I record dreams. In this case, it was one of my husband’s dreams and it had a neat twist on the idea of dragons in the modern world. He awoke in the night and told me about it, as he often does when he thinks the story is worth sharing.  I ask as many questions as I can and it’s easy for me to remember the details since I’m wide awake and he just has to verbally recall as much as he can. This particular dream was interesting since it was very similar to a book that I’m reading even though he’s never read the book. I record dreams as potential ideas for books of my own.

The dream took place in modern day but dragons and humans lived side-by-side in the sense that humans had their cities and dragons had their caves but there were no dragon attacks, etc. It was due to an agreement between humans and the dragons. As part of the “arrangement” with the dragons, each year, the humans would provide a donation of sorts to the dragons consisting of a handful of grown humans about 18-22 years old (perhaps older) that had received advanced education and training. Humans are pre-selected (likely by a lottery of some kind) to be raised for the purpose of the dragon donations.

Each year, the dragons would come and meet the Donations at the top of a sky rise building. They’d collect the humans and leave with them. The humans were never heard from or seen again. No one knew what the dragons did with the humans, only that it was part of the arrangement.

To be chosen as a Donation was a bit of an honor since you received special treatment with the best schooling and best training, but Ben didn’t want to donated. So on the night he was scheduled to be presented to the dragons, he escaped. He was running through the sky rise building to avoid the guards and the ceremony – that’s when he woke, so the rest is very open-ended.

Kind of a cool twist.

Other notes he mentioned after-the-fact: Some of the humans were taking on dragon-like qualities. Some could fly or had snouts. Some had scales or claws. The markings varied. No one actually knew what would happen if they didn’t provide the Donations to the dragons. Would the dragons attack? Would they die? It was a mystery.