Author:
Anna Mantovani is an author, blogger and songwriter based in Turin, Italy. She has a degree in Media Engineering and works in the railway sector. With her sister Maria Carla, also a science-fiction writer, she manages the blog “The Mantovanis”, which focuses on independent speculative fiction and geek culture. With her husband Dario (and sometimes their two kids as guest stars) she plays in the electropop duo “Sedona”. Find out more at: www.themantovanis.blog.

The story is set in the fictional city of Europa, in Central Europe, the last city left after a nuclear war that made most of the Earth uninhabitable and woke up dragons - prehistorical creatures that caused an mass outbreak of a lethal disease that decimated the population and turned the survivors into scale-covered, violent mutants that rebel against the government.

Sophie, a young doctor working for her boss Amanda Solarin in a medical facility, accidentally meets an elderly woman, Emma, who miraculously recovered from the dragon plague, and whose blood could be the key to a vaccine. Saving Emma from government persecution, Sophie goes on the run with her.

Meanwhile, Erik Persson, a police officer, sets out to track Sophie and Emma, while suspecting that a mole might be hiding in the ranks of the police.

Sophie and Emma hide in the slums and after almost getting caught by the police several times they finally fall in the hands of the rebels; in her captivity, Sophie discovers that the plague survivors are not as irrational and violent as the press portrays them and agrees to work with them to develop a vaccine. She also discovers that some of the survivors have the ability to communicate telepathically with a dragon.

She meets the General, the leader of the rebels, whose name is Cain, and despite her fear for his terrifying looks and enigmatic personality, she is strangely attracted to him.

The Dragon Plague

They walked for a long time, stopping occasionally to rest. In the complete darkness, Sophie began to lose track of time.


I think I stumbled on something... I felt it against my ankle...


Sophie knelt and felt the ground blindly, but found nothing. Maybe it was just a piece of concrete, she said to reassure Emma. 


No, it was different... it felt different. 


It was not a nice thought, but overall mice were the last thing to be afraid of at the moment.


They kept walking, for a timespan that Sophie could not quite gauge (ten minutes? An hour? Two hours?), until, suddenly, they heard muffled noises that sounded like footsteps and objects falling.


She could not finish the sentence, because something hit her shoulder. 


Sophie screamed and heard a mocking laugh behind her. 


What is it? Emma exclaimed, her voice cracking with fear.


Chapter 24