Handlers of Dragons

by Kim Cormack

  Kayn pointed out the stones situated around the room as she declared, “Let there be silence inside of the circle.”

  Kevin let out an exasperated sigh. She didn’t even know the words.

  She tried again, “Let there be silence outside of this circle?”

  She’d said it properly the second time but he didn’t acknowledge it because the girl had no sense of self preservation. Why had she let him in?

  “How’s Stephanie?” Kayn coldly enquired.

  Aggravated, he took a step closer. Under his breath he harshly responded, “Are you joking? This is our Testing. This is serious shit. I’ve always been your enemy. You have always been mine. We took a little vacation from reality. You can’t keep dramatically pausing in the middle of the fight to stare at me.” She shook her head in disbelief so he callously clarified things, “We have nothing left. We’re done. Stay away from me. Run away and hide if you see me. I don’t want to have to hurt you. I don’t want that on my conscience.”

  With her back up, Kayn retaliated, “You know what! You followed me in here! Where do you get off saying I’m being friggin dramatic? You were looking at me too!”

  “Listen, I was told to entertain you,” he fibbed. “I was ordered to get to know you. You’re a nice person. I like you and I’m not a complete ass, regardless of what you might think. That is the only reason I came in here. I’m here to warn you, just this once. I have to kill you the next time you’re standing in my way when my clan is around.”

  Kayn took a step closer and questioned, “Could you kill me? Could you sink that knife into my chest without dying inside yourself?”

  He had to make her hate him. Kevin turned his expression to stone as he took out his blade and backed her up against the wall while saying, “Last week was nothing more than a lapse in judgment on your behalf. I knew you would let me in. Maybe, I came in here to kill you?”

  With complete trust in her eyes, Kayn grabbed the end of his blade, raised it to her heart and placed the tip against her skin. She whispered, “Then just kill me and quit acting. That’s what you have been doing all week right? If you have no feelings at all for me, it should be easy.”

  He stared deeply into her eyes as he fought the urge to take her in his arms. Images began flashing through his mind from their mortal life together. He loved her too much. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t. They stood there, staring into each other’s eyes until his teared up. He’d moved closer to her without even knowing he had. As she lovingly caressed his cheek, he closed his eyes. Damn it. She touched him and he folded like a cheap deck of cards. He moved the thin material on the front of her dress and tenderly traced the thin ridge of her only permanent scar with his thumb. A memory flashed through his mind of sitting with her while she was in a coma. A surge of emotion overcame him as tears began flowing down his cheeks. He adored her with everything he was and everything he ever would be. Kevin slipped the shoulder of her dress down. He leaned forward and seductively kissed the nape of her neck, with the blade still pressed against her chest. He couldn’t control himself. He had to have her. He nuzzled her neck and buried his face in her hair. “Damn it Kayn,” he whispered into her curls. Surrendering to his emotions, he dropped the knife and it tinged to the floor. She snuggled into him as they clung to each other as his heart ached. He would let her kill him. Maybe if she killed him it would work the same way? Kevin whispered against her hair, “You need to kill me the next time you see me. Make it look real. I want you to. I need you to be the one to do it. We have to look like enemies.”

  Kayn squeezed him tighter as she whispered through her tears, “I knew you’d come back to me.”

  No. No. She didn’t understand. He would always love her but being together wasn’t an option. With agony in his eyes, he asserted, “I’m not back...We can never go back to who we were. Don’t you get it? You have to stop loving me.” He abruptly turned and walked away from her.

  “You love me too,” Kayn whispered. “I know you do.”

  Yes...with his whole heart but he shouldn’t. He was going to have to be cruel. If she despised him it would be easier for her to kill him. His heart was aching as he placed the heel of his hand in the grooves on the door to leave. As it slid open, he bluntly barbed, “Loving you would be pointless.” The wall ground shut and the coast was clear. He sprinted away, desperate to put some distance between them. He raced through each wall as it opened, purposely trying to get lost in the maze so he couldn’t find his way back to her. He had to get a handle on his emotions. Memories of Kayn continued to flash through his mind as he died countless times in increasingly traumatizing ways by various creatures. After having the flesh melted from his bones by lava spitting tigers, he’d been pursued by clowns with chainsaws and fallen into a pit of fire ants. He was beginning to understand what this place really was.... It was hell. He’d lost his clan because his focus wasn’t on them. It had to be now. He found his way through the insanity, back to Patrick, Stephanie and the others. They carried on through the simulation of eternal damnation until they hit a little break in the madness.

  “Did you have a chance to kill your girlfriend yet?” Stephanie enquired out of the blue.

  Knowing it was important to act like he no longer cared, Kevin kept his expression vacant as he answered, “I don’t have a girlfriend Steph. I had some fun and it’s over. She means nothing to me.”

  “Good...I was getting tired of playing nice,” she replied.

  He kept his reaction shoved down as he sparred, “You don’t have to play nice anymore. Just be yourself.”

  “Ouch,” she teased as a lone Monarch butterfly fluttered down the long stone corridor.

  It felt like a trap. Completely unfazed, Stephanie held out her hand. It landed on her palm and for a second, Kevin wondered if his instincts were wrong. They gathered around to take in the monarch’s beauty, grateful to see something colourful in the endless gray stone maze.

  Stephanie scowled and remarked, “Ouch! The little stinker just bit me! Monarch butterflies don’t bite?” Instead of yanking her hand away, she allowed it to continue feasting on her flesh as she observed.

  “Don’t just let it bite you!” Patrick scolded.

  Stephanie smiled as she clapped her hands and squished the beautiful thing. Kevin shook his head. He strolled behind his group as they bickered about whether or not butterflies bite on earth. They all passed through an open wall into a room and it slid shut. The ceiling rumbled. They all looked up. Shit! The slab of stone above sped down and squished them all like bugs.

  Kevin regained consciousness and inhaled the stale crypt air. His airway felt like it had been scalded with boiling water. He was the only one sitting in a long stone corridor. The rest of his clan began appearing like flickering holograms scattered down the tunnel. After they’d solidified, they opted to take turns being the first to enter each room. This plan gave them a reprieve from the torture for a while but there was no stay of execution in purgatory. Each death they managed to avoid only became more brutal in the version that followed until they just began running head on into the madness of their next demise. They fought when they could but most of the time they just died in increasingly creative ways. It was his turn to be the first one into the room. He stepped inside and the wall slid shut. Kevin looked up as something dropped through the ceiling and knocked him to the ground. In survival mode, he tossed it away and scrambled to his feet with his heart racing, ready to rumble, clutching his silver dagger. It was Kayn with a knife in her grasp. The others were going to step through that wall any second. She’d be slaughtered. There was the briefest moment of standoff. Fight me Brighton. He shoved her against the wall. Fight back. They began to struggle. The stone slid open and they fell through into another room. Kayn landed on top of him with her knife poised above his stomach. He nodded his consent. Come on! Kill me!

  She stared into his eyes and whispered, “I can’t.”

  Kevin quietly asserted, “It will make me feel a w
hole lot better if you stab me first.” The grinding of stone on stone let them know their moment alone was over. They scrambled to their feet. He grabbed hold of her arm and towed her through the next few sliding walls. As they paused to catch their breath, Kevin huffed, “If you’re not going to kill me, you have to get out of here. If I get caught helping you, it will just make things worse. We can only get out of this place with our clans. I can’t afford to have them all pissed off. Go find your’s.”

  She shoved him and accused, “You were the one that yanked me through the last couple of walls! You could have just left me there!”

  The walls began to shift again. Kayn sprinted away from him, down the next corridor. He followed her. Up ahead, there was a large part of the floor missing. Without missing a beat, Kayn leapt over it but didn’t make it. She was dangling from the ledge. Kevin made the jump. He grabbed a hold of her wrists just as she slipped. Beneath her was the sound of rushing water. He was struggling to hold on to her as he hollered, “I can’t keep doing this! We can’t keep doing this!”

  Kayn stared into his eyes as she shouted, “Then let me go!” She slid a bit. He grasped a hold of her tighter.

  The wall started to open behind them and he said, “Hold your breath,” as he released her. She plummeted into the darkness. He heard a splash. Stephanie and Patrick were standing there as he leapt in after her. He sputtered to the surface of the swiftly moving current while vigorously treading water as he searched for her. She was fighting to grab hold of the roots and foliage as the force of the rapids mercilessly took them downstream.

  “Kevin!” she called out as she disappeared.

  He heard the roaring of the waterfall and held his breath. He dropped a good fifty feet and somehow managed to hit the water just right. Kevin surfaced at the bottom and swam for Kayn’s partially submerged body. He towed her to shore. She was still breathing. Patrick and Stephanie saw him jump him. Hopefully, they didn’t know he’d leapt in after her. It would cause some serious drama. He’d have to find somewhere safe for her to heal, just in case they were followed. He cradled Kayn’s limp body in his arms and carried her behind the falls, so she would be hidden by the veil of water. It wasn’t going to offer her much protection but it would do. He gently placed her body down and went to look for a way out. He returned with some mystery fruit and sat back against the stone with his snack while shaking his head at himself. Why didn’t he just let her go? After a while, he felt reasonably secure that they hadn’t been followed. They would be here by now. She opened her eyes and he teased, “You’re not supposed to attempt to do a belly flop from that height. I thought everyone knew that little rule of life.”

  “Do I hear birds? I swear I can hear birds,” Kayn exclaimed as she sat up.

  He handed her a piece of mystery fruit. “We’re in the jungle,” Kevin explained. “I have no idea how that’s even possible but we’re here. I took a good look around and there doesn’t appear to be any obvious way out. We could be trapped together for a while.”

  As Kayn took a bite of the fruit he’d given her, it gushed down her chin and she laughed.

  Why did she have to be so damn likeable? Her weirdness was undeniably endearing. The fruit juice was still dripping from her chin. He scooted closer and wiped it off with his hand. She smiled and he returned the gesture. Their eyes met and with everything inside of him, he wanted to kiss her. She innocently bit her lip. His parted and he had to talk himself out of it. No. It’ll just make it harder. He quickly retreated to where he’d been sitting before, conflicted. They really needed to go somewhere with less ambiance. If they didn’t he was going to do something they’d both regret. He got up and offered her his hand with the mystical soundtrack of the waterfall playing in the background. He helped her up and she squeezed his hand lovingly before letting it go. His heart ached with the knowledge of what he knew he had to do to assure her survival. Kevin’s eyes softened. While trying to use ration, he clarified, “We’re making this more difficult than it needs to be. We need to find our clans. We can’t get out of the Testing together. What if we lose our chance to get out of this place, while we’re wasting time messing with fate?” She grabbed his wrist and urged him closer with a gentle tug. With raw emotion in his eyes, he cautioned, “Don’t.”

  She pushed him a touch further, “Kiss me goodbye?”

  He moved in as he gently caressed her cheek. She had the softest skin. In awe of her, he confessed, “I’m always fighting off the urge to count your freckles...Why is that? I can’t even force myself to hurt you. I couldn’t let go of your hand without jumping in after you. We’re never getting out of here if we don’t stay away from each other. It’s not that I don’t want you. It’s that I can’t.” He took her hand and placed it on the Triad symbol branded on the flesh above his heart. Kayn intimately traced his symbol with her finger as she tenderly kissed his lips. She was killing him. He wasn’t going to be able to stop himself if she kept pushing his buttons like this. He decided to call her bluff. Emotion caught in Kevin’s throat as he whispered, “Is this what you want?” He walked her backwards until he had her body pressed against the stone. The sexual tension between them had risen to a tumultuous peak. He was a breath away from his lips touching hers when his conscience gave him a good poke.

  “I know you want me too,” Kayn provoked as she ran her fingers through his hair and drew his lips the rest of the way in.

  He did. So badly. Kevin couldn’t stop himself as his parted lips seductively met hers. He pushed her further by slipping his hands beneath the sparse material that concealed her most private places assuming she’d stop him, but she didn’t. She gasped with breathless abandon as he caressed her, trying to push her limits but she was all in and heaven help him so was he. He had to have her.