Published in Descent into Madness: Enter Madness by DriveThru Press

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They showed up at the beginning of spring, as snow gave way to mud. Angry red patches on her skin that itched and oozed and spread.

Josie was taken to the doctor, given creams and ointments that didn’t work.

“Well how can it heal if you don’t leave it alone?” her mother would admonish, pointing at Josie whatever she held—a steel spoon, a bar of soap, her reading glasses. And whenever she saw Josie’s bloody skin, the patches open and wet, she’d say “God help you; you aren’t helping yourself.”

Her mother and the doctor called them plaques, but Josie knew them for what they were: scales.

What worried Josie most was that she didn’t know what she was turning into: a dragon? That would be okay—she’d fly to her second-grade classroom and blow fire at her teacher, who wrote on Josie’s last report card that she was too often in her own little world. She’d gotten in trouble for it but it made her secretly happy, too: if she had her own world that meant this one, with all of its disappointments, wasn’t hers to stay in.

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To read more, pick up a copy of Descent into Madness: Enter Madness.