Stoick and Gobber took the teens deep into Berk’s forest. Their dragons followed from behind: Toothless, Barf and Belch, Hookfang, Meatlug, and Stormfly.
Hiccup observed his surroundings and asked, “Um, Dad, exactly where are you and Gobber taking us?”
“To one of Berk’s most secluded areas,” was Stoick’s answer. “If we’re going to talk about the Light Dragon, it’s best for all of us.”
Just that alone made the teens more curious. Who was the Light Dragon?
Unfortunately, before they could reach too far into their thoughts, Hiccup’s good leg crashed into a small hole, which forced him to stop.
“Whoa!” he yelled, peering down at the hole.
Hearing the sound, everyone else stopped, and their eyes landed on the boy. Then things went from zero to one hundred extremely fast.
When Hiccup tried freeing his leg… Crack! The ground gave way under him, and he fell into an even larger hole.
“Hiccup!” Astrid yelled, holding out her hand.
Stoick mimicked her. “Hiccup!”
Tuffnut and Ruffnut merely chuckled and crossed their arms.
“This is the best thing I’ve seen all day,” Tuffnut joked, lightly punching Ruffnut’s arm.
Hiccup tried to grab the wall of the hole but failed. “Toothless!” he cried.
He did not have to ask Toothless twice. The dragon folded his wings and dove into the hole after him, but he and Hiccup landed in two different tunnels and started to slide.
Toothless roared, but he lost Hiccup’s voice. The wall in between the two tunnels cut it off.
Hiccup crashed down hard on his back, but the force of the collision caused him to lose his prosthetic leg. “Toothless!” he shouted again, but Toothless didn’t answer.
The young man ended up in a cave beside an underground river. He hit his head and arm in the process, and that alone caused him to lose consciousness when he landed. Hiccup rested on his back with his right arm stretched across his belly, his head tilted to the left. Also, he no longer had his metal leg to help him walk. Strangely, though, not far from him was a shimmer. It came from behind a rock and flashed at the unconscious boy. What was it? Whatever it was, it seemed to call to him.
Toothless landed in another section of the cave, but he wrapped his wings around his body to cushion the impact. Standing, he shook his head, and his pupils widened. Where was he? Where was Hiccup? They usually always managed to catch each other, but the two tunnels messed them up.
Toothless called for his friend, but he did not answer back. Without Hiccup, he could not fly back up the hole and lead the remaining teens, Gobber, and Stoick down there. All Toothless could do was explore the cave.
He put his nose to the ground like a dog and tried to track down Hiccup’s scent. He caught it, and his ears stood as soon as he did. Hiccup was close. He just had to find him.
***
Above the underground cave, Astrid was freaking out. She again called, “Hiccup!” and tried to jump into the hole after he and Toothless, but Gobber grabbed her arm.
“Astrid, no!” He pulled her back and set the panicking girl down on the ground.
She tried to break free from Gobber’s grip, but he held her tightly.
“Please,” he begged, resting his palm on Astrid’s chest. “Stoick and I did not realize that the trap was still active all these years later.”
“So, that was a trap?” Astrid cried out, and Stoick nodded.
“Yes. Gobber and I put it there with the hope nobody would ever reach the secret chamber, but for all the people to step in it, it had to be my son.”
“Um, yeah,” spoke Snotlout, rubbing his chin. “Last I checked, isn’t Hiccup always getting in trouble?”
Astrid glared at him. “This isn’t funny, Snotlout!” She focused her attention on Stoick. “Please, sir, we must find a way down there.”
“Don’t worry, Astrid.” Stoick took her shoulder and patted it. “We will. At least Hiccup and Toothless went in the right direction. Now come. We must move quickly.”
***
The underground river gave the mysterious cave a sense of peace and serenity.
Hiccup stirred from where he rested. Finally, he regained consciousness. However, the fall knocked the breaths clean out of him, and he coughed in an attempt to get them back.
When he had them again, he slowly sat and shook his head. “Well,” he mumbled, “that was an adventure.” Hiccup massaged his arm. Other than a slight headache and sore arm, he was okay. All Niflheim broke loose when he moved his eyes down to his legs, and he saw he was not all there. Where was his peg leg?
“Oh great,” Hiccup continued. “Just what I want. Toothless? Toothless, are you there?” He always carried a spare leg in the pouch he kept on Toothless’s saddle, but how could he access it when his dragon was nowhere in sight? Sigh, it was times like those when the young man wished he had both legs.
As Hiccup searched his surroundings, his eyes moved to the rock where the shimmer came from. It sparkled again and temporarily blinded him. “Whoa!” he yelled, holding his hand to his face. “What’s that? That’s bright!”
The light exploded, and hundreds of tiny shimmers appeared on every wall in the room.
Hiccup’s head moved as he tried to take it all in. All those shimmers reminded him of the Dragon Eye, which he kept in his hut that day. Perhaps they showed him a map just like the mysterious, crystal-shaped artifact.
Before he could jump to conclusions, though, Hiccup had to figure out what was hiding behind that rock. Was it the Light Dragon? There was only one way to find out.
Hiccup crawled toward the rock and continued to examine the many shimmers that refused to leave the walls alone. Resting one hand on it, he took a deep breath and cleared his head. He didn’t know what to expect. Once again, his hands grew clammy, and sweat trickled down his temples. Why did he feel so nervous? It had to be because he was alone underground without his dragon to comfort him.
When Hiccup built his confidence, he nodded and peered behind the rock. His green eyes widened, and he yelled, “Whoa!” A cluster of light yellow crystals sat directly before him and behind the rock.
Hiccup had no words for his discovery. He just found a cluster of crystals! He was rich! Nevertheless, what was it doing down there? The crystals were indeed the source behind the many shimmering dots dancing on the cave’s walls.
Hiccup dragged his sore body behind the rock and stared at the crystals. The bright light shimmered in his eyes, and he nervously picked them up. Other than the Dragon Eye, he had never discovered something as fascinating as that.
Hiccup crossed his legs and peered up at the shimmering walls. His curiosity had hit a home run.
The young man adjusted a few of the crystals in the cluster. As soon as he did, the dots on the walls changed altogether, similar to the Dragon Eye.
The images moved to the ceiling and started to dance in circles.
“Whoa, wicked!” Hiccup yelled. He forgot all about his missing peg leg when he saw that. He tried to stand to get a closer look at the images, but as soon as Hiccup did, he fell back on the rock.
The young man groaned and set his discovery down. “Stupid leg,” he mumbled, grabbing the stump of his leg. Where was Toothless and his friends when he needed them? Well, until they got there—that was if they got there—he was stuck, and Hiccup wasn’t pleased.
“Toothless, please,” he begged under his breath, propping his back against the rock. The cluster of crystals rested in his lap.
Hiccup waited for a good twenty minutes, but nobody came for him. Staring at the crystals eventually made him drowsy, and he yawned. Before he knew it, he slipped into sleep. While he napped, he dreamed.
There he was. Hiccup was back in the beautiful forest where he and Astrid saw the Light Dragon in their dreams overnight. As he marched through a cluster of green ferns, he peered at the silent treetops and listened to the chirping bugs. It felt serene. That was the same thing Hiccup felt overnight. Serenity, peace, and prosperity. It felt like nothing could go wrong.
The rays of the Sun bled through the treetops and scanned the forest floor like a modern-day lighthouse.
Hiccup heard something behind him. It sounded like a low growl, and he slowly turned in the direction it came from. In his left hand, he held the Dragon Eye.
It tingled under his touch, pulling the young man toward some tightly clustered, enormous trees. “What’s going on?” he asked himself while the phenomenon occurred.
Before he knew it, the serenity, peace, and prosperity melted away. In their place, he heard Crash! Crash! Crash!
The tightly clustered trees crashed to the forest floor, and the growl grew louder.
A bright light flashed in Hiccup’s face, and he yelled. The light was the same color as the small cluster of yellow crystals he found.
Hiccup barely opened one eye, but what he saw almost caused him to have a heart attack. The familiar, different-colored eyes he saw in his dream reappeared, and an enormous figure hovered before him—the Light Dragon. However, Hiccup could not get a good look at it because it was so bright. All he saw were its eyes.
Only a short moment later, the dragon let out a roar that sounded like metal scraping together.
SCREEEEEEECH!
While Hiccup knew what metal sounded like, he never heard it scrape that loud before, and it terrified him.
The young man closed both eyes again and slapped his hands over his ears.
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!
Hiccup’s whole head spun, and he fell to his knees. “Stop! Stop! My ears! I don't want to lose them, too!”
As the moment passed, the Light Dragon roared louder and longer until finally—!
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