The Farthest Cavern

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Crouching in the middle of the square. Perching on the rooftops of what used to be the homes of the most prestigious. Sun bathing in the overgrown fields.

Dragons used to only come alive in children’s imaginations. Now they have overtaken the whole Fuller Valley.

I slipped behind the cover of a thick tree trunk, straining on my tip toes to see over the side of the hill and rocks. It wasn’t long ago that I was one of those children. But, I had given up believing in fairy tales a few years ago. Around here you learned pretty young what the real world is all about. I had been helping my parents on the farm for a couple of years now, once I was old enough to handle a knife without hurting myself. I had to help Mom in the kitchen and help Dad in the field with the crops and also to skin whatever animals he had caught for supper. Not to mention laundry. Ugh…I hate laundry. It seemed to me that Mom had been a bit too smug when she had recruited me.

A noise behind me made me whirl around, smacking my head on a small limb above my head.

“Ow.” As I rubbed my forehead, I heard a giggle from a few yards away.

“Sophie.” I whispered in disgust. “I told you to stay home.”

A blonde head poked up from behind a bush, followed by a chubby little face with an annoying smile.

“I just wanted to come and see the evil dragons too!” She said, eyes going wide and holding her hands up like claws.

“Well, go back.”

She crept closer to me behind the tree trunk.

“Or…stay here.” I said as I turned back to the Valley, rolling my eyes. My hair had caught in some of the leaves and I had to wrestle them free. There was no point in arguing with her. Plus, she would just start whining and probably cause the dragons to hear us.

“Sasha…how many of them are there?” Sophie whispered, leaning heavily on the tree and trying to squint through the leaves. But she wouldn’t be able to see over the hill at her height no matter how much she squinted.

“I don’t know. Too many.”

She nodded, still squinting.

The sound of voices rose up to our ears and we looked down to see three dragons were now all standing in the middle of the square near the well. Their long tails trailed out behind each of them, one going into the open door of the local tavern. The sound of things being shifted around and toppling over could be faintly heard with each swish. Another’s tail was twitching up and down, causing clouds of dust to rise from the dirt road.

It was strange enough when the people that used to live in Fuller Valley came into the next town over last month, saying that they had been attacked by dragons. The refugees had been taken to the town doctor to be checked out to see what had caused all of these people to suddenly have a mass hallucination. It was stranger still when some of them said they had heard the dragons speaking. Like, actual conversations. From what I had overhead when mom and dad were talking, a group of people had gone over to Fuller Valley…and upon seeing the beasts roaming about, confirming that those people had not in fact been hallucinating...no one had dared go into town again.

The dragons could be seen flying over the Valley at times, their shadows sliding over people scrambling for cover. Some people’s herds had gone missing with no tracks of where they went. Most likely scooped up into the air for dinner.

“Come on. We’d better get back before mom and dad know we’re here.” I tugged on her braid and turned to go, narrowly avoiding hitting my forehead on the same limb again. A few strands of my dirty blonde hair waving at me from the limb.

We started walking in silence back home, sweat running down my back despite the shade of the trees. Sophie ran ahead, jumping over a stream back and forth. I stopped at the stream and bent down to cup my hands in the water and take a long drink. I splashed some on my face, plastering some of my chin length hair to the sides. Then, sloppily splashed some down the back of my tunic.

As I stood up the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked over at Sophie, who was crouched next to the stream getting a drink as I had. I scanned around me at the trees overhanging the stream and the bushes sporadically covering the green grass. Being this close to the Valley was making me jumpy.

“Come on Soph, let’s go.” I said, waving her to me.

But, the whole way home the feeling didn’t go away. I walked faster, Sophie struggling to keep up.

“Why are you going so fast?” she huffed.

“We need to get home before mom and dad notice we’re gone.” I said, glancing behind me for the hundredth time.

Once we reached the dirt road that led to our house, I expected to feel less edgy but the feeling didn’t abate. I turned and stood at the end of the road and again looked around me, not really sure what I was searching for. Something just felt…off. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

A flutter of movement at the edge of my vision made me whip my head around, but I only saw the slightest movement in some shadows under a tree. Sophie was far ahead of me, skipping towards the house. I turned towards the bush, walking slowly and quietly. Wouldn’t want to spook the wittle rabbit now, would I? I rolled my eyes at myself. I was being stupid.

I started walking a little faster towards the bushes and saw the sun glint off of something between the leaves. I tried looking into the leaves to see what it could be. The sun had glinted off of something that looked like scales. Oh, maybe a snake then? A black snake. But then above the scales were…two eyes. And not the eyes of some frightened animal. Two human eyes....staring back at me.

***This was an entry to a contest with a prompt to Only write the first chapter with the first sentence of “There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.”