Matt liked to think that he was a pretty normal guy. That he was just living his life with there being nothing extraordinary about him. He knew at some level that this wasn't technically true, but it was still what he told himself. Nobody else told him any differently.
As he was off from his job for the weekend and his only real friend was on vacation, things were getting pretty boring, so he decided to have a little walk around town. It was a pretty small town and at even at its best, there wasn't an overabundance of things to do there.
A little shop here, an old movie theater there, stores that Matt had been in more times than he could count, including the one he worked at. He enjoyed the walk there and back more than anything else. He had to walk along a path through the woods to get into town.
He'd always loved the woods. When he was younger, most kids his age liked video games and TV, while he always wanted to be outside. The smell of nature, the sounds of the birds and the rustling of the trees as the wind blew through them always made Matt feel at home.
His reverence for his surroundings was momentarily shattered as he heard an unfamiliar noise of something heavy hitting the ground. Feeling comfortable enough in the woods to head off the path, Matt ran towards the sound. Whatever it was, it hit a lot of branches on the way down, and he hoped it wasn't a nest or something.
Matt's eyes widened as he saw what had caused all the ruckus. At first, he thought it was a snake and then as he got closer, it appeared to be a bird, but once he was near enough to kneel by it one thing was abundantly clear. Matt was very familiar with the animals that were native to his woods and whatever this thing was, it was
not
native.
He didn't even know what it was. He could see why he kept getting it confused for other animals. It had a long body and scales like a lizard as well as a similarly reptilian head, but it also clearly had wings that resembled a bat's. The word dragon came to mind if nothing else, even though it looked small enough to fit in one of his hands.
But just as the identity of the creature itself was a mystery, so too was its condition. One of its four legs looked broken and half of its body appeared badly burned, and those were just the visible injuries. Falls like that usually came with loads of internal injuries as well. Looking up, Matt tried to see what could have caused that much damage to...whatever this thing was. There was no indication of what did it but his attention quickly turned to whether it was alive or not.
Watching its small body, Matt could see it moving slightly with its ragged breaths. He didn't know how it was supposed to breathe, but it was a safe assumption that this wasn't normal. While the injury and the animal in question were foreign, the situation of finding an injured animal in the woods was not. The animal kingdom was a brutal place. Matt tried to do his part for the weaker ones, to give them a chance.
He always had a curious connection with animals. He would have been a vet if his town had one for him to work at. But as he would have with any other animal he found, he decided to take matters into his own hands, quite literally in this case as he knelt down and gently scooped it up into his hand. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, which at least explained the loud thuds it made during its descent. Once he was sure it was as safe as it could be, Matt headed home.
It wasn't just Matt's connection with animals that was curious. He wasn't officially trained in medical techniques or anything of the sort, but when he took an animal in, they always got better. If they were breathing when he found them, they survived. And all he would do was just take care of them. It was peculiar, but no one really questioned it. Then again, no one ever really saw how little he did compared to the extent of the injuries. He kept that information pretty close to the vest. Laila was one of the few who knew the truth and she just wrote it off as Matt having a "gift".
By the time Matt got home, the dragon creature was already remarkably improved. Its breathing was even, and while the burns still looked pretty bad, they weren't as bad as when he found it. As curious as Matt was about the creature, doing what he could to help took most of his focus. Healing happened regardless, but when he was cognizant of what he wanted, it went much faster and the creature clearly needed the extra effort.
Because this was such a normal situation, Matt's house was already stocked with bandages and various first aid supplies, as well as multiple different sized cages that came in very handy for the occasional carnivores that he took in. Wrapping up the burns as well as setting and bandaging the broken bones, Matt did all he knew and then it was just...waiting until it got better.
Looking at the unconscious creature, Matt estimated it would probably be a week or two before it could fly out of here under its own power. Assuming it could fly. The wings looked like they could support flight and it did fall from pretty high up from what he could tell, but its deceptive weight made him question it. Due to its mysterious nature, Matt decided to err on the side of caution and used one of the smaller cages.
Once that had all been settled, with his boredom more than satisfied, Matt did his usual pastime of turning on his stereo and reading a book as he bobbed his head to the music. Time passed and before he knew it, a restful sleep had claimed him.
***
