Old, rusted metal scratched into his back. Belts snapped shut around his wrists and ankles. Voices. They grew distant.
“This the freak?”
“Yup. Nearly lost half our team bagging this one.”
“It’ll all be worth it once Hamlet’s done with him.”
He wanted to scream at them. To yell at the top of his tired lungs that he was no freak. But even then he suspected his pleas would fall on deaf ears… No, there was no point in trying to reason after what he had done. He sunk into the chair, defeated.
Footsteps, and then a sudden sting in his neck, just above his carotid! Someone finally took off the dirty old rag that had been blinding him. Blink, blink, blink. The world came into view again, finally.
He was in a windowless room, the true size of which was obscured by the fact that only his immediate vicinity was illuminated by a twinkling incandescent bulb on its last legs. The air was stale and reeked of sweat and other unpleasant things which he would rather not think about. Similarly, the person next to him was all but fully obscured by a suit of charred polymer armor and a matching helmet. A pair of bright orange eyes were all that could be seen through the narrow slits in that mostly amorphous piece of headwear.
“I am Hamlet,” the figure said in a frail, trailing tone. “You are Nero. Dragon. Danger.”
“I didn’t mean to do it!” Nero snapped. “It was an accident, I swear! I’ll never breathe fire again!”
“Correct. You won’t.” Hamlet held up an empty syringe. “Flameblock. Make you docile… and breathless.”
Breathless… He knew that was to be his fate long before they came for him – but it always hurt to be reminded of that. Nero could feel his throat dry up and his pyroclastic gland seizing up.
He yelped as the chair snapped back forcing him into a reclining position. Hamlet knelt down by his feet and swiped a a curious claw along the sole. Nero flinched.
“Ticklish? Good,” nine more claws joined in to torment both of Nero’s long, scaly soles.
“Tickles make blood pump faster. *Flameblock *work faster. Dragon becomes good. Safe.”
Nero thrashed within the unyielding restraints as a barrage of nerve impulses slammed his brain many times per second. In addition to leaving him Breathless, the drug seemed to have a sensitizing effect since, as far as Nero recalled, he really wasn’t very ticklish at all. The feeling was new to him, both in form an in intensity. It was as if all of his senses were blended into a paste and spread exclusively over his soles. He threw his head back and unconsciously triggered his flame reflex among peals of screaming laughter but all that came out was a measly spark and a pathetic cloud of black smoke.
“Good. Flameblock is working. More tickling.”
Now sure that Nero’s ability to breath fire had been suppressed into uselessness, Hamlet dared to remove his helmet revealing the burned visage of a Sabertooth tiger. A streak of pitch black, furless skin ran from the top of his right and along his forehead, drooping down towards his left cheek. Dragon fire burns.
He bent over Nero’s feet and let out his tongue – long and raspy. What Nero felt next flushed what little rational thoughts still lingered about his mind. It touched his heel. He laughed. It touched his arches. He screamed. It touch his toes. He cried. This happened again, and again, and again until he was convinced he had to be the most ticklish creature on the face of the Earth.
It went on for hours. After the tongue, Hamlet called upon his subordinates to give the young dragon a throughout scrubbing with specially designed brushes. Getting his feet tickled was bad, but getting them tickled simultaneously along with his arm pits, sides, and belly was horrible.
“Shoulda kept your cool, you oversized lizard.”
“It’s a shame we can’t film this. All those people whose houses you burned down would have loved to see this.”
Those taunts didn’t even register in Nero’s mind for it was way too occupied with trying (and failing) to stay conscious.
He came to still in the recliner. A pristine tiger foot hovered over his face, toes scrunching and spreading teasingly.
“Dragon become good? No more burning?” Nero nodded, his mind still hazy. “Prove it. Lick.”
Somehow, it seemed like the natural thing to do. Was it the drug? Nero didn’t know. He could only roll out his long tongue and run it over the tiger’s plush, pink pads. It was rough and dry like his throat. As he submitted beneath the tiger’s foot, he was made keenly aware of his inability to breathe fire. He could feel what had once been a healthy and active pyroclastic gland was now a shrivelled up useless raisin.
Maybe that’s why submitting came naturally to him, now. Breathlessness was tantamount to social death in the highly stratified dragon society of today. The perfect punishment for those who lost control. Thinking of the lifelong shunning that awaited him, the dragon cried.
“Don’t cry, dragon. Be happy you’re not dangerous anymore.”
Strangely enough, Nero found an odd kind of comfort in serving his torturer’s feet. The tiger’s gentle moans told him it felt good, and Nero felt good making others feeling good. He was a good dragon. Maybe being Breathless wasn’t so bad after all?
“Good dragon. Good first session. You will feel better after twenty.”