Writing style test 1 - first person (Razor's perspective, angry and frustrated)


	I backed away as she walked towards me, I felt wrong, something was very wrong in my head. I had come to the same clearing, met with the same psychologist, week after week. Nothing was getting better, in fact, it was getting much worse. I stepped away again, she said nothing but continued to walk after me, like a bull following a matador. Only, the rolls where reversed. I was this big powerful animal of some fourteen tons, and she was this small human woman that couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and forty if even that much.

	It wasn't that I didn't like her, or want her help. Every time we had met before I had left feeling at least a little better, but it always came back. The same feelings, anger and frustration, always the same, for no reason or from no place I could determine my self. This time it was much worse, I couldn’t think clearly, nothing seemed right in my mind. I felt as though I might strike out if she came to near, I didn't want that, and I wasn't going to let it happen. But she continued to pursue me, around and around the clearing like some kind of bull pen. I wanted to tell her to stay away, but I couldn’t speak, the words wouldn’t form a coherent sentence in my mind let alone if I tried to speak.

	She finally stopped, and I stopped as well. We stood silent for a moment, and then she spoke for the first time since I had landed in the clearing. "Are you going to stand still so I can get near you?" was all she asked. I didn't have an answer, I just felt tense and uneasy, and I rocked side to side shifting my weight from one side to the other nervously. "I can't help you if I can't get near you." she said almost flatly. She began to walk towards me again and I stood still this time, she stopped only a few feet from me, no more than half an arms length away. I felt a strong urge to lash out for no reason, like some kind of instinct I couldn’t fully understand. My arm twitched with the urge but I managed to control myself, I didn't want to hurt anyone, let alone someone who had helped me so much.

	She took another step forward and reached out to touch my fore arm, I stood on all fours and she still only came up to my elbow. She placed her hand on my fore arm and quickly drew it away. I felt slightly alarmed and almost said something, but she spoke before I could. "If you don't relax you are going to have a heart attack or something." She walked a few paces back and turned to face me again. "In as few words as possible, how do you feel?" It was an unusual question from her, she had never asked anything simple like that before. It took me a few moments to collect myself enough to answer, I had to come up with some sort of simple comparison, but I couldn’t think of any. 

	"I feel like I'm going to hurt someone, like I just need to strike out." I finally said after a pause. She seemed to understand and took another step back. 

	"What could you relate the exact feeling to?" She asked, another question that was unusual for her. But she added to it before I could answer. "I'm asking about the exact feelings, not the urges they cause."

	I puzzled over it for a minute or more, I couldn't think of anything I knew of that I could relate this feeling to. "I can't think of anything." I said with despair. She frowned and turned away, and then she began walking to the edge of the clearing. I did not follow, I didn't trust myself enough to. I watched as she walked into the tree line, I heard a car door open and the usual ding of the chime. At first I wondered if she was leaving, but I knew she wouldn’t abandon me like that. The car door slammed shut and she soon appeared through the trees carrying a very large case. She stopped at a full arms length away, still cautious from what I had said. 

	She opened the case and pulled out a set of cards. I had never seen them before, she never used any aids in our sessions. I tilted my head as she pulled one up in front of me, it was a picture of a fork, something I knew from seeing humans use them. "What does it mean?" I asked. She looked puzzled and then flipped it over to see it herself. There was the words tea pot on the back, or at least what looked to be the back at first. She quickly pulled the cards apart revealing the picture she intended to show. A simple black tea pot, I looked at it for a moment, tea pots weren’t something I knew allot about, being a dragon I had never used one or seen one used. "It makes tea, that’s all I know" I said. This didn't seem to be the answer she was expecting or wanted. 

	"This isn't a test of knowledge." she said. She held up another, it was a picture of a pot with an oddly shaped lid. 

	"What do you want me to say?" I asked in a frustrated tone. 

	"Does it relate at all?" she answered. I didn't understand, I had seen all these items before but none of them related at all, I had never even used them. It was becoming quite frustrating, enough I began to shake a little.

She seemed to pick up on this and asked another question. "What do they both do?" I tilted my head, she said it wasn't a knowledge test, but was now asking me if I knew what they both did. 

	"They get hot." I said with some force, I was getting quite frustrated and began to shake more noticeably. She flipped the card with the pot on it, on the back it said pressure cooker. 

	"What happens when you heat one of these?" she asked almost too quietly to hear. She always got this softer quieter tone when she felt she was making progress, and she was at this point. 

	The realization hit me instantly and I responded. "It pressurizes, but what..." she cut me off. 
	"Sometimes if you have an object or force to relate your feelings to it will help you manage them better." she said. I thought about it but it felt silly, relating to something that couldn’t feel, or hurt someone if it lost control. It simply couldn’t lose control, but I could, and I felt very close at that moment.

	She put the cards away and walked closer, I was shaking hard enough the decorative chain around my neck was rattling. I wore a towing chain around my neck with my mothers military tags hanging from their original bead chain attached through a link. She walked up and touched the tags. I felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to strike her, my arm rose reflexively getting ready for it. When she saw my biceps bunch tightly as my arm rose she backed away quickly. Something she commented on repeatedly for the first week was my size. I was bigger than any other dragon at the rehabilitation center, possibly bigger than any in the province, and that always intimidated people. But not her, she was more curious than intimidated by me, the first meeting we had was almost completely taken by her examining me from head to toe. She was both a dragon psychologist and doctor, so she had every reason to make sure I was in good health. The only time she ever backed away was when I told her to, or when my muscles tightened like they did now.

My arm relaxed slightly as she backed away and she asked another question. "If you relate to the pressure cooker, how do you feel?" I still felt it was silly, but something sprang into my mind so I answered. 

	"More like a volcano ready to explode." This seemed to have two effects, the first was a very alarmed look on her face, the second came shortly after. She nodded and took a step back. 

	"See, now you have something to relate your feeling to." I still felt silly, but that was quickly fading, I didn't feel much different than that simple description provided. I wanted to explode, just blow up, but I knew I couldn’t just stop at property damage if I did. If someone tried to stop me I'd kill them without control, of that I was certain. But would it stop there? That I wasn't so sure of. My mind was being torn apart by an uncontrollable inconsolable rage. But why? I couldn’t understand why I was angry, I had made peace with my parent’s deaths, and I had made peace with myself. But it still tore at me, like I was being wronged some how.

	This was the last step before I could go into police training, but that seemed so distant, I couldn’t be a police officer, and protect people, if I was a raving lunatic all the time, or ready to explode into a rage at a pin drop. It wasn't normal to be like this, I didn't want to be angry. As I thought about it I stood still and stiff. Then she touched me, I snapped out of my thoughts with a twitch and a thud from my tail. "I lost you for a second." She said concerned. I had lost myself, but I said nothing. She paced in front of me for a few moments, I had time to think about how dangerous it had been for her to nudge me out of my confusion induced trance. I could have struck out without warning, sent her flying into the trees. Humans didn't fare to well when their feet left the ground for more than a second or two.

	I almost lost myself again but she touched me again, right on the fore arm. I looked down and she spoke from no more than a few inches from my arm. "How close is this volcano to an eruption?" It had to be the most awkward question possible, I couldn’t answer it at first. Putting a time to something you where struggling so hard to prevent was like giving up. I felt as if I said anything I would blow up right then. She spoke again "It's not that hard, I believe I understand what is happening to you, but I need to know how long I have to prepare." I couldn’t believe she knew, I had to say something, but I didn't know what to say. She touched my fore arm again, and took hold of the tags on my chain. Such a personal possession, but she held them like they where made of thin glass. I felt the urge to strike out again, but I resisted the reflex of raising my arm. This only aggravated my problem, I felt myself slipping faster.

"Lower your head." she said, as more of a command than a request. I complied. "How close?" she questioned again. I had to answer this time, but it was hard. 

	"I..... Maybe a day?" I managed to spit out. 

	"Not accurate enough." It was like being drilled, I didn't feel comforted at all. 

	"Less than an hour." I finally stated. I felt like it was that close, I couldn’t even relax my wings enough to spread them. My head was swimming with ideas of what I could do to release my rage, whatever was causing it was completely impossible to attack. I wanted to let go so badly, if I did in an hour it wouldn’t be soon enough. 

	"Let’s begin then" she said with a soft tone. She positioned herself right at the end of my snout, with my head lowered her eyes where right above the bridge plate of my long snout. I looked down it at her, looking down at the parts of my nostrils that stood above it, her eyes where positioned right between them, like I had lined up for a bite. The thought crossed my incoherent mind, but I still had enough sense not to do it. She put her nose to the end of my snout and stared up at my eyes. I wasn't sure what she was doing, staring at me like she was. It was a very compromising position for both of us, all she had to do was punch the center of my bridge plate and it would slam into my head and knock me senseless. At the same time, all I had to do was open my mouth and strike out with my teeth, and she'd be dead in a less than a heartbeat.

	Suddenly a sense of urgency washed over me, staring at her eyes. I felt like I had suddenly lost grip, like sliding off a cliff face. Rage exploded inside me, like a sudden build up of pressure. My chest expanded and I flared my nostrils taking in a huge amount of air. I let out a low rumble, it shook the small stones around my feet, and they danced around as if exited by my emotions. She felt it too, I was sure, but didn't move, not even a small twitch. She just stared into my eyes. The pressure I felt seemed to double, and then double again, it was agonizing. I was boiling over with rage but it wasn't spilling out, instead the pressure climbed higher, every muscle in my body tensed to painful extremes. I began to coil up behind my shoulders. My back pushed forward and seemed to compress into an arch, my tail coiled behind me and my legs seemed to push my shoulders forward. 

I abruptly realized I couldn’t push her. I wanted to, but it felt as if an invisible wall was between us, only her eyes penetrated it. My neck bowed upward as my shoulders pushed forward. The rage inside me seemed to be endlessly building with no release. I pushed my shoulders to the point my neck was as bent as far as it could be without cutting off my breathing. I was pressing against an invisible wall, like all the rage in my mind was being drawn to it. I wanted to break free and start tearing at everything around me but I couldn’t push or pull away. I felt completely driven to pushing against this imaginary wall. My right arm lifted and the muscles strained as if I was pushing and pulling it at the same time.

The rage was now full blown uncontrollable fury, I was desperate to explode, but I couldn’t for an unknown reason. I was getting sick of unknowns, not knowing why I was angry, and now not knowing why I couldn’t act on that anger. It swelled again, I started to breathe quickly, in very deep huffs, like a locomotive I had seen once. I somehow managed to coil myself farther still, like a giant spring compressed against a still unknown force. I was drooling and almost foaming at the mouth, but she stood perfectly still, I couldn’t move her.

I very well knew the only thing keeping me from leaping forward was my own will, I didn't want to hurt her, it was not an option. But somehow, her gaze kept that wall up, it kept me contained like an out of control beast in a cage. I didn't know how this was supposed to help me. She couldn’t..., I couldn’t contain my rage much longer. It was unbearable, but she held me in place. I simply couldn’t fathom it, a human woman holding a full grown, if not over grown dragon in one spot, against his will. But I thought again, it was my will, I didn't want to hurt her.

Everything seemed to be spinning out of control, I was hit with another wave of rage. My chest swelled painfully and I felt as if I was going to roar. But she was there, at the end of my snout, I couldn’t even roar if I felt like it. It would undoubtedly injure her ears if not deafen her completely. I felt as if my whole body was about to literally explode if I didn't let go. I was going mad just sitting there with all my emotion balled up as much as my body was.

She placed her hand on the side of my snout, it was a completely different feeling than I had expected. I couldn’t hold back a roar, I erupted into a fit of roaring, she had moved out of the way as if to let me release my rage. But her hand held it still as if she had control of my anger, not me. The roaring seemed to relieve some of the sensation of pressure for a second or so, but as soon as one roar stopped, the pressure returned and I roared again. Like a steaming kettle left on the burner, that I finally understood, it made sense, but it didn't help me.

All I wanted was for her to remove her hand, let me go free and expel my anger, but she did the complete opposite. She moved once again to the end of my snout, it abruptly ended my roaring fit, and brought on an even stronger sense of pressure than I had felt before. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but it was so strong I now felt an undeniable sensation that I was going to literally explode if I didn't get free of this maddening hold she had on me. I couldn’t speak, all I could do was let out wild frantic noises that sounded alien even to my own ears. How was this possible? How could she do this to me? Why would she do this to me? Those questions spun around in what was left of my coherent thoughts.

Then something snapped. Everything unraveled, no coherent thoughts where left, only uncontrollable fury. I felt displaced from my own mind, but at the same time I could see all the little fragments, I was now completely insane. She broke my mind, but why? And why was I still coiled behind that imaginary wall? And then everything seemed to pull back together, with greater pressure still, my rage swelled. She stepped off to the side, did she somehow know what had just happened?

I was at my very limits of what I could physically tolerate, I was beginning to get lightheaded from the extreme exertion. With her out of the way I flew into another roaring fit, but this time it felt different. I didn't feel the build up after each roar, just a continuous release, she let go of my snout completely and I took off straight forward for the tree line. But why had she let me go? I didn't have time to think about it before I realized I was tearing viciously at a large tree I had already knocked over, my saliva was dropping in large globs onto the tree, I felt savage and unstoppable. Foaming at the mouth like a frenzied monster. I was a frenzied monster, just a big ball of muscle, teeth, and claws fueled by completely uncontrolled rage.

I tore at the tree until it was almost shredded and still in a frenzy I picked out another one, I had no trouble knocking them down, fourteen tons of raging dragon was more than an old oak could withstand. I felt somehow liberated, like nothing was wronging me anymore, there was no continuous flow of unending rage, but a constantly diminishing supply. I finished the tree off just as I ran out of emotional fuel. I walked back into the clearing where I was met with a hand on my snout once more. She had somehow pulled every last bit of anger out of me, pulled it to the surface. But how and why I couldn’t even imagine.

Dizziness filled my head, I felt weak and tired. But her hand somehow held me up, it was incredible. She looked me in the eyes from the end of my snout again. "How do you feel?" She asked quietly. 

	I managed to will myself to answer "Tired, but relieved." I said slowly. 

	"I'll let you lay down while I explain why I put you through that." she said even more softly, as if she where sorry. She let go of my snout and I didn't so much as lay down as buckle under my own weight. I tilted forward and my arms gave out, I landed on my chest with a thud. This didn't seem to worry her as much as it did me. I had no physical power left, I could barely lift my head, never mind stand up.

	She crouched down and studied me for a moment. "You where caught in a cycle, it sounds ridiculous when you say it I know, but you where getting angry because you where angry." She said. It did sound silly, but I was ready to believe anything right now, my mind was as weak as my body. "I had to completely emotionally exhaust you, get every last fragment of anger out of your system." She continued. "It can happen to anyone, not just dragons. I have dealt with it in humans before, but humans react and handle anger differently than dragons. I would never have to do this to a human. You as a bronze in particular should handle anger very directly, but you are a particularly unusual case. You seem to repress it, bottle it up. It isn't healthy, and it will lead to these kinds of issues. This could have stemmed from something as simple as an argument. You simply bottled it up, forgot about it, and it nagged at you until you couldn’t handle it anymore."

	She had a very good point, I didn't like to deal with my anger at all, it seemed more of a pest than anything else, but then, all my emotions where just bothers to me. I would have preferred to not feel them at all, but I knew that was impossible. She seemed to understand that as much as I did, and it made her continue. "You are a very aggressive dragon, most bronze dragons are naturally aggressive and will express anger very openly. But you repress both of those feelings, and it's going to kill you if you keep it up." She was right about that, I felt as if I would die right then if I didn't consciously continue to breathe.

Then the question came. "What was the last sensation I felt before you let me go?" I wasn't sure if I could be more specific. She seemed to understand though, she seemed to understand allot more than I did, even if it was my own mind. 

	"You experienced a psychotic episode, you went temporarily insane." She said as if it where normal. 

	I felt a new sense of anger, but one I could place. "You made me crazy on purpose!?" I practically roared. She seemed a little frightened at the sudden outburst, but responded just as normally as she had said the comment that triggered it. 

	"I had no intention of doing so, it was an unforeseen effect, but I knew you would come back from it." The anger quickly dissipated, I trusted her, and she knew how my mind worked better than I did, so I had nothing to worry about. 

"I used a quirk in dragon behavior to put you in a position where you could focus all of that anger into one single outburst, but I had to be sure you would completely emotionally exhaust yourself before I could let you free. If I didn't, we'd be doing this again at some point later on." She said quickly. 

	"What quirk is this?" I asked, concerned that it might be a threat later. 

	"When a dragon meets another dragon nose to nose like that, it is a challenge right? Well I challenged you head on, but since you had no way of meeting a challenge like that it frustrated you. Once you became frustrated enough by it you simple resorted to aggression and anger to express your displeasure. Which gave you a single solid reason to be angry, and thus in a rage." she said. It sounded absolutely unreasonable, but then I thought about it carefully. I hadn't felt so much a desire to attack her as I did knock her over, which is what I would have done to any dragon who challenged me like that. It was only my reserve for harming her that prevented me from doing it.

	The world began to spin around me, I felt fuzzy, like I couldn’t focus and everything faded away. The last thing I heard was her voice. "Take it easy, don't stress. You will wake up in a few hours."