Oakley Miller was dreaming. He must have been dreaming. Nothing else could explain the overwhelming sense of dread he could feel, as the beast crawled towards his hiding spot.

His day had started out like any other, a peck on the cheek from his fiance as she took their daughter off to school. He got out of bed half an hour later to make his morning coffee. He could tell from the bright shards of light poking through the curtains that the weather was going to be lovely.

Usually, Oakley wouldn’t mind about the weather being good or bad; he spent most of his days in his art studios without even peeking at the sun. It was different today, though.

Oakley’s daughter, Erin, had her birthday that weekend. Oakley knew exactly what he was going to get for her, but he’d needed to wait for the perfect day to go out and paint it for her.

Erin had a favorite tree, out in the fields near their village. Oakley would pass by it with her while on walks, so that she could spend some time climbing it. Oakley planned to paint some of the views from that tree, so that Erin could look at them even when she wasn’t on a walk with him.

The good weather gave Oakley the chance to finally get his act together and take his painting supplies up to the tree to begin painting.

As the temperature was turning, Summer to Autumn, the morning was a bit chillier than Oakley had expected. The sun was still out and shining down, but it had less intensity than he would’ve liked. He didn’t bother to go back inside to grab an extra layer to cover his slender frame, instead deciding that walking to the tree would keep him warm.

An hour into the act of painting, Oakley was regretting his decisions. To paint accurately, he needed to sit down on his stool near the canvas for prolonged periods of time. Each time he decided to stand up, he would have to waste time finding the details of where he was looking again. Each time he decided to stay seated, the chill air would seep under his clothes and gnaw at his skin.

The weather was one of the main reasons Oakley disliked living in England. It was rarely pleasant and, even when it was, it was only a cruel trick anyway.

He tried to put the thoughts of the cold out of his mind. He was there for a gift for Erin, it was worth getting a little chilly.

Oakley had originally intended for the tree to be painted for his fiance, Liliana, but he was sure he could find a different view for her that was just as meaningful. Liliana’s birthday wasn’t for another couple of months, which helped. At some point, he would need to stop gifting her paintings and get her something worthwhile. The paintings showed his affection, but he knew that she would prefer something else following half a decade of getting canvas after canvas.

Oakley liked painting, especially painting outdoors when the weather permitted it. He was left alone with his thoughts and a paintbrush. He was a naturally quiet person, so this was one method he used to communicate to the ones he loved. As he spent his time at home, he was also the cook for the household. Meals were another way he showed his appreciation to others.

Oakley knew that he had his flaws, but he also knew he had the time to correct them. Heck, he was due to be married the following year. He had a wonderful kid that he was painting for and he had quite the good taste in music. That last thought came to him only as he noticed he was humming along to a song he’d forgotten the title of. He cursed lightheartedly, knowing he wouldn’t get it out of his head until he remembered the name of the tune.

Oakley felt something brush against his nose. Something else tap his head. A drop of water hit the back of his outstretched hand, paintbrush still in his grasp. Oakley looked up. The weather had shifted dramatically in such a short space of time. How long had he been lost in his thoughts?

The once clear skies were now coated with deep grey clouds, molded and merged together to blot out the sun.

Oakley didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the unfinished painting- though it was closer to being finished than he had anticipated at this hour- and ran for cover under the reaching arms of the great oak tree.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

By the time Oakley had run under the tree with his painting, the bare few seconds he had taken, the rain was coming down in full force.

Oakley was astonished. He hadn’t seen a single cloud in the sky all morning- noteworthy for England- and yet, all of a sudden… where had this all come from? He wanted to voice his complaints to someone but, knowing he was all alone atop the hill, he just found solace in the cover the tree provided. He hoped to wait out the rest of the bad weather and race home before the painting got ruined. He could see his supplies getting soaked through. Thankfully, none of it could really be ruined by the rain, but it was a shame to see it in such a state, anyway.

Oakley’s brown, messy hair was now slightly dampened down, flattened across his face. He absentmindedly noticed that it reached down to his lips and considered needed to book in an appointment at the barbers soon.

Oakley, hoping for at least some good news, looked down at the painting. It was of the sunny rolling fields that he had been seeing for the previous hour or two. Everything looked okay. None of the paint had been ruined by rain. In fact, he was lucky enough to have avoided even one rogue drop of water on the canvas.

The fields were almost golden at this point in the summer. What hadn’t been harvested had aged away, yellowing in the sun as it dried. The winter was Oakley’s favorite time of year, but this period of time was Erin’s favorite. Oakley suspected it was due to her birthday being nestled into it.

Then, to his horror, Oakley watched as the painting began to drip. None of the paint ran off the canvas, but the picture he had worked so hard on started to morph and shift before his eyes. The golden hills he had painted started to creep in with the dripping blue skies, turning the hills a muddy shade of green. There was something else. Something wrong with the cluster of trees he had painted in one corner of the landscape. A dark blotch.

Mystified and almost as curious as he was concerned, Oakley watched the blotched drip down from the cluster of trees and across the green hills closest to those trees. Strangely enough, it then seemed to melt away, disappearing from the canvas.

Oakley felt more drops hit his head. His cover was becoming less useful by the moment. The ground outside was waterlogged and the once dry dirt was now a shallow river of mud.

He looked back down at the canvas, concerned that it may now become wetter still. Oakley dropped the canvas in shock and tried backing away from it, but slipped in the mud.

The dark splotch had appeared, but over the hills closer to the viewer. Now that it was closer, Oakley could see that it was no error at all. It had form; a human form and it was rushing right towards Oakley. He tried to scramble away from the discarded canvas, but to no avail as one grasping hand, forged out of acrylic paints, reached forth from the canvas and grabbed Oakley’s ankle.

Oakley kicked out at the hand forcing it off his body and he pushed himself up to his feet to get away. He backed out, away from the canvas and out of the shelter of the tree, into the pouring rain.

Oakley looked up at the rain clouds, then back at the canvas- lying wet and inert on the ground. He returned his eyes to the sky, but there was no more rain. The skies were blue, the ground dry.

“What the hell was that,” he muttered to himself, looking down at his ankle where he could still feel the grip of the hand. Perhaps he had been imagining it all-

The paint was still there. The acrylic that formed the hand, had formed a ring around his ankle. Oakley tried to kick it off, not wanting to touch it with his hands, but his kicking seemed to push it into motion, travelling onto his other leg and then beginning to creep upwards, slowly covering the rest of his body.

Oakley started to scream as the paints took over, looking up at the sky, at the exposed sun. Slowly, as the paints covered his eyes, he couldn’t cry as they extinguished the light.

Oakley remained, frozen, looking up at the sky, for but an instant. Suddenly, the painted rushed off of him, forming a wet puddle that he was standing within. Before he could do anything to get out of the puddle, Oakley’s world shot away from him, as he fell through into darkness.

Silence greeted him as Oakley felt gravity lose control of his body. He was freefalling through nothing… no, through everything. As his eyes adjusted, Oakley could see numerous pricks of light dotting the expanse that he fell through, forever pulled by a tether of paint around his ankle. The paint fell away, leaving just a singular thin, golden thread.

Whether it lasted a lifetime, or passed in the blink of an eye, the silent tension was snapped in an instant as Oakley slammed against cold rock.

Other thuds greeted his ears as he tried to shake the ringing from his head. He had hit the back of his head on impact with wherever he was. He blinked the stars away and looked around before getting up. He was in a cave. There were numerous other people lying on the ground, others beginning to get up and look around. Something was glittering in the cave. Something else, something… bigger was perched atop the mound of sparkling treasure.

“As your summoner, I command you!” A voice rang out over the cave, “kill that dragon!”

Oakley could do nothing but lie there in bewilderment and terror as, in response to the commanding voice, there was simply a deep, rattling laugh that shook through the entire cave- including his body. Then the fighting began.