Underground

"Now for the weather forecast."

"Orange smog alert. Smog is severe in parts of our province. Over the next two days, atmospheric stratification will remain stable in some eastern cities, hindering the dispersal of pollutants. Please take protective measures..."

Someone's television in the residential district was playing the weather forecast. The greasy man grumbled about the smog, blaming this and blaming that before slamming his window shut.

In truth, pollution was unavoidable if one wanted the conveniences of modern life. The air quality in certain developed foreign countries was indeed good, but that was because their factories and sources of pollution were all abroad, or because they enjoyed favorable geography. Every product used in daily life came with a price paid in pollution. There was no avoiding it.

And those pollutants gave a certain flood dragon, accustomed to fourteen hundred years of fresh air, her first taste of smog.

She flew into the sky again and happened to run into a cloud of pollution...

She plunged straight into it.

"Ugh..."

"Ah... achoo!"

Her nostrils burned from the choking fumes, and she could not help sneezing. The sneeze stirred up gale-force winds, sending the polluted clouds churning.

She flicked her tail, intending to pass through the clouds and reach the sky above, only to plunge into an acid-rain cloud. It felt as though she had swallowed a mouthful of dirt. Spinning as she fell, she nearly caused a colossal-beast-class aviation disaster and almost became the first flood dragon to be taken out by smog and acid rain.

When she landed, she could not control her strength and crushed the paving tiles beneath her feet.

"Cough, cough... ptoo! That reeks!"

The flood dragon landed in a sorry state, bracing herself against a lamppost as she coughed and spat out the acid rain