Sollia was a small, but prosperous city a few hundred miles east of the Capital. Throughout the Last War, Sollia had remained relatively untouched by the bloodshed, being dubbed the Peaceful City. I’d been there a few times, mostly on my way through to some other area, but I’d always found that the food in Sollia was good and the people were better. But as the coal industry had ramped up, Sollia became richer and richer, and I saw less and less of it. Then, ten or so years after the war, coal miners dug into the wrong cave system and woke up a dragon.

By the time I got to Sollia, the coalfields in the hills were ablaze. By then, over half the population had fled and most of the ones that hadn't were already dead. I’d been the closest Hunter to Sollia. In fact, as I later learned, the only Hunter within a hundred miles of Sollia. The Guild was still dealing with losses from the war and from the increase in the apprenticeship period. So it was just me.

I walked into town through a field of ash and ruin, that I later learned had once been the largest farm in the area. The ash and smoke choked my lungs and stung my eyes, even through the cloth I’d wrapped around my mouth.

I could see only flashes of movement in the clouds, shadows and silhouettes of a dragon. Every few minutes, a fiery plume would shoot out from the sky, striking somewhere far off, before disappearing into smoke.

I trudged through ash piled as high as my ankles, slowly making my way to the city center. I saw a few corpses, charred to the bone, left by the side of the road. They were partially buried in ash, which was falling like snow.

As the wreckage of farms turned into the ruins of buildings, I heard the dragon roar. It sounded like the sky was cracking open as the ground shook. Dust clouds erupted from the ground, joining the swirling ash.

My heart felt as if it was beating out of my chest as I pushed forward. Every instinct in me screamed: run. I gripped my sword tighter and gritted my teeth. I couldn’t turn back now. I took a deep breath, ignoring how much my lungs burned, and found enough bravery to take another step forward. Then, another. And another.

Then, the dragon landed.

It dove out of the sky, so fast it was just a blur, and slammed onto the ground twenty meters from me. The cobblestone cracked and fractured. The impact flung me into the air and I tumbled to the ground, landing in a collapsed building. I crashed through the building and it crumbled around me.

I struggled to my feet, pushing away debris, just in time to see the dragon turn toward me.

Its eyes were the color of desert sand and size of doorways. Its scales were caked in ash, but I just barely could see that they were swamp green beneath the grime. Its wings were larger than the sails of a warship and as it unfurled them, they blotted out the sun.

I froze in place. My sword clattered out of my hands and I tried to bend down to pick it up, but even if my body had moved, my hands were shaking too much to hold anything. I just stood there, not moving, as the dragon turned back and began to walk away.

With every step, the earth shook enough to throw me off balance. As soon as I was out of its sight, I collapsed to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks. As the dragon stomped away, tearing apart homes with its jaws, cracking them like they were shells, I just watched.

I closed my eyes and began to sob, quietly at first, and then violently. When I opened my eyes again, what felt like an eternity later, the dragon was still there, ripping open a stone church like a child ripping open a present at Christmas.

I tried to get to my feet, but my knees gave out under me. I screamed and tried again, to the same results. I collapsed to the ground and reached for my sword, just barely managing to pull it to my chest. Then, I tore off strips from my shirt and tied my hands around the handle.

Using my sword as leverage, I pushed myself to my feet. My legs felt unsteady under me, but I was up.

I took one step forward and nearly collapsed again. But I didn’t, in large part thanks to my sword, which I used as a cane. I took another step, then another, limping along slowly, watching uselessly as the dragon took a swipe at the church with its claws, knocking off a corner of the roof. I heard people screaming from inside and tried to tell my legs to run, but instead I continued to hobble along at a snail’s pace.

I saw the dragon swing its claw at the church again and I screamed, “I’m over here!” My voice was hoarse and quiet. The dragon, if it heard, didn’t pay me any attention.

It continued to slowly, but surely, knock the roof off the church, seemingly delighting in the screams of the people inside.

Finally, it knocked the last of the roof off and craned its long neck inside. I saw it pull its head out, legs dangling from between its teeth. That was when I finally started running.

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My legs burned as I pushed through inches of ash, jumped over rubble, and sprinted full speed toward the dragon, which continued to snap up victims in its jaws.

I began to scale a building next to the dragon, intent to jump from the roof onto its back. However, the height only gave me an even more horrifying view of the church. Inside, there was so much blood that it painted the floors and walls, and a crowd of huddled people at the end of the church furthest from the dragon, screaming for help.

I hesitated, for just a second, at the edge of the roof, as the dragon snapped another person up into its mouth. It could have swallowed them all at once, but instead it chose to eat them one at a time. Why was that?

A little girl made eye contact with me and screamed something at me, but I was still frozen in fear. The next instant, she was gone, snapped up in the dragon’s jaws.

My heart pounded in my ears as I took a few steps back. What was I thinking? Even baby dragons were considered dangerous for Hunters to take on. A fully-grown dragon of that size was impossible for anything less than a dozen Hunters. And here I was, alone. I was going to die.

Despite this, I found myself leaping, sword point extended toward the dragon. I plunged my sword deep into the back of the dragon’s neck. It roared and shook. I tried to hold on, but was thrown off. I flew through the air and the seconds stretched into hours.

I saw a fountain of blood spraying from the dragon’s neck, my sword was in the middle of it, already dyed crimson by the blood. Its roars were making shockwaves in the air, knocking dust and ash around. I couldn’t see the people in the church anymore. And then I crashed into a building and it all went black.

I was out for nearly two weeks. All I remember are small snippets of light, noise, and pain. By the time I was fully conscious, it was over, and I was back in the Capital, healing in the Guild’s headquarters. When I got out of the medical wing, a Guild official handed me my sword and told me I’d done a good job and that the people of Sollia were proud of me. He told me to take some time off, that I’d earned it.

My time off wasn’t very restful. I had nightmares, always revolving around the dragon and the people in the church. In some, I was stuck in the church and I watched myself wound the dragon, causing it to rampage. In others, I dreamt that the dragon was chasing me through the burnt streets of Sollia. In others still, I dreamt of burning alive.

A month later, the official report was ready. I was given it to read “if I wanted” along with another assignment. My break was over. As a Guild carriage took me out of the capital, I poured over the gruesome details.

As with all Guild reports, the language was so plain and matter-of-fact it seemed cruel. According to the Guild’s forensic investigators, after I stabbed the dragon, it bled out for two days and two nights, rampaging the entire time. It leveled Sollia and the surrounding countryside, reducing it from rubble to dust. It killed anything that moved and burned most things that didn’t. I got lucky, I was protected by a collapsed building. I’d been pulled out a day after the dragon died by a rescue team, barely hanging onto life. I was the only living person they found. The rest were just corpses.

The report called the situation a complete intelligence failure, noting that previous signs of a possible dragon’s nest in the area had been ignored by the Guild. The report also stated that there had, in fact, been three other Hunters within range of the attack, but they had been busy with private contracts.

The public fallout was immense. Riots immediately erupted in the Capital; the Guild Headquarters was surrounded by mobs night and day. Most Hunters were recalled to help contain the violence. I was recalled, but I ignored the order. The Guild was too busy with other problems to punish me. The Prime Minister, with the approval of Parliament and the Empress, ordered the Guild to pay blood debt for nearly half of the victims.

Then, a survivor of the attack, previously unknown, came forward, and testified that a Hunter had attacked the dragon, enraging it and causing the rampage that ultimately resulted in the deaths of thousands. At that time, they were still pulling bodies out of the wreckage, so they didn’t have a tally, but the most conservative estimates put it at over two thousand deaths.

The Guild refused to declassify which Hunter had been placed on assignment and stood by my actions. The riots got worse and Hunters outside of the Capital started getting attacked by angry mobs of citizens. The Guild branch headquarters in Adoria, Ostbrook, and Perin were destroyed. To this day, they have not been rebuilt.

Three months after Sollia had been leveled, the riots were still ongoing. Every single Hunter was recalled to the Capital. This time, I obeyed. I’d been attacked by villagers in every town I traveled to. There was one incident in particular that still stuck out to me, even years later.

In one small hamlet in the Orislav Isles, I was offered a bed to sleep in by a family. I was thankful and so relieved to receive hospitality rather than hostility that I ignored the tugging in my gut that told me something was wrong. That night, the father tried to slit my throat while I slept.

I escaped into the woods and hid for a week until I could sneak back and get my things. After that, I headed straight for the Capital.

The Sollia Disaster, as it came to be known, was the lowest point of the Guild’s history and the closest it ever came to being abolished. It was two years before Hunters could move around alone without risk of being attacked. That was how Char and I met, we were assigned to be partners, effective until it was deemed safe for solo travel. When the mandate ended, Char was promoted and I went back to traveling on the road.

By that time, the nightmares about Sollia were competing with older nightmares about the Last War for time in my head, they only managed to show up about once a week. So, by my standards, I was all better.

I haven’t been back to Sollia since. The dragon’s rampage I caused made the land inhospitable for many years. I hear there’s an effort to clean it up now, but I’m not sure how that’s going. Frankly, I’m scared to check.

My name is Jonas Dreadstone. I’m 55 years old and I’ve been a Hunter for over half of my life. And I’m responsible for the destruction of an entire town. And even if I could forget it, the world won’t let me.