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Close to [redacted], an organization hosts around fifty dragons, in a vast territory that is as big as one thousand football pitches. It may be another wildlife sanctuary, if it wasn't acknowledged by now that dragons are as intelligent and sentient as humans. But there is a peculiarity: all said dragons used to be humans.

The Transformed Dragons Rescue Center has taken a mission: to help whoever gets turned into a dragon to accept their new themselves and begin a new, fulfilling life, and therefore make the world a less scary, more accepting place. Its founder, Gary Gibson, came up with the center after his traumatic experience in which he saw his own daughter, Anne, be one of the very first humans victim of dragon transformation. "She had no help," he remembers, "I had no idea how to possibly do it. At least three times, she was so close to killing me accidentally, so hard was mastering her new body and mind." Their case, after being covered by local news, attracted the attention of a local dragon from the [local mountain range], Ghilom. "By then, Anne lived and slept in our garden, and none of us dared get too close to avoid any incident. To make it worse, we ended up in some newspaper, so our house had to be guarded by the police 24/7 to prevent people from getting too close. But when Ghilom landed in front of our home, not even the police dared stop him. He said he wanted to speak with my daughter. They did, and then he announced he'd take my daugther with her for a period - and without giving me or anyone else the time to protest, they were already flying off. It was my very first culture shock I received from a dragon. Now I know that when they mean something, there's no way to negotiate it - they're deeply individualist.

"But when she returned," Mr Gibson concludes the narration, "she had profoundly changed. She looked happy and confident, but at the same time completely different. Scarier, in a way. I knew what happened: Ghilom had taught her how to be a dragon. When she announced she'd go live permanently in the mountains, my heart broke, but I accepted it. There was no other choice. Still, I wanted to ask if I could come visit her once in a while - and before my lips said that, the idea of the center came inside my mind."

Today, Mr Gibson is still the president, a role he is comfortable in thanks to his past experience in corporate managerial roles. Anne and Ghilom are in it too: the latter answers the calls of those who contact the group and brings the transformed dragons to the center, while Anne takes care of educating them in how to manage their new selves. They're not the only ones, though. "We employ around one hundred between humans and dragons," Mr Gibson explains. "I take this occasion to remember we are not a for profit - some remind I had a long past in corporate managerial jobs to raise suspicions, but I never had profit as a goal. We rely mostly on donations and sponsorships from other similar organizations."

The center itself is as secluded as it can be. It is not open to the public, and its location is designed to be the most difficult possible to reach by public transport. As the car progresses towards the final goal, it almost feels like driving in the Australian outback. Then appears a modest, but long one-floor building, where no name is reported at all, covered by tall metal fences. The only sign indicating this is the place are a pair of dragons watching the car with careful eyes, which instantly relax as Mr Gibson himself gets out of it. The interior parts are as modest as they get: if someone watched a photo of them without any context, they could easily think they're just a normal office. The core of the place is the vast outside territory, hosting forests, a lake and some high stone huts which supposedly are meant to simulate living inside a cave. And here they are - the dragons living in here.

They do not have the intimidating grace of dragons who've always been dragons: their walk is clumsy, and some repeatedly open and close their wings. They don't seem to be paying attention to the newcomers. There's only one exception: a crimson dragon, leading the others, walking on the ground as any other dragon would. "That's Anne," Mr Gibson informs me, "she's teaching those newcomers how to walk on all fours. They arrived just two days ago. We'd better not disturb them."

And so we do. In silence, we keep watching the line of dragons walking slowly. Two of them, after a while, start walking a bit better after Anne stopping for a moment to explain what they're doing wrong. The majority, however, doesn't improve much, in fact, some fall on the ground. Anne doesn't look discouraged though, and after helping them get up, she continues. "Nobody else could be fitter for this role," Mr Gibson sighs, after we've left them. "My poor girl, it was the same for her."

"What else are they taught?" I ask.

His answer is an enormous list. From hunting to dragon etiquette to using the sense of smell to flying, which he assures me being the second most complicated one, "as it requires you to think in three dimensions when moving, without the aid of any control tower." He doesn't tell me which topic is in the first place, not immediately at least.

We're back into the main building. The room we're in isn't an office though: it's a large room without any kind of furniture except for some chairs, which Mr Gibson explains to be the visitors center, which is strictly reserved for the transformed dragons' families and friends (the latter have to prove they have a significant relationship with one of the dragons). I still have two more questions for Mr Gibson.

"What do the dragons do once they learn how to be one?"

"They are let go. After that, they're supposed to live like dragons. Some still return to pay a visit, and sometimes stay permanently as employees. But in general, we encourage them to live their new dragon life. Now, that is the hardest topic of all - to make them accept they're no more fit to stay among humans. It's never easy to force to say them forever goodbye to their loved ones, or what used to be their dreams and projects. In fact, the first thing we always do when welcoming a newcomer is a long session with one of our psychologists." It's hard not to hold your breath for a moment when hearing that. Perhaps, the process of transforming is the closest experience possible to dying. There was a previous self, and that self is gone, forever. Unless your dreams somewhat involved dragons. "But none of our guests had ever been involved with them before," he tells me.

Finally comes my second question. "What's your biggest challenge at the moment?"

"Apart from getting the fund we need? Having the dragons being accepted by those who've always been dragons. Trust me, Ghilom is a pretty big exception. There isn't much we can do from our side unfortunately, apart from trying to recruit more of them apart from Ghilom. He's the only one who can do it, and well, hasn't gotten much success so far. There are some good stories though - we got reported that some even mated and had offspring. Those are where I put my biggest hopes in. As their children grow, they'll be taught to be considerate of humans, much more than their previous generations."

What he's talking about is obvious. The moment when his daughter transformed is only an example - and one of the mildest ones - of incidents between humans and dragons that reminded many of the ancient legends where dragons were the absolute antagonists. Fear and distrust have dominated both species, with many of their respective leaders inviting the rest to open conflict. In all this constant tense situation, people like Mr Gibson and dragons like Ghilom are the hope of the world. As I return home, I open their website, where a big donation banner lies dormant on the upper left, waiting for my generosity, and I fulfill that button's desire. It isn't much - not even us journalists dive in gold - but it is something that hopefully will contribute to make us stop, one day, writing about crime scenes involving dragons.

As for myself, I'll stop looking for them.