An Invasion

"How about you feel me kicking?" Sinclair growled and used two hands to get Ainsley off of him. However, the human got off as soon as he felt the hands on his head. For some reason, Sinclair felt weird hearing about such a thing.

"Sinco…" Ainsley whined again like he wasn't annoying the other earlier. "There's something in my mind, and it keeps on repeating. It's driving me crazy. It's just that… no matter what I do, I can't find that place."

He reached for his phone on the nightstand on his side of the bed. There was a long history of vague queries on the browser. "I have no landmark or whatsoever. My mind is like buzzing and pushes me to go to this one place I can't find…"

A grumble was the planned response, but Sinclair only frowned. "You can locate Roth?"

"I don't know. All I see is a run-down apartment. I don't have anything to reference where that place is." Ainsley huffed as he crossed his arms on his chest. "We should walk around later in the morning. Maybe I could let my feet take me there."

"That's dangerous. If Roth is kidnapped by the cannibals, that will be the last place I want you to be in." Sinclair only sat up in a hurry. "Can't you give me anything else more than that?"

"Sorry, that's all I have." Ainsley scratched his head. Even the vision was recurring, it was too vague for Ainsley to visualize properly. He then frowned at the other man. "And, uh… cannibals? What does that even mean? Cannibals… dragons that eat other dragons?"

For a moment, Sinclair wanted to dismiss the topic. However, upon realizing that Ainsley was getting caught up in it and that he needed the idiot to understand that it was dangerous, Sinclair only nodded. "That's true. The moonlight dragons share the sea with despicable neighbors.

"Not only were they barred from entering our mountain and water space, but they were also killed upon sight." Sinclair gritted his teeth. "The only problem was that they ate a lot of humans already that even I had a hard time spotting them from the crowd of humans. They eat everything that breathes: humans, animals, dragons… everything.

"Father mentioned that they were trying to destabilize the community here in our city. We're probably looking at an invasion." Sinclair remembered that Ainsley heard about it from his father. "The habitat of the cannibals die from time to time, and they were set to invade human cities for food. They were the reason why dragons were pretty much hunted down by humans."

Ainsley gulped down the lump in his throat. He couldn't say anything… until he thought of something alarming. "Do they know that you're a big shot among the moonlight dragons?"

At this, Sinclair smiled, but the smile was rather apologetic. "They had been targeting me before. However, they seemed to start changing tactics and target those around me instead. I didn't mean to drag you into this, Leo. I never thought they would go after you."

Nodding. That was all Ainsley used to respond with Sinclair. He pretty much expected that being close to a big shot would mean that he was always under the gaze of bad people. The only thing he didn't see coming was that the bad people were not humans at all.

He then looked down at the recent entries of the browser. "I'll try to visualize some more. We should at least do our best to look for Roth while the heart can still feel him. Maybe we could save him and bring him back to your parents alive at the fastest time possible."

…

In contrast to the relatively quiet life that Ainsley had for a few days, the CEO's floor offices were in chaos. The threats of their workplace crashing were looming all over everyone after someone leaked the discussions of the board. It was even said that the company would start going through their personal items because the new disease was said to be from a drug.

It was even said that all personnel caught carrying and taking the drug would be sent to jail.

Everyone had grown rather suspicious of everyone else. Almost no one wanted to be spotted alone in their pantries to avoid talks. No one even dared to drink coffee that had anything added to it. The offices changed over the weekend, that even Sinclair was appalled by this. It didn't help that the press got a whiff of it as well… now that other companies were said to be implementing the same.

"Stuart, I'm sending you instructions. I want everything disseminated before lunch." Sinclair growled at the damaged morale of his people. "This is of a higher priority."

Even back at Ainsley's station, he could hear everyone chatting about the crackdown and at the rumors of the drug. However, he had seen and even inhaled the real thing. It's good that his dragon heart had saved him from its effects. Unlike them all, he was pretty much confident in drinking his sweetened coffee. After all, the sugar he used was nothing like the one used against him.

His eyes swept at his coworkers. The third quarter of the fiscal year was coming, and everyone was being worked to the bone while worrying about the drug-induced disease. No one could even let up the rumors of their coworkers taking the mentioned drug.

"Hey, Len. Aren't you scared?" One of his friends came to check up on the man who just got back from vacation. "You might be friends with the CEO, but that only means that those old goons would sell you out faster if they saw you acting suspiciously."

"Nah, I saw what that drug looked like. I don't think I will accidentally eat it unless someone feeds it to me." Ainsley didn't take it to heart too much. He was the planted spy anyway, and almost everyone knew that. Why would CEO believe someone else more than him?

"Eh?" The friend was shocked. Ainsley had seen it?

Ding! Almost simultaneously, everyone's computers rang when an email came to their inboxes. The friend didn't hurry to his station and only took a look when Ainsley opened his. After all, it was from the CEO. Ainsley's eyes then widened in shock. "What did he say?"