A Nameless Place

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

In the earlier days, before man even thought that there were worlds beyond our massive blue sky, that used to be a message of hope. It was a phrase shouted as men went to war to remind them that they could go back to their families by the end of it all. It was a phrase whispered from parents to children, assuring their young ones who had been shaken awake from nightmares that their fears will go away. It was said among people at funerals with tears in their eyes as words of comfort. It was meant to mean that although things look grey at the moment, there was a time when they weren’t, and things could go back to that.

The phrase was an inspiration for what our small town has come to know as The fall. On a year, day, and hour that was too long ago and too terrifying to have kept a record of, dragon heads fell from the sky. They were huge beings that even though were bodiless breathed obvious life. They fell like deadly hail in the valley surrounding our town. Each humongous head that fell, once it hit the ground, was its own painful earthquake.

Leaders of our town were appointed to inspect the dragon heads that now served as a barrier from the outside world arranged in a ring form around the town. The dragons each had dark coloured heads with faces caught in a snarl, and teeth that were too big for their mouths which caused each long-pointed fang to protrude outside their mouths. Some of the heads ranged in size from as small as a sandal to nearly all large as a house. They were also in different positions according to how they had landed, but the last thing the appointed leaders thought of, was to make the dragons organized. They looked to be made of both stone and flesh, but no one who had touched the dragons lived to say for sure. The dragons were so terrifying that no one of today is allowed to go near them, and our houses are built to face away from the barrier.

One leader at th reached to touch a dragon's head and found her arm turning cold. So cold that it burned her and made the bones in her palm erupt. Fearfully, another tried to run past the barrier of dragons to escape the things he could not comprehend before his eyes. When the leaders came back from their discovery, they told the man’s wife that her husband had been fried. That as soon as he had made his way past the dragons, he seemed to levitate in one spot before being inflamed from the inside, and the coal-like body that was left of him dropped to the ground with a hard thud.

In the weeks after, the town tried everything. They warred with the dragons, which may have seemed hilarious. These people prepared day and night for battle, arming themselves with every weapon available to them to war against lifeless heads? The drinking hall comedians made stupid money from jokes like that. Of course, no one had time for jokes when not one person from the army, made from half the town, returned home from the barrier. All that was left were heaps of ash.

After that, whatever name the town previously had was forgotten. This was no longer a small town in a valley some distance from everywhere else as its citizens had known it, this became our world. A world no one at the time wanted to be in but couldn’t avoid the choice of staying or dying. How could you put a name to that?

Nowadays, that exact phrase 'There weren’t always dragons in the valley' is said as a joke, a deprecating assurance that things will never get better. After thousands of generations have come and gone under the haunting presence of the dragons, no one can be called to testify that there have never been dragons in the valley so the phrase lost its meaning. To us, there have always been dragons in the valley. There have always been hard times.

Story books for children in our town water down how truly terrifying they are, but I remember once as a rebellious child, running to the barrier out of curiosity. I'd met eyes with one of the dragon's heads. It was decorated with scales of red and grey. It had landed with it's head facing forward, and it's long protruding fangs had made hoIes in the ground from when the impact of the fall had pierced the earth. The beast had yellow piercing eyes that even with no iris I felt follow me, haunting me as I ran back home to my bed. The image of it's long fangs terrorised me even in my dreams, to the point where I hardly slept for years.

I’ve gotten scolded and been given odd looks for what I’m about to say, but I’m happy there are dragons in the valley. If I were one of the many children whose parents had gone hunting or trading during the time of the Fall or lost a family member during the war with the dragons, I would definitely have thought differently. But my older sister is getting married soon, and i'm probably going to be a bridesmaid. My parents are still together and happy, which is much less what others in this town can say. I'm top of my class in highschool and on the course to study top levels at the local university. I know nearly everyone in town and they feel like an extended family to me. My entire world is here. A small one, but it's still mine. Some people in town long for the world beyond the dragons but I couldn’t care less about it. What’s the point of driving myself to madness over a bigger world that not even my great grandparents have seen before? My experience with the dragon as a child leaves me with no desire to go near or travel past them anyways. Besides, there are very few things I haven't been content about.

At least until now.

In Front of me is a girl I’ve never seen before in my life, which doesn’t make any sense. I am sitting down towards the back of my class at the only school in town. I’ve grown up with all my classmates, been to sleepovers, birthday parties, and funerals. I know more about most of the nearly twenty people in this class than they do themselves. Ms. Duncan, the teacher who is currently giving the morning announcements at her front desk, was once my babysitter. Yet, here is this new person that everyone in class seems to know but me and it doesn't fail to bother me.

She has beautiful brown skin, lighter than mine however, and her hair is such a brilliant long luscious black that I can only describe it to look deeper than darkness itself as it flowed like a curtain down her back. She has such a full-frame with a vibrant yellow coat clinging to it that only seems to announce her presence even more and everyone acknowledges it. They all say 'hi' to her as she walks through the small spaces between the crammed chairs and tables to find a seat. Even Ms. Duncan pauses her announcements to look at her-teeth showing itself slowly through cracked lips-before promptly going back to the announcements.

This girl, this imposter, sits right in the seat in front of me and I can’t help asking myself if I’m the crazy one. Everyone knows who she is, and seeing as no one has left or come into this town in thousands of years, she couldn’t possibly be new.

I lift my head away from my notebook to look at her one more time while trying not to be too obvious, wondering if maybe I had some kind of selective amnesia. My plan clearly failed since she tilted her head to look at me as well from the corner of her eye.

My stomach felt entirely nauseous with how she looked at me. Her eyes seemed to have green vines in them along the edges. She held my gaze like she was asking a question, one I couldn't figure out.

As she turns back around I think to myself. No, I would definitely have remembered her.

It’s something I think about for the rest of the period. I don’t look at her as I desperately try and pay attention to what Ms. Duncan is talking about but I barely register it. I fidget with my pen occasionally and can’t help moving my right foot erratically, the heels of my boots making clicking noises that are drowned out over the class' chatter.

The bell for the next class rang and I stood up, shuffling my feet robotically while I tried to place the new girl’s face again in comparison with members of the town I did know. Maybe she was homeschooled? I think to myself, but I would at least have seen her around town, wouldn’t I?

I’d just mentally concluded to ask some of my friends how they knew her, but my thoughts stopped when I got yanked back into the classroom by my collar and pinned to the now shut door. I’m sure my braids got stuck in between the door hinges because my head begins to throb from the strain. I try to move when I realised who had pinned me to the door.

It’s the new girl.

I want to yell some choice words at her along the lines of ‘what the actual fuck?’ but I stop. If I thought her hair was worse than darkness, her eyes were light. They were two beautiful brown circular beacons that held me and my sensibilities captive and refused to let go. The green vines were still in them, but they took a more emerald gleam as I saw them on the outer edges of the whites of her eyes. They were intricate swirls that couldn't be recreated by any meager artist but rather designed by whatever sat in the heavens. I knew then, looking at the vines in her eyes and imagining doing nothing better than looking at them for the rest of myself that I was a complete goner. I didn’t even know her name and I was absolutely enamoured.

My lips stayed shut, but she didn’t seem to notice my stillness.

“Please tell me you don’t know who I am. Because everyone has been greeting me all morning and I have no idea what's going on but i don't remember anything.”