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I sighed as I sank down, folding my legs underneath me. I reached out and touched the water with my fingertip. Ripples spread out, expanding ever wider until they disappeared entirely. I then traced idle lines through the water, watching the liquid shift and move. I formed patterns that disappeared as quickly as they came into existence and the rest of the world melted away. I lost myself in the lake, and then, I felt something gnawing at the back of my mind. Then, a sharp ache lanced through my skull, as though something had clamped a vise around it. A cry of pain was stifled by sheer agony, and I crashed to the mossy ground. I fell into the chasm of my own mind.
It was happening again after all these years… a vision.
*
I was in a dark, starless void. It was cold. I shivered. I looked around, but could see nothing. Then, I felt a tremor. It came from all around me, above and below, and seemed to envelop me. Then, I looked up. I saw two orbs spinning towards each other on a collision course. I reached out, trying to stop them as though they were marbles that I could simply pluck from the ground. They remained out of reach, however. I cried out, knowing the destruction that would follow, but despite my best efforts I could not prevent them from crashing into each other. Debris flew like spittle as the orbs became nothing more than dust. The impact made the air shimmer and I was thrown back. I gasped, gulping in breath.
The vision wasn’t over.
I looked up as a shadow fell over me, and I was filled with fear. In front of me stood a three headed dragon. I pushed myself to my feet, totally in awe of this great creature. The heads and necks then shifted into human bodies, the torsos thick and strong, the pairs of arms reaching for me, pulling me in. Their arms were eager and ardent, and they wrapped around my body. The men murmured and their whispers curled around my head.They pulled me so close that I could feel the heat of their flesh seeping into me, creating an inferno from which I could not escape. They kissed my neck and cheeks, while they caressed my back. There were so many hands, and they were spreading all over me, and it was so overwhelming. I could feel their desire, multiplied by three. Everywhere I looked, there was more naked flesh, more muscles, and then, I looked into the eyes of one of them. There was a flash like lightning and then, I was cast out.
I awoke near the lake again, my chest rising and falling dramatically. I pressed my hands against the cool grass and oriented myself. I looked up to check that the sky was still the same, and then, I closed my eyes again. I rolled onto my back and tried to compose myself. It had been a long time since I had had a vision like this, but what did this one mean? It was hard to parse the meaning when all I could think about were those three naked men, and the heat that prickled in my body.
Chapter Two
Mason
“I can’t do this anymore,” Jade said. It was night. I was sitting on the edge of a cliff. The world was below me, the air swimming as deep and rich as the ocean itself. Even in my human form, I could sense the currents. I could feel the undulations and the vibrations, the pull of the void. I wanted to dive in and spread my wings and give myself to it, this queen that dominated us all.
I had felt the same about Jade as well. Have you ever had that feeling where you look into another’s eyes and think that they understand you better than you understand yourself? When you see the future and the past all stretching into one endless thing, every element of your life becoming this web that traps you and snares you, and you let it because you want to be safe, and you want things to make sense. That’s what I had felt with Jade. I thought she was my beginning and my end, but now she was saying something completely to the contrary and the world might as well have shifted upside down.
I sat there in stony silence, gazing out into the distance, wishing that she would take the words back or say something different.
“Are you even listening to me Mason?” she asked, her words as sharp as daggers. I closed my eyes and tried to embrace peace, but it remained elusive.
“You’re angry. You’re tired. You just need to calm down and think about this. I’m sure everything will seem better in the morning.”
“Of course, I’m angry! Aren’t you? We all should be angry!” she exclaimed. She put her hands on her hips and beganpacing around. She huffed loudly, and I thought she was going to breathe fire. Aside from us, the night was quiet. The mountain sloped down behind us, a thick layer of forest shielding us from the rest of the world. Before me lay a chasm, a plain of sand and dirt that was untouched by the humans. This place was beautiful without them.
“Being angry doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t change anything. We just have to accept the way things are. We have to control what we can control and let go of everything else.”
“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Just let go. Well not all of us find it easy. Some of us don’t like living in the middle of nowhere.”
“This is our home,” I said, losing control of my emotions somewhat. It became a growl. I took a breath to try and compose myself, ignoring the roiling anger inside me, this great beast that kept wanting to be unleashed.
“It’s not. This is just… a way station. Our home is Drakon.”
“Drakon was destroyed.”
“We don’t know that. There are stories-”
“There are tales. There are fables. There are dreams. It’s gone. The past is gone, Jade, and I don’t care how fiercely you, or anyone else, want to believe, but the only home we have is here. This is it. This is what we have to work with, so we might as well try our best to make it happen, or we’re just going to be unhappy about things. Do you want to spend your life being unhappy?”
I angled my head to look at her. She had her hands on her hips. Her slender body was taut with tension. Her eyes were as black as the night and there was a waspish look on her face. It was as though she had become sharper as life had worn on, all the angles of her being honed by time.
“I’m going to be unhappy either way. Do you think this is the life any of us want? To hide? We’re dying here Mason. We’re losing ourselves bit by bit and I just can’t take it anymore.”
I turned away from her, gazing into the abyss again. “Like I said, you’re tired. Just go and get some rest and you’ll feel better in the morning. We all will.”
“No, we won’t. This is the moment when we have to change. This is the opportunity. I get that you want to be loyal to him, but he was misguided. He clung to the old ways, to the wrong ways. There has to be a way for us to escape it because I can’t go on much longer, and I’m not the only one who feels this way. We’ve been here-”
I rose and faced her. The sudden movement took her by surprise. She jerked back and was silenced.
“We’ve been here for our entire lives. This is the only home we’ve ever known. This is as good as it gets. Do you think I’m going to jeopardize that? Do you think I’m going to waste energy on a dream? We have been given our orders, our duty, and we have been given our lives. I am not going to waste mine thinking about something that will never be. We have to leave the past behind and focus on what we have here. We are safe. We are hidden from humans. We do not have to risk anything.” The anger got the better of me. I slashed my arm through the night and glared at her.
Jade bore an icy glance. She pressed her lips, forming a thin smile. “It’s not enough for me anymore Mason. What is a life without risk? You’re asking me to die a slow death, and that’s something I’m not willing to do. I get that you want to be loyal to Zeke, but there’s a time when loyalty has to end. We can’t keep going like this. You’re wringing life out of us and eventually everyone is going to leave. What’s the point of us then? You’ll just be by yourself, standing in the forest, the only one who is still carrying out this duty. You have to face the truth Mason; we’re all getting tired of this life.”
“And I’m getting tired of people telling me how I should act,” I said through gritted teeth. “What do you expect me todo Jade? Do you want me to lead an assault on the cities of Earth? Do you want me to fly to the moon and brace the vacuum of space in search of a planet? Our ancestors chose this place because it was safe. This is the sanctuary after war tore us apart, and I am not going to forsake them. You think that I am a fool for clinging to our ways, but you are the one betraying them.”
