I will be the apocalypse.

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley. It was quiet, still, a small world. But they will come, as sure as the sun will rise, they will come on wings of black and scales of iron. Their breath will turn our castles of sand to glass, our homes to ash, our people to char. They will come because they must; heralds of the end of time, of the cycle; of death by fire and rebirth from the ashes. As it has been before, so shall it be again.”

Cerilia opens her eyes, the ancient story told and foretold through generations fading away in her mind. It is replaced by the warmth of the air around her, disturbed occasionally by a slight cold breeze. She slowly gets to her feet, taking in the smell of fresh air and the gentle rustling of wind across the rocky hilltop. The sun shines bright in the center of the light blue sky dimmed occasionally as small clumps of clouds float lazily by.

Below the hill is the valley of birth, hundreds of miles across and hundreds of miles wide. Since time immemorial humans had lived their whole lives in the valley, hunting, farming, singing, dancing, creating, living. The valley lies barren now, filled with nothing but grass, clovers, and small bushes all blowing gently in the breeze. Mounds of what were once likely homes or huts now lay beneath nature's expanse of green reclamation. The valley remains still and empty, save for the skeleton. The colossal skeleton of a dragon is draped across the interior slope of the eastern hillside, nearly the size of the hill itself. Nature has already reclaimed much of it; entire grassland plains now cover its wings and spine, and a young but tall and thick evergreen forest has sprung up around its neck and jaw.

This is where it all began. And where it has all come to an end. A place of birth and importance now reduced to a mere imitation, devoid of purpose and swallowed by the quagmire of stale time. The quagmire that had swallowed the whole continent, and every person on it.

Cerilia starts to walk down an old game trail across the crest of the hill, towards the one the dragon’s skull rests atop of.

The journey to the valley was uneventful and quiet, emblematic of what the world has come to. Cerilia passed a caravan of merchants on the main road encompassing the valley. They were swaddled in cloaks of brown fur and hoods of linen. They kept their heads down, making no small talk, no notice that she was passing them. Each left small red footprints on the dirt, as their shoes have long since been worn away, and the skin not long after. Since the battle with the dragons, they had marched to and from cities as they had before, for it was all that they knew. There was no need to eat anymore, so no need to trade, but it was all that they knew to do, to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, crisscrossing the lands with their wagons and beasts of burden, because it was all that reminded them of their once humanity.

The going on the trail is rough; the terrain is rocky and uneven, even along the path beaten by tens of thousands of footfalls over thousands of years. Each step must be placed with great care and precision, lest the rocky dirt give way and one finds themselves sliding all the way down into the valley proper.

The legend of the dragons stays fresh in Cerilia’s mind as her gaze is drawn towards the towering skeleton. The beast's empty maw shines bright white on the hilltop as the bones have been bleached by exposure to the sunlight. The tips of the bony spikes on its head stand nearly twice as tall as the full grown trees around it.

The wandering woman reaches the downslope of the hill. Her eyes follow the trail as it continues across the flat grassland and up to the forest surrounding the skeleton. She takes a break to empty the small rocks and dust out of her boots. She puts them back on and pauses, remembering that this was likely a time to drink. Water, she missed the cool sensation of it sliding down her throat and seeming to spread its chill out across and through her torso.

She stands and sets off through the trees towards the skeleton. It takes a moment, but she remembers why she is here. For what purpose she sets out across this land that is not dead, but cannot die. She begins to hum the children's fable her grandfather told her so long ago, hoping that the story it was meant to impart would jog her memories.

The six stood against the end of days. When the rivers stood still with ice during the midsummer. When the sky itself turned black in the noontime. When the clouds began to rain red blood. The six legends took it upon their souls to slay the six dragons of the apocalypse. The prince and his chosen blood for the blue dragon, with its scales of water. The druid with his rot for the green dragon, who devoured the sky. The witch and her consort for the gray dragon, who turned all to ash. The beast and his curse for the white dragon, and its hatred of the warm sun. The angel and her beliefs for the gold dragon, and its promise to bury the world. And last, the warrior who came from nothing for the black dragon, the end of all things.

Cerilia walks through the undergrowth of the forest, stepping over fallen logs and ferns while deftly batting away stray tree branches. As she walks her mind wanders to the story, and the truth it spells out for the world. The dragons were slain, the apocalypse was averted. But now the world slowed, until time itself ceased to have meaning.

She raises her eyes and spots one of the empty eye sockets of the beast through a break in the trees. It looms over her, its unseeing eyes still holding a fraction of the fear its living gaze once likely brought.

She thinks once again to the merchants on the road, how they know nothing but what they once had. Since the battle of the dragons, the sun does not set. The people of the land, once industrious and proud, do not age. They do not sleep, or eat. Cannot give birth, cannot grow, cannot change. All is still, forgotten by entropy itself when its heralds were slain. They were supposed to end the world in ash, but it was averted.

Cerilia comes upon the slight hill leading to the jaw of the beast. She stops for a moment to let out a meaningless breath before continuing onwards.

The jaw is in view now, massive and dark, somehow more foreboding than any cave or blackwater beyond a reef.

I do not know if what I am doing is right. But I must try.

Cerlia begins to climb slowly up the incline of wind-deposited dirt leading up into the skull’s mouth.

The power of the dragons lays dormant somewhere.

The hill gets steeper as she digs her heels into the dirt. She reaches down and grabs the sparse plant life with her hands to pull herself along.

I must find it. I must take it for myself. I must bring about… no, I must BE the apocalypse that so many fought and died to avert.

She reaches the top of the jaw and squeezes past two gargantuan teeth, standing on a small precipice overlooking the dark gloom of the mouth.

I must end this quagmire of useless existence.

She takes a moment to rub the bottoms of her boots and then begins to slide down the inside of the beast's jaw. She lands on the mossy ground a few minutes later with a hard thud. She reaches into her belt and pulls out a small torch. A few minutes of work with her piece of flint produces a nice comfortable flame on the end of the stick. She holds it aloft and begins a slow and silent march deep into the dark, still, and quiet skeleton of the beast.

I will end this world. I will end this cruel stagnation.