Drakōn (δράκων)

Of the Before

’There weren’t always dragons in the valley, Basit. Stop playing with that bionic cat and don’t interrupt or talk over me. Kids these days have this strange habit. You must have everything and all at once. Don't you know, if you get things too quickly, you live to regret them. My story is of one of those regrets.

At the old age of 200, I might be forgetting some details, but now on my deathbed, whenever I close my eyes, the memories play like a broken soundtrack on repeat. I’m not a great story-teller, but I’ll try to do the tale justice and tell it as I remember it.

It was told that hell was so chock-full of sinners, that the Gods split the divide. The sky bled red that entire day and the next thirty days. Nobody knew if it was night or day, and many could hear the screams of the sinners as they burned in hell. Then the heavens closed and the earth split apart, and these creatures crawled out. The only word that came close to describing these beings was the word from an ancient language once considered lost, Greek 'δράκων (drakōn)'.

Dragons, my darling. Large, hideous, writhing snakes with wings and claws. Those days, I was in an alluring but crowded city called Paris, and like others I had heard of the rumors. They were arresting creatures. No one had yet survived a glimpse except for a national geographic photographer. He was brave enough to not only confirm the tale of the monks but also bring evidence of the existence of these creatures of lore.

That day the world witnessed history. A photograph of a living breathing dragon. Not taken with any new digital equipment. The photo, as we called them before, was taken with an out dated camera that did not need electricity. It was on the TV, on newspapers, on every single human's tongue, because it was a nightmare realized and thousands of questions unanswered.

Rumors said that the dragons decimated villages, ate everything in sight, drank the seas dry and yet their thirst and hunger knew no end. It rivaled that of the humans lording over earth with their 'superiority'.

Something had to be done, and quickly.

The kings of the world put aside all grudges and came together to make a pact. No wars will be waged until the last dragon lived. The human army was huge and capable. We had steel tanks, nuclear bombs, drones and soldiers. Everybody wanted to be a hero in those early times, when the majority was safe from hunger, and vicious attacks that the smaller, weaker nations faced. The bold humans marched. They planned to fire shots to incite the dragons into rage. It wasn’t a good idea to make fire breathing lizards angry, but what other choice did we have?

We were overconfident. We had no idea what we were up against.

Our fastest cameras, and our best technologies seemed to fail and fall in front of these creatures of lore. Entire networks and cities were wiped out and erased from history by these mythical dragon. Once the power went down, the oxygen in the domes would quickly follow. Nobody knew why until much later.

A hundred thousand of our finest young men and women vanished off the face of the earth, and the way they have done before, the humans started pointing fingers and bickering among one another, blind to the looming threat that hung over mankind. Who was to blame? Eventually, a scapegoat was selected, a mass modern day witch hunt issued in the biggest court of earth.

They made memes out of it on Instagram and laughed about it on the Metaverse. They also brought back the out-dated and hated death penalty to execute the one they deemed responsible, in order to appease the anger and outcry from the public. However, the families left behind suffered the loss of their loved ones greatly. Another army was assembled, and then another, and then another… until nobody wanted to fight anymore.

This is when the slumbering monsters started to pick the earth apart. Nothing could stop them. Not even a nuclear bomb. They simply emerged from the ashes stronger, angrier and madder than we had seen them before and they were relentless in their slaughter.

You were born in the second half of an eon of darkness shortly after the humans sought the help of the ’others’.

Strange, isn’t it? Previously they had burnt their ’saviors’ on stakes. These 'scientist witches' were deemed to be too dangerous to stay in human civilizations; too strange to fit into the normal humans roaming lost on earth.

These children deemed 'abnormal' and 'strange' were buried both socially and politically. It was a wonder that a few hundred still existed. Hidden as they were in labs, and in decrepit and discarded orphanages they shed their disguises to save humanity.

Because of them, I am here dying of old age, Basit. Instead of being dragon meat, I lived to watch you grow and become a strong, young man. '

Verse 1:

Holding Lucy's soft coat to my chest, I murmured a few words of assurance. Wiping the snot that dripped down my nose on my sleeve, I took a few deep breaths.

I heard the rustle of restless leaves, and the crunch of something stomping on branches, before I saw him. I started, spooking Lucy to dart from my limbs faster than they could close around her.

To my horror, Lucy pranced closer, sniffing, hissing and then made right for the sound that emerged from the dark woods.

There was ringing in my ears. Limbs frozen in terror all I could think was my father’s warning. Somebody had breached the cyber witches' protective shield; Somebody was inside my home, close to where they could harm me and my family. I needed to run, to scream until my lungs bled, if that is what it took to protect my family.

I needed to grab Lucy, and protect my furred friend, but I couldn’t move. My useless legs hung from the chair where my mother had put me in. My bionic legs were still charging and will continue to charge for three more hours.

More noises followed, and in horror I watched as the foliage parted in two and a shape emerged. The creature was smaller than I had imagined; only a new hatchling. It walked on its two hind legs and came up to my knee.

I waited in horror as it righted itself on it’s paws and fixed it's black beady eyes on my face. Staring at me with two ebony, bionic eyes, it hissed and croaked in warning. Flapping about wings charred pink at the ends, the creature fought to stand taller than its threat, which I realized was thirteen year old me. His tail slithered behind in the foliage, as if it had a mind of it's own.

Something dark and wet dripped steadily from one of its hind leg. A substance that left a sticky, dark trail from whoever or whatever he was running from.

He hissed again and my eyes rose from his perusal back into those strange eyes.

''You're a good boy, aren't you?'' I said from a parched throat. ''You won't eat me.''

Whether he understood me or not, was still a mystery.

It hissed again, but it was unsure now. His posture seemed nonthreatening and aloof. Like a child not knowing whether the large dog staring him down meant harm or not. Still, my fear refused to ebb. A dragon hatchling cannot breathe fire; hatchlings cannot defend themselves. That didn’t mean I wasn’t in danger, but it also meant I wasn’t about to become charred meat.

Behind me, stood my dad’s outdated wooden shovel that he used to plant the seeds for the medicine we used in the valley. For those who lived within the sacred shield, it was a honor to help their neighbors, and some still practiced the old homeopathic medicine for minor illnesses due to shortages.

We were the Elite. The chosen ones. We were protected while more than half of the human civilization was being decimated by dragons. Even at thirteen, I knew it was a lie. We were protected simply because my parents were rich enough to have the privilege. Religion was for the weaker, easily controlled population with no power except for what was unseen.

How could this little creature have crossed the electronic barrier, that separated us from them? I was safe for now, but it’s mother would soon be behind, smelling for her cub.

The hatchling tilted its dark head, looking at me strangely. There was an innocence in its gaze that faltered my hand on its way as it inched for the shovel. Steeling myself, I reasoned- dragons are known to kill villagers that stray too far out of the sacred cyber shield into their territory for game. I must kill it and throw its carcass as far from my house as possible. Dragons grow too tall too quickly.

My fingers closed around the shovel, dragging it closer to me. The creature started, eying it.

‘’Croo!’’ It chirped like a bird. He wasn’t hissing anymore, instead he opened his mouth and made that strange sound again and again, but slower.

He had sharp little baby teeth.

''Aww''. I murmured. ''You're so cute. I can't believe you will grow up to kill people.''

''Croo.'' The dragon hatchling still dripping wet with amniotic fluid, chirped. It flapped his dark wings against my legs and leaned its lightly furry head against my knee.

Unconsciously, my hand rose to scratch him behind his ears, the way Lucy liked. The dragon closed his eyes making happy little noises, as it rubbed it's webbed wings against my clothes.

I smiled.

''Alright, you can stay with me for a day. I'll have to hide you, but then you must leave because you can't stay here. If my parents or the villagers find you here, they will surely kill you!''

Nobody found the dragon until it was too late. By the time I returned from the healer's house, my house was a blazing ball of fire, and my beloved dragon, 'Toto', as I lovingly called him was no where to be found.

It was years later when I saw him again, and this time, I had vowed to not repeat my mistake. I was the first one in the village to design a full robotic armor almost half the size of an adult dragon. Others had tried and to some extent succeeded, but they didn't have what I did.

I knew a dragon's greatest weakness, because I raised a dragon with my own two bionic hands, and lived to regret it.