caught Jonathan eye, a human body. In an instant he turned around and looked. The two of them were in the middle of an ocean graveyard. There were bodies everywhere, just floating. Both adults and children were all dead. Then Jonathan saw something, a woman’s body floating in the water. At that moment he didn’t know what to do so he screamed. “I’m sorry”, his father said.

Jonathan opened his eyes. He was still on the stairwell in front of portrait seven, the portrait that was taken on his birthday seven years ago, the one taken after that fatal accident. The accident was fatal indeed. Yet both he and his father were the only survivors. Why them? Why had they not died like everyone else? They were not even burned or scratched like the others. The two of them were in perfect condition. Not a bone broken or even a little mark. How had they survived the plane crash when they should have died? That day made no sense at all. In the end, his father presented the stone to Jonathan as a gift. He said that he no longer needed it, that his son was more important than anything in the world, since it was all he had left.

Seven years later he still had the stone, yet he didn’t know what to do with it. Jonathan just kept it on his desk hoping one day, an answer would come.