#Inktober2019 - Day 12, 'Dragon'

As originally posted at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854958/chapters/49573574

It’s not just the creature’s hide which puts me in mind of a dragon, though its scales are every bit as dark and hard as black, draconic iron. Nor is it the mist which constantly drifts from its snout, pouring through barbed and vicious teeth like smoke through the remains of a wrecked and burning engine. It’s not even the size, really, though at easily forty feet long and perhaps twice my height when it bothers to rise from its belly, it’s hard not to make the comparison.

No. What really puts me in mind is the stories.

Dragons are hoarders, you see. Find a dragon and you find a great stash of treasure - a pile of gold as deep as the seas, with rubies and diamonds the size of your fists and jewellery fit for the highest of kings.

The stories never explain how the dragon actually piled its treasure to begin with, of course. Claws the size of cars and fangs instead of thumbs can’t make it easy to carry all of that loot back to a lair, never mind stacking hundreds of thousands of gold coins into nice, convenient towers. What does a dragon even do with all of its gold, anyway? The story-tellers always pass it off as dragons being greedy and prideful, but why would collecting gold be a source of pride to a creature which has no use for it?

I know exactly why this dragon chose this spot, and how its treasure got there. There’s no great mystery to that, any more than there is to its treasure. The kings and grail-chasers in the stories may have loved their gold and their finery, but in a world where survival is its own quest, medicine is the greatest treasure of all.

I sigh, wriggling carefully back down the wet and broken tarmac. I’m only having this argument to delay what comes next.

The dragon’s lair is at the bottom of this crater, where the road and street have collapsed into a dark, damp pit of cobwebbed mist and moss-stained rubble. To my eyes, it doesn’t really look any different to an ordinary sinkhole, walls of rock punctured by broken pipes and the occasional fragment of masonry, with a gloomy pool of grey-brown liquid muck at its centre.

That’s where the dragon sits now, guarding its treasure - an overturned medical van bearing the symbol of the International Disease Relief Centre. Though its cabin has been torn open, dark stains on the shredded fabric of its mouldering seats the only remaining testament to the fate of its crew, the loading bay at its rear is mercifully, miraculously intact. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I first caught sight of it - these things were literally proofed against bombs and riots, and for good reason - but to see one whose contents might still be pristine is to spy a tempting target. Moreso given that Konstantina’s fever is still worsening by the day.

She signals to me now, a single hand waved carefully from behind the broken storefront where we’ve set our position. I shimmy across the ground on my belly, ignoring the discomfort of stones and broken masonry digging into my skin, taking my time. The steady rain has long past soaked through my clothing, and beneath a steel-grey sky thick with dark clouds, there’s little risk of being seen provided I move slowly and stay low, even across open ground.

Though she hasn’t moved from the shelter of the storefront, Konstantina’s exposed skin is even wetter than mine by the time I crawl back through the broken half of the door. Her eyes are yellow and watery, almost sinking into sweat-slick, pale and mottled skin. Though when she speaks it’s more a croak than a whisper, and she’s obviously in pain, her tone is calm, her posture defiant.

“Still there?”

“Yeah, Tina, still there.”

“Good. Check Leon’s ready and then get in position.”

I nod, and begin shuffling through the store. Though I’m careful not to disturb the detritus which surrounds the floor, items knocked from shelves half a decade ago and picked over by who-knows how many scavengers since then, it’s more to avoid noise than damage, given anything of value would have been picked over long before now.

I reach the rear of the store and carefully raise my head to the window, staring over the sunken ruins of the street to the buildings on the far side. Through the rain, it takes me a few moments to catch sight of Leon’s woollen cap, the single white star on its front the only guide I have to his location. I slowly raise my hand, remove the dark glove, and wiggle my fingers: I have to repeat the motion again a few moments later, and I’m beginning to worry that something has happened before I see his own fingers rise and waggle once, his cap rising a little higher to reveal the outline of his glasses a moment later. I nod, and hold up three fingers, before ducking my head and gloving my hand again.

Konstantina is still sweating when I get back, looking tired as she stares into space. Though she does perk up as I crawl closer, I’m much closer than I’d like, and I can’t help but fret anew.

“Tina, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine, Yannis.” She shifts her position, wincing and stiffening, her breathing laboured and heavy. “Is Leon okay?”

“Yeah. We’re both ready.” I try not to let my resentment creep into the words. I’ve loved Konstantina since long before she and Leon met, and the day she said yes to him was a knife in my guts. For the end of the world to throw us together again…

I must have done a crappy job keeping my voice even, because she sighs. “And you, Yannis. I hope you’re okay too.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“And you’ll do fine.” She shifts again, gritting her teeth as her aching muscles protest at the effort of rolling onto her belly. “We drew straws, you got the crap one. And neither of you would have let volunteer. Even if I were capable of doing it.”

“I’m fucking fine, alright?” The words are bitter, regretted even before the final syllable leaves my mouth. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“Don’t. I don’t have the energy to fight this. Yell at me all you want when I’ve got something to keep me from dying.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Tina.”

“It’s fine. Besides, if you fuck this up we all die, so if you think about it like that your straw wasn’t really all that much shorter.”

I can’t help but smile, resigned to the insanity of the situation. “Good luck, Tina.”

“You too, Yannis.”

I exhale, and crawl back outside.

In the two or three minutes since I went in, the rain has strengthened, clattering down just a little more violently than before. I don’t mind, really - it’s not like I can get much colder, and the conditions give me just a little more cover as I crawl back to the lip of the crater. The dragon is still there, sulkily guarding its hoard, and I silently count to fifty. It’s to steel myself and to give my hands and feet time to stop shaking as much as to give Konstantina time to get into position, and I linger a second or two longer before I raise a finger to draw a cross across my chest, and vault over the rim of the sinkhole.

“Hey, Smaug!” I’d intended the words to make me feel cocky, brave, but my voice breaks at the second and I stumble to my knees almost immediately. Ahead of me, the dragon rises to its knees, far too fast for a creature of its size, head already whipping to face me from within a hood of pincers. A thick, dark slime begins drooling between its fangs as it hisses - a sound as loud as any dragon’s roar, but whose vibrations seem to slither rather than shake.

I change my plan immediately, already stumbling toward the sloped edge which between Tina and Leon’s buildings, all thought of getting to ground level first abandoned. Behind me, the creature is fast - impossibly so. What was perhaps a thirty-metre head-start is already less than half that as I cry out in panic, barbed shards of broken buildings cutting into the flesh of my hands and knees and shins as I scrabble for the exit.

I run.

I run faster than I’ve ever known I could. The agony of a hundred scratches is lost in a haze of panic, of the need to move. The pool of water in the middle of the street suddenly seems as vast as any ocean, and I make the mistake of glancing over my shoulder. I’ve been running perhaps ten or twelve seconds now, and the gap has vanished - the dragon is already upon my, rearing to strike, and it’s only as I fail to spot a rock in my panic that I stumble forward, the lack of intention the only thing that keeps the monster’s claw from carving straight through me.

I hit the water, breath it in - it’s too deep, far too deep. I flail in desperation, trying to find purchase, in almost to my waist as I scrabble with arms and legs and hands and feet to propel myself forward.

It’s no impediment to the creature, which simply strides straight in. I scream in terror as a claw rises to strike, the sound nothing compared to the agony of a moment later as the appendage plunges straight through my shoulder. At once, the pain rushes back - of a hundred stinging cuts across my skin, of a hole as wide as of my forearm ripped straight through my chest, of ribes snapped like grass under the force of the impact. It gets worse: a moment later, I find myself suspended in the air, my right arm hanging uselessly as my whole body flares in white-hot agony. I start vomiting halfway through my screaming, coating my chest and left arm as it beats furious against the spike, choke on the vomit a moment later as it enters my still-screaming throat.

Being thrown to the ground again is almost a relief, even as I feel my elbows and knees shatter under the impact. I roll to the side, continue puking, stinging tears streaming down my face as I raise what’s left of my arm to thump at the sodden ground before me, trying to put some distance between myself and the creature. I barely register the ground beneath me is solid, that I’ve been thrown down on the far side of the pool.

Until it starts screaming, too.

I roll over, almost blacking out from the pain of snapped bones crunching together, to see the dragon rearing, the surface of the water aflame and dancing with sparks. Through the rain and the pain and the screaming of the dying dragon, I can barely hear the roar of the generators from within the buildings, can’t even see where the wires have wrapped around the creature’s legs beneath the water.

As the creature finally slumps down, the victim of a thousand volts of electricity, I fall back in turn. I barely register Leon and Tina’s approach, the sound of their steps somehow faint and muted, as quiet against the pounding of the rain as the pain is against the chill filling my body.

“Yannis, you did it, it’s dead! Just hold on!”

Her words are echoes, distant and indistinct. Is the sun breaking through the clouds up there? It’s getting brighter.

“Yannis, you’re going to be fine, it didn’t hit any of your organs. Damn it, Leon, morphine! I don’t care what you think, morphine, now!”

I smile as the sun breaks through the clouds, the whole world dimming against its beauty. I close my eyes and smile, the pain of my wounds and the screaming of my love fading into the rain.