Unable to find rest, the night wore on as the little dragon made his way through the midnight streets. The voices grew stronger as he approached a large meat cave. Many warm meats were gathered inside, while several of them remained outside near a metal fence. The meats that patrolled the fence carried the bang sticks. Occasionally, one of the bang sticks would bark out and a night meat would fall to the ground dead.

The little dragon tilted his head to the side then spent a moment trying to figure this scenario out. There were crying meats inside, but unlike with the church they seemed to be safe.

A cry echoed from inside the meat cave. Loud, high-pitched, it set the dragon’s teeth on edge. The meats outside of the cave looked at each other and laughed.

There was something wrong with what he was seeing. There were screaming meats inside the cave, and yet the warm meats outside of the cave seemed happy.

Waves of terrified energy assaulted his senses as the voices of the warm meats inside the cave crashed over him. They were not afraid of night meats! They were afraid of these warm meats.

Unable to stop himself, the dragon rushed forward. He did not understand the burning in his chest or the flame in his eyes, but he released them on the world in front of him. The warm meats dropped their bang sticks and fell to the ground. They writhed in the dirt and screamed.

Their nails tore into the flesh of their faces and blood ran free as they cried out. The dragon shifted into shadow form and flew through the front door of the meat cave. Having so swiftly penetrated the entrance of the warm meat cave he looked around briefly then sought his next point of interest, the cries of several meats.

Death assaulted his nostrils. Three former warm meats, now cold, lay before him. They were large, and apparently male. In a section of the meat cave beyond the entrance he found several of the warm meats piled in the center of a room. Naked and covered in various fluids, they trembled and cried as warm meats with bang sticks laughed at them.

“Please. Why…” sobbed one of the warm meats.

One of the warm meats who wielded a bang stick, reached out and slapped her across the face. “Shut up, bitch.”

The dragon’s eyes widened. Dozens of images assaulted his mind. He quietly writhed in place for a moment as images, memories, rose to the forefront of his thoughts. All manner of things occurred to him, but he soon rejected those images. They caused a strange stirring inside his chest. He didn’t like it, but he also realized that he liked several of these warm meats even less. For the first time, he felt a true desire to rip and tear the flesh of the warm meat.

Unable to deny that growing urge any longer, the dragon unleashed his rage upon the room in front of him. Clothed, or unclothed, all the warm meats present screamed and writhed on the ground as his rage washed over them. Terrified due to his aura, the warm meats with bang sticks fired wildly for a moment before they lost all sense of coherence. He rushed forward and leapt atop the nearest of the warm meats that caused the pain in his chest.

His teeth tore into the screaming face of the warm meat, and soon ripped through his skull. His screams silenced; he no longer caused the pain in the dragon’s chest. So, the dragon moved to the next warm meat that caused that painful stirring.

One by one, he slaughtered the warm meats in that room until only the naked and liquid soaked meats remained. His rage mitigated; his aura lessened. Their terror lessened as well, and soon they each fell unconscious due to the shock of all that they had experienced that night.

He went back outside and killed the meats that he found there as well. Now that he had experienced the pain in his chest, these warm meats also caused the same stirring. He would never be able to find rest that night with his heart trembling in such a way.

Over a dozen warm meats dead, whether by his hand or by the hand of other warm meats, it was inevitable that the stink meats would come sniffing around. He hated those stink meats. They tasted terrible.

He killed the stink meats in the area then left to seek out another cry in the dark. The voices in the dark were less than before. Many of them no longer cried out for help, for one reason or another. Yet, some of them remained.

Exhausted, he continued his efforts long into the night. Several more instances of various types of meat on meat violence occurred. It was more common that the night meat, or the stink meat, attacked the warm meat but sometimes the warm meats were seen to fight each other.

Eventually, he answered enough cries in the dark for their constant chatter to become a low murmur inside his head. However, his meandering had not been aimless. All along he had been drawn slowly to a specific direction. At this point he’d crossed a large swathe of the city and had arrived at a place that seemed strangely familiar. Words came to him. Warehouse. Safe. Lair.

He did not realize it, but he had arrived at his recently claimed warehouse safety zone. Once he entered his land, the voices nearly ceased altogether. In the heart of that run-down warehouse, the dragon finally found rest for the night.