The Magma Dragon was one of the hardest beasts to find. Most people called them a myth, a legend, or just a story to scare children away from misbehaving. Alex had heard about the Magma Dragon from her parents, and they heard it from their parents. As a young girl, Alex was scared senseless of it, she feared it would swoop into her bedroom and take her away for breaking her mother’s vase, or for messing with the thermostat when her father had told her not to.

Alex stopped believing in the fable of the magma dragon when she got older, she broke things, lied to her parents, and snuck out to her parents, yet the magma dragon never came to get her as the fable had told.

Now, however, there were reports of sightings, blurry images and videos were on the news. The internet went crazy with conspiracy theories, and some tech or media billionaire even offered up some prize money for clear video footage of the dragon.

“Don’t tell me you’re really considering going to find that dragon, Alex.” Alex’s roommate scoffed, “You know they don’t actually exist, right?”

Sitting at the dining table with her laptop and a few tabs of different conspiracy threads open in her browser, Alex sipped her coffee and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, but he’s offering 15 million dollars, I have to at least try.”

Her roommate rolled her eyes, “Where are you even going to start looking? All these threads say different places.” Her roommate walked behind her and leaned down to hover her head just next to Alex’s.

“See? Look, this guy says they might be in Norway, this guy says Hawaii. These are all over the place,” she chuckled.

Alex shook her head and turned her head to look at her roommate. “Well, I have a lead that points to that volcano up the mountains outside of town.”

“Who told you that?” her roommate raised a brow at her, confused. Her quick glance at the conspiracy threads Alex had open did not mention their town or the town’s volcano anywhere.

Alex dragged the cursor around her laptop screen idly before she tapped her trackpad, “My parents told me the story whenever I was naughty as a kid,” she chuckled.

“And you believe that stuff?” the red panda chuckled.

“It’s worth a shot, it’s just a few hours away, and I’ve always wanted to go see that volcano and the mountains anyway,” Alex smiled as she pushed herself away from the dining table. She shut her laptop lid, picked up the laptop, and headed to her bedroom.

Her roommate watched as the tiger walked off, she shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the couch to flop down on it. “Well! Let me know how it goes!” She switched on the TV and scrolled through the Netflix catalog.

Alex gathered a few things from her room, some winter clothes, food and drink, blankets, a camera, batteries, some climbing and hiking gear, and a gun. She made sure that she had ammo in there too before she set off in her car and drove out of town and towards the mountain range that was only barely visible in the distance.

Alex left her car in the small gravel parking lot of the nearby ranger’s station and set off on the rest of her journey on foot. Starting down at the foot of the mountains and slowly making her way up. She brought childhood recordings of her father telling her the story of the magma dragon and listened to it, following the rather vague directions that it gave, and even cheering happily when she spotted something that was mentioned in those scary stories. It took her around three days to get from the bottom of the mountain range to the flatlands that were on top. She set up camp with a small tent and a fire and ate the canned food and snacks that she had packed. The top of the mountain range was covered in snow, nothing but pure white as far as the eye could see. The only thing that wasn’t white was the volcano that stuck out from the flatlands like a sore thumb. The bottom of the volcano was caked in snow, but the top was black, with the opening letting out a soft orange-yellow glow.

She documented her entire trip, videos, photos, and voice memos.

“Day three, I’ve finally made it up to the flatlands up in the mountains… It’s awfully fucking cold, but that volcano over there, looks very warm,” she turned the camera in the direction of the glowing volcano and zoomed in on it a bit. “That’s the volcano my father mentioned in his stories, and if I’m going to find that dragon anywhere, it’d be there.” She stopped the recording and continued heading towards the glowing volcano.

Alex marched through the deep snow, with her big winter coat and boots changed from black to almost complete white as she continued her quest to find that dragon.

It was night by the time Alex arrived at the foot of the volcano. It was still cold and Alex was still shivering, but the warmth that came from the volcano helped her shivering go away. She pulled off her winter jacket hoodie and tugged her scarf down from her muzzle. She smiled up at the massive volcano.

Off to the side of the volcano was a big opening to a cave. With the sky dark and the ground covered in snow, Alex needed a place that was snow-free to set up camp for the night and that cave looked like the best place for her to do that.

Alex hiked carefully up the side of the volcano until she reached the cave opening. It was just as dark, or darker than the outside was, even, but without the snow, it felt a lot dryer and warmer.

Alex dropped her bag down and began unpacking the tent. She then laid out the tarp, put together the tentpoles, and then she began to hammer down the hooks into the ground of the cave.

‘Clink, clink, CRACK.’

Alex stopped hammering the hooks into the ground and went a little wide-eyed at that crack sound that came out of nowhere. The cracking sound continued softly, traveling through the ground that Alex was on. She looked around and saw the ground cracking. Her eyes went even more wide-eyed and she quickly reached for her backpack, but the ground underneath her parted.

“Aaaah!” She screamed as she fell down. She was able to grab her backpack, and it fell with her. She landed on the ground below with a loud thud.

Then everything went black.

Alex felt her head throb as she woke up, surrounded by rubble and rocks. Her backpack laid under her head, having cushioned her head from the fall. It still hurt like hell, though. Alex looked up at the hole that she fell through, the remnants of the tent she was setting up hanging down from the ledge. She chuckled and shook her head.

“Just my luck,” she bit her lower lip and pushed herself up from the ground. The secret cave that Alex just discovered was warm, and the entire space had an orange glow that was similar to the one she saw coming from the volcano’s crater. The warm temperature had Alex quickly taking off her jacket and scarf, she left it on the rubble where she fell to, grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulders.

There was a path for Alex to follow, so she took her camera out of her bag and followed it.

“Still day three, I found a cave at the base of the volcano and I fell through the ground into another cave… Not sure how I’m going to get out… But maybe I’ll find that magma dragon,” the tigress chuckled, watching her step as she traveled deeper and deeper into the cave.

The black cave walls were matte and non-reflective, the orange glow from the magma didn’t bounce off the surface very well, keeping the cave dark, but still with enough visible light.

Alex slipped as she walked and filmed, “Ack!” She yelped, her legs kicked forward, and she fell on her rear. The ground she had been walking on was a slight decline and there was a sudden change in the angle of the ground which caused her to slip and slide down deeper into the cave.

She slid down and rolled, finally coming to a stop on slightly more leveled ground and in a much brighter environment with an even higher temperature. She coughed and crawled her way back onto her feet. “Ugh, fuck.”


The tigress stretched and looked around for her camera. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” She panicked and scurried around, trying to find her camera. As she searched, she came across a large figure in the distance, with that same orange glow from the magma that was falling and flowing in the distance. She froze for a bit before she looked left and right for her camera again. She still couldn’t find it.

“That’s the….” Alex paused, “The fucking magma dragon,” she shuddered.

The figure was massive, though it wasn’t moving. It was sitting up with its arms behind its back. The dragon’s chest rose and fell, his glowing eyes turned towards the massive magma lake and waterfall to the right. Alex slowly crept her way towards the dragon, both curious and afraid. Her clothing torn and beat up from when she slipped and fell, but she was still sweating.

Alex stepped on one of the loose rocks and it made a loud sound.

‘Crack!’

The dragon slowly turned his head, to look at Alex. Alex trembled, the dragon had horns, spikes, and giant wings. His glowing eyes locked to Alex’s green ones and he grinned slightly.

“Well, well,” the dragon spoke with a low growl in his voice, “What is a small tigress like you doing here?” Turning his head to the side revealed an enormous steel collar around his neck with a chain attached to it. He sat with his arms bound behind his back, odd.