Inventing a Dragon : The Legend of Apala

Chapter 1 - Dragons and Dreams

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Meera was frustrated with her editor; why did there have to be any at all? It was bad enough that she was writing a fantasy novel, but dragons? What could she possibly write about that George RR Martin or JK Rowling hadn't already?

Sighing, she saved her painfully short document one more time and called Mohit.

“You really shouldn’t be calling your ex so much,” said Mohit in lieu of a greeting, making Meera roll her eyes. She could hear him tapping away at his own laptop in the background, suddenly realizing it was Tuesday afternoon. Ignoring the 'ex' jibe, she said, “I know it’s a random weekday, but our usual spot tonight? I don’t know who else to talk to.”

“Sure, see you at 7?”

Meera agreed and hung up the phone feeling slightly better. Mohit was her ex, but also her closest friend; she acknowledged it wasn’t the best combo but tonight she needed him, and maybe a few stiff cocktails. She distractedly looked around her room, aware of how ungrateful she sounded. To anyone else, she had a great life. Just 29 years old but with two wildly successful novels under her belt, she was being touted as the next big thing in Indian fiction. She could afford rent in a city like Mumbai, worked for herself and at her pace for the most part, and was doing what she loved. All well and good, she thought a little bitterly, but her forte was people and relationships when it came to writing; not wizards or hobbits or jedis, and certainly not dragons. But apparently this was in, her publishing house wanted something different and she was being forced to give it a shot.

A few hours later, she was explaining this to Mohit over a glass of rum and coke at their favorite bar.

“You know I don’t do fantasy!” she wailed, slightly tipsy.

“And you know I’m a fantasy nerd, no wonder you asked me out, should have known you just want to use me,” teased Mohit, pretending to shake his head disappointedly.

Meera rolled her eyes and lightly punched his arm, but he wasn’t totally wrong; she was hoping he would be able to help with her writer’s block. Mohit had always been a big fan of the genre and would spout facts from his favorite series all the time at her while they were together.

“Yes, you can finally be of some use to someone,” she teased back.

“Ouch! But I’ll take it. I have some really great books on dragon lore actually, stuff that not many people would have heard of. Old Indian mythological stories, really interesting.”

Meera hesitated; she and Mohit were still friends, but going back to his place seemed like a recipe for disaster. On the other hand, her editor needed at least a plot idea by next week and all she had was a main character and a valley. So they paid the bill and walked the short walk to his apartment as they had countless times during their relationship, Meera filling him on the little bit she had written down so far.

“Your main character sounds pretty intense,” Mohit observed as they reached his apartment and he unlocked it.

“Hm, I suppose he is,” mused Meera, looking around. The place looked exactly the same it always had, just slightly messy but full of personality, Mohit’s assortment of knick knacks and posters everywhere. Almost like a teenager lived here, thought Meera as she had so many times before; she shook her head slightly. She hadn’t come here to go over the reasons for their break up again. She needed to keep her mind on dragons.

She continued looking around the place as he went searching for the books, taking in the familiarity of her surroundings. The break up, though on good terms, had been tough in the beginning and she hadn’t been here in a while. In her slightly alcohol-befuddled state, she wondered masochistically how many women had been here since her. Thankfully, he returned then and she put her focus back on why she was here, taking the first book from him.

“Apala, interesting name,” she said, randomly flipping through the pages and coming across a photo of this creature. It was bizarre, with the scales and tail of a dragon, but the head of a human.

“It is said Buddha himself preached to him,” said Mohit. “Apala used to be a man who protected a valley from dragons. The people living there were grateful and promised him tributes, but later forgot about him and his bravery. Filled with rage, he turned into this half-dragon monster after his death, promising to destroy the very valley and river he had spent his life protecting.”

Meera was soon engrossed in the myths surrounding these Indian dragons and didn’t realize Mohit had put on music and opened up a bottle of wine. He handed her a glass and she took a sip, eyes still on the text in front of her, trying to figure out if any of this could be used in her book.

“Mohit, this is really great stuff, thank yo-” she stopped short; she had finally looked up and was startled to see how close Mohit was standing, and how intense the look in his eyes was.

“Meera, I’ve missed you,” he muttered softly, taking a step closer. She could feel his breath on her skin now, see his face coming closer and closer until she closed her eyes and felt his lips on her neck.

A wave of emotions swept through her. How her skin seemed to be on fire, how delicious he smelled, how right this felt. For a minute she let herself give into the moment but with a sudden burst of what-the-fuck-am-I-doing, her eyes flew open and she pushed him lightly.

“We can’t Mohit,” she said almost sadly.

For a second, he looked like he was about to argue and Meera wasn’t sure if she had the strength or the desire to protest once more; before she could give it any more thought though, something in the corner of the room caught her eye.

“What is that?” she asked curiously, distracted, walking over to the object. It seemed to be a thick scroll, with gold inscription all over it. It looked frayed and rather worse for the wear. She picked it up gingerly and started to unroll it as Mohit walked up behind her.

“Oh that? It's nothing, just a silly fairytale.” he said dismissively, as she continued to examine it. “I found it at this shop of witchcraft during my travels up north last month. This little town I visited had a lot of fun legends about portals to other dimensions hidden all around our country. This scroll supposedly can transport you to imaginary worlds. A unique way to entertain tourists of course, nothing more.”

“Ooh, any in Mumbai do you suppose?”

“Funnily enough, the portal in Mumbai is supposed to be somewhere in this neighborhood. That’s why I bought the scroll, thought it might be fun to at least figure out where it is.”

“And did you?”

“We just walked back from there.”

She looked at him in surprise. He was smiling slightly.

“What, our bar?!” she exclaimed.

“Yep, the very same.”

“And did you try to open this portal then?”

At that he laughed, shaking his head. “I love fantasy, but as fiction. Come on, you can’t seriously believe this?” he said, plucking the scroll from her hands.

“Well, it would be fun to try, no?” she countered, grabbing it back and looking at it even more intently.

“You need a couple things for the ritual. We can try it tonight,” he answered, shrugging.

Meera was intrigued. She wasn’t going to get much more writing done anyway tonight, and this seemed like a fun way to get in some research.

“Let’s do it.”

Mohit took the scroll back from her and began reading it. It took him some Google translating and some interpreting but eventually he had more or less figured out what needed to be done.

“Okay so this involves opening up a moon portal. We need to draw a body of water on a piece of paper, with a full moon over it, the rays making a path straight to the water. There needs to be a black tower on the left of the page and a white one on the right. The rest, we do at the location.”

Meera drained the rest of her glass as Mohit sketched out the drawing, her anticipation building. She knew there wasn’t really any chance this could work but it felt thrilling all the same. The drawing complete, they walked back to the bar once more, in silence this time. Once there, Mohit took out the scroll again, and took her to the alley behind the bar. “This is the exact spot according to this,” he said, pointing at the ground.

“Okay so what next?”

“We place the drawing down and then read this chant. Not sure how it works after that, but that’s everything we need to do.”

Meera placed the drawing down at their feet and squinted at the scroll, trying to read the gold writing in under the street lights. “What language is this, what does this even mean?” she inquired, looking at the strange words.

“I have no idea, it doesn’t actually say,” said Mohit frowning slightly. He had never liked not knowing something.

“Okay well, here goes,” said Meera, and with a deep breath, she slowly but loudly read the chant out.

“Muhm aahanan shunu, ahun bhavanant prarthiyami yat mumh jagatu, anyasme uddhatyatu”

As she finished, they both looked around, half expecting something to happen. An owl hooted in the distance and Meera jumped slightly. Mohit laughed and picked up the drawing. “Told you this is pointless, come let’s have another drink now that we’re here anyway.” Laughing along with him now, Meera followed him into the bar where they talked and drank for hours, the topic soon far away from dragons and enchanted scrolls, her novel forgotten. It was so easy to slip back into their old ways and as Meera got drunker, the reasons for their break up seemed to get blurry. When Mohit asked if she’d like to go back to his, she found herself agreeing.

When they eventually went to bed that night, Meera’s mind was in turmoil. Mohit slept soundly with his arm around her, snoring ever so slightly, but sleep wouldn’t come so easily to Meera, and when it did, it was punctuated by dreams, the strangest ones she had ever dreamt. A boy who looked vaguely familiar was beckoning her towards him and when he followed, he transformed into a dragon in a haze of smoke; she ran, or tried to, nearly crashing into Mohit who was holding out a glass of wine. And then he disappeared into smoke too and now she was falling into nothingness, there was a distant scream and she was suddenly blinded by bright white light and now she was gathering speed and was going to crash, but where was she going? Where did it end? On and on until suddenly........nothing.

She awoke with a horrible jolt and sat up at once. But wait, no, this had to be just another dream. She wasn’t in Mohit’s bed anymore, hell she wasn’t in Mumbai anymore. But where was she?

Her surroundings, like the boy from the previous dream, looked strangely familiar, like she had been here before. It seemed to be a valley, with mountains on every side and a forest into the distance. It was quiet, peaceful, almost creepy. She couldn’t hear any birds or creatures, or even the sound of running water. She got up and started walking around, feeling more mystified by the second. This dream was way too realistic for her liking; she needed to wake up. Uncertain of her next move, she started walking towards the forest, looking all around her for any signs as to where she was. As she entered the thicket of trees, the sunlight dimmed and she had to squint till her eyes adjusted. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe staying out in the open was better. Just as she turned to walk back out, the silence was pierced by a sound she had never heard before, a bone-chilling shriek that seemed to be coming from out in the valley. The plan to go back out abandoned immediately, she ran deeper into the forest, determined to get away from whatever it was that could make such a demonic sound. She could hear rustling behind her now, and a fallen twig break, and she increased her speed. “What horror movie nightmare sequence is this?” she thought, wondering why she wasn’t waking up yet. Suddenly, she heard a voice. She stopped short, a bad idea, but it sounded familiar...

“Meera! Where the hell are you? Stop running, will you?”

Relief flooded through her. Mohit! Whatever this nightmare was, at least she wasn’t alone. Phew.

She called back out to him and within seconds he had emerged from the trees. She ran up to him and threw her arms around him. He held her for a second and then pulled her away.

“Mohit, what the fuck is going on? This feels too weirdly real to be a dream.”

“Meera, it worked,” was all he said.

“What do you mean it worked?”

“The portal. It worked. We’re inside your book.”