Venom and Earth

by Turnbull, Jessica

  The cabin breaks out in hushed mutters and I turn to my brother. “What are they talking about?”

  He shakes his head, as confused as I am. “I dunno.”

  “Can I come in now? You’re taking forever!”

  Silence falls upon the cabin at the sound of the new voice.

  I’d recognise it anywhere.

  The three men step out the way to allow Braith to enter, a large grin on her face. Her hair has grown a fair bit but is still blue at the tips. Her face is covered in mud and dirt, but she doesn’t seem to notice or mind.

  “Oh my God…” I say.

  At the sound of my voice her head snaps in my direction and her eyes light up. “Hazy!”

  Still frozen to the ground in shock, I stand dumb-founded as she rushes towards me and wraps her arms around me.

  “Braith? Is it really you?” my brother asks.

  “Yep! In the flesh!” She pulls away from me and turns back towards the door. “It took ya long enough to find me! I was actually considering eating a rabbit.”

  “How did you…” I begin, only to be cut off as she places a finger on my lips.

  “I’ll explain it all later, I swear. Just gotta shake everyone else first. Don’t miss me too much while I get swamped by my adoring fans.” Before I can ask what she means, she’s hopped onto a nearby bed. “I know you’re all dying to know… So come here and I’ll tell ya what happened,” she announces to the entire cabin.

  Everyone throws themselves in front of her, barraging her with questions.

  “What happened to the dragon?”

  “Did it drop you?”

  “Have you seen its lair?”

  “Honestly, the story isn’t very interesting,” she begins and winks at me knowingly. “It dropped me not far from the camp. I was sick until a dog found me and took me to his owner. They nursed me back to health, basically. The poor guy died before I could repay him, so I decided it was time to come back.”

  As she’s barraged with questions once more she winks at me again.

  She’s lying.

  Heart thumping at the idea of her true story, I decide to wait to see what she can tell us. A crumpling sound in my hand almost makes me jump until I unwrap the small piece of paper that Braith must have shoved into my hands without me realising.

  Wait ten minutes, then go to the bathroom and wait for me there. Bring Rocky, Marco, Mason and Sadie. I’ll explain it all.

  Love ya.

  * * *

  Mason’s foot taps the floor impatiently as we wait for Braith to enter the stall. We’re cramped enough in here as it is; I don’t know how she’ll fit in as well.

  “This is stupid. Why does she need us?” Sadie crosses her arms childishly and huffs.

  “Because of the markings. Hazel, you told her, right?” Mason turns to me as Sadie huffs once more.

  “I didn’t get the chance. I guess she wants you here for a different reason.”

  Before the two can argue, Braith slips into the stall. “Sorry! Those guys are like limpets.”

  “What do you want with us?” Sadie demands.

  “Oh, I thought it would be easier to show rather than tell.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Ignoring the blonde girl, Braith claps her hands excitedly. “Marco, you keep watch while we do this.”

  “Do what?” he asks, but she ignores him.

  “Draca, we’re ready, sweetheart!” she calls to the ceiling.

  “What on earth are you…” Rocky gets cut off as a bright light flashes in front of all of us “…doing?”

  Once the bright flash has cleared all I can see is white. It takes me a few seconds to realise that I’m surrounded by snow. A sharp, cold wind howls around me and I shiver at the harsh drop in temperature.

  “Where are we?”

  The familiar voice of Mason snaps me from my thoughts. All of us are standing knee-deep in thick snow, but Marco is missing.

  “I told you it would be easier to show rather than tell!” Braith exclaims in a sing-song voice. “Now we just wait for the others!”

  “What others?” my brother shouts over the howling wind.

  “Stellar, Squall, Terrain and Opaque, of course!”

  “Who-” My brother is cut off by a panicked scream behind us.

  Four other people have now joined us, two of them being Wes and Violet. They shiver violently and look around with wide, scared eyes.

  “Stellar!” I call out Violet’s name, but it comes out as Stellar.

  Luckily the ginger girl recognises my voice and shuffles towards me, flinching against the cold wind. “Marine?” She looks confused as she can’t say my name. “I mean, Marine.”

  “Sorry; that’s a side effect – we can’t say our actual names here,” Braith cuts in. “Come on, it’s only a thirty-second walk up here.”

  “Who are you?” One of the people I don’t recognise hisses – a boy around Violet’s age with shoulder-length greasy brown hair.

  “Come with me; I can tell you everything about your markings,” Braith calls back as she starts trudging in the snow towards a large cave that I only notice now.

  “Oi, wait! You can’t fucking do this to us!” The other person, an overweight girl with curly blonde hair, shouts after her, eyeing the rest of us up with hatred burning in her brown eyes.

  Seeing no other choice but to freeze in the snow, I follow my friend as she stops at the cave entrance to wave everyone over. Once I’m out of the snow I can appreciate how beautiful it is. The walls are covered with glittering jewels. The floor is smooth, almost as if it was crafted for us, and is dotted with colourful markings. My heart sinks as I realise that they are the Elemental markings on the dragons. The same blue swirls, grey cloud-like blobs and red fireballs grow in size the deeper the cave goes.

  Suddenly I don’t want to go in anymore.

  “Frost, do we have to go in there?” I call to Braith as she yanks my brother out of a snowbank near the entrance.

  “Yep! It’ll be fine, I swear! It’ll make sense once we’re in there!”

  “But what’s in there?”

  “Draca!”

  “Are you joking?” My mouth goes dry at the thought of that huge orange beast waiting for us at the end, hungrily licking its lips.

  “Nope. I told ya; it’ll make sense!”

  Rocky takes my hand timidly as we reluctantly follow Braith deeper into the cave. The jewels become scarcer, and I’m overcome by a feeling of dread.

  What if I don’t get out of this alive?

  After a few minutes of wandering in silence, a roar makes all of us stop abruptly. Violet presses into my side as another roar vibrates through the walls and what sounds like large footsteps can be heard coming towards us.

  “Fuck this!” the unknown blonde girl screams, only to scream in frustration as she runs into a stone wall.

  “We’re caved in!” Sadie cries.

  The way we came is now blocked by heavy, jagged rocks. Draca obviously does not want us to leave.

  “I’m earth; I can move them!” the girl cries, as she places her hands on one of the rocks, only to yelp as they suddenly catch fire.

  “Bonnie, I’m scared!” Sadie cries out, burying her face in Mason’s chest.

  “Bonnie?” Mason asks, only to cling to her tightly as another roar vibrates the walls, a lot closer than the last.

  “Oh, stop scaring them, would ya? They don’t know that you’re putting on a show!” Braith calls out.

  Before anyone can ask her what she’s doing, Draca steps out of the shadows ahead of us, bowing its orange head in disappointment. Even more menacing up close, the orange beast is covered in different sized amber and orange scales. Its wings are the same shape as a bat, but are also similar to a bird’s wing, minus the feathers. Several small, stubby horns stick out of its head and neck at weird angles, the same as its claws, which are all different sizes but don’t come out of the toe, instead sticking out of various areas of the skin. Final
ly, its tail is thick and well armoured, with a glittering amber jewel replacing the tail tip.

  Sadie screams in horror and tries to fire a ball of light at the beast, only for it to dissolve in mid-air before it can even touch a scale.

  “Honestly, I thought you guys would be a lot more accepting than this.”

  Everyone gasps at the voice, although the dragon’s lips do not move. It is my voice, but I didn’t speak. Although the dragon isn’t near me, it feels as if it had whispered in my ear.

  “It’s stolen my voice!” Sadie cries, sinking to her knees and sobbing uncontrollably.

  “No, it’s got my voice!” Wes snaps.

  “It has mine, dipshits!” the unknown girl growls.

  “Actually, you’re all hearing your own voices. I don’t have one of my own, so I have to borrow yours. Sorry for scaring you all; I was trying to lighten the mood.”

  “This is ridiculous! I’m stuck in a fucking snowstorm with a giant dragon that makes jokes!” Rocky steps in front of me as Draca looks at each of us in turn, head cocked to one side in amazement.

  “My name is Draca. I am a clone of one of the Primordial Dragons. The only way I can communicate with you is through your dreams. Well, a more accurate term would be my memories.”

  “Your memories?” I ask.

  Its amber eyes light up and it nods enthusiastically. “Yes. I was born here, in this cave, thousands of years ago. Well, the original me, at least.”

  Wes steps towards the beast, looking it up and down with interest. “So why are we here?”

  “You have the markings that the Original Elementals had, but the story that you’ve been told isn’t what actually happened. They weren’t born like that; they were created.”

  “Sorry, Draca, I’ll take over from here.” Braith pats one of the large dragon’s toes, and he nods silently and settles into a sitting position, staring at all of us with awe. The ground shakes slightly as his rump hits the hard floor, making several of us topple on our feet.

  “That’s fine, Frost.”

  “What we think happened thousands and thousands of years ago didn’t actually happen that many years ago. Try only a thousand.”

  “A thousand?” Wes snorts. “But we’ve been researching this for months; it can’t just be a thousand!”

  “Well, it is, so shut up,” Braith silences him with a warning glare before continuing. “We are linked to the Original Elementals, but we have no actual blood ties to them. Our companions were genetically modified, not born. Our entire lives we’ve been brought up thinking that having elements and conveniently sized dragons was natural, but it isn’t. It’s what humans have created because of, well… It’s hard to explain.”

  Aqueous was created? I always thought it was weird that dragon eggs were taken from their mothers, but I never questioned it. In fact, I’ve never questioned anything.

  Maybe I should have.

  “No-one is doubting that your dragon friends should be here, but I think it’s important for you to know that they were created by humans, for humans. Now they are creating even more dragons that are different to the ones you have. These dragons are dangerous. I was housed with them. They are called Wyrms,” Draca says, dipping his head respectfully to Braith.

  “Wyrms are just a stupid legend!” Wes shouts and throws his arms up, frustrated. “They’re not real; just a stupid fairy tale to make kids stay in bed.”

  The large dragon narrows his eyes into slits, making my stomach turn.

  “It’s true. They were created alongside me, but they are far more dangerous. In fact, by all means and purposes they created themselves. They are the negativity from the Primordial Dragons that lived beyond dying out. Wyrms can whisper into your mind, plant an idea. The people who made me talked about using them as exotic pets. They are the ones who attacked the facility, not me. In fact, I’ll show you.”

  “It’s true,” Braith cuts in. “These ‘Wyrms’ are the evil that we are supposed to fight against. Draca is the good guy.”

  There’s another white flash and I’m in a large white room filled with test tubes and papers. Chairs are strewn messily everywhere, as if they had been thrown around the room. However, what really catches my eye is the large dull orange scale in the middle of the room resting on a podium. A hushed voice sings in my ear, making me feel afraid but strangely happy. I slowly approach the podium, walking through tables and chairs like a ghost until I’m standing in front of it. It has an eerie silver glow and looks smooth, almost as if it had been handmade. It’s old, but has been restored in an attempt to make it look the way it used to. The voices in my ear get louder, calling out for me to touch it. My hand rises towards it, despite every instinct in my body telling me to run. As my hand approaches the scale, I notice small black lines swimming around it, almost as if they were living off it. The lines reach out for my hand, the whispering getting darker and more urgent.

  “And this is why we must stop them.”

  One blink and I’m back in the cave with Draca, who suddenly looks afraid of his own memory.

  “What was that scale?” I ask, stepping towards him slightly.

  Lowering his head to look at me dead on, he replies: “The scale of the original Draca. The one who ruled the sky and made the Earth shake every time he stepped on it. Back then, the Wyrms were just tiny parasites; they fed off the blood of the Primordial Dragons. They were pure evil. Scientists found that scale, which contained those parasites. The Wyrms wanted to rule the world and make everyone scream and run at their presence. They want power. That scale that you saw is the reason why all of this has happened. One tiny historical find has led to this. The Wyrms are the evil in Draca, and they are alive, and they are slowly taking over.”

  “None of this makes sense.” Rocky shakes his head.

  “It does,” Braith pleads, as everyone’s attention starts to waver. “Draca needed one of us to explain the situation, and I guess in a way I volunteered. Our markings are beacons for Draca, but that also means we’re beacons for the Wyrms.”

  Wes rolls his eyes and kicks the floor in disgust. “So the point you’re trying to make is that science is evil?”

  “No. I’m trying to say that science is wonderful, but we’ve gone past doing good. It’s the fault of everyone out there-” She points back to the way we came. “They wanted bigger, more menacing dragons and private companies have delivered them.”

  Mason and Sadie back away as Draca turns his soft gaze to them.

  “Please don’t be afraid of me,” he pleads, lowering his head so Braith can pat his chin. “I want to help you. The Wyrms will wage a war on humanity, and I don’t want that to happen. I feel responsible for what happened, as it is partly my fault. I could have destroyed that scale. It’s time that some dragons disappear.”

  “But what about our companions?” The unknown girl steps forward to look the large creature in the eye. “Are they just supposed to ‘disappear’?”

  “Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with them; they can help humanity. I’m glad you all have dragon partners, though I’m afraid they are in terrible danger right now. If you help me, I can help you.”

  “Help you how?”

  Draca turns to Braith, who flashes him a large smile. “We need to end this whole Wyrm takeover.”

  “And how do we do that?” The girl crosses her arms and taps her foot impatiently.

  “I… Honestly… Have no plan for that yet. But-” Braith raises a hand when the blonde girl opens her mouth to protest – “at least we know that Draca is on our side. That’s something!”

  “What do you mean our companions are in danger?” Rocky demands.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t explain right now. I will save them, but I need to know that you all trust me.”

  Screams and curses bounce off the walls of the cave as some members of the group decide they do not want to trust the large dragon, who could easily be lying.

  Something in his eyes tells me he’s not. That sca
le was terrifying. If it had been real, I would have touched it. Who knows what would happen if these Wyrms took over our government? They could start wars, enslave people, commit genocide… Anything they wanted.

  “I trust you.”

  Everyone goes silent as Violet steps towards Draca, looking up at him with warm eyes.

  “Thank you, Stellar. You are the most important of all the Elementals here. You are the one who will end the Wyrms once and for all; I can see it.”

  An unspoken connection seems to swim between them as Violet reaches out and strokes Draca’s cheek when he offers it to her.

  “Marine, you trust Draca, right?”

  For a second I don’t say anything, then I look into her dull grey eyes. They seem inviting; too trustworthy to be wrong.

  “Right,” I reply, though I don’t know whether I mean my answer.

  “Mari!” Rocky tugs my shoulder. “No!”

  “Yes, Lightning. If he can get our partners back, I will trust him.”

  My brother considers this for a second before nodding curtly. “Fine. I trust your judgement.”

  Braith claps her hands wildly. “The rest of you, come on!”

  The rest of the group looks between each other before Mason steps forward, dragging Sadie with him. “Fine.”

  Wes looks dumbstruck, but nods silently.

  “Get David back and I will trust you,” the unknown blonde girl spits venomously.

  “I promise you, Terrain, I will.” Draca bows his head, his eyes lighting up as the group decides to trust him.

  The only one left is the guy who must be Opaque. He stares at the orange dragon distrustfully before slowly nodding.

  Draca straightens up, his eyes seemingly glowing with happiness. “Good. Then you must wake now. Frost will tell you the rest of the story, and I must go and rescue your friends. But please remember this. The ones who rise from cinder are not your only enemy.”

  “Come on!” Braith groans, rolling her eyes so far back all you can see is the white of her eyes. “Stop doing these stupid riddles and just come out with it!”

  Before anyone can protest, the world explodes into white.

  * * *