Heavenly Fire

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Once, they ruled the skies. They used to soar through the clouds, majesty and all, leading their packs and newborns to and from their homes high in the mountains. Mating calls would wake us at dawn every winter, just as the sun was rising. I used to watch and just wait until the perfect moment when they would fly at the just the right angle so the light from the sun shone through the thin, rubbery skin of their wings, illuminating them in a soft orange glow. A heavenly fire. The first time I saw that was the first time in my life I knew there must be a God. And in that moment, I also knew fire must come from heaven, not hell.

Evidently, not everyone shared my sentiments.

The dragon’s plague hit the burg hard and fast. Before anyone really knew what was happening half the population was dead or dying. The sickness came in waves. We soon came to recognize them. The first was a piercing ache in your skull that blurred your vision and ruined your appetite. Nothing and no one could rid you of it once it came. By day two the welts broke out. Large blistering boils covered the faces of the ill, growing until the infection burst out along with blackened blood. The last stage was less predictable and varied more widely. It seemed to appear somewhere between day three and day five, with the consensus being that a general sort of madness would overcome the infected, leaving them crazed and violent in some cases. Some said it was their soul leaving their bodies before their bodies were ready to give up. If that was the case, then human bodies can’t live long without a soul. Once the craze began it would be less than three hours before the person was dead. We knew this for certain.

It only took a week from the onset for bodies to litter the streets. There weren’t enough bodies left alive to clean them all up, and those that were still alive didn’t want to risk going near the infected.

I didn’t know how the rumors began, and I wasn’t sure if they were true, but once they were out people began to cling to them like the mere idea would save them. Supposedly, the plague came from the dragons. Their eggs, feces, and urine supposedly were infected with a mutated virus that only affected humans. Dragon eggs were a common staple in the Burg and would therefore explain the intensity of the initial outbreak. Soon after these rumors began going around, a somewhat well-known doctor in the Burg by the name of Dr. Braker informed us that while the dragons were the cause of our despair, they could also save us. He theorized that the natural oils produced by the dragons’ scales were indeed the antidote to the sickness killing our friends and families, and this was why the dragons themselves were not affected by the disease.

After news got out about the theory, chaos erupted more so than ever. Everyone wanted to get their hands on dragon scales for somebody they knew, or to protect themselves. Suddenly, everyone was running towards the very source of the disease.

It’s been two months since then. A group of wealthy oligarchs in the area had hired men to capture as many dragons as they could and bring them to the valley. They sectioned off an area of the town originally inhabited by the poverty-stricken population and hoarded the dragons there. The oligarchs soon inflated the price of dragon scales so high that only the extremely wealthy could manage to pay such a price. And so, the death and destruction continued. The very population that could not pay the high price for the antidote were the very same ones forced to live in proximity to the very filth of the suppressed dragons that caused the illness.

So, the cycle went round. The poor could not afford the antidote, and the poor could not afford to live away from the exposure.

Somehow my family and I had thus far avoided the effects of the dragon plague. Living on the outskirts of the valley, we were far enough away to not be in the center of the cesspool of disease, but not so far that we didn’t see and smell it around us every day.

Dragons no longer ruled the skies. They suffered in the valley. Instead of mating calls at dawn we were awoken by pained screeches of dying animals, dragons and humans alike.

After another sleepless night, I rose before the sun. My family owned a small pub in town, and for the past two months we had been rising before the sun to make deliveries of food to the families in need in the valley. We didn’t have much to offer, mainly bread and cheese, but without us we knew some families who had lost the most during the plague would have nothing.

My eyes squinted open at the light peering through the long-since cracked window.

Immediately, I shut them again.

I slowly cracked my eyes open once more, and as if the light itself from the window was piercing a knife through my right eye, a terrible pain split my head.