On the first day, I asked the dragon what its purpose was. It laughed in that deep rumbling way it did, and the cave reverberated with the echo. It spoke, "I'm a metaphor, little one", and then it incinerated my body into ash, thousands of motes of dust cast aloft, dancing across the atmosphere, scattering over this desolate world. This was not a surprise. I suppose I had known the answer already.
On the second day, I asked the dragon if we could be friends. The dragon laughed in that shrill painfully high pitched way it did. It drew one huge claw up to my head, each talon as long as a sword, and gently pressed me into the rock. "No", it said, as it crushed me into nothingness.
On the third day, I asked no questions and got no answers. The dragon cut me to pieces, bloody slashes leaving bloody fragments. It was a short day.
On the fifth day, the dragon let me live for a while. I wandered around the cave as it watched me, clearly amused. The cave was big and wonderful and I kept getting lost deep inside it. Thankfully the dragon was always there to keep me company. Eventually, I asked the dragon if it had a map of the cave and in response it tore my lungs out with one quick swipe.
On the seventh day, I asked the dragon if it had a name. It said that it did not, but posited that it might be able to acquire mine if it ate me.
On the eighth day, I asked the dragon if it felt it had taken my name. "Not yet", it said, and then it ate me again.
On the twelfth day, I asked the dragon if I could leave the cave. "Sure", it said, and it picked me up in one huge talon. Clutched close to its chest, I could feel the warmth, the roughness of its scales. I ran a hand along them, feeling them, as the dragon took me out of the cave and then with a huge flap, we were in the sky. I had never seen the world like this, before. It was stunning and beautiful. Without a word, the dragon dropped me and I fell for four kilometres, becoming a jumble of flesh on the cement.
On the fourteenth day, I asked the dragon if I was allowed to fight back. "It won't make a difference", it replied, and I hit and kicked its back for hours, until my fists bled. It shook me off and stepped on me.
On the eighteenth day, I asked the dragon if there was anything I should be asking it, but was not. "I don't know", said the dragon, and then it curled up to go to sleep. I crept to the edge of the cave and gazed out at the sun. It was setting and the sky was the most brilliant shades of purple and red. I watched it until breathing felt difficult and I glanced down to see a single talon emerging from my chest. I had not heard it approach.
On the twenty-first day, I asked the dragon if we could make a deal. "What could you offer me?", the dragon asked. I told it we could leave here together. "I cannot leave", said the dragon, and then it opened its jaws and liquid fire poured out, curling the fat from my bones.
On the twenty-fifth day, I asked the dragon if there was a puzzle for me to solve. "No", it said, and then it slapped me with its massive tail and I flew against the side of the cliffs.
On the twenty-eighth day, the dragon asked me "Why won't you stop?". I said I did not know and so it sighed and ate me.
On the thirty-first day, I asked the dragon if I was allowed to write and it said it could not stop me. I was still looking for a paper and pen when it slashed my back, again and again, until I could not walk or crawl and I had to bleed out on the cave floor.
On the thirty-second day, I asked the dragon if I could speak and it said, "I never considered stopping you". I was going to speak more but it jabbed me with its horns, right through my vocal cords, and then carried me around the cave like a trophy as I dripped blood and gore.
On the forty-first day, I asked the dragon if we could go flying again and it agreed. The world is so vast, so much bigger than I imagined. I shouted down to the cities we passed, each so full of life and people, so incredible, I shouted about how I longed to join them. I don't think they could hear me. The dragon flew too high. Finally, we came to a small island, and the dragon set me down. "Wait here", it said, and then it was gone.
On the forty-second day, I was still the only person on the island. The dragon had not come back.
On the forty-third day, I asked myself if the dragon would ever come back for me.
On the forty-fourth day, I asked myself if I even wanted to go back.
On the forty-fifth day, I asked myself what my purpose was. I did not have an answer.
On the forty-sixth day, I died of thirst. It was surprisingly peaceful.
On the forty-seventh day, I was still on the island and I screamed with rage.
On the forty-eighth day, I drew a castle in the sand, and then a city, and then a god, and then all of space and time. I kept drawing until all the sand on the beach was used, and then I looked back and thought "that must've taken years".
On the fiftieth day, I wondered if the dragon remembered me.
On the fifty-first day, I wondered if anyone remembered me.
On the fifty-third day, I swam for shore.
On the fifty-fourth day, I swam for shore.
On the fifty-fifth day, I swam for shore.
On the fifty-sixth day, I pulled myself out of the waters on the edge of a great city of coloured glass and bright rocks, that reflected and magnified the light, like a great prism. I wandered around, staring at the sights, until I fell asleep in an alley.
On the fifty-seventh day, I asked someone where I was. They ignored me and moved on. Everything is going to be okay, I told myself, and then the city was fire and death and rubble.
On the fifty-eighth day, I asked the dragon why it had destroyed the city. "No", it said as it picked bits of rubble and human out of its teeth, "you destroyed the city". And then it ate me too.
On the fifty-ninth day, I asked the dragon if it loved me. Tenderly, it wrapped one claw around my body. "Yes", it whispered, as it squeezed me tighter and tighter and tighter until I exploded into a cloud of person.
On the sixty-first day, I asked the dragon how I could kill it and it laughed and laughed and laughed. I screamed with rage and threw myself upon it, fists hammering scales and prying at spikes and uprooting wings. I had no effect until I climbed on its head and crushed one of its massive eyes, the way you might punch through a bees nest. It roared and threw me out of the cave, and my body tumbled and rolled down the cliff as a landslide grew around me and I was buried deep under the rubble, battered and bruised and broken and triumphant.
On the sixty-second day, I asked what it felt like to lose, and the dragon said "You should know by now". Then it roared so loud my body disintegrated under the force of the sound.
On the sixty-third day, the dragon was still blind in one eye and I laughed as it set about slowly tearing me limb from limb.
On the sixty-ninth day, I found some charcoal in the caves and began to draw. When the dragon saw me, it picked me up and pressed me into the rock, my bones cracking as it used me like an eraser to undo what I had wrought.
On the seventy-second day, I didn't move when I woke up. The dragon let me lie there for hours and I didn't dare to breath. Finally, I looked up, and there it was, standing over me. It huffed and then slit my neck with a quick bite.
On the seventy-fifth day, I asked the dragon if I could have friends. "You have me", it said, and then it ripped out my heart and chewed it slowly as the rest of my body failed.
On the eightieth day, I asked the dragon if I was the dragon and it guffawed. "No", it said, "I am the dragon". And then it crunched me up with its massive teeth.
On the ninetieth day, I asked the dragon what it would do if I blinded it in the other eye, and it said that it would kill me in a way so torturous, I would never have a moment of peace again. As if to prove its point, it wrapped its tail around me and held me in the river it drank from, until I drowned.
On the ninety-first day, I asked how that would be any different and so it drowned me again.
On the ninety-fourth day, I asked the dragon what it was a metaphor for. It said it did not know and then melted a section of cave with its terrible breath and pushed me into magma until I too melted away.
On the ninety-fifth day, I asked the dragon if that meant that maybe it was mistaken about being a metaphor. It hissed with rage and held me in place until my body calcified and petrified and I was one with the rock.
On the ninety-sixth day, I asked the dragon if perhaps I was the metaphor. Why else was I unable to die? Furious, it roared at me and tried to gore me on its massive horns, but I was ready and I leapt up onto its head, and with both hands, smashed the other eye. It crushed me against the wall while flailing.
On the ninety-seventh day, the dragon asked me to stay. I said it could have one chance and so it filled the cave with fire until there was nothing but smoke to breathe and I was just as blind as it and we both stumbled around in the dark until I choked to death.
On the ninety-seventh day, I walked out of the cave.
On the ninety-eighth day, someone new walked into the cave and asked the dragon what its purpose was.
I felt a single pang of guilt before I relaxed and let go of my existence. I had done my part. The dragon will be slain someday. They always are.