“Sunny, can you feed the chickens, please?”

Sunny looked up from her phone. Her grandmother shuffled by with a bowl of leftover lettuce.

“Grandma… I’m not exactly dressed for chores.”

“Child, why do you always come over with clothes like that?”

She looked at Sunny’s pencil skirt like only a grandmother could. Half amused, half disapproving. Sunny automatically pulled her skirt a little lower.

“I just got off work,” she mumbled.

“Well, well, it’ll have to do. Here, feed the chickens before you head out.”

Her grandmother smiled and pushed the bowl in her hands.

“Fine. Fine. But then I’m really going. Or I won’t make it home in time.”

“Oh, do you have someone waiting for you?”

Her grandmother’s eyes twinkled with mischief. Sunny smiled.

“Just my cat.”

“Too bad, but you’ll find someone,” the all-knowing grandmother nodded.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Sunny put her phone away and leaned in to give her grandmother a hug.

“And if you do find someone, bring him over.”

“Oh, right away. I’ll drag the poor guy here from day one. Everyone enjoys a car ride over two hours long,” Sunny chuckled.

“If your mother hadn’t left for the city, it wouldn’t have been two hours driving.”

“Then she never would have met dad and I never would have been born.”

Grandma grinned. They had this conversation over and over again. It was the usual closing line for their visits. A little banter between grandmother and granddaughter. Sunny walked out with her purse hooked on her shoulder and the bowl of lettuce in her hand.

“Just leave the bowl there when you’re done!” her grandma shouted after her.

“I know,” Sunny waved.

She walked around the house and instantly found herself in another world. As if all civilization had faded away. And all that was left was wilderness.

Her grandmother lived at the foot of a huge mountain. Their family ground since centuries ago. Sunny’s mother was the first of their family to ever move away from the ancient grounds and head out to live in the city. Though her grandmother always talked about it, she’d never resented her daughter for it. She was sneakily proud that her daughter had dared to face a new life like that. Sunny had grown up in the city, but that hadn’t stopped her grandmother from teaching her all the families’ old traditions. From the best cooking herbs to every day superstitions. And her grandmother loved those superstitions. She couldn't stop talking about demons or dragons or gumiho's... Trust Sunny on that. Most of her nightmares from when she was a child were caused by her grandmother.

She walked into the bushes and cursed silently when her heel got stuck in the loose soil. How could her grandmother even call this a garden anymore? The house just stopped right where the mountain started. The path changed every time she came here. And those foolish chickens wandered around freely too. She arrived at the open spot her grandmother jokingly called the ‘henhouse’ and dumped the lettuce on the ground. The first few chickens flew at it as if they’d been starving for weeks. Sunny’s cellphone rang from somewhere deep in her purse. She carefully balanced the bowl on a cut down tree stump and clicked her phone open in the nick of time.

“Hello? No. No, those papers will be ready by tomorrow. No, I just need to pr… Ugh!”

A heavy sound tumbled through the trees and rolled down the mountain. The ground shook violently. Sunny lost her balance and landed on her rear. Her cellphone flew out of her hand. She dove after it, but the earth shook so violently she needed both her hands to keep her balance. After a while the quakes started subsiding. Sunny waited, in case there were any aftershocks. She’d forgotten how sudden those earthquakes were around here. And the noise… She shivered, but got up quickly. The roaring of the dragon, her grandmother called it. Just the rumbling of falling boulders, but it still scared her every single time she heard it. She dusted the dirt off her clothes and looked for her cellphone. Now she was definitely not getting home in time. Back inside to reassure grandma everything was alright and then the entire ‘saying goodbye’ process again.

“Where’s that damn phone?!”

She squatted down and searched between the bushes. She found it a bit further away. A few new scratches, but nothing that stood out and it looked like it still worked. She sighed in relief. She was just about to get up when she heard everything go silent again. The same low rumbling rolled down from the mountain. She waited for the quakes, but they stayed away this time. Thank god. She righted herself carefully. It had sounded so close. If the boulders were crumbling so close to the house, it could get dangerous for her grandmother. Sunny bit her lip. She wouldn’t be able to leave with an easy heart if she didn’t check just in case. She put her phone safely in her purse and left it at the tree stump. She searched her way up the mountain, through the wilderness. The mountain was completely overgrown with dense vegetation and the only place nearby she knew to be rocky enough to crumble was by the little creek. She followed a path between the trees. Her feet already knew the way. She’d spend her childhood here, exploring every possible nook and cranny.

Soon she found the creek and pushed a few bushes out of the way. No sign of fallen boulders. The rocky place remained exactly as she remembered. She wormed her way past the stubborn bushes and gently pulled her skirt away from their grip. Her heels clicked on the stone ground when she approached. She looked up in scrutiny. It seemed alright. There was one boulder that looked suspiciously loose and would probably fall with the next quakes, but a lonely boulder would be stopped by the vegetation. She smiled. She’d been worried over nothing. Like always. She turned and spotted something in the corner of her eye. Black rock? This mountain didn’t have any black rocks. At that moment, it moved and disappeared around the corner. Sunny blinked in surprise. She heard bushes crackle and something sweeping over the ground. She stayed where she was. It sounded like something big. If it was a wild animal, she wasn’t taking any chances. She carefully backed away. Just then she heard that threatening silence again and knew what was coming. She ducked. The rumbling shook her apart. It was earsplittingly close, but sounded almost like it came from inside the mountain. Like an echo through the network of caves there. She threw a frightened look at the loose boulder far above her. It crackled ominously, but held out. When the quake was over, she was still shaking along and her ears buzzed from all the noise. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about that wild animal anymore. With this much natural violence, it would have run for cover.

“Ugh, what a day,” she mumbled.

She scrambled up for the umpteenth time that day and sighed heavily. Her sigh got caught halfway in . She turned sharply and fell open. Something raised itself from the shadow of the rocks and looked at her with flaming eyes. Her brain registered the thing, animal, creature,… and if she hadn’t seen this with her own two eyes, she never would have believed it. This was impossible. Her eyes slid over the creature. It was three times as tall as her and towered high above her. Black leather skin. Glossy scales all over his back. Muscular paws that ended in claws. A very agile tail was sweeping across the ground. Sunny looked up again. Tall narrow horns. A long snout. Two black whiskers that swayed in the wind. And an impressive set of razor sharp teeth. Her eyes grew wide in fear, but she couldn’t move for an inch. Her legs simply refused to.

The creature rose up further and stared straight in Sunny’s eyes. Sunny could literally see the fire dance in them. Only when her lunges started screaming for air, did she realize she was holding her breath. She gasped. In that one second of broken eye contact, the creature moved till right before her and growled threateningly. She screamed and backed away. She barely managed to keep her balance, but cut her ankle at a sharp rock in the process. The eyes of the creature narrowed suddenly. Sunny heard him inhale with a sharp sound. She shook slightly while she looked down at her ankle. Blood welled up from the deep scratch. Oh, god, had he smelled that? At that moment she finally regained control over her legs. She didn’t waste another second and fled. The creature growled in irritation. She suppressed the need to look back and instead concentrated on the dangerous way down. The ominous crushing of plants and bushes under heavy paws, chased her the entire time. She raced down the mountain at a dizzying speed. The seam of her skirt started to rip, but she quickly shrugged it up to move more freely. All the little pathways she knew as a child surfaced in her mind. She ran so fast the branches cut open her skin, but she refused to slow down. She'd only just lost the searing hot breath on her back.

Sunny noticed a movement in the corner of her eye and instinctively stopped. She skidded and slid to the ground with a painful landing. Just at that moment the pushed down tree trunk hit the ground as well with a thundering clap. Not a few inches away from her. She gasped for breath and tried to get up, but something hit her ribcage and dragged her to the ground again. A hard scaled tail clamped around her. She screamed. Sunny wrestled and fought, but the tail only coiled tighter around her waist. She struggled for air. The creature bend down till right in front of her. With a small huff he blew smoke in her face. She coughed violently. All her muscles started to shake and her head started to get fuzzy. Her legs gave out from under her.

The moment that the creature lifted her higher with his tail, Sunny couldn’t deny it any longer. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself this wasn’t real. She knew what this creature was. He unfolded his huge black wings and shook them slightly. With a sudden yank Sunny was pulled into the air. She looked on helplessly as the ground got further and further away. Her grandmother had been right… Dragon Mountain really was named after dragons.

But they weren’t as extinct as they’d thought them to be.