Call me Mack. Sunfall Beach was the haven of my solitude; alone with Vicky, the only companion I wanted. Ours was a paradise of two seasons, where the chorus of a thousand birds and insects repeated Nature's Greatest Hits every Saturday.

Saltys rarely ventured into my fishing waters, with one exception. Dimbi Dun owned the same waters, but he tolerated me and never bothered us. The old man on the bluff, Jarli, had told me that Dimbi Dun was almost two hundred years old. The monster crocodile was twenty four feet long and had a distinct golden streak along one side of his snout, head and shoulders. Of his draconian countenance, we rarely saw him, but it was his laws that kept away the sharks and other saltys.

I'd draw up the nets and see the dragons basking on the strata of the estuaries. They'd yawn so birds could clean their teeth. Their grace was ours, a balance existed. Vicky would run along the shore as the waves retreated from her galloping paws. Her barking was met by their unflinching stares. A mutual respect of territories was enjoyed by all the creatures of Sunfall Beach.

I loved Vicky very much.

I had a radio on my boat, Fisherman's Pride. On the day when things changed, it began with a distress call. A sheila identified her vessel as the Miss Terry, a name I recognized as a poacher's. She told me they were being attacked by a giant crocodile. They were so close that I could hear their gunshots in the distance. I told her to send up a flare. I got out my binoculars and spotted it, as the first cool shadows of evening raised a silence.

With some dread I took my boat to the site. What I found turned my stomach. Dimbi Dun had killed the safari poachers and left them in pieces and sprayed blood all over their camp. Even the girl was dead. I guessed the nature of their visit. A wealthy family had hired the poachers for some crocodile hunting.

I felt terrible fear as we landed next to the wrecked boat. Dimbi Dun had smashed through it, spilling fuel and oil into the water. I was breathing shallowly, looking around nervously. Vicky was growling softly.

I opened a crate and noted they hadn't made it to one of their weapons, a thirty-caliber machinegun. There were other rifles scattered among the dead, but none of them were proven effective against the beast that had come for them. I could smell the primeval reptile and so could Vicky.

Her growling became a sharp barking as she turned and faced the darkness of motor oil on the water. Fear stopped my breath as I turned in time to see that Dimbi Dun was not gone. The trap was sprung, and the living-horror lunged as a black wave and glistening white teeth. In an instant, Vicky was caught, and her neck broken.

There was deep terror in me, but my hands kept moving. My eyes were wide with fear, but I kept them focused. Had I hesitated, I would not have survived.

I knelt and opened the ammo box while Dimbi Dun tore apart my dog's remains. As soon as I had loaded the machinegun, Dimbi Dun turned and came for me. He was so huge that part of him was still in the water while the rest of him blocked my retreat to my own boat. I started shooting, missing and spraying thunder and light.

Several bullets ricocheted off the fuel barrels of the poacher's camp and sparked the spilled oil on the water. The flames turned our battlefield into a hellscape. Dimbi Dun was turned and the loud rattle of the machinegun spit lead across his armor. The dragon was bleeding and burning and decided he'd had enough of me and retreated into the water, vanishing into the darkness.

With a such a darkness rising inside of me, I too retreated, before he could come back for me. When I was back home, I just sat for a long time, all night, my pain at losing Vicky changing me into a monster. I feared what I was becoming as I contemplated my revenge. I no longer cared about the balance of nature or the grace of Sunfall Beach. A war had begun.

I reminded myself that I was Mack the lone fisherman of Sunfall Beach and that I was happy with my dog, Vicky. No, I was afraid.

Dimbi Dun, the ancient golden crocodile, had taken Vicky from me. I was still afraid as I recognized that I was changing, mutating into a different kind of man. I feared Vicky would not recognize me, what I was becoming. Vengeance consumed me and I became empty and devoid of my love of nature.

My descent into darkness even corrupted me in The Dreaming. When I stood there facing the dragon, flames swirling all around us, I was given terrible strength. I killed Dimbi Dun by lancing him through his heart. As he died, he spoke to me:

"As I die, what dies with me? When I am gone, what becomes you?"

"I don't care, die monster!" I responded.

My spear went through his heart over and over until I decided he was dead.

I stood upon the dead giant as it floated in a sea of blood. Parts of my flesh crumbled dryly away, revealing I was hollow inside and full of wriggling black anger. It was eating me from the inside out, leaving only my husk standing and casting a shadow. My shadow grew to the edge of the sea where the sun hung low and then my shadow eclipsed the sun itself. Dimbi Dun's corpse was sinking slowly, and I stood upon his remains, as my vessel in the waters of dead blood.

Stolen novel; please report.

Dimbi Dun also crawled up beside me as a much smaller crocodile, but his golden streak identifying him. He looked up at me and stared into my eyes and said:

"Is this good? Will you call this peace?" Dimbi Dun asked me.

I fell to my knees and began to weep. I was broken, realizing that I had only made things worse. There was no peace, only a curse.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing there upon the beach and Vicky was running along the shore, barking at seabirds and leaving her pawprints. Then she was gone and there was no Vicky. Her pawprints were still there and I watched in sadness as the waves crept inexorably towards her pawprints and washed them away, leaving no trace of her.

I returned to the false world from The Dreaming, but I had not changed my mind. My heart was broken, my fears were confused and shadowed but my mind was the mind of a man who believed he could right a wrong with violence. I sat up and heard the distant song of Jarli. I recognized his didgeridoo as my eyes fluttered to the morning light.

He was trying to use his magic to restore peace to Sunfall Beach. He was aware of the conflict and the rage and sought to bring back the sacred balance and harmony that made our corner of the world a peaceful place. He was right, and I knew he was right, but I refused to accept it. I was damaged and afraid, and I needed to pursue the fever, unable to let go.

I went to the poacher's camp, now cleaned of all carnage. Animals and insects had worked tirelessly to remove every scrap of skin, every drop of blood and each broken bone. Only the weapons interested me, I was part of nature, a strange part, that came and took what nothing else wanted.

I took it all back home, where I would prepare for battle.

As I made my preparations, cleaning and loading all of the rifles and the machinegun, I saw Jarli approaching from a distance. Every once in a while, he would turn around and stare back in the direction of his own home, while standing on just one leg, the other propped up on his knee. He was praying or casting a spell. I honestly don't know the difference. I do know his teachings are all true. Our world, the world of Man, is false.

Only The Dreaming is real.

"Mack, my son, what is it that is happening?" Jarli asked me from a short distance.

"I am going to go and..." I hesitated before I said what I planned to do. Somehow it sounded very evil, when I put words to my will: "I am going to go kill Dimbi Dun."

"Mack." Jarli said, walking slowly towards me. "You're angry Mack. You've lost Vicky?"

"He took her." I stated.

"Mack, you know this isn't right. The battle is over. Let it go. Let peace return. Even Dimbi Dun is ready for peace to return." Jarli said a lot of words, it seemed. I thought about it and said:

"I'm not ready." I said. Something in me was begging me to listen to Jarli, some part of me that was afraid of what would happen if I succeeded. Killing the crocodile wouldn't be the end. If I killed Dimbi Dun, the war inside of me would never end.

"We have storms on this beach, terrible storms." Jarli was standing behind me without casting his shadow over me while I loaded Fisherman's Pride with weapons and traps.

"I don't have time for another story." I objected.

"We live where tourists don't come." Jarli changed stance and shifted his efforts.

"I'm leaving, Jarli. Best you go where you are supposed to be." I looked at him and then I looked the direction of his home.

I shoved off and was ready to leave. I heaved myself up into my boat. Without effort, Jarli appeared in my boat.

"I am your conscience. You aren't listening to me, but I am still with you." Jarli told me.

I said nothing and sat down while I steered us towards the home of Dimbi Dun. We navigated the waters in mutual silence, although I knew he knew the intimate words in my skull and surely as I knew his. We were arguing there, without looking at each other or speaking. I admitted to him that I was grateful that I was arguing with him instead of with myself.

He pointed out, wordlessly, that part of me agreed with him. I had said as much, silently. Jarli was only accompanying me as far as he could, before he was participating in trespassing. When he stepped off my boat at the entrance to the salty's cave, I felt alone in a way I didn't like.

Dark fears rose deep from pain.

When I was in the lair of the dragon, I felt another kind of fear. Dimbi Dun was a dangerous monster, and I was trespassing. I put on the lights and saw two female saltys abandon their nests and retreat. They sensed I was too deadly and were too afraid of me to stay and guard their eggs.

What I did next was an act of evil. I stepped off my boat and waded to the eggs with a machete in my hand. The work I did was short and horrible and when I was done, I finally realized that I needed to quit my quest.

The horror I felt was at what I had become. A tear escaped as I acknowledged that I had become the monster. I was the bringer of warfare and horror to my peaceful home. We could have had peace already, but I had carried yesterday's battle to today. I knew it was wrong and I had done it anyway.

Dimbi Dun attacked from nowhere. Somehow, I evaded two of his attacks and struck him across his snout with the machete. With my feet feeling like they were slipping - I leapt along his thrashing back and caught the edge of my boat. His mighty tail struck the side and churned the waters white.

I got my motor started and backed out of the cave. Outside I held a rifle ready to defend myself. When I saw his eyes watching me from the darkness, just a lunge away from me, I realized he had me too.

We both had the other in our sights. It could all be over. He could have me and I could have him. We could end each other.

Instead, we both just stared. Very slowly, without fully knowing, my fear slowed to a heartbeat. My sweat dripped and I saw him blink. Then my weapon was lowered, and he was gone, back into his home, leaving me there.

It was like a miracle. I had let it go, as I stared at him, and somehow the crocodile had decided too, that it was over. We had made a treaty.

I went back home and sat on the beach, trying to remember Vicky. I could see her running along, her wet paws flinging clods of sand. I heard the digeridoo from Jarli's clifftop. As the sun was setting, I let sleep my anger and embraced the memory of my lost friend.

There was no darkness in the night sky. There was no silence on the breeze. There was only peace.