A deep voice, humming a haunting and lonely melody, filled my ears and drowned out the sounds of Michael’s shouting. My body was weightless, as if I were falling. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to scream or panic. The weightlessness left as fast as it came and I stood inside a small cave, facing the entrance. The source of the wind whipped into the cave entrance, further tangling my hair above my head.
The humming continued behind me. I whirled to find a figure sitting against the back wall. He was cloaked from head to toe; how he could stand the heat of this world with a cloak on was beyond me. I shuffled my feet, hoping to attract his attention without the need to speak. His eyes must've been closed for him to miss the glowing stones. I gripped the gun behind my back.
He didn’t move. I investigated the rest of the cave, cognizant of my training—to be hyper aware of my surroundings. The rest of the floor was completely bare, save the ring of glowing stones around my feet, the same circumference as the well back on Earth. Several torches lit up the inside of the cave, and I could see a night sky in the distance. It was so chock full of stars, I wanted to run outside and stare up at the alien lights.
I kept myself still and directed my attention back to the humming figure. My hair irritated me, so I reached up to grab it and put it in a quick braid. I froze when I saw my arm—it was green.Are those scales?They were. My arm was covered in thick scales.
My breath quickened as I took in both arms; scaly, green arms. I brought them closer to my face. They were actually quite beautiful, multi-hued pieces of greens and browns.
Flipping my hand over to inspect my palm, I found sleeker scales, more like a snake’s, where my arms were more like a fierce lizard, or how I imagined a dinosaur would feel. I touched my face tentatively. It was sleek like my palms. I’d’ve killed for a mirror. Continuing my exploration of my face, I found I still had eyebrows.
I jerked my shirt up and stared at more hard, armor-like scales on my abdomen. My stretch marks were still there, but the pooch around my belly button was gone. My stomach was hard and flat. The stretch marks were breaks between the scales. Apparently, the smoother scales of my face and hands were hidden underneath the harder scales because I could see it in the stretch marks. The gun on my hip scraped against the scales of my side.
My panic was well and truly set in. I stepped out of the stones and took a couple of small steps toward the hooded figure. I cleared my throat and his head jerked up. He scrambled to his feet and pressed himself against the cave wall. My hand went back to the gun behind me. I didn’t want to pull it out unless absolutely necessary.
He barked out a question in a language I didn't understand. I shrugged. “Is there any chance you understand English from planet Earth?” I asked, completely dumbfounded as to how we would communicate.
He let out a low chuckle and walked toward me, still completely shadowed by his robe. I couldn't even see his hands. I backed away, ice in my veins. My stomach clenched as I imagined what sort of creature was under that hood or if he meant me any harm. He walked toward the portal and reached out a finger to touch a stone. His touch left a smear of blood behind on the stone he touched. The stones stopped glowing immediately. He was like me.
He brought up his hands in a universal gesture of peace, palm out. I was finally able to see his skin and it was similarly patterned like my own new skin, but his was in shades of grays and blacks. I stopped moving, temporarily fascinated. I wanted to grab his hand and look closely at it.
He lifted one finger and brought it to my forehead. My eyes tried to watch his finger and his other hand at the same time.He could be distracting me in order to chop my head off with his other hand.
He didn’t though. He simply touched his finger to my forehead. I stiffened, my muscles rigid. As soon as he touched my forehead, my body was overcome with goosebumps and my brain tired.
“What are you doing?” I asked uselessly. He couldn't understand me.
“I'm giving you the knowledge of my language.” It dawned on me he was speaking his own language, which reminded me of Hungarian, and I wondered if any of the words in the two languages were shared.
“How are you doing that? Someone back home was able to share knowledge and memories with me in a similar fashion, but she wouldn’t explain it.” I continued without giving him a chance to answer, a million questions pinging around my brain. “Where am I? Why do I resemble a lizard lady, which, by the way, I look like that chick from a TV show back home, which is kinda cool. Do you even know what a TV show is? Are you going to hurt me? Are you my ancestor?” He shushed me after that question by putting the same finger on my lips.
“Hush, young one. I will explain. Please, come sit.” He walked back to his spot against the wall and I noticed he’d been sitting on a pile of fur blankets. “We have been waiting for you for centuries.”
I lowered myself down beside him, crossing my legs and facing him. “Me? Me, specifically?”
“In a way, yes. Many thousands of years ago, when these portals were created, a prophecy was made. It was foretold that a young dragon with scales of jade and jasper would appear from this gateway and save our people when we were on the brink of extinction.”
He took my roughened hand in his own. He leaned toward me, face intense. “You are the first person to come through those stones in over two hundred years.”
I’d been burning to ask him what in theworldwe were, but his statement chased the question from my mind. “Two hundred years? The portals in my world haven't been used in over a thousand years, as far as we know.”
He blinked. “It could be that time passes more rapidly there. I know that there's only one world we can enter through these portals.” He turned his head toward the stones. “The knowledge of the portals and how to create them is lost. Much of our knowledge is gone, dead with those who traveled to your world. I was given instructions for how to turn the portal off, but not activate it. There is much we do not know.”
“Stop. Before you go any farther, I need to know what I am!”
“You don't know?” He was clearly shocked by my lack of information about my heritage. “How are you supposed to save our people if you have no idea what we are? Are there none of our kind in your world?”
“I have no idea what I am. When I left my world, I had skin like…well, like a human, if you know what that is. What are we? What’s your name? Where are we? Let’s get the basic questions out of the way, and then we can dig into the hard stuff.”
“I don't know what a human is. We’re dragons, young one. You are a dragon. You are a part of the oldest species we have ever been able to find. We call ourselves the Sárkány, and of the species that migrated to your Earth in years past, we never found another species that existed before we did.” My mouth gaped as I stared at him. His eyes twinkled. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Riley Effler.”
“I'm honored to meet you, Riley Effler. My name is Axoular. I'm one of the last Sárkány in any universe, and so are you.”
“Dragon. I’m a dragon?”
“Sárkány.”
