Brave New Sky

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Once we farmed this land. We loved and nurtured it. When it was scorched it was because of natural disasters not because of rage. I felt my chest swell with anger as I crouched behind the stony outcropping watching the sky for the tell tale sign of danger. Of aggression. Of suppression.

“Kenzie, what is taking so long?” asked Devin. My little brother, a towhead, beautiful and supremely annoying said behind me poking me in my lower back. I sighed, lowering my head, but looked back at him.

“Three minutes, every time Dev. Period.”

We were out foraging. Our family was starving, probably similar to other families at this point but we wouldn’t know. The other refugees could be as dangerous as the dragons, in their own way. Survival doesn’t necessarily bring out the best in people.

Devin rolled his eyes but nodded and sat back on his haunches. His wiry frame probably wasn’t far from what it would be at his age if the black hole hadn’t opened itself to an ancient civilization we never wanted to cohabitate with. I gave him every meal of mine I thought he couldn’t miss, so though skinny, he was still strong.

I took a deep breath. My finger had been tapping the three minutes rhythmically against my leg despite my errant thoughts and it was time. “Let’s go,'' I said. I knew Devin knew to follow me exactly but foraging always filled me with apprehension.

We followed the foliage along the stone outcropping, the ruins of the once beautiful Beringer winery offering us some cover. All we needed today were some of the grapes. They had been sustaining us along with the other edible parts we could collect, like the sweet sap and leaves. Sometimes we were lucky and our snares also provided rabbits or mice, but it felt like forever since we’d had meat.

I tread silently, a skill learned through loss. I remembered the first time I saw one of my friends snatched to the sky. The dragons were vicious, unfeeling. When they first dropped from the clouds we’d been awed by their majesty. Excited by their alienness. Our awe hadn’t lasted long before it turned to horror.

They’d quickly decimated the pacific northwest. The rest of the US had valiantly tried to rally to our aid. The president had sworn retribution against this aggressive alien threat. He had sent bomber pilots who were quickily killed, followed by drones, followed by nuclear missles. Any hail mary to reacquire the western part of the United States. Never had our sovereignty been so efficiently threatened. The dragons swallowed it all.

I knew the entire United States hadn’t been conquered but I didn’t know where the boundaries stretched. It was too dangerous to forage for food let alone try to reach a border we didn’t even know the distance of. Our last communication had been cut off. But it had been clear the president had seen us as a lost cause. A boundary to defend, not a people to rescue.

Reaching the overgrown but blooming vines, Devin posted up to watch while I quickly worked through the rows. Grabbing grapes and leaves, I quickly pruned. I placed my finds into my old sack purse I had found in a market, what felt like a million years ago. We always watched the sky for three minutes after our last sighting. After six months of watching the dragons sweeping flight patterns, we found they liked to make large circles. Sometimes they’d circle back quickly, as if playing, but from the last time we saw their lithe bodies to the ten minutes I allowed myself in the open, we more or less were able to move undetected. It didn’t work out perfectly though, I knew from having lost a few friends who had banded with me and my family.

I heard a swallow song and I felt goosebumps pop on my arms, and my stomach dropped out, as if I was on the dive of a roller coaster. Devin had practiced that sound for hours a day until he’d perfected it. It was our signal that there was a sighting, as if my thoughts had summoned one. I sang back, telling him to get out. Get out now. I dropped to my stomach, my mission for food forgotten and began to army crawl back towards the cover of Beringer. I trusted Devin to have left, he knew it was more dangerous for me to do something rash trying to rescue him than it was to try to get myself out.

Considering the pounding of my heart the valley seemed eerily silent. No other birds sang, or animals rustled. With the incoming of the ultimate predator I didn’t even hear the dragonflies or mosquitoes buzz. I tried to keep my breathing even, but it was still too loud in my ears. Especially when I heard it. The downdraft from the beast's wings.

We always hoped we’d be out before one flew overhead but we planned for this. My hair was caked in dirt to camouflage, my clothes not camo exactly, but the dullest mixtures of greens and browns I had in my wardrobe. I kept my eyes down and crawled desperately for the hedges of the Beringer wall. Believing Devin had made it inside, as he was supposed to, I curled myself into the bushes. Now out of sight I gave into the panic, my limbs trembling. I cried silently, the tears streaking down my cheeks, making what little I could see through the branches blurry. I curled up and shook with only my heartbeat in my ears for company while I prayed the dragon would fly on before it realized how close it’s prey was. Praying had never gotten me very far.

I heard the ground shake with the dragon’s landing. My tears quickly dried up and I wiped at my face furiously, trying to clear my vision. The hedge was thick. I worried the blood from scratches on my arms and legs even under my long sleeved clothing would be proof enough I was there, but we didn’t really know how good these dragons' senses were. They were from story books, and since they’d taken over our land they’d seemed to materialize from nothing, their fury the only thing greater than their beauty.

The roar that shook my bones was proof enough I’d been found. Small pants came out unconsciously, my body’s response to the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Its sad attempt to restore my equilibrium. I watched the green scales with thick black claws pace back and forth in front of me. Indecision warred. Crawling out of my cover was a death sentence, but the fight or flight response was kicking in and I felt trapped in this hedge.

Suddenly I heard a scream. Not a dragon’s scream. A boy’s. And all of my trepidation and hesitancy fled. I forced myself out of the hedge, feeling the branches rip at my hair and face, not caring. Devin was running from the safe cover of the crumbling stone wall towards the dragon. The little idiot was trying to create a distraction so I could flee.

The dragon had started to turn towards him when I took the knife from my waistband and threw it. I hadn’t really tried to aim for anything besides the brilliant green color, sparkling in the sun in front of me like a jewel. But I got lucky, and the knife lodged in the being’s juncture of neck and shoulder. I saw it swing around on me in surprise. I saw its eyes flash with…pain? And then I saw something that defied rational explanation. That defied everything I knew about this threat for the last six months. I saw the green of the dragon seem to collide with the air and smoke. It obscured the dragon momentarily but seemed to shrink. Until what I saw on the ground wasn’t a fearsome beast. It was a man. With a pain riddled face and a knife lodged in his collar bone.

I don’t know what it was I reacted to first. The sound of humanity in pain? The surprise and fear I’d caused, even though logically I knew he…it…had instilled the same in me moments ago. Either way I moved. The threat had been removed from Devin, and whatever in me that still cared responded to the pain of the man in front of me. Before I knew it I was beside him on my knees.

My hands fluttered over him ineffectually. I wasn’t sure what to do or where to start. The knife protruded but basic triage skills taught me to leave that. My chest heaved, another autonomic response trying to bring back my equilibrium. I knew I had to calm down, keep him…it…calm. Breathe, I thought. Then I said it out loud. “Breathe.” He looked up at me with wide scared eyes and I repeated it to him. “Breathe.”

The shock of his voice when he opened his mouth and spoke with me was no small thing. Guttural. Like the sound of a man dying of thirst in the desert. “Breathe,” he said. And I felt some of the tension leak from his body. “Breathe,” we said together.

Devin came crashing down next to me and the man, shocking us both. The man, or dragon, turned in a defensive move toward him, and I grabbed his shoulder forcing him back down. I felt more than saw his left arm coming for me in response, but it stopped suddenly. We locked eyes once more, my fear returned, but I was frozen in place. I wondered if these creatures were as dangerous as men as they were as dragons. I was shaking again, I realized. The man noticed it too. I couldn’t move for a moment but then I heard him say, his voice smoother than before, “Breathe.” And I did.