Hredhaan

******

The apricot colored flames were flowing up and up in the air. The teeny tiny village I had built was all covered with the flames and it was burning. Small people were running here and there. But my little dragon 'Drogo' still was not happy. It did not have a smile on his face.

'Maybe it needs something else,' I thought.

I had fed him some people from the village, so he could not be hungry. But he was quiet. Neither he was laughing nor he was playing. My tiny monster was not content for some reason, sadly.

'Maybe it does not know how to smile, just like me.' That was another thought that came to my mind.

Smile was written as SMILE. It was easy to learn but was of no use because I could not feel it. I did not know how to feel it. I had become upset. Not because I could not sense that emotion, but because Drogo could not sense it, too.

I sighed, but no sound came out of my mouth except for that of my breath. Well, no sound was supposed to come out. Even if it did, I would have never, ever recognized that it was my voice.

"Is there any way?" I heard her. She was upset, too. I looked up and her expression appeared sad. I did not like her being sad. But I knew one thing: people around me were rarely happy.

I wanted to ask her how to make her smile, but I did not know how to. I could have asked by writing, but my handwriting was poor. Though, I was learning to improve it. And I was confident I would improve.

"You need to be patient." Uncle sitting across from her said. He tapped her hand. He tapped four times. I had counted.

Uncle looked down at me. He was wearing a white coat because he was a doctor. He smiled at me, gave me a new dragon piece. My little white dragon got a new red dragon friend, who I instantly named 'Drago'. Drogo and Drago seemed happy together now.

"He is a kid. Besides, such treatments take time."

I memorized the term treatments when I heard Uncle. After hearing it, I could tell it was spelled as TREATMENTS. Some things were too easy for me to learn. I wished smiling to be one of them.

"Calm down. Everything will be fine."

She shook her head like I used to do whenever I did not want to eat broccoli. She had salty water in her eyes. They were called tears. I did not know what crying felt like. I would not have known that water like teardrops was supposed to be salty if she had not told me about it.

She loved to teach me.

The environment we were in was covered with sadness, and I did not like people being gloomy. I collected my dragons, the village and the people, and kept it all in my backpack. Lastly, I did not forget to put my orange flames with me, otherwise the little dragon 'Drogo' would have gotten upset. I hung my bag on my back, putting my hands under the two straps, and walked to the small chair in one corner of the room. On my right, there was a glass window that had curtains on it. Holding the hem of the curtain, I peeped from behind and saw so many people downstairs, near the reception area. I was getting bored, so I began counting the people. Most of the people there were wearing similar clothes. It was like a uniform and its color was teal blue.

One

Two

Three

Four

My counting was in the process, but I stopped. I did not stop intentionally. Something white had caught my attention. Something, no, not something but someone, a girl in particular, who was wearing a milky white colored frock was playing with some round object in her hand. She was smiling. One of her front teeth was not in her mouth. But she looked pretty. Her hair was tied into two pigtails.

She was PRETTY, just like her, who was talking to the doctor uncle.

There were some kids who were playing together, but she was alone and happy.

"Hredhaan, come let's go." I heard her, left the curtains and got up. I was ready to walk down holding her hand, but she picked me up.

I was not a little baby, yet she would pick me up.

"I know you don't like it, but I love holding you up in my arms." She might have known I did not like to be picked up by my expression. She was good at reading my face.

She was walking down the stairs after doctor Uncle waved his hand at us.

"You know, your dad will come tonight and we will go for a picnic tomorrow." I loved picnics because then I would get to eat more chocolates and fewer veggies.

"Are you happy?"

I nodded. I did not know exactly how happiness felt like. But I knew that one feels happy when you do something you like.

Once we were down, she put me on a chair near to the reception desk. I held the veil tightly which she was wearing on her outfit so that I did not get lost. It was my habit.

"Stay here. I need to talk to her." She pointed to the old lady who was at the desk. That lady had lots of muscles and I was scared of her. Her eyes were enormous too, and she used to wear extra glass like eyes. She had four eyes.

I did not look at her more, otherwise I would have peed in my pants. I had never done that before, but I had read fear could lead to that.

As I was dangling my legs and looking to my right, I spotted the same girl from before. The small ball-like thing she was playing with before slipped out of her hand and rolled in my direction. It went under my chair. The girl became upset. She was not smiling anymore and was looking for the ball. Her lips moved as if they were shaking and I could see her eyes filled with salty water. I did not like her crying. She was sniffling, wiping her face with the back of her right hand. The wrist of her right hand was coiled with a white pearl bracelet.

I left the veil I was holding and crawled under my chair. I took out the object which was a ball. It was a different kind of ball. It had water and some small fishes floating in it. But they were not real, just like my Drogo and Drago. There was a small golden lion drawn outside of the ball and a name was engraved on it.

ARIEL

I thought it was her name. She was still looking like a lost girl, running here and there. But no one was helping her. I rushed to her and found her looking the other way. I tapped her shoulder with my index finger three times politely.

She turned to me and wiped her tears once more. There was anger on her face and in her round eyes, but when I opened my extended palm in front of her, she was not angry anymore. She was smiling like before, with a broken tooth.

"Thank you." I nodded at her. I put both of my hands in the pocket of my pants, lowered my eyes and turned around. No girl ever talked to me before, not even smiled at me. She did both. And she had a nice name too, ARIEL.

As I was making my way to her, near the reception desk, a bed that had wheels was moving towards me. A kid smaller than me was standing in front of me.

"Move aside, move aside." The woman who was pushing the bed yelled. That woman's voice was loud and scary. I pushed the boy the other way, and he fell. He began to cry, but I didn't mean to hurt him. The moving bed had stopped and the screaming lady went to the kid.

She picked him up and wiped his tears.

"Why didn't you scream? Why did you push him?" She yelled at me. I was frightened because of her, and became sad. But my tears did not come out unlike the little boy. Anyone apart from me would have begun to weep. But I did not know how to. All I knew was when to.

"Don't yell at my kid." She was back, and she picked me up again in her arms.

My kid.

She called me her kid.

"He pushed this guy." The big lady shouted at her, too. She was a bad person. I had read that no good person yell at others.

"He saved him."

"Saved him? He could have shouted instead of pushing him away. Why didn't he say something?"

"He cannot speak." I sighed and clung her. That was why I could never ever recognize my voice because I did not know how I sound. I did not know how to speak.

"And dare you woman to say another word to my baby. You have no clue what I would do." She held me tightly, and I hid my face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder. She smelled like flowers, fresh roses. I did not know her name, so I thought I would consider her rose.

My Rose

Rose strode outside with me in her arms. Once we were outside, she stopped. She began talking to someone, but I did not pay attention to who it was. She knew many there. I looked around and saw the shouting lady from before. She was talking to a man and was holding the bed that had wheels. It was an empty bed. I did not want to look at her as she was a bad person, but then I saw Ariel was there too. Ariel pulled something out of her mouth and pasted it on the woman's watch. She hid behind one of the green flowery bushes, which was closer to where I was.

The woman shouted again after her gaze moved towards the wrist of her left hand wrapped with the watch having a leather belt.

"WHO DID THIS?"

"OH MY LORD! MY NEW WATCH."

Ariel looked at me and smiled. I could feel something different on my face. My lips were moving. I did not know what happened until I heard Rose say, "You are smiling."

"My baby is smiling."

It was the first time I smiled because of Ariel. She waved at me before she hopped inside of the place that had written ASYLUM on it.