The Professor woke up holding his chest, still in shock from seeing the ghastly beast.

  Mind sat patiently, watching him. "Did you enjoy your nap?" the dragon asked with a cheeky grin.

  The professor wiped sweat from his forehead, still shaking.

  "What… what the hell was that?!?"

  Mind said, more serious now.

  "I apologize for my outburst. I am not used to being disrespected. Just keep this in mind, out of all of my kin, my powers are beyond your comprehension and your predecessors were far more welcoming."

  "predec-"

  Mind cuts off the professor and answers quickly, "yes... do you really think you are the first being to witness the awakening? "

  The professor grimaced, still recovering. "What did you do to me?"

  "That was basically a slap on the wrist, as you would say. In our culture, disrespecting an elder is punishable by death. Being that the death of a dragon is equal to the death of a god, it has only happened a handful of times since the beginning of time."

  The professor’s heart was still pounding. "What about the dream?"

  Mind perked up, "Ah, so you did have a nice dream."

  "I thought you knew?" the professor asked. "cannot you read my mind?"

  "My powers are immense, but I am still bound by laws," Mind replied, expression sobering. "Every dragon has their own set of laws given by the Supreme. My forbidden laws are as follows:

  To read minds.

  To place false thoughts or memories.

  To affect freewill.

  To view the future or change the past.

  To reveal undeserved information.

  And the most important law I am tasked is:

  To protect the Witness from physical harm, even if a law were to be broken.

  The professor stared, still catching his breath. "So you can do all those things... but you’re not allowed to."

  Mind nodded. "Correct. If a dragon violates its given laws, that dragon is to be replaced. That requires a different awakening."

  "A different awakening? What does that mean?"

  Mind tilted its head, smiling faintly. "I cannot answer certain questions until you deserve to know the answer, so would be wise not to ask a question that will seam too revealing."

  The professor opened his mouth to press further, but a faint ringing started in his ears. He clenched his jaw and looked away. Mind leaned forward, eyes bright.

  "Tell me about your vision. Which one of my kin will awake first?"

  The professor said hoarsely, "It was not a dream... it was a nightmare."

  "Stop it," Mind said playfully. "It’s just a vision. Plus, the Awakened can’t physically harm the Witness by law. Now tell me. Who is it?!"

  "Wait," the professor interjected. "What do you mean they can’t hurt me?"

  Mind’s expression turned cold. A stabbing pain started throbbing in the professor’s chest.

  "You cannot be physically harmed by my me or my kin by law," Mind said with a harshness that made the words final. "But I can inflict pain without harming you, physically."

  The pain released. The professor grasped for air while gripping the table. "GREEN! THE DRAGON WAS GREEN!"

  A single diamond-like tear slid down Mind’s cheek and its jaw widened, with unnerving excitement, and It whispered something in a language the professor couldn’t understand.

  "What is it?" the Professor asked.

  Mind looked into his eyes. "Its name, for you, will be Acrid. There have been many awakenings since Acrid was the first in the cycle."

  "When will Acrid awaken?" the Professor asked.

  "It has already started," Mind replied. "Now that you've seen the vision, Acrid's sapling will sprout and grow rapidly. While this is happening, the land will begin to revert back to its original form. Acrid's shell will start breaking close to a year from now."

  The professor sat back, stunned and in a hoarse voice asked, "What do you mean revert?"

  Mind replies, like it loves educating the educator, "The world has changed a lot since the last awakening. Monstrous machines killing the sky and the land, forests and jungles being harvested to build things like where you dwell and eat from. The ocean kingdoms being overrun with filth and death. The sand castles littered and treated like spectacles rather than places of worship to the Supreme. Land from the ice kingdoms are melting and floating to the sea."

  Mind is getting more and more irate as its eyes closed and the once small, cute creature is starting to glow brighter and grow in size and its skin begins to look as sharp as diamonds, its tail and horns igniting into a bright pink flame. The Professor hits the floor as his chair fell backwards. His body stiffening when he stood up due to the overwhelming fear, until the weight of the majestic God dragon breaks the table. Mind reverts back to its small form in a second and looks around. It starts shaking off the diamonds that vanish into a puff of smoke before they hit the floor. Unfortunately, one of the diamond pieces touch the Professor's bare skin on his right leg. When the single piece of dragon's diamonds made contact, his leg begin to shatter. Blood, muscle, and bone fragments exploded into a thousand pieces. The professor screamed in agony and Mind instantly realizes that the professor has taken physical damage. Time stopped, and in an instant, Mind had put all of the pieces of his leg back together and placed its healing claw on his skin to mend the wound.

  Mind then walks over to the spot where it was sitting on the table, which is now in pieces, and jumps. The table is instantly repaired and back where it was, as if it were never broken. The now fixed table catches Mind and he lays back down like a cat loaf and the Professor is back sitting upright in his chair. Time unfreezes and the professor looks confused for a moment and scratches his leg before looking on the table in front of him and sees a new cup of coffee filled to the brim with a milky dragon pattern in the center.

  The professor takes a sip of the newly crated coffee and is taken aback by how delicious it was. After a brief moment of savoring that sip. He sits back in his chair and says, "Tell me about Acrid."

  Mind grins, "I am sure you saw in your dream of the beauty that the jungle is supposed to be, right?

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  The Professor wipes a bit of foam off of his upper lip. "I've never seen any of those plants before and I've been to nearly every jungle in the world. Where exactly was I?"

  "The Amazon."

  The professor scoffs. "I've been to the Amazon more times than I can count. That is not the Amazon."

  Mind's tail begins twitching, "you haven't seen a shred of my capabilities. I could make every nation in this world fall on their bended knee for me while sitting in this very spot. I would break every law I have and suffer dire consequences for it, but I have the power to do it. Acrid is going to repair the jungle. The vegetation that are present in that jungle now is useless. It will need better and stronger plants. The very beginning, is the tree. While the tree is growing, Acrid will be silently working to repair. Humans will die, but sacrifices must be made to save this world."

  The Professor gulps the rest of the delicious coffee even though the heat burns his mouth and throat. As soon as he sets the empty cup down, more liquid materializes in the cup and a milky leaf pattern appears on the foam. The Professor looks at the dragon with an unimpressed glance and the dragon gives him a slight wink.

  "What about the other dragons?"

  "We will have to wait for your visions."

  The professor feels like he has heard enough for now and wants to take some time to clear his head. he has about to get up from the table, but Mind stops him.

  "I have been keeping your stress and heart rate at low levels so you do not have a reaction. If you leave my presence, you will likely have a heart attack. I will come with you."

  The professor says, "I need some time alone, I feel fine."

  Mind stands up and retorts with a worrying tone, "You feel fine because I am making your body feel fine. Once you leave my presence, the emotions and stress will hit you like a brick and it will be too much for you to handle. Trust me! Once I've shown myself to a being, I am not allowed to leave their side by law until I know they will be safe. I must come with you where ever you go."

  The professor sits back down and sighs.

  "How long until the first awakening?

  Mind replies relieved, "it could be up to a year. But Acrid’s work will start way before that"

  The Professor takes a sip of the newly created coffee and is forced to close his eyes. Never has he tasted something so delicious.

  "How many of your kin will awaken?"

  "That depends on what has been done to the world and what needs to be repaired.”

  The professor swallows hard. “So... due to the state of the world now?”

  “More of my kin will awaken. One by one. Each with a different purpose. Each with a different domain.”

  The Professor leans forward and in a dry tone, "And let me guess. None of them are as polite as you?"

  Mind smiles, but there is no humor in its eyes. “You misunderstand. I am not polite. I am merely bound to you… by law.”

  After sitting in silence for a long time contemplating on everything he has heard so far, the Professor stands, placing a hand on the edge of the table to steady himself.

  “I’m going downstairs. I want to work.”

  Mind blinks once, its pink eyes glinting, then offers a gentle smile.

  Without a word, the dragon hops gracefully from the table and lands softly on the professor’s shoulder. It’s surprisingly light, no heavier than a small bird, but its presence oh his shoulders is immensely calming.

  The professor pauses, one brow slightly raised. “Really? My shoulder?”

  “I told you, I must stay near,” Mind says in his head, its tone playfully smug. “Besides… this is more efficient."

  Never has the Mind Dragon seen a historian's lab nor any being that has collected fossils. As they go down the stairs, Mind is excited to see what the professor meant by 'work'. Mind assumed he meant that he was going to read something but does not know what to think now. When they enter the lab, Mind jumped on a nearby metal shelf and stood motionless and for the first time in thousands if not millions of years it was speechless. The professor glanced at Mind while putting on his suit to protect the artifacts from outside contaminants and steps into a clean room. The sprayers startled Mind and diamond-like spikes started protruded from its back.

  The professor assures Mind its just a cleaner, he adds, "wait... are you clean?"

  Mind looks at the Professor with confusion.

  The professor asks,"Are you not familiar with germs and bacteria? These artifacts are very delicate and extremely sensitive to outside contaminates."

  Mind is still unfamiliar with the term even though it is an all-knowing being, it shakes its head. “Due to the constant tremors on our skin, any being, no matter how small, will just fall off.”

  The Professor looks at Mind's smooth skin with scientific curiosity. “Can I take a skin sample to examine it?”

  Mind laughs, “Unless you have a blade that was forged in the core of this planet with dragon steel and blessed by Divine Magic, then you would not come close to piercing my skin.”

  “If I had one, would you be afraid?”

  “I would be able to sense that kind of weapon if it was nearby and yes... any dragon would be afraid. do not press further, because I have answered too much already.”

  The Professor walks through the clean room door and when Mind sees the fossils for the first time up close, it is mesmerized. The professor picks up one particular fossil he has been studying for weeks and starts brushing off the gathered dust. While going through his notes, Mind jumps on to the table and looks closely at the fossil.

  The professor looks at Mind and says, "What is it?"

  Mind looks back at the professor with a tear in its eyes and says, "I know this creature."

  The professor is dumbfounded and exclaims, "What!?! What is it, where and when is it from?"

  Mind goes into detailed descriptions of not only this particular fossil but Mind and the Professor spend hours on each fossil in the lab talking about each creature. Mind knows all of them and has seen them up close. After around 15 hours, the professor and Mind come back upstairs and the Professor sits back at the table and puts his head in his hands.

  "I found my first fossil when I was five years old in Egypt. I've dedicated my entire life to historical studies and its taken me years at times to find the origin of a fossil. You knew all of them just by looking at them. The professor cries. Mind is speechless again. Never has it seen a being cry about something as trivial as knowledge of the past.

  The professor, exhausted slowly makes his way to the bedroom and hits his mattress like a rock. Mind sits at the foot of the bed and watches him... studying him.

  The professor dreams of the jungle. Not like it was before, this time was familiar. Except, there was a sapling that began growing at an alarming speed. As he watched, the sapling grew taller than him and was getting wider, much wider. He notices something strange, if that was not strange enough. There were unusual vines and roots growing around the tree, like a protective shield. As the professor watches, the tree is getting wider and taller every second. "This will be a very short year."

  When the Professor wakes up, he does not see Mind. But he smells... bacon...

  "Hi!"

  The Professor jumps, Mind is suddenly there right behind him, smiling like it did not just almost give him a heart attack.

  The Professor stares at Mind and says, "Are you cooking?

  With a slight smile Mind says, "Sort of, I think I got a little carried away."

  The Professor jumps out of bed and runs down the hall to the kitchen, expecting a mess but what he saw shocked him to the core. A massive spread fit for a king lay on the table. Pancakes, biscuits, bacon, fresh fruit, and pastries of all kinds line every inch of the dining table. One place on the table is empty right in front of the chair that the Professor has gotten so familiar with.

  As the professor is munching away at the uncooked cooked breakfast. He asks why Mind isn't eating.

  "Dragons do not need sustenance like humans. The only sustenance we require is sleep."

  Barely coherent from the fist fulls of food falling out of the Professor's mouth.

  "Did you sleep last night."

  Mind was floating in the air around the table. “I have been asleep for three thousand years. I am quite rested."

  "When you said before that you sleep to grow, why are you so small?"

  Thinking back to the incident the night before with the Professor's leg.

  ”This is not my true form. I only look like this for your benefit. If you seen my true form... let's just say... I would not be a welcome sight. I do not look like the dragons in your books, I'll tell you that. I think the only of my kin you humans were right about was Ignus."

  “Who is Ignus?

  “Ignus is one of my kin that none of us wants to awaken. Normally dragons are genderless. I am neither male nor female, so I cannot reproduce nor will I ever be able to reproduce. Ignus on the other hand is a male and that is all I can reveal unless Ignus awakens."

  "Why", The professor asks, "Why do you keep things from me."

  Mind perches on a bundle of strawberries, "I understand you are a historian and are desperate to understand our ways of life but, by law, I can only share so much until that information becomes relevant."

  A couple hours pass and the Professor leaned back in his chair, the last bite of breakfast gone, but the weight of everything he’d learned still racing in his mind.

  Acrid. Awakenings. Laws. Dreams.

  The world wasn’t about to change, its already started.

  He glanced over at Mind, who now lay curled up on the counter like a pink, polished housecat, gazing at him with an unreadable expression. There were moments Mind seemed playful, almost childlike… and others where it radiated something ancient. Something frightening. Something... sinister... but... not evil.

  He stood quietly, placed his dish in the sink, and stepped toward the door leading to the study.

  “Let's go study.”

  Mind took flight and landed on the Professor's shoulder.

  “I am here for you Professor” it said softly.

  “I know,” the professor said, hand resting on the doorknob. “That’s what worries me.”

  And for the rest of that day, nothing extraordinary happened. No visions. No earthquakes. No declarations of doom.

  Just the calm before something unimaginable.