Malicious Mildred

• Hannah Butcher, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

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10, check.
54. "BINGO!" Ruth blurted into the deafening silence. Realising she was alone and bingo had finished, she headed back to her room. The paint was cracked and flayed in the corridor, and the carpet felt firm and squashed. The dusk was dreary and all was still. Drained eyes peered out peepholes when Ruth wheeled past. Ruth was not very popular at St. Sidards Nursing Home. Being the newest and youngest resident, many disliked her. When she reached her apartment, she hastily went inside. Her room was tidy and bare, with a bed as white as fresh fallen snow. The dancing frames and flowers were merely another one of Ruth's hallucinations.

Once she had brushed her toothless gum, she lifted her lifeless legs into her bed. She instantly drifted away into a deep, death like sleep. Ruth's eyes widened and sweat dripped down her sagged face. Something nipped at her arm. A small, horned creature laid beside her. It was green with yellow socks. A baby dragon.
"Stop!" She grumbled to herself, it's only another hallucination, she thought. It rolled over on Ruth's droopy belly, ripping her sweater. She grunted, which sent the dragon to spew of wave of fiery flames. Ignoring her 'vision', Ruth went back to sleep. The dragon was not happy.

Sunlight seeped through the french windows, caressing Ruth's worn face. After stumbling into her wheelchair, and positioning her false teeth, she headed to breakfast. Ruth was always first to breakfast and always last to leave.

There, at her usual table in the corner, the fearsome dragon sat. It sulked and whimpered, and had transformed the seat to ash and dust. Ruth wheeled over, shoved the dragon off and played with her porridge. Residents soon poured in like a stampede of blue wildebeests. Suddenly, a worker swerved over to her.
"Miss, do I have to remind you that you're not permitted to have cigarettes here, exactly for this reason!" A tall man said in a stern voice, whilst glancing down at the burnt seat.
"No, no. That was Mildred." Ruth said. Mildred? She thought, that's what I'll call the dragon.
"Who is Mildred?" The man asked. Without given a reply, he wrote something down in his notepad.
"This is your last chance Miss." He then strolled away.

That afternoon was fuzzy. Ruth struggled deciding what was real. Mildred showed up, but her claws were sharper and her eyes were red, full or fury. Her blood boiled, burned and churned inside her. Mildred watched Ruth all night. Ruth knew that the once cute dragon she had met the previous night, was hardly a shadow of the malicious monster in front of her. Her teeth chattered and she trembled with fear.
BANG!
She fell off her bed, screaming for help. Nothing escaping her foaming mouth.

The tall man went to see Ruth the next morning, only to find a pile of ashes. Ruth was never found.