The unknown. Everyone is afraid of it, even my dad, Abner, who is the bravest guy in our little town. But we have the dragons to protect us.

Each year on the first day of May, we pay a fee to the dragons since they protect us. It changes every year. Last year, it was a TON of meat for them. Like, a lot. And two years ago, we made armor out of a really strong, rare material that's called Marstone, for a couple of the main dragons, Winter and Lavender. This year, my family and I are going to the conference with the dragons to see what we have to do. I put on my brown overalls, put on a jacket, and then I braid my long blonde hair into two tight braids, and then I look in the crusty old mirror that's in my room. I just take a second, admiring myself. "Bea! Come on!" My little brother Glenn yells from downstairs.

"I'm coming! Stop rushing me!" I yell back.

"Bea, you've been in there for a long time. You look beautiful. Come on! Let's go!" My mother says. She's standing in the doorway, wearing a beautiful dress. Her long flowing hair is usually tied up in a ponytail, but it's down for the first time in a long time. It's beautiful.

"Okay, okay! I was just admiring how great I look!" I say. "Not the first time you've done that." She says.

"Hey!"

"Okay, let's go."

I practically hop down the stairs and into the kitchen, where my dad and Glenn are eating some oatmeal. Really? They were telling me to hurry up, because we leave in one minute, and then they make oatmeal that takes five minutes to eat? "Seriously?! Guys, we have to leave in one minute! Come on!" My mother says. "Sorry! We were hungry!" Glenn says with his mouth full. Dad looks up from devouring his food, and nods in agreement.

We arrive in the old courtroom where every conference is held. Since it took a minute to get out of the house, we must've arrived during the five minutes of tribute. Oh, no? this is awkward. Griffins are creatures who hate this village and constantly try to destroy us. There was a battle only five years ago with the Griffins. Every conference since then, we've paid tribute to the dragons we lost in combat. And? we just arrived during a super sad, solemn moment. We take our seats in the third row in front of the chairs where the lead dragons sit. I look down at my feet, hoping that no one notices the flush that fills my cheeks. Glenn sits on my left, and mom on my right. After three minutes of complete silence, the head of all the Departments, Winter, spreads her wings with purple borders around shiny white scales. Her red eyes look directly at us.

"Bookers. Why were you late?" Winter yells. She points her long talon at my dad.

"Sorry, Your Honor, we just woke up late, and it took a minute to get out of the house." Dad explains. She puts her talon down and sighs.

"Alright, Abner. If you say so. Blaze! Come forth." Blaze is the leader of the Material Department. He decides what materials the village needs, and then the dragons go out and get them. We take inventory every conference, so that everyone knows how much we need.

"Thank you, Winter. Alright everyone! Who's ready to take some inventory, yeah?" Blaze says. Silence. He looks so eager for applause, that he starts tapping his talons together. "No." Winter says. "But why? I'm just tryin' to have some fun here!" He says.

"GET ON WITH IT." Winter bellows.

"Okay, okay! Here we go, folks!"

After about an hour of inventory, the Defense Department talks about their new strategies and what they're seeing beyond the border wall that surrounds our village.

"We've seen some Griffins," one of the Defenders, Aspen, says, "but we chased them away. They seem more skittish now that we've defeated their leader, but we are still being careful."

"Now, we're running low on time here, we've been here for quite a bit, so let's skip some of the departments and get to the whole reason we're all here." Winter says.

"The fee. If you want us to be here, then you must listen closely. We need some defense mechanisms. The Griffins might be coming back, so we need to be more prepared than ever. In the battle a few years ago, we weren't prepared at all. But this time, we need to be. We need the wall coated with Marstone."

"What?" I mumble under my breath in disbelief. Marstone is the rarest material we've ever discovered! And the dragons want us to find more of it than there is? There's side conversations, mumbles, and shouts among the audience. "SILENCE!" Winter roars. Everyone stops. "Are there any comments? I see most of you must have something to say." "I do!" A man says from the fifth row. This can't be good. "We can't find that much Marstone! It's impossible! I think it's pretty obvious that-""Well, do you want to be safe?" Blaze says next to Winter. "We do have a little bit of it, I checked, but we don't have enough to coat a huge wall. So you'll need to find more of it." Aspen says. "But that's going to be really hard!" Our librarian, Mrs. R, complains. "Too bad." Another dragon, Scorch, says from behind the main chairs. "But we can't possibly go beyond the border!" A villager says.

"I never said you had to!"

"Okay, but what if there's no more in the mines?"

"Yeah, at that point we'll have no choice but to go beyond the border!"

"The griffins are out there waiting for us! If we go past that wall, we'll die!"

"SILENCE!" Blaze shrieks. Everyone stops.

"Thank you, Blaze. If there are any more complaints, keep them to yourselves. If you can get the Marstone in liquid form by the end of the month, we will fly over the wall and pour it over. There. Happy?" Winter says. No. This can't be happening. We can't get it by the end of the month! In liquid form! It's nearly impossible to get into that form! "Heck no!"

"No way!"

"No!" The crowd starts erupting in 'no's. "What happens if we don't?" Dad says calmly, but loud enough for Winter and Blaze to hear. Oh no.

"Good question, Abner. We've discussed many decisions. And we came to a conclusion. There are two possible outcomes. One, we leave and tear down the wall. Leave you all for dead. Two, we set fire to the village, along with the wall. It's your choice, Booker family. You were the ones to ask it." Winter says intimidatingly. What!? "One." Glenn says as he stands up. "Glenn!" I whisper-shout. "Yeah. Let's go with one." A person from the crowd yells. The crowd mumbles in agreement. "Alright. It's set then." Blaze says.

4 weeks later?

I wake up to the sound of screaming. My mom is crying. My dad is trying to calm her down, but Glenn is also crying hysterically. I get up as fast as I can, but that just makes my head hurt. Wait! I know what it must be. We didn't get the Marstone to them on time. "The wall?!" I scream. I look out my window and yes. It is the wall. It's gone. Vanished. It's reduced to piles of rubble and ash. I run down the stairs and open the door and run. "Bea!" Mother screams. "Beatrice Rose Booker! Get back here!" Dad yells in his loud voice. But I ignore them. Even though my feet hurt and my head still hurts, I have to try to reason with them. It will most likely not work, but I at least want to try.

After about five minutes of running, I reach the wall. Or, where the wall was. There's a dragon looking out into the distance. The dark forest that no one knows who's there. "STOP!!" I scream.

"What?" The dragon snarls. The dragon is green, with orange highlights in his scales. He looks at me with anger in his aqua eyes.

"STOP! MAYBE WE CAN COME UP WITH A COMPROMISE!? JUST PLEASE! STOP!" I wail. The dragon rolls his eyes.

"You missed the deadline. You knew what was gonna happen. But you ignored us. No one ignores us." He says.

"But we didn't ignore you! Our whole town tried our best! Even me, a twelve year old, who's not even old enough to work in the mines! But I did. No matter how hard it was!" I say.

"Oh, well. Too bad. We told you what was going to happen. We made it very clear." Then he starts to fly away.

"NO!! PLEASE!" I scream. No. No, no, no, no, no! I sink down on my knees and cry. No one is safe now. And we can't rebuild the wall! The dragons built the wall. No one in the village can fly. Or have superhuman strength. We're all doomed.