A slight little story in response to the prompt at https://www.wattpad.com/1140944932-write-to-survive-contest-open-round-1-open, which asked for 500 - 700 words about an adventurous trip home.

Total length: 575 words

I grabbed my jacket and rushed down the stairs. I could see the sky was grey over the woodlot, clouds rolling into end the sunny day. I didn't care. It was Friday, and I was not about to allow anyone to stop me – definitely not a little thunderstorm. The door slammed behind me, and I was in the parking lot, the asphalt still warm under my feet from the now-unseen sun.

I made my way towards the car, keys in my hand and jingling cheerfully. The cloud had extended so that the sky everywhere looked grey, not just above the woodlot. And that was when I saw it. There's a pathway through the trees, a trail covered in wood chips that meanders among the trilliums. On a rainy, Friday afternoon, that trail should be dead – except a man was standing there.

The man looked odd enough that I actually stopped, keys dangling uselessly from my fingers, to stare at him. He was tall, and slender, and dressed all in green. More shockingly, the ears that nestled in his neatly-tied hair were pointy.

I tilted my head to one side, watching him. The pointy ears made him look inhuman. I could feel the chill in the air as the wind picked up, presaging the storm. His eyes caught mine, and he began to stride towards me, long step, and quicker than seemed natural.

I unwittingly took two or three steps backwards, but then he was upon me. He looked at me curiously.

"You are – human?" he asked. He was speaking English, but the way he spoke was strange, coloured with an unidentifiable accent.

I stumbled over my answer – the question was so absurd "Y-yes, of course."

"Then I need your help," the strange man said, grabbing my wrist.

"But it's Friday!" I wailed.

He did not respond, and began to drag me towards the woods. I immediately dropped to the ground, throwing all my weight onto the narrow circle his unnaturally thin finger and thumb made around my wrist. To my immense shock, it had no effect. In fact, he hauled me back up to my feet as if I were as light as a small child.

"I will not harm you," He said. "But I need your help."

A movement at the edge of the woods caught my eye, and I gasped. The grey mist was not a cloud with an oncoming storm. It was smoke. Smoke that was curling up from the nostrils of an enormous, reptilian creature.

"No!" I screamed, throwing myself towards my car and getting nowhere. The man's steps never faltered, and his grip never loosened. We got closer, and closer, and closer to the enormous animal. I begged him to let me go, practically hysterical.

He dragged me closer, and closer, and closer – and then, the dragon saw me. Its eyes grew wide, and then – it was gone. It popped out of existence, like antimatter colliding with matter.

The tug on my wrist was gone now, and I turned to see that the – well, was he a man? Or an alien or an elf or a magical being? – the man was gone. And the sky was clearing, the sun visible in a break in what now looked like ordinary clouds.

And it was still Friday afternoon. I grasped my keys with renewed strength, and ran to my car.