Morning came quietly.
For the first time in years,
the sky above Vancouver was clear.
No fire.
No thunder.
No shadow crossing the clouds.
The Dragon was gone.
People emerged slowly from shelters and tunnels.
From abandoned stations beneath Metrotown.
From the flooded basements of New Westminster.
From the ruins of Downtown Vancouver.
They looked upward,
expecting fear.
Expecting destruction.
Expecting the nightmare to return.
But the sky remained empty.
The war was over.
The Dragon had vanished.
No one knew where.
No one knew how.
Some believed it had been destroyed.
Others whispered it had merely retreated,
waiting beyond the mountains for another age.
No evidence was ever found.
Only scars.
Burned towers.
Silent streets.
And memories that would never heal.
Yet for the first time since the Collapse,
children played outside again.
Lights returned to the city.
Trains began moving.
Construction cranes rose over the skyline.
Life returned.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Miraculously.
And whenever the rain falls over Vancouver,
people still look toward the clouds.
Not because they fear the Dragon.
But because they remember.
The darkness was real.
The battle was real.
And so was the hero who saved them.
The Dragon is gone.
But the legend remains.