Page 136 of Pets in Space 10

Hazel

Amoment ago, the world had narrowed to smoke and sound and the echo of Tyvaron’s roars.

Now it was quiet.

Too quiet.

The obsidian-scaled dragon lay slumped against the ridge, his chest rising and falling in shallow, shuddering breaths.

He was alive. Barely. Tyvaron hadn’t killed him, though he easily could have.

Instead, he had knocked him out with the kind of brutal precision that came from knowing every weak point in a body like his own.

He stood over the fallen tyvarin now, blood dripping from a fresh gash in his shoulder, wings trembling with exhaustion. His own wounds had reopened, staining the rocky slope with streaks of crimson and silver.

There was no way he’d be able to fly any further.

I wanted to run to him, to wrap my arms around that giant, wounded frame and hold him together with sheer willpower.

Instead, I stepped quietly to his side and laid a hand on his foreleg.

He didn’t say anything right away. Just stared at the fallen dragon. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw.

“He’s like I was. Lost. Bound. I wanted to save him.”

“We will,” I said. “But you can’t help him if you bleed out on this mountainside. Let’s get inside the lab.”

He finally tore his gaze away, nodding once. “We leave him here for now. Later, we shall return. Help however we can. And if we cannot… I will give him a merciful death.”

I shuddered at the determination in his voice. He would do it, no doubt about it. But I was glad he was going to look for a different solution first.

We didn’t speak again for a while.

Tyvaron walked slowly beside me, his breathing laboured, each step leaving a smear of blood on the stone. His wing dragged behind him, limp and broken, but he kept moving. He didn’t ask for help. Didn’t complain. Just pressed on, one massive claw after the next.

I stayed close. Not because I thought he’d fall, but because I needed to. Because if he stumbled, I’d be there. Even if I couldn’t catch him, at least I’d be by his side.

It was a silly notion. The likelihood was I’d be turned into Hazel-mousse by his weight. But that did not make me put any distance between us.

The path narrowed ahead, funnelling into a steep channel of carved stone leading directly to the dark scar in the cliffside – the lab. Tel-Vhar. The place that had turned Tyvaron from man into monster.

The closer we came, the more the air changed. Colder. Sharper. Tainted with ozone and something almost metallic. Not quite blood, but not far off. My skin prickled with it. My stomach tightened.

Tyvaron growled something to Ruby. Dragon language. Ruby fluttered her wings, chirped excitedly, then flew off, darting from rock to rock, then vanishing entirely when the cliff face swallowed her shadow. I craned my neck, trying to follow her movements, but she was already gone.

“What is she doing?” I asked, my heavy breathing disrupting the words.

“There are drones. Watchers. Automated sentries built to kill anything not coded to the masters’ control.” His voice dropped to a growl. “They will follow heat. Movement. Sound.”

“So… Ruby’s basically bait?”

His silence confirmed it.

“She’s quick. Clever,” Tyvaron rasped after a while, as if to reassure himself. “And they won’t see her coming.”

I didn’t like it. But I trusted her. She wasn’t just a baby. She’d survived here longer than I had. And Tyvaron believed in her. That was enough.

We waited behind a jagged outcrop near the entry point. The black mouth of the lab loomed just a hundred meters ahead. There was no movement, no sign of life.

Then, somewhere up the slope, a shrill chirp rang out.

Followed by a second.

Then a blur of movement – pale purple and smoke trailing behind – shot out across the clearing ahead.

Three metallic forms detached from the stone like shadows peeling loose. Sleek. Spiderlike. They scuttled after her in perfect synchronisation, lasers pulsing from their underbellies as they vanished into the ravine.

Creepy as fuck.

The red light flickered. Paused. Then stilled.

Tyvaron turned to me. “Now.”

We moved fast, or as fast as an injured dragon and an out-of-shape human without shoes could. The gates before us groaned, ancient and rusted, and slid open just enough for us to squeeze through.

A small squeeze for humanity, a big squeeze for dragonkind. But this facility had been built for the tyvarin. The gate was just about large enough to accommodate Tyvaron.

Inside, the light changed. Cold. Fluorescent.

A corridor stretched before us – wide enough for Tyvaron, though barely – lined with dark metal and strange symbols carved into the walls. The air was sterile. Still. The scent of dust and decay sat heavy in my nose.

Every step echoed against the metal walls, a cold hum of distant power vibrating beneath my feet. Light strips flickered overhead, some still functional, others sputtering like dying stars. The entire place felt… wrong. Like it was waiting for us.

Tyvaron moved slowly beside me, quiet now, his breathing steady but tense. His claws clicked against the smooth floor, leaving faint smudges of blood in our wake. The deeper we went, the more the air thickened. Metallic. Sterile. And under it all – something else. Decay.

We passed the first room without speaking.

A long window gave us a view inside. At first, I thought it was empty – just machinery and broken glass – but then I saw the shape on the table. Or what was left of it.

A massive, twisted ribcage. Hollow. Cracked. Half-buried under surgical tools the size of scythes. Dark stains marked the floor beneath it.

I gagged.

Tyvaron’s growl vibrated through the walls. Not directed at me. At the memory. At the horror.

“They dissected one of us here,” he said, voice hoarse.

“One of the… tyvarin?”

He nodded once. “A failure, maybe. Or a rebel. Or just a test subject.” He didn’t say more.

We moved on.

The second chamber was worse.

Glass pods lined the walls, most shattered. Inside the ones that still stood, floating in pale fluid, were fragments – claws, limbs, twisted remains of what might once have been wings. One still had an eye floating inside. It blinked.

I stumbled back, bile rising in my throat.

“What the hell is this place?” I whispered.

Tyvaron didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

This was where he’d been turned into a weapon. And others like him hadn’t survived the process.

We passed sealed doors with claw marks on the inside. Rusted restraints. Broken restraints. Control panels that still sparked when we brushed too close. I didn’t want to know what had been behind some of those doors. Tyvaron never looked away. He knew every room. Every shadow.

He hesitated just before a door, slightly ajar, as if someone had forgotten to close it. I could see it in every line of his body – the memories clawing back. Pain. Fire. Screams.

I reached up, laid a hand gently on his side.

“I’m with you,” I whispered.

And together, we stepped into the place where his nightmares began.

The air here was colder. The lights steadier. And in the centre of the room stood something that looked part shrine, part machine.

A circular platform, raised slightly off the ground, with metallic limbs arched overhead like claws ready to descend. Coils lined the base, and a strange shimmer danced in the air above it – like heatwaves without heat. The air hummed with energy.

“This is it,” Tyvaron said quietly.

I turned to him. He was still bleeding. Still shaking. And yet his eyes were clearer than I’d ever seen them.

“This will help you heal?” I asked. My voice shook slightly.

“In a way.”

“And it still works?”

He tapped a screen with one of his claws and it flickered to life, showing symbols and writing I could not read.

“I believe so.” He sounded tense, so very tense. I wanted to hug him, tell him everything was going to be alright – but was it? Really?

I tried to stay rational, focusing on what was in front of me rather than what could happen. “You’ve seen it used before?”

“Yes,” he rasped. “Once. Long ago. They forced one of us – one who’d clung to his mind – to shift back into his original form. It worked. Briefly. They recorded everything. Then they… took him apart.”

My blood turned to ice. “And you want to try it?”

“I have to.” He looked at me, golden eyes burning. “My memories are here. My name. My true form. Everything they stripped away might still exist inside this place. I can feel it. The chii woke me… but this could return what they stole.”

I stepped forward, putting a hand on his foreleg. “Are you sure?”

He hesitated. Then nodded.

I let my hand linger just a second longer. Then I stepped back.

Tyvaron limped towards the platform. Each step left a smear of blood, a mark of everything he’d endured. He climbed onto it, claws folding close to his body, wings drooping low.

The machine began to hum.

“You will have to press that button,” he said quietly, pointing at a green console with his least injured claw.

I took a deep breath. Was I really going to do this? What if it killed him? What if I’d been the one to start the machine that would take his life? Could I live with that?

But there was no alternative. He wanted this. I had to trust him.

Lights sparked overhead. The shimmer intensified. The air grew sharp, electric.

He looked at me one last time. “If I do not return…”

“You will,” I said, firm.

He nodded once – and closed his eyes.

And then the machine came to life.