Ferrel D. Moore's Blog, page 3

We’re back after we were hit

We were hit with some particularly vicious malware. So bear with us while we repair out site.

I’m Excited to announce…

I’m so excited to announce that my book Zombies has just finished the recording session, so Zombies can finally be included on Audible! Look for it to be up on Audible but three weeks from today!

It’s the story of what happens to Hauck and the crew when Detroit is overrun by Zombies!

I’ve Started a Podcast

Yes, I’ve taken the plunge into the world of podcasting. So far I’ve got 5 episodes up. You can hear my podcasts at anchor.fm/ferrel-moore Since I am a monk at the Shaolin Temple in Westland, Michigan,...

The post I’ve Started a Podcast appeared first on Ferrel D Moore.

I’ve Started a Podcast

Yes, I’ve taken the plunge into the world of podcasting. So far I’ve got 5 episodes up. You can hear my podcasts at anchor.fm/ferrel-moore

Since I am a monk at the Shaolin Temple in Westland, Michigan, I’ve titled the broadcast, Being Healthy-the Shaolin Way It’s all about our health, and how important it is to keep it up, and ways that we can all stay healthy.

It embraces and teaches all about what we should eat, exercise, meditation, fasting and other things.

So, I’m committed to this broadcast, and wish me luck!

The Dragon Attacks!

I pushed the intercom button again.“Who’s asking?”“We’ve got reports of a gas leak in the area, Mr. Scott. This is Mr. Scott, isn’t it?”“And who are you?”“I’m with the gas company, sir.”“Sure you are,” I said....

The post The Dragon Attacks! appeared first on Ferrel D Moore.

The Dragon Attacks!

I pushed the intercom button again.
“Who’s asking?”
“We’ve got reports of a gas leak in the area, Mr. Scott. This is Mr. Scott, isn’t it?”
“And who are you?”
“I’m with the gas company, sir.”
“Sure you are,” I said. “There’s no gas leak here, so keep moving.”
“I can’t do that. I’ve got to have you sign this form first.”
His buddies were in the back door by that time, although I didn’t figure that out until later. Two of them, armed with the same gun that I was carrying, creeping through my kitchen door, while I was yakking on an intercom. It’s embarrassing to look back on. I was lucky to live through it. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Alderton, I wouldn’t be telling this story.
She backed into the kitchen carrying a wad of kitchen towels and surprised the two just as they passed the kitchen table. Mrs. A is too old to look dangerous. So when she turned to face them, the first, a round-faced little prick whose name we never did find out, took his time raising his pistol to plug her.
I heard the shot from the study- from her gun, not his. She fired through the stack of towels and caught him clean in the face with a round. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anyone take a bullet in the face, and I don’t know if I even want to tell you about it, so let me just say that his head sprayed a lot of brain and blood all over my kitchen.
She turned and shot the other guy in the throat. Same result. Later, she told me that he was too pretty to shoot in the face. I’ve never asked Mrs. Alderton about her sex life. At sixty-eight years old, I guess it’s her call whether she wants to check out a guy before she pulls the trigger.
excerpted from “Dead Wait,” by Ferrel D. Moore

The rush of wind from the dragon’s wings as it rears back mid-air flattens me against the earth, expelling the breath from my lungs as if I have been struck on the chest with a hammer. My vision blends with the sight of giant talons, bright black and curved to terrifying points. Pearlescent scales flex and slide together and apart with each breath the dragon takes. The size of the creature is beyond my ability to comprehend- it is hovering directly over me and the very sky is lost behind its body.
Steaming acrid mists roll across everything and I have no hope of finding you. A cry of dragon rage fills the day and my body is racked by the sound as though I am inside a giant ball rolling down a mountainside. I scream your name, but all is lost in the rolling thunder of the monster’s anger.
Fear propels me in a sideways roll, and a black talon the size of my entire body slices the ground a hand’s width from where I just lay. My sweating palms are still pressed to my head and I have kept them there even while rolling to protect my ears. But they are wet, and when the dragon’s roar dies down, I take them away and see that one of them is red with my own blood.
Screams pierce the hot mist as the dragon’s talons cut the ground. I try to get to my knees to find you but feel rather than see a giant whip snap at me and I drop to the ground again and cover my head. The sharp flexing tail whips past me and I feel one of its spiked points slip between the hairs on the back of my head. I push my face into the dirt as hard as I can and cry out your name.
The sound of the platform splintering under the impact of the dragon’s tail causes me to pull myself and run toward that noise. I take only two steps when the dragon glides overhead and up enough that I can see the village. I see my heavy friend cut in half mid-stride as the Dragon of Separation screeches out a sound so damning that I can hardly bear to hear it and cuts him in half with its giant sword.
With the sound of a mountain rockslide it drops to the earth and crushes the Prophet Andiron with the hilt. Meat and blood explodes out the side of Andiron’s body as he is flattened before my eyes to the height of a blade of grass.
“Run,” I scream at everyone I see, turning my head this way and that and shouting it over and again.
A woman is crying out for mercy when the Dragon of Separation cleaves her in two pieces from head to toe with a slice of his sword. I smell the crisp, cooked smell of her singed, blistering flesh as the fiery blade divides her.
A flap of the dragon’s wings and I am sent rolling through blood smeared grass and carnage. I get to my knees and throw up with such force that I fear that I have expelled my stomach through my mouth. With my sleeve I rub my face dry of the offense and look up to find you. I cannot bear the thought of your cleaved body in the platform’s rubble, but I can bear still less having you left alone in the open.
“Damn you,” I cry. I stand, turn toward the great beast and shake my fists plaintively. I have no weapon to defend myself against such a monster.
The Dragon of Separation stalks the village it has flattened and doused with writer’s blood. The huts and stalls are splintered and destroyed like the rude platform where you sat with the great Ferdinand.
At the sound of my railings, the dragon turns its long neck my way and its luminescent eyes find mine. It snorts a billowing cloud of hot mist and I cough and turn my head to save my sight. When the mist has dissipated, I look back and see that every man and woman in the village is dead. I see an arm ripped loose from some poor soul and hanging in a tree. A headless corpse lays in a patch of yellow and blue wildflowers, and if I had fluid left in my stomach, I would be sick again.
The dragon is taking great, ponderous steps toward a walled pen near the edge of the village, and I feel the ground shake with its every movement. Its muscles roll like waves in a storm across its broad and powerful back. Its mighty wings are poised over its body, ready to take flight in an instant to attack from the air.
Where is it going? I wonder.
The image of the Sword of Commerce rises in my mind like a swimmer breaking water to take in life-giving air. I turn and run toward the rubble, keep my eyes downcast to avoid seeing your body. But I do not see you. Instead, I see only the formerly great Ferdinand, his head cut off clean and cauterized at the neck stump by the dragon’s fiery blade. I am about to turn away in despair when I see its hilt sticking out from beneath broken boards.
A sudden explosion overhead causes me to jerk my head upward, but I see that it is merely lightning setting the sky on fire with its power and glory. The sky has erupted like a festering boil and I fear that we have somehow angered the heavens themselves.
The dragon has its back to me, facing the walled enclosure called the Writer’s Pit. I fear the woman trapped at its bottom will be dead any moment if I do not take up the Sword of Commerce and save her and avenge you. The air is filled with the stench of blood and death and I am for a moment too overwhelmed to move.
When I finally reach for the sword, I notice Shrift lying a short way from me. A splintered board sticks out his mouth and scarlet-black soaks his clothes. I shudder and look down, grab the Sword of Commerce, and heft it before me. Its weight feels like power and as I see it shine, I feel powerful.
But I take only one step toward it when you call out my name. Shocked, I turn to find you coming toward me from behind.
“You’re alive,” I say. I am shaking so badly I almost drop the sword.
“Put it down,” you tell me.
“But we have to save the woman in the Pit,” I say desperately.
“Look,” you say, and extend a finger.
I turn to see the dragon lifting the red-haired women from the Pit. She is not screaming, and I think she has fainted til the dragon places her gently on the ground and she stands straight.
“Run,” I scream.
I start out again, but I have not made a single stride when you grab hold of my sleeve and will not let go.
“It will eat her,” I say.
“Look,” you say again.
The moment is all for me, as I am lost once again in the wise beauty of your face. You stroke my cheek and turn my face toward the Pit. The Dragon of Separation is reared back on its hind legs, its sword held before it, its wing spread the size of a ship’s sail to either side of it. The red-haired woman is walking toward us. The dragon’s eyes are like looking into twin suns, but I can feel that it knows me, that it knows us. I feel the presence of its fiery sword, and in the dragon’s eyes, I think now that I know what it is for, and why the Dragon of Separation carries it.
The dragon voices a sound more like a single elegant trumpet’s note, and it thrusts itself upward, gently flapping its wings at first, then harder and harder until once again the heavens above are filled with the reverberations of its flight. I follow path until it grows to be nothing more than a speck in the sky, which has begun to clear, its mood sympathetic to that of the dragon.
As the red-haired woman joins us, I see that the bloody dead bodies around us are disappearing before our eyes. Confused, I turn to you for strength. You are smiling.
“No one has died here today,” you say.
“But,” I stutter, “but Ferdinand, Andiron, and Shrift are dead.”
When I look around to show their bodies to you, they are no longer there. The platform is still shattered. Trees and huts are still destroyed. But there are simply no bodies anywhere.
I am about to ask if you if this was just another dream-vision, when I realize that I still hold the Sword of Commerce, clutched tightly in my hands.
“Throw it away,” you tell me gently. “We have no need of it.”
“But the City of Writer’s Gold,” I protest. “How will we ever get in? And how will you ever have endless admirers to flatter you with their praise?”
It is the red-haired woman who answers. I will tell you more of her later, but for now I will tell you what she said to us both. She said: “We have no need of either. If we do, we are no longer writers or storytellers. The Dragons of Creativity are jealous guardians, my friends, and if we do not nurture and grow our stories as if they were precious— if we think instead of wealth and admiration— then the Dragons of Creativity will take them away.”
So now we are three writers on our way to find the Fourth Dragon, the Dragon of Conjunction. The Dragon of Conjunction is the Dragon that we writers fear most. It is sometimes known in stories told by the wise people as The Dragon of Condensed Starlight or The Dragon of Sacred Marriage. As we walk along together, it disturbs me somewhat that I will face the Dragon of Sacred Marriage with two women instead of one. But the Dragon will decide if this is good or not.
Behind us, discarded on the ground like a broken fence-post, lies the Sword of Commerce.

Energy Healing

I’ve Just released a new book titled Energy Healing. It’s about all that I learned while recovering from my diabetes-induced stroke. This one is written from the standpoint of not what the doctor’s did that took...

The post Energy Healing appeared first on Ferrel D Moore.

Energy Healing

I’ve Just released a new book titled Energy Healing. It’s about all that I learned while recovering from my diabetes-induced stroke.

This one is written from the standpoint of not what the doctor’s did that took care of me while in the hospital, but from the standpoint of what I did to take care of myself through energy healing after I got out of the hospital.

When I left the hospital, I had an A1C of 6.8, which was diabetic. I had to give myself four shots per day of Humalog, one shot of Lantus to keep my diabetes under control, and it still gave me an A1C of 6.8. I was taking Lisinopril and Metoprolol for my blood pressure and a variety of other meds that were prescribed for me.

But one day, about a year after I was diagnosed, my ever-faithful wife was researching how to control diabetes and stumbled upon a YouTube channel called Beat Diabetes. She showed it to me, and it changed my life. It was Dennis Pollock’s channel, and on it, he recommended a low-carbohydrate diet for diabetics. Within 3 months, I was off of all insulin injections and had an A1C of 5.8, which is normal. I was taking a metformin pill once in the morning and once in the afternoon– but I was normal! Free from insulin injections.

I dropped the Lisinopril after three months, too, and have maintained my blood pressure at 110 over 78!

I was healthy, but I wanted more than just that, I wanted superb health, so I researched all the recommendations to achieve just that.

You can find out what I came up with, by buying my new books, Energy Healing.

The Dragon of Separation Returns with a Vengeance

“Hi,” said Amrozi’s head with a big smile. I dropped my chin and closed my eyes. “I bet you think you’re crazy, don’t you?” I didn’t answer. “Think of it this way, Bradley. Maybe you’re enduring...

The post The Dragon of Separation Returns with a Vengeance appeared first on Ferrel D Moore.

The Dragon of Separation Returns with a Vengeance

“Hi,” said Amrozi’s head with a big smile.

I dropped my chin and closed my eyes.

“I bet you think you’re crazy, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“Think of it this way, Bradley. Maybe you’re enduring a temporary psychosis, but you can at least do it with your eyes open, like a man.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. But I opened my eyes anyway.

“Better,” said the head. “Congratulations. I’d shake your hand, but, well, that’s not exactly possible right now. No, no, don’t close your eyes again. I know that this must be frightening and confusing, just stay awake and pay attention. We have to talk.”

“I’m not hearing this.”

“Right, that’s okay. What’s wrong with a little therapeutic delusion? Some of the great writers and poets and artists and scientists had some of their most powerful inspirations while delusional. Looking at Einstein’s hair-do, can you honestly tell me that he was a completely sane individual?”

I put the car into drive and began pulling out of the parking lot. The stoplight turned red at the intersection and I came to a stop.

“Look,” I said. “I can’t deal with this. I’m going to have to pull over and put you in the trunk.

“In the trunk?” said John Amrozi’s head. “I’ll suffocate in there.”

I pulled back in disbelief. “How in the world can you suffocate? You don’t,” I reminded the head, “have any lungs.”

“It’s dark in the box,” it protested. “I’m claustrophobic. You don’t know what it’s like having no arms, no hands, and no legs. I can’t fight my way out of a paper bag. And what if you have to stop quickly? I could tip over upside down. How would you like to be trapped upside down in a dark box in a trunk during a bumpy car ride?”

“This is ridiculous. I can’t just leave you on the front seat. What if someone sees you? What if I get pulled over by the police? How am I going to explain you?”

“I’ll close my eyes,” it said quickly, “and pretend that I’m asleep.”

“Are you crazy? How would that help me? What would I say? ‘I’m sorry, Officer. I was just taking my pet head out for a drive and it fell asleep?’ They’d have me locked up in a cell— an insane asylum cell.”

“Put a blanket over me,” he suggested.

“And what if they look under the blanket?”

“No wonder you’ve never gone anywhere I life, Richard. You’re afraid to take chances.”

I closed the lid.

excerpted from “Borgo Pass,” by Ferrel D. Moore

********

At that moment, the woman who dared question Economy as the great rule of writing is seized to be dragged to the Pit, I see the color of the sky itself painted with brushstrokes of angry orange. Off in the distance where the buzzards had circled over the carcass of the dead Dragon of Separation, I see dark clouds fomenting. The air around us cools, and I shiver in the face of this ominous portent. No one else seems to notice; all eyes are fixed on the fire-haired woman who is about to be dragged away and thrown into the Writer’s Pit. None move to defend her. Who are we to question Economy in writing? We have, after all, been told that it is the only way to enter the City of Writer’s Gold.

From your wooden throne next to Ferdinand, you are looking out into the assembly of writers, staring at the woman who has dared challenge Shrift, the master strategist of Ferdinand the dragonslayer. Your mouth is slightly agape, and there is a bewildered expression on your face.

At the edge of the assembled crowd, the woman is now being dragged away to be thrown into the Pit. Shrift has ordered that anyone who does not worship Economy in writing above else is not fit to enter the Writer’s City of Gold. There is an unspoken objection in your face, as though you want to shout that there are other considerations sometimes more important than Economy, but you have not the will to speak your mind. I wonder about this, too, but I am no more confident than you, and therefore say nothing. I do not wish to end up in the Pit.

The woman is struggling, her eyes wild with fear her long red hair flying about as she demands to stay, but the three writers who are taking her away simply grip her more tightly and shove harder. I turn my head from the sight. She cries out, but she has questioned Economy, so I pretend I do not hear her. When I look at you again, I see you are staring back at me; this time you look down, too. Whether you are ashamed of me or yourself or both, I cannot say. Shrift is oblivious to the woman’s plight, and continues his lecture.

The great Ferdinand, slayer of Dragons, does not intervene.

“The second secret of writing the Assembly Line Way I call the “Cookie Cutter” technique,” he says. “What is the Cookie Cutter technique? It is very simple and very efficient- we all agree that there are only certain types of characters, and we all agree to make use of them and them only. There is one saying that Andiron the Prophet heard a great man from the future proclaim in one of his visions, and it was this: ‘They can have any color they want, as long as it is black.’ That man, says Andiron, will someday be hailed by all of his time as a genius. Who better to learn the Assembly Line Way from than its founder? Do you all agree?”

I am still afraid to speak, as are the rest of the assembled writers. We are all surpised, including Shrift himsel, when you, seated behind him, ask in a resolute voice, “And was this man a writer?”

Shrift’s mouth opens in disbelief. A question from you? Why would you of all writers question him? You are, after all, the woman seated on a wooden throne next to the great Ferdinand, slayer of the the Third Dragon of Creative Writing, and the man thought by all to be destined someday to become the greatest writer in all the world.

As Shrift turns to gawk at you, you repeat your question: “Was he a writer?”

After recovering his composure at being asked such a question by you, Shrift answers, “No, M’lady, according to Andiron, he was not.”

“And what was his trade?” you ask. There is an edge to your voice that I have never heard before.

The great Ferdinand smiles broadly, displaying a mouth full of perfect teeth. “Tell her, Shrift,” he encourages the bald man. “It is an interesting question. What exactly was his trade?”

“Allow me, to answer, M’lord,” says Andiron the Prophet, who stands up straight and addresses the assembled crowd of writers with his answer. “The creator of the Assembly Line Way made complicated metal mechanisms that moved.”

“Mechanisms?” I ask without thinking. “What has that to do with Writing?”

I cringe when I see Shrift’s reaction. From beneath hairless eyebrows, his eyes bore down on me like a starving hawk on a plump field mouse. Perhaps if I further question the Assembly Line Way, I, too will be forcibly taken away by my fellow writers and dropped into the Pit along with the woman who had questions.

“It is the principle, young lad,” says Shrift. He speaks to me as though I am not old enough to ask experienced questions.

I bridle at his tone, but do not wish to jeoparize my chances to enter the Writer’s City of Gold, where all writers are richly rewarded.

“Listen carefully, all of you,” he continues. “The founder of the Assembly Line Way realized that for a person or an enterprise to be successful, parts- whether of complicated mechanical contraptions or stories- must beinterchangeable. Characters must be easy to understand and standardized so that one need only change their names and use them again in another story but with a different name. Plots, too, must be similar to each other so these characters can be dropped in and out of them with ease. We will all use these standardized characters and plots. Why waste our time creating uniquely different complex characters and plots when we can all standardize? Think of the time and thought we will save! Do you see the beauty of the assembly line way? Just a handful of cookie cutter characters and plots we can all use. And they will all fit together easily because we don’t put our hearts and souls and inspiration into them, so these stories will not be unique creations.”

As discreetly as I can, I cast quick glances to my left and right to gauge the reaction of my fellow writers. They are doing the same. None of us, it seemed, had any idea how to respond. The Cookie Cutter way was not the Way of the Sacred Dragons of Creative Writing. Writers were once sacred torchbearers who carried our creative flames into the darkness of human pain and suffering, showing the light of triumph to heroes and heroines who overcame towering obstacles. Under the Assembly Line Way, we would all use the same Cookie Cutters to punch out our characters from a recipe of ficitonal dough so that our combined cast of characters would be the same. We would then arrange them as we would, making sure to use plots punched out in the same manner.

“Aha,” I shout. “Then we will be assemblers of things that were standardized and predictable, and hence the name the Assembly Line Way. We no longer have to think, just assemble.”

On the platform, Shrift claps his hands in my honor. Overhead the sky purples with vitriol.

“Bravo, lad” he says. “Now you have grasped the essential beauty of the Cookie Cutter. We will make plot diagrams and character arcs, and we will all use the same thinking when writing. Why, we will mix these parts and assemble them to create stories that are as easy to make as a stick figure. Only a fool would choose the Dragon Way over the Assembly Line Way, as you can now plainly see. We will not create new realities, we will only assemble old ones. Creativity is painful, time consuming, and exhausting. Assembly of Cookie Cutter characters and plots is so much easier and faster; with all the energy left over from not creating, we can write many Cookie Cutter stories and will make much more money than writing only one or two or three stories over the course of a lifetime. More stories will mean more money and we will then be able to enter the City of Writer’s Gold.”

“Hurray,” several writers shout.

I begin to clap, but stop when I see that you, seated next to the great Ferdinand, seem distraught. I wonder at that moment if you are disappointed in me. Is that why you left me alone in the cave? Was it because I was too slow to learn the Lesson of the Second Dragon? Ferdinand is much more handsome than I. And he is famous. I see you look past me to the assembly of writers below you, and I notice how your face brightens.

In the course of my life, I will later tell our children, I have only three epiphanies, and four important realizations. At that moment, I have my first important realization. I see that you are not on stage next to Ferdinand because you love him or because you want to enter the City of Writer’s Gold. You are up there because, as the consort of the great Ferdinand, you are admired by all.

At that moment, I remember my mother telling me one afternoon seasons ago that a girl needs very much to be wanted more than loved. A woman needs to be loved more than wanted. Standing here in this strange village of writers and slain dragons, I understand the meaning of my mother’s words. I see that you are still young and need admiration. I am still young and I have never been attentive enough. You do not care about the City of Writer’s Gold as much as I; you care that you are admired. On stage, you are admired. Wealth and admiration must be powerful afflictions to poetic souls such as ours, I think. I wonder how a writer can write well when their mind is always thinking of wealth and fame. But I have no, answers, and return my thoughts to Shrift.

“Now, quickly,” he says, “I will tell you about ‘The Same, Differently- the third secret to the Assembly Line Way.”

Perhaps it is the change in temperature, or the gusts of wind that dry my eyes like demons sucking away breath, but my head begins to hurt as though a giant is squeezing it between his two great hands.

“You may be asking,” continues Shrift, “how it is that if we use Cookie Cutter characters, and simplistic plots, that our readers will not get bored. But worry not, fellow writers, because you do not need to be creative to be a successful writer and enter the Writer’s City of Gold. Creativity is the Dragon Way. We do not need it.”

“How is this possible?” I ask.

Shrift stares contemptuously down at me, and I feel nauseous. My heart pounds against my chest like a prisoner trying to escape and my own skin feels more like a costume. I am not well. Perhaps I have been too long traveling and am falling into delirium. My vision waivers like vapors in heat, and I see Shrift’s face transform into that of a leering, fanged pale-green goblin with highpointed ears. A viscous, milky fluid leaks from the corner of his mouth. In the distance, I hear the flapping of giant wings. Sweat breaks through my pores and my skin is soaked.

Then, the moment is gone and Shrift is only Shrift again. The nausea passes and I feel myself again. Shrift looks at me curiously, but then begins again.

“We replace creativity with simply putting all of the Cookie Cutter characters and plots we have agreed upon into a pot, stir them up and simply reach in and take out a plot, a few characters, and maybe a standard theme, and there will be our story. It will take very little work, and we can do it over and over again and our readers will be none the wiser. Simple random mix-ups will replace creativity. Don’t think, mix and match! Creativity is wasted on readers. Creativity takes time, effort and sustained commitment. These things prevent us from making many stories, and we must write many stories to make much wealth so that we can enter the City of Writer’s Gold. And then…”

A giant, roaring wind sweeps down from the sky and blasts away Shrift’s words. Trees bend down like supplicants before an altar, and our clothes fluff and flap as we stagger to keep upright. Shrift is forced three steps backwards, almost knocking you from your chair. A gust of leaves are ripped from their branches and thrown into his face like flowers on a grave. From somewhere up above it a bubbling cauldron sky, I heard a terrifying, bellowing cry that shakes the very bones of my body.

Ferdinand leaps to his feet and takes out his might sword of Commerce. He points it toward heaven and shouts something, but his oath is puny in the face of the tempest coming down at us. I look toward the sky, covering my eyes from the howling wind, and I see a magnificent dragon, blue orange in color with wings like a ships sail flapping. Hooked talons clasp and unclasp as it comes hurtling down at us. It’s eyes are pinpoints of angry fire, and from its wicked jaws and horned nostrils blows hot mist. In foreclaws at the end of arms long and sinewy and shiny bright with scales, it holds a mighty flaming sword.

People scream and scatter before the hot mist blasting the village as the dragon speeds down at us getting larger and larger with each second. Its great shadow overcasts us like a judgment, and I cower to the ground.

It screams its war cry like the dead crying for life, and I look up to see it roll back its sword, preparing for a might swing. It is flying directly at you. The great Ferdinand is screaming now, his mouth stretched and distorted. His sword of Commerce lays abandoned on the platform. I see him grab you suddenly and thrust you between him and the flaming eyes and hot mist of the dragon. With the realization that the dragon will cut through you to get to Ferdinand, I scramble to my feet and run to the platform.

But I am too late. The dragon’s terrible fiery sword arcs down toward you and you scream.