Dragons, phoenixes, werewolves, they're all myths. They could never exist. All the proof people have ever had of these creatures were ancient texts and supposed sightings. But they could never be real, right? Well sometimes, when something seems impossible, look beyond what you normally would, and you will find that it's more possible than you would ever believe.

Everything started with my obsession of mythical creatures. When I was young, I loved to hear about all kinds of monsters that were said to live in our world. This liking, with time, grew into a fascination in the study of these supposive unreal beings. Every book I read, every picture I saw, every story I told, had something to do with these beasts.

Within no time, I began to try to prove that they do exist. However, no matter how hard I tried, I could never find them. People always told me that this was because they don't exist, and that trying to find them was like walking in a circle. No matter how far I think I get, I'm really going nowhere. Despite these claims, I still searched. Like I always believed, nothing is impossible unless you make it so. By the age of fourteen, I still hadn't given up the hunt. But luckily, my searches for once proved not to be a waste of my time.

It was after school one day when my sister Lily and I decided to go exploring in the forest. She knew I would've gone anyways searching for strange creatures, so she decided to tag along. Like everyone else, she believed that trying to find them was a dead end search, but she still supported me and what I had dedicated my life to, usually.

It had been over an hour since we left home, which I spent examining any little piece of supposive evidence of the creatures, and Lily was getting tired of it.

"Luke, we've been out here for forever!" she complained, waving her hands in the air for emphasis.

"Hold on just a minute longer," I replied, staring at some tracks on the ground. I was attempting to determine if they were werewolf prints or just normal wolf prints. "I need to figure out if these are from a werewolf or not."

"Aw, come on!" she moaned. "You seriously aren't trying to find werewolves now, are you?!"

"Hey, for all we know, they can be real," I responded, getting back to my feet after deciding that they were just wolf tracks.

"And what proof do you have of that?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at me.

"Well," I began. I pulled off my navy blue backpack with a dragon pattern stitched into it, the backpack I only used for research on "myths", and unzipped the first and largest pocket. After a minute of digging around in the cluttered mess inside, Lily tapping her foot impatiently beside me, I found what I was looking for. Pulling it out, I flipped open my "Guide to Monsters and Myths" book and stopped on werewolves.

I turned it towards her, pointing at the page, saying, "Many people have claimed to have heard or seen werewolves. There's even a picture of their tracks."

"Ok, first of all, those sitings aren't real," Lily said. "They're just people's imagination, a dream mistaken for reality, or some "brilliant" mind who thinks they'll get famous for lying about seeing unreal creatures. And secondly..." She stepped closer, pointing at the page. "Those. Are. Just. PAWPRINTS! They could be from a mountain lion for all we know!"

"But maybe if we just-"

"No!" she yelled, cutting me off. "Sorry, but I'm sick and tired of your conspiracies. We've been out here for an hour, and all you've done is look at every pawprint or scratch mark you could find. And, it's super annoying if all you talk about is mythical monsters." She glared at me, expecting me to be hurt by that, but I wasn't paying attention. My gaze was fixed on a strange creature in a tree. It looked like a blue lizard, but with wings!

"O...M...G..." I said at a loss of words. "I...I-I did it...I...I found a dragon!" My excited yell startled both my sister and the creature, causing her to jump and it to take off at an extreme speed. "Wait! Come back!" I said, beginning to chase it.

"Luke! Where are you going?!" asked Lily, still standing in the same place, watching me run after what she thought was nothing. "And what was that all about?!" However, I didn't listen, bolting in the direction I thought it had gone. I kept running, paying little attention to where I was going until it was too late.

My foot came down on some loose dirt, which caved in below me, sending me careening down into a giant cavern. I hit the ground with a sickening thud, crying out in pain. Slowly, I pushed myself to a sitting position, moaning from the widespread aching throughout my entire body. Luckily, I didn't break anything, so that was good. But otherwise, I couldn't move the slightest bit without wincing.

I glanced back up at the hole I fell through, which sat a good fifteen feet above me. This made me a bit more happy with the fact that I was lucky enough not to break my leg. The bad news was that the hole was the only exit in sight, and it was far too high to reach without something to climb up. Everywhere else in the cavern was shrouded in shadow, lit ever so slightly by the beam of light leaking through from above me.

After a while, I worked up the strength to get to my feet, limping to the cave wall. From there, I felt my way around the dark, hoping to find a passage. And soon enough, I did. But though following it, I was trapped in suffocating darkness with no sense of where I was heading. It took me a while, but I began to realize that I was not going up; I was going down.

Knowing this, I was about to turn back, when I noticed a flicker of light ahead of me. Maybe there's someone there that can help me get out of this stupid hole, I thought, pushing myself on towards the light. When I reached the corner the light source was concealed by, I called out to whomever might be there. But when I got no response, I decided to go on.

Rounding the corner, I came to a large open room, appearing as if it was carved into the stone. Yet there was no one. Instead, light shone from the wall opposite to where I was standing. There stood a carving of a dragon and a phoenix facing one another, forming an oval between them. And centered in this oval was a golden glowing stone with curling lines drawn emitting from it. Carved above it all were markings that seemed to spell something, but they were indecipherable by any codes I knew.

"Woah," I said in amazement, walking up to the strange marks, the pain from before completely forgotten. After a minute of staring at it, an idea popped into my mind. I should draw a reference picture and research this when I get home. So I reached to grab my backpack, until I realized that I had left it back with Lily. Luckily, I had a notepad and pencils in my pocket.

Pulling them out, I began sketching, making sure to get every detail. I even re-wrote the coded message above it in larger print so I could decode it later. Once I finished, I carefully put them back in my pocket, making my way closer to the carving. I lifted my right hand, slowly brushing my fingers across the golden stone's smooth surface.

But then the light flashed to a blinding brightness all of a sudden, causing my hand to yank back. Black light began to flow through the dragon on the left and white for the phoenix on the right, forming into gold as the two colors met at the stone. Backing away slowly, the heel of my shoe snagged onto a jagged crack in the floor, sending me backwards onto the ground.

I was quick to sit back up, just in time to see the black color take over the gold and white, turning it all, even the stone, into a glowing darkness. From within the stone shot fourth energy that filled the oval, looking like some kind of portal.

I got back to my feet slowly, and inched my way towards the energy field. I inspected it carefully, but dared not touch it. When nothing happened, I turned to leave, only to feel something icy cold and tentacle like wrap around my wrist. I looked back, spotting a pitch black, vine like object protruding from the portal, the tip coiled around my hand.

Panicked, I tried pulling away, but its iron grip and boulder like strength kept me in place. Then more came jetting out, grappling onto my other arm and both legs, beginning to literally drag me towards the dark oval. Using all my strength, I resisted, but to no avail. It pulled my hands and feet together, causing me to crash down to the ground yet again.

Since I could no longer escape on my own, I started screaming for help. Yet no matter how loud I was, no one would hear me unless they were in the cavern I started in. Looking back at the portal, I saw that my feet were nearly touching the surface, making me scream louder. Then with one fluid motion, I was speedily yanked through.

Darkness with streaks of white surrounded me as I felt like I was being thrown through space. My voice was gone, so there was no point in screaming anymore. That still didn't mean that I wasn't scared half to death with the situation.

Suddenly, gold began to engulf the darkness of the void, and I felt the vines fade away. Then color began to appear, swirling rapidly around me, a mix of green, brown, grey, blue, white, and many more. After that, I felt myself hit the ground, groaning yet again, wondering what was with me and falling that day.

It took a while, but the world eventually stopped spinning, and I was left with a massive headache. Standing up, I took a minute to look around, jaw dropping as I did. I was in the middle of a forest, the soft blue sky and the shining sun above, the ground shadowed by massive trees. But that wasn't the surprising part. There, in plain sight, were dragons, phoenixes, griffons, and other creatures I had never seen or heard of before.

"I found it..." I said breathlessly. "The mythical world...I finally found it."