The Book of Dragons

He saw dragons everywhere, and that was why they’d put him in a secure unit. They told him there was no such thing as dragons. But he’d seen unprovoked attacks on the street, violence break out in an apparently quiet bar, rage overtake people on crowded pavements, and supposed peace-keepers use shocking degrees of force. In such moments, the beasts revealed themselves. They could be glimpsed louring from beneath ridged brows, snarling in the corner of your eye and leering between your rapid and confused blinks. You had to be quick, mind, and know what to look for. But once you knew about them, it was somehow harder for them to convince you that you’d imagined what you’d seen, that you’d been mistaken, or that it had all been some trick of the light. Once you knew about them and properly believed in them, it seemed they had less power over you, less ability to blind you to them and less general impossibility. What really worried him, though, was whether they suspected he saw them. And if they began to suspect, what might they then do to him?