Using the rock, I palm my way up. My tails balance me. It only takes a minute for me to stand, but it seems like an eternity. Finally, I bear my weight on my two feet for the first time, and the sensation is strange. Gone are my scaled toes and claws. Instead, my feet are soft and sensitive.
Every part of this human body is sensitive. Tingles shoot up my nerves as I rock back and forth. Balance does not come easy, and my muscles spasm. I lock my knees when they buckle. Luckily, I have my tails.
“I am coming, female,” I grunt as my hand claws the rock.
I jut out my jaw and shuffle one foot forward. Relieved that I keep myself upright, I lunge it forward with courage.
I topple over, the ground smashing against my knees. I howl, grunt, and snarl. My hands flatten, catching me, and I dig my claws into the rubble, furious. Red fills my vision, a dirty, dark red that blends in with the deep shadows of the cave. I smell my blood.
Prove your worth, you wretched beast.I smash my teeth. My anger grows and bleeds out. I’m furious with my human for making me feel so. Our fire might be dying, but I can see in the dark.
Once my full strength has returned, we will not need light to survive! She will need nothing but me!
One of my claws breaks against the rocks.
Shifting my tails, I brace to stand again. Taking my time, I rise to my full height and steady myself. I grunt in triumph. Keeping one tail behind and the other ahead, I slide my foot forward again. This time I stay upright.
Three slow steps later, my lips twist into a smile. I pull my eyes from the ground and toward the direction where I’d heard my human’s screech.
With each step, my confidence grows. My tails swipe the cave floor, and with only the occasional wobble, I make progress.
The firelight fades behind me, and I inhale, searching for my human’s scent. Fear has a powerful smell. Catching a whiff, I shift slightly to the left, but there is another familiar smell in the air: the naga’s. I thought it was the aroma of the cave—the undergrowth and soil and faint petrichor—but I know now that it ishimas well.
He has been living in this cave with me for a while, I realize.He came with the rain.
The smell of Milaye’s fear deepens and my chest constricts, but she is nowhere to be found. Relief and annoyance fill me.She is not hurt. Wherever she is now, she did not come to harm.But I hate that she is not here at all.
Where the skies has she gone to? I narrow my eyes and glare into the shadows.
Then I see it, the faint orb of golden firelight. It glints off the dull and dirty rocks in the distance. It is nearing.
The outline of her body appears next as she ascends an incline.
“Milaye,” I breathe her name as her features come into view, but she is too far off to hear me. She is carrying a load of roots to her chest, her eyes flicking about as she waves her torch slowly.
I move to the wall. She does not see me. The dark pulls itself toward me and like my old self; it absorbs into my flesh and feeds it. My scales get harder, and my horns bulge. My nostrils flare. She gets closer, not seeing the predator I truly am.
I thrive in darkness. There is nothing like a giant monster with teeth the size of small trees hunting you down in the dark.
Her sweat blooms the air. My shaft tightens and rises, chafing upon the rough cloth tied around me. She is all I know.My prey.
Almost upon me now, I ready to strike.If she thinks she will leave me again…
Her torchlight glimmers over me, but I consume it, repelling the glow. Her eyes go through me as if I am not there.
One more step, female, and you are mine. She steps into my reach—I grab her.
Her body jerks, the roots falling from her hold as she reaches for her weapon. Her eyes widen in shock, in recognition soon after, but I already hear her blood rushing through her veins.
“Human,” I rasp, pulling her to me and knocking her dying torch. It falls to the ground and rolls away, throwing us back into shadow.
“Drazak,” she stammers.
I lean into her, swing my tail around, and push her against the cave wall, trapping her there with my body.
“You can move.” She is nearly breathless. Her hands come between us, pressing into my chest.
“I can move,” I warn. “You will not leave me again.” I pull her from the wall so I can look at her and steal her eyes. Now that I am no longer prone on the ground, I discover she is much smaller than me.
