Dragons

No one said anything for a long while, letting the silence of the unknown sink in. I wish I knew what had happened to Merlin, or Edgar and Alati for that matter, but most of all my mind still raced with thoughts of Aurelius. As the darkness crawled up my arms, leaving them so cold that it felt like dry ice was being spread across them, thoughts of Aurelius kept me oddly hopeful. I know I saw his body buried underneath all of that debris, but if all of my magic could not free him, maybe heavy rock couldn't either, keeping him safe and preserved. Still, even if his body is still intact I noticed no signs of life. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that he's out there somewhere, somehow.

I laid my back against the wall, looking up at the black void that hid the ceiling, and let out a deep sigh.

"Do not be afraid." My father said from his dark corner. "If your brother is anything like the son I once knew, he's alive. Plus Nequior would never kill someone as powerful as Merlin. At the very least he would be chained as you and I are. Nequior feeds on our powers, and Merlin feed him for years no doubt."

"What will happen to you if we don't escape?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking, afraid I already knew the answer.

"We will become like the Nequam." He said, plain and simple.

"So... the Nequam..."

"They use to be people... like us."

I felt a sickness in my stomach like I had eaten a giant rock. I had killed my own people without even knowing. It was no wonder our people chose to become a people of silence after the things they had seen.

We said nothing else to each other. What would we even say? We were faced with our fate: death. So much for my great destiny, a story that would matter. I grew angry, this whole thing was filled with so much hype, and all for nothing. I stood up, frustrated that I had nothing to take my anger out on, and began to tug at my chains. I knew it was useless but it was a kind of stress relief.

Nequior was soon in the prison room once again, a lit lantern casting a long shadow across the wall. "What are you doing?" He hissed.

I stopped, confused by his question. Then I heard the sound of rumblings. I felt a smile spread on my face as I saw for the first time fear in the eyes of our demon captor. "Well, I'm not doing anything."

He scowled at me just before the roof of our clay-dome cracked across the ceiling, shedding light into the darkness. The roof quickly withered away in pieces, revealing several dragons digging their way into our prison where both my parents and I were still chained to the wall.