Mother Inferno

There once lived a dragon that guarded the mountains in the faraway countryside of Ireland. Those who claim to have seen the dragon have said its scales were ruby-red and shimmered in direct sunlight. The eyes of the beast were emerald-green and glowed in the darkness. The beauty of the majestic creature was so intriguing that it could hypnotize you into its fiery abyss. Legend says that it wanders in and out of the reliefs of the mountains, guarding an abandoned gold mine that lies deep below the surface. Many men have tried to find such gold but have been destroyed by the dragons’ hellfire breath. Those who lived to tell the tale swear it’s a female dragon since her beauty can distract you from your death. With such a reputation, the town folk nick-named her Mother Inferno.

On a cold winter morning, a father and son were hunting deer in the ascending forest near the mountains. A painful chill in the air arose as the snow began to whip down from the heavens above. The father knew a storm was coming and had to find shelter. The son suggested the mountains for safety, but the dad declined because he knew what lurked inside. Unfortunately, the risk had to be taken since the father didn’t want his son to get sick or die from hypothermia. His son reassured him that the story of Mother Inferno was just a hoax.

As they were a mile from shelter, the dad collapsed due to a sudden cardiac arrest. His son didn’t see him fall due to the whipping snow that circled them. The little boy kept hiking through the bad weather, unknowingly leaving his father behind. Once the boy reached the mountains, he found a cave and waited inside for the storm to pass.

“Papa! Papa! Where are you,” the young boy yelled out into the storm.

The whistling of the snow was the only sound he heard back. The small child was scared as he realized his father was nowhere to be seen. He curled up into a ball in the middle of the cave while tears streamed down his cheeks. When the night fell, the winter storm came to a standstill. A deadly chill wrapped around the little boy, making him shiver as he slept.

At one point during the night, a warm breeze was growing from deep inside the cave. Curious; the child began to wonder and found a massive fire that had been started while he was asleep.

“Papa! I knew you made it!”

The son ran around the fire in hopes to see his father, but sadly no one was there. Eventually he grew tired from his travels and camped next to the warm flames that kept him alive through the night.

The next morning, he was surprised with a special treat. A huge deer was char roasted and resting on the wall of the cave. The child sprung from his poorly made bed with great joy!

“Oh, Papa, you shouldn’t have! Come on out Papa, so we can share this meal together!”

But, of course, no one responded. The boy took his time eating the roasted animal. A lot of it was inedible considering how charred it was.

“Papa, I will save you some for when you return,” the little boy screamed from the cave.

Only the echo from his voice spoke back to him. The child would find things to do to keep himself entertained. He would take the charred wood from the fire and draw pictures on the walls. It would be mostly of him and his father as stick figures.

He played games with the snow and built walls and knocked them down. At one point, there was a growl that came from inside the cave. The sound was so intense that it startled the little boy. He grabbed a small dagger from his pocket and began to investigate. He made a little torch from the massive fire from the night before and cautiously walked deeper into the cave.

“Papa? If this is you, it is not funny!”

The growling continued until the shine from the torch showed a wall made of ruby-red glass. The growling shook the wall in and out. It was hard to understand why these rubies would form inside the cave in such a manner. As the boy pressed his hand against the red, glistering wall, it was warm. He tried to walk around it, but there was no other opening. Suddenly, the child thought about breaking through to see what awaited him on the other side. He found a big rock and chucked it at the rubies. It bounced back onto the ground, unaffected by the impact.

He began to laugh while having fun trying to break the glass. Rocks continued to bounce off the beautiful barrier one after another. Eventually the growling stopped and the wall stood still. A rumble took over the whole cave as the wall began to ascend away from the boy. There came a random gush of wind that blew out his torch as darkness fell over him. Instantly, a massive voice came from the blackness.

“Young child, why do you wake me from my slumber,” said a soothing female voice.

“Um, I’m sorry. I was just trying to get past the ruby-red wall.”

The boy was trying to feel his way to the voice. It was drawing him deeper into the darkness.

“Young child, you should return to your camp; I don’t want to scare you.”

“Why would you scare me? You sound so beautiful.”

All of a sudden, a huge flame engulfed the roof of the cave, quickly revealing a massive ruby-red dragon! As the flames disappeared, the young boy began to scream in fear. He ran in the opposite direction of the fire as the dragon was lurking behind him. When the child looked back, he saw two glowing green eyes chasing after him. While running and screaming in the dark cave, the little boy fell, passing out from the experience.

After a few hours, the small boy woke up in a different spot in the mountain. He was surrounded by shining gold sticking out of the reliefs of the cavern. There were gleaming rays of yellow escaping the cavities of the lair. In the center of the chamber there was another huge roaring fire pit. As the little lad stood up, the dragon slowly approached him from above.

“How did I get here,” asked the confused child.

"I carried you here, carefully considering how narrow the cave is. We are underground in my treasure den,” said the enchanting dragon.

“How do you know how to speak my language?”

“Before my existence was discovered by your people, I would listen to the miner’s digging for my gold. I learned your language through the minors' many conversations.”

“Are you going to eat me,” the boy said in complete terror. The dragon slowly circled him, evaluating such a fragile human.

“I wouldn’t take you to my lair if I was going to eat you my child.”

To prove she wasn’t a threat to the little boy, she began to blow smoke rings around him. The kid began to jump into them, making the smoke dissolve around him. He laughed as she continued to do cool smoke tricks through her huge nostrils.

“What is your name,” asked the child.

“Unfortunately, my name is so ancient that only dragons can understand it. What is your name?”

“My name is Enoch and I’m nine years old. I’m pretty ancient too.”

The young Enoch told the dragon how the townspeople called her Mother Inferno due to her extreme hellfire breath. The ruby-red creature laughed at her nickname. She allowed him to call her Mother for their time together. He revealed how his actual mother died from mono two winters ago. Enoch handled his grief somewhat hard, but his father isolated himself from everyone and devoted every waking moment to being there for his son in their time of grief.

“What is a nine-year-old boy traveling alone in the middle of winter?”

“My father was with me, but I haven’t seen him since I arrived. I know he is alive because he made me a fire and left me a charred deer,” the child explained so innocently.

“That was me, Enoch; I was looking over you.”

The little boy looked at Mother in complete shock. He gave her a big hug for taking care of him. As he released his arms, he started to look sad.

“If that was you, then where is my father?”

“We can look for him if that pleases you.”

Enoch’s eyes glowed with excitement in hopes he can be reunited with his Papa. Mother explained they would have to fly at dawn, so her existence remains a secret. Once the time was right and the winter sky glowed red, the two took flight in search of Enoch’s father. As he got on the back of Mother Inferno, it was a surreal moment. From a distance, it would be hard to see a dragon in the sky since her scales blended with the setting sun.

The winter still had its unforgivable chill lingering in the air, so Mother flew slowly so the boy wouldn’t get cold. Regardless of the weather, Enoch was having a blast. He spread his arms out like wings and pretended he was a dragon too. The little boy was having so much fun that, for a moment, he forgot why they were outside in the first place. Down in the valley below, Mother noticed a body sticking in and out of the freshly fallen snow.

“Enoch, what was your father wearing the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t remember his whole outfit. But my Papa never leaves without his favorite brown boots with fox fur around the cuff.”

As Mother took a closer look, she saw that the stiff figure in the snow had on the same boots that Enoch had described. She urgently flew away so that Enoch wouldn't see his father in such a grim, frozen state.

“Why do you ask Mother? Do you see Father?”

“I just don’t know how he looks, that’s all.”

Mother wanted to make him happy because she knew how much he suffered from losing his mother—and now, unknowingly, his father. They flew for hours, risking being seen. She didn’t care, Mother knew once they returned to the mountains, she would have to tell Enoch the sad news.

Once it got too dark the to travel safely, the two returned to the cave. Enoch was sleepy and fell into a slumber in the nest that Mother had made him in her lair. The next day, Enoch woke up alone, as Mother was nowhere to be seen. He took a torch and ran to the entrance of the cave. He stood in shock as a body figure in leaves and branches lay in front of the entrance. Sticking out of the branches were the boots Enoch described to Mother.

He went over his dead father’s body and kneeled down near his feet. He petted the fox's fur and began to cry. The dragon awaited outside so he could have this moment alone to grieve.

“Papa, I’m so sorry I left you in the cold. You never had to fear the dragon, she is really nice. She saved my life…I just wish she could have saved yours,” Enoch said as tears streamed down his cheeks.

Once Mother realized he was sobbing; she slowly approached him. As Enoch saw the dragon, he ran for a hug. She curled around him as he cried on her scales.

“Please don’t ever leave me Mother,” cried Enoch.

The dragon knew her responsibility was to be Enoch’s protector. She was the only one he had left. Enoch did not sleep that night. In the lair, he stared endlessly into the fire pit. Mother was concerned after witnessing his blanket stare. She tried so hard to make him smile with smoke rings, but nothing moved him.

“Enoch, is there anything I can do for you?”

The child said nothing as he watched the fire continue to burn. He stood up and took his exhausted body to the nest to sleep. Mother watched him cry quietly as he slept. It brought her grief to watch him suffer such a loss. The next morning, Mother woke up to an empty lair.

“Enoch, where did you go?”

She left her golden lair to look for him. When she found Enoch, he was sitting with his back turned to the entrance of the cave. In between the two of them was the father’s body, which Enoch lit on fire.

“He needed a proper send-off, plus he was cold from being outside,” said the boy as he watched his Papa’s body burn underneath all of the wood.

It took Mother by surprise to witness this phenomenon take place. As the body burned, a horrid stench came from the fire. Mother needed to get Enoch away from this scene.

“Let’s go back to the lair and play with some smoke rings,” she said.

But Enoch just stared endlessly at the fire. Soon the smell lifted into the cold air, drawing in some unwanted animals. A pack of vicious wolves began to appear behind Enoch. The boy wasn’t fazed by the presence since he was mourning his Papa at his makeshift funeral.

“Enoch, I need you to slowly get behind me. There are wolves behind you, and I can’t protect you from where you sit,” said Mother in a soft voice.

As she finished speaking, the biggest wolf began to approach Enoch from behind.

“Stay still Enoch,” Mother whispered from the shadows of the cave.

She immersed herself back into the darkness. Becoming an unknown threat to the wolves. As the biggest wolf prayed towards Enoch, he sat still in fear. He could feel the warm breath of the wolf on his neck.

A growl came from the animal as it was about to attack. Suddenly the tail from Mother wrapped around Enoch; pulling him above the wolves! The pack pounced upward, trying to eat him.

Mother placed the child behind her open wings. A loud, thunderous roar came from the belly of the dragon. It was so loud that the wolf pack paused and focused on the darkness ahead of them.

Enoch covered his ears and shut his eyes; afraid of what was going to happen. Mother unloaded the biggest hellfire breath that filled the entrance of the cave, turning anything that lay before her into ash. A quick, sharp squeal came from the wolves and then they were gone. When she let Enoch down, he ran in front of her to see the damage. To his surprise, everything was burned to ash-including his father’s grave.

“Papa’s gone and it’s all your fault,” Enoch screamed.

“I was only trying to protect you!”

“I don’t need you! I need my Papa!

Enoch ran away into the cold winter prairie. Mother stayed behind since it was still light out. The small boy cried as he ran into the deep-dark forest alone. As he turned behind him, he saw those emerald green eyes in the darkness of the cave. But Enoch kept running, blindly, into the woodland. As night started to approach, the boy came across a camp with a cloth tent and a small fire.

“Hello,” Enoch called out.

Out from the tent, a tall, grisly, musky hunter emerged; aiming a massive rifle towards the little boy.

“It's not wise to sneak up on a hunter my boy,” said the stranger.

Enoch ran into the man’s arm, crying for help. The man did not know what to do. He only encountered deer and bears in the forest, not small children.

“Where are your parents, my boy?”

“My father died; Mother burned him into ash,” said Enoch.

The hunter could not believe what he was hearing! He took the boy and sat him near the fire on a fallen tree trunk. He wrapped him in sheep skin to keep him warm. Then, as he scrambled for some dishes, he gave Enoch some water and warm soup. Enoch gobbled down the soup and drank the water fast.

“You were hungry ha my boy? My name is Patrick, but you can call me Rick,” said the hunter.

“My name is Enoch, and I’m nine years old.”

Before Patrick could respond to Enoch's story, a creaking came from the woods as darkness was slowly falling around them. Enoch looked at the hunter as he aimed his gun into the surrounding trees.

“It's best you stay by the fire, son, in case any animals attack,” said Patrick.

Enoch nodded his head in compliance as the sound of cracking wood continued to circle the small campsite. The hunter locks onto two floating green lights in the distance of the woods.

“I see a giant cat with huge green eyes in the distance. Best you get behind me,” said Patrick.

The child did just that as he watched the two green eyes stare them down.

“Mother,” the boy whispered to himself.

In the distance, the eyes disappeared. Patrick lowered his weapon, believing the creature had run off.

“I guess it was a false alarm,” said Patrick.

Suddenly a gust of wind flew above them, putting out the campfire. Enoch grabbed Patrick close. In a hurry, the hunter placed the boy back on the stump as he tried to light the fire again. Patrick got down on his knees and began rubbing two flints together. As he was doing this, the two green eyes appeared behind him.

“Patrick, it's behind you,” screamed Enoch as the eyes drew closer.

In a quick second, the hunter turned around and fired his gun towards the green eyes. The eyes vanished again and it became completely dark. A rumble from the distance started to grow louder and louder. The sound was familiar to Enoch; it was the same as Mother’s roaring charge.

“Get on the ground,” yelled Enoch.

Both Enoch and Patrick dove as hellfire sprung from the distance. The campfire was lit up by ascending trees that were in flames. Patrick looked up in great fear at what he witnessed next.

“It can’t be true. The legends can’t be true! A rapacious dragon,” screamed Patrick.

Mother slowly opened her mouth, revealing her sharp teeth. Inside her throat, you could see her charging up her fire; ready to attack again. Enoch ran in front of the hunter because he knew she wouldn’t attack if he was in harm's way. Patrick watched as the dragon slowly became dormant with her attack.

“Go away, Mother! You destroyed Papa!”

“This is your mother,” asked Patrick in complete confusion.

“She’s not my real mother. I thought she could be! But she betrayed me!”

Enoch started to cry again as he was still grieving the lost of his father. Mother saw this and began to settle down.

“If you choose to be with this man, I cannot stop you. He may be a better fit than I could ever be,” said Mother with a broken heart.

Enoch just stared at the dragon with tears in his eyes. He didn’t know what to say. The hunter was in more disbelief that the dragon could talk. Suddenly, in great sadness, Mother flew off—back to her mountain. Once she flew away, Patrick passed out from the experience.

The child took his water and poured it on the hunter’s face. He woke up; jumping up like a bolt of lightning. He took his rifle and ran around the campsite, searching for the dragon. All that surrounded them were the remnants of Mother as the trees that were lit on fire slowly began to fade out. The hunter began breaking down the camp site in a hurry. He threw everything into his traveling luggage. He shoved past Enoch as if he didn’t matter.

“Where are you going,” asked Enoch.

“Far from here and far from you!”

“But I thought you were going to be my new papa,” said Enoch with a sad voice.

“Son, you are cursed and I don’t want to end up like your dead father.”

Enoch started to cry as the man left him on his own in the wild. Before the hunter could take off, the small child pulled out a gold nugget. Patrick saw how massive the piece of gold was and was curious where he got it from. The boy explained how Mother protects it in her underground lair and only he knows how to get there. He told Patrick how he could be extremely rich and would lead him to the treasure if he promised to be his new papa.

Patrick was hesitant since he knew that the dragon was protecting the gold. He then got an evil idea, which was to allow Enoch to lead him to the gold, use him as bait, then kill him once they got away. That way he didn’t have to split the treasure nor have the burden of a small child. When the hunter agreed to the mission, the child jumped for joy.

As they were walking to the mountain, the hunter was shaking in his knees. Enoch wasn’t concerned at all; it was as if he was going back home. At the entrance of the cave, it was cold and dark inside. As if death awaited them.

“I don’t know about this Enoch, won't Mother kill me?”

“Oh no, she is nice; trust me.”

But Patrick knew better after their first encounter. Once they started walking inside, the hunter lit up a lantern to guide the passageway. As they got to the lair, the dragon was nowhere to be found. Enoch showed him the nest she made him. The child’s excitement was the equivalent of him showing a favorite toy,but in this case it was a dragon’s lair full of gold. The hunter dumped his camping gear out of his bag and started to load up on the treasure. The bag was heavy, weighing down his arm. Once they were ready to leave, Patrick loaded bullets into a smaller gun that he kept in his boot.

“What is the gun for,” asked Enoch.

“The gun is for the dragon in case she returns; I can shoot her so you can get away. I don’t want anything to happen to my new son,” Patrick lied with an evil grin.

Enoch smiled because he was starting to believe that he had found his new papa. Someone to protect him and be there for him. How naive children can be, but who can blame the child? He is a nine-year-old orphan with no concept of danger. After they left Mother’s lair, Patrick told Enoch to walk in front of him and lead the way out. It was all a set up so by the time they reached the exit of the mountain, he could kill him and run off with the loot. As they approached the exit, Patrick slowly raised his gun and pulled back the hammer. His gun began to shake with the weight of the gold on his shoulder. Suddenly, a weird feeling came over his waist. The feeling grew tighter, making the hunter drop the bag of gold. The sound startled Enoch as he turned around to see what Patrick was doing.

“Are you trying to kill me,” asked Enoch with sadness in his tone.

Patrick couldn’t answer because Mother had her tail wrapped around his waist so tightly that it was hard to breathe.

“This will teach you to never try to hurt my son,” said Mother as she appeared behind Patrick in the dim light of the lantern.

She pulled tighter on the torso of the distraught hunter. In a split second, she snapped his grisly body into her mouth and swallowed him in one bite! The dragon feared Enoch witnessing such a horrible sight. She lowered her head in shame, awaiting his reaction.

“That—was--amazing! I knew you would save me.”

“Do you really think I was going to leave you with that dosser? He reeked of trouble. I just needed you to see that I would do anything to protect you, my child.”

Enoch ran to hug his mother. She embraced her son while wrapping her wings around him. During their time together, she would teach him how to hunt and gather food from the forest. When he got a bit older, he would take some of the gold and trade it for literature, supplies, and things to entertain himself. Mother and Enoch lived comfortably in their secret lair in the mountains where no one dared to enter. Those who tried to mess with Enoch or their sanctuary would have to deal with the legendary Mother Inferno.