Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Amazing.
My sight is incredible. I can see so far and so clearly. I never truly realized how bad my eyesight was until now.
As the object gets closer, I make out wings that slice through the air.
That’s one giant bird.
And then the bird comes into full view, and I almost tumble over the rail in shock.
A hair-raising cry splits the sky. The screeching creature flaps its wings and soars past the ledge, diving down toward the water before rising straight up again.
I pinch my eyes shut and open them slowly, but no, it’s not an apparition.
It’s a real-life quetzalcoatlus.
I watch, enraptured, as the most aggressive of all flying carnivores in history and the largest animal to ever fly makes another turn past the balcony.
Unbelievable.
I’m staring at a dinosaur that’s long extinct back on Earth.
Well, technically, it’s not a dinosaur but a flying reptile that’s part of the pterosaur species.
I bet the guys at the Jurassic Park set in LA would give an arm and a leg to see this. If only I had my phone to take a video. I have to say, the movie makers’ imitation of the warm-blooded reptile wasn’t far off the mark.
The quetzalcoatlus moves in for another round. This time, it gets so close that the swooshing beat of its wings stirs a breeze through my hair, and I can make out a small nick on the tip of its left wing, likely a remnant of some fight.
A layer of downy, light-gray hair covers its body and leathery wings. The small crest on the back of its head is blue, while its wings are black and salmon pink. The tuft of black filaments adorning the crest quivers when the pterosaur goes into a tailspin.
For a reptile that’s sixteen feet tall and weighs around five hundred pounds, it’s astonishingly graceful in flight. With a wingspan of over fifty feet, it’s the size of a Cessna airplane.
It stretches its giraffe-like neck as it makes another lunge through the air with its toothless jaw proudly thrust forward. I’ve never seen anything more awe-inspiring or riveting.
I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet, laughing with excitement as the big reptile circles a few inches from where I’m standing. Since childhood, I’ve been obsessed with dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Posters of every recorded species tiled my bedroom walls, and my bed was buried beneath a mountain of soft dinosaur toys. I named each of them. My favorite was Betty, the quetzalcoatlus that looked like a mutated stork.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that I’m drawn to the prehistoric scavenger doing this strange dance in front of the balcony. It almost seems as if she’s performing especially for me, like some kind of welcoming. What’s odd is that I’m not scared in the least, even though I should be.
Clapping my hands in delight, I praise the quetzalcoatlus for the magnificent show.
“Good dragons,” someone exclaims in a fearful voice behind me.
A woman grabs my arm and pulls me with a forceful tug back into the room. I stumble, grabbing the back of the nearest daybed to keep my balance.
When I’ve righted myself, I come face to face with the woman I saw earlier, the one who was sitting in a lotus position on the floor when Aruan brought me here and the same one who poured the milky liquid into the pool.
She lets me go and shuts the window with a firm click of the latch.
“Good, frightful dragons,” she says again, turning on me with round, bewildered eyes. “You should never go near the window when the dragons are on the hunt. They’ll pick you right off the balcony.”
“Dragons? Are you kidding me?” I throw a thumb over my shoulder. “That’s a quetzalcoatlus.”
I know my stuff when it comes to dinosaurs.
Her forehead crumples into a frown. “A what?”
“On Earth, they lived between a hundred-and-forty-four and sixty-six million years ago,” I continue with enthusiasm. “They’re now extinct.”
She cocks her head. “Our dragons are very much present. Although, the big ones like that don’t come near the palace often. They prefer to stay away from the bustle of activity around the nearby village. It’s rare for one to fly by that close, but there are incidents of people being snatched off the balconies. Seeing you there, nose to nose with the dragon, almost stopped my heart.”
“Sorry,” I say, feeling bad for scaring her.
At the same time, I’m elated. I can’t get over what happened.
I sneak a peek at the window longingly, but beyond the pink-tinted glass panes, the sky is clear and quiet.
“Never mind.” She makes a brave attempt at smiling. “We won’t speak about this to my brother. He’ll only get angry. Just don’t do that again.”
I have no intention of missing out on the experience if a freaking dinosaur flies past the window again.
My heart starts pumping as a thought hits me. “Are there other, um, dragons on land?”