A/N: To really enjoy this story, please read up to at least book 4 in the HTTYD series

Time's Running Out

Chapter 1

Shattered Nightmares

Hiccup woke up that morning to an earsplitting crack as the ice covering the sea broke. The cracking was loud enough to drown out his screams. The sound of the ice had brought back terrible memories...

His screaming was also caused by a nightmare. In the nightmare, Hiccup had been sprinting through the forest, with Toothless up ahead. Looking down, Hiccup realized 3 things: it was a dream, the forest floor was covered in ice, and he still had his foot.

Up ahead, Toothless reached a clearing where there was no ice on the ground. He turned back and called for Hiccup to hurry. Suddenly, the ice beneath Hiccup gave way, splitting right under his left foot in the shape of an open dragon mouth. His foot went in and the ice clamped shut.

Hiccup heard himself cry out in pain. Toothless tried to come help him, but a dark, midnight blue creature that was twice Toothless's size lunged in front of him, blocking his path.

Hiccup couldn't feel his left foot. His vision was blurring because of the pain. After a minute of struggling, Toothless got past the creature and came running across the ice back towards Hiccup. Hiccup called out to him to go back and save himself, but Toothless wouldn't listen.

And then the ice broke under them, and they were both falling. Hiccup was screaming because Toothless was falling with him...

Hiccup took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He felt sick to his stomach, and his right side, between his hip and ribcage, hurt really bad. He figured he had just slept on it wrong.

Looking around his room, he realized Toothless wasn't there. Hiccup wasn't worried though. For the first five days after the ice cracks, a ton of dragons come out and gather in places in the woods called hotspots. The dragons usually ranged from ordinary to truly eccentric.

Hiccup slipped out of bed as quietly as his metal foot would allow and opened the door to his room. His father, Stoick the Vast, was the deepest sleeper in the archipelago, and his snores could shake snow off the roof. Hiccup didn't need to worry about stealth at the moment.

Hiccup walked into the kitchen, stood there for a minute, then walked out again, realizing he was still a little sick to his stomach, and not in the mood to eat anything.

Hiccup stood outside on the steps. The air was sharp, cold, and crisp. There were lights in the windows of those who Hiccup knew to be light sleepers.

Hiccup looked over at Camicazi's house. She wasn't the deepest sleeper ever, but she wasn't a light sleeper either. However, Hiccup could have sworn he saw a dark figure move in one of the windows.

To pass the time until Toothless returned in the evening, Hiccup decided to go dragon watching, seeing as this time was the best of any to see any new dragons. The sounds of the dragons from the forest were just as tempting.

Hiccup went back inside to prepare for a long day of dragon watching. He got a few canteens of water, his dragon notebook, some food in case he started feeling better, and a small dagger, just in case. He put it all in one of those baskets you wear across your back. He also put his left boot in there.

Stepping outside again, Hiccup realized that it was between 6 and 7 in the morning. There were some patches of snow remaining, and some patches of brown and green grass.

Taking great care to step only on the grass, Hiccup made his way into the forest. Once he was in the forest, however, he remembered that there was another thing to look out for besides the dragons.

Normally, snakes wouldn't be a problem at this time of year, but there was one rogue snake. It's called the White Death, mainly because it doesn't hibernate, and it's the color of snow. That's what makes it so hard to spot. The only way to see it in advance is to see it's eyes, which are black and small and look like little stones.

Unfortunately, stones like that are scattered everywhere, and the White Death likes to hide in large patches of them. So the only time you realize they're there is when they're attacking you.

And even better: they're poisonous! Their poison takes exactly 12 hours to kill. There are certain symptoms, and each takes about an hour. 1- extreme paleness, 2- a dangerously high fever, 3- extreme fatigue, but inability to sleep, 4- headaches and thinner blood, 5- dizziness, 6- pain in places that already hurt, 7- sore throat, tasting and coughing up blood, 8- partial blindness, 9- violent asthma attacks, 10- extreme thirst and dehydration, 11- total blindness, 12- at the exact time 12 hours after you have been bitten, all of the symptoms lift for the last 30 seconds of your life, giving you one last look at the world before the poison stops your heart. There is no known cure.

Hiccup had seen people die this way before, and they were all in such terrifying pain that Hiccup had to go sit in a dark corner in a dark room and try and convince himself that he did not just see that.

Hiccup had two goals for today: find new dragons, and don't get poisoned.

At one he would fail...

6:55 am

Hiccup was standing quietly behind a tree on the edge of a hotspot. He had been making a map of them. The hotspots were literally hot spots, places where the sun penetrated the trees and melted the snow. He still hadn't seen any new dragons.

That was when the predator spotted him. Somehow, Hiccup sensed the danger and started to move away from the hotspot. He was half way between two known hotspots when he was attacked.

One second, he was just walking, trying to escape the feeling that he was being followed. The next, sudden pain exploded in his right leg, just above his knee and he was on the ground. Before he could see his attacker, he blacked out.