Standing Page 5

  In a lightening-quick swipe, the dragon tore into the flamien’s chest. The flamien grunted as it fell. Dust flew into the air as it hit the ground with a thud and spun to a stop. The dragon smirked and did a strange combination of grunts, roars, and clicks that sounded liked a foreign language. Then the dragon snorted and flew away, leaving the gasping and oozing beast on the ground. The animal was lying opposite of Force, its eyes half closed.

  Then it did something he would have never expected...it stretched out its paw and beckoned to him to come closer. Force gasped. How was he supposed to react? Somehow, he trusted the hulking beast. He slowly approached it. It motioned for him to crouch down. He did so. Then, as it wheezed, it reached its claw into the dirt and started to draw something. Force squinted as he leaned closer. Then he realized that they were letters. English letters. He watched as the creature struggled to finish. When the flamien relaxed, he made out the crude letters. Please promise me that you will protect and care for my egg.

  Then she opened her eyes fully and stared at Force will heartfelt intensity. As he looked into the intelligent eyes of the dying mother, he couldn’t refuse. He nodded as the quietness of the forest rang in his ears.

  To make sure that she understood he wrote under her message, I promise.

  He bowed his head, What have I done. Gale will die now unless it hatches in time, which probably won’t happen. But when he looked into the grateful eyes of the flamien, he didn’t regret his decision anymore. Then she breathed her last.

  Force stood up. He looked toward the cave. That’s probably where the egg is. He ventured into the dark cave. When it was almost too dim to see, the outline of something spherical caught his eye. He lifted it and walked back out into the light. It felt tough under his fingers, very tough. Like an alligator’s skin.

  He almost laughed as he remembered the time that he had gone looking for an alligator when he was on vacation near the Louisiana swamps. Kella had been so mad. He had come back to the underwater cave with a lot of bruises. That was when he was twelve. I don’t know how I could have thought that I could possibly wrestle an alligator. In a strange way, that’s what I’m doing here.

  He smiled as he packed the egg into a bag to make it easier to carry. It was very heavy and large. It’s speckled ivory shell glinted as he hauled it onto his back and, with one last glance at the mother, started his journey to Gale.

  He faced his problem as he trekked away from the mountains. He didn’t need a map, he had always been pretty good with direction. The flamien mother wouldn’t know if I cracked the egg and didn’t keep my promise. He shook his head. His nature wouldn’t let him do that. Force was trapped in a next-to-impossible situation. It was the little flamien’s life or Gale’s. After he had seen the intelligence of the older one, he couldn’t bear to hurt anything like that. But he couldn’t bear to hurt Gale either. It burned him just to think about it. He only stopped for a couple of hours that night, then he went on and reached camp in the morning.

  Ovev rushed out to meet him, his face pale, “She’s almost gone.”

  Force broke into a run. He barely felt his feet hitting the ground as he entered her tent, Ovev close behind. He sat down next to her. Gale was gasping, her face pale and sweaty.

  Force looked up toward Ovev, desperation filling his eyes, “I have the egg but I promised the mother I would protect it.”

  “Look at her! Do you want to watch her die? Crack the egg! Who cares if you made a promise to a stupid animal!” he shouted angrily.

  “I can’t and if you try I won’t let you!” He put his head in his hands and groaned.

  Ovev sat down. He was getting weaker by the second. Force watched with anxiety as Gale wheezed and moaned.

  He took her hand in his hands. “I’m sorry,” Force whispered.

  Suddenly, her delirious eyes fluttered open and darted about the room. Her gasps became farther apart. Something poked him in the ribs. Force ignored it, but a few seconds later it poked harder. He quickly turned around.

  Behind him was a flamien cub. It was laying against Force, its little horn pointed into his ribs. Force gasped and whipped around toward where he had put the egg. It was cracked and lying open! He glanced toward Gale who was struggling. “Ovev! What do I do?”

  Then Force realized that Ovev had passed out and was deathly pale. He grabbed the shell and crushed it into a powder with a stone, then he gently poured it into her open mouth as she writhed, gasping. Force’s heart fell. It wasn’t working. Her breathing was even farther apart. He grabbed more of the egg and kept crushing it, then giving it to her. Then she stopped breathing completely. “No!” Force said. He had been trained for situations where people would die, but the real thing was different, very different. If that egg had just hatched a little faster!

  Then he heard something, a gasp and a cough. His head whipped up in amazement. It was her! She kept coughing, but then settled into a calm, regular sleep. “What?” He barely believed his eyes. Happiness filled him. He took her hand again and glanced over to where he had last seen Ovev. He was back to normal.

  “You did it lad!” he said.

  Force stared at Gale. This was too good to be true, but it was.

  “We’ll have to give her some of the egg every day until she gets better, which shouldn’t be long when we have this medicine,” said Ovev.

  Then Force remembered something. He turned around. The little cub was curled up in a tiny ball sleeping.

  Force smiled as he picked him up. “This is who really saved her. He came out of his egg just in time.” The sleepy little creature woke up and rubbed its eyes. Then it cuddled up to Force. His dark brown fur glistened and his unlighted wings stretched out behind him. “Goodnight, junior.”

  They kept giving her the medicine for two days. She got better with every hour. Force stayed by her side most of the time. The flamien cub, which Force had taken to calling Junior, constantly followed him around. He was a funny little creature with a free spirit.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She felt like a bird. No, she was a bird. Flying and flying, the breeze on her face. But then. Then she crashed. It hurt. It hurt really badly. Her wings were broken. Her beautiful wings. Her face burned her! Then she looked back at her wings. They were blue and gold, her favorite colors. Ha! Just like the sky! And the ocean! Imagine that! Then she laid there staring up at the lumps of mushy white clouds. They looked like mashed potatoes to her. She looked over and frowned, her wings were still broken. She was still broken. Her frown turned into a smile as she turned onto her side and stared at a blade of grass. So smooth and shiny. Perfect. Suddenly the blue, gold, and green earth fell out from under her. She was in a large room with two very cruel looking people. It was cold and hot at the same time. They must be Ginvay and Jaegear! Her anger welled. She tried to speak. She couldn’t! She stared down at her mouth and tried to say something as the two tyrants came and dragged her away, her broken wings aching. Then the cruel woman stuck a cloth to her face. She was suffocating! It hurt! She frantically tried to draw air. She couldn’t. She was heading into the hold of sleep! She fought it, but she couldn’t breathe! But then they disappeared. She was free in the pink sky. She was flying! Yes! Her wings were fixed!

  “Thank you!” she called out to someone she couldn’t see. “Thank you! I needed my wings!”

  Gale’s eyes fluttered open. She felt extremely tired and her head was pounding. She wondered what had happened. The last thing that she remembered was laying on a tarp in the snow and then dreaming this weird dream.

  “She’s awake!” cried Force.

  She hadn’t noticed him there before. Ovev, Tivia, and Liam burst into what she realized was a tent.

  “You’re okay!’ Tivia beamed.

  “What happened? And...oh, no! How many days have I been asleep?”

  “Seven,” Force answered.

  Gale bit her lip, “That’s not good.”

  “No, it isn’t, but on the bright side, you didn’t die!” Force r
eplied cheerfully with a hint of both jocularity and seriousness.

  Gale smiled half-heartedly, “It only seemed like a short dream.”

  “Oh, so that’s why you kept muttering about wings and mashed potatoes!” Force said with a grin.

  “What can I say? It’s the way I heal.”

  Tivia motioned for everyone to sit down. So they did, wiggling to find room in the crowded tent.

  “So tell me what happened,” said Gale. Then she gave a little jump when something brown nudged her.

  Her eyes widened in amazement as she saw Junior. “Wow! What’s that?” The beauty and sweetness of the creature made her smile as it climbed into her lap.

  Force smiled, “That’s Junior, he’s part of the story.”

  “There was a syton attack four nights ago,” began Tivia, “that’s a type of gas. If you inhale too much of it then you get syton sickness. If you go back to sleep then you will die. If you don’t, then you usually die later. But in our camp we have figured out a cure and immunization. That’s why we weren’t affected. We keep a small amount of that cure in case of an emergency. Force didn’t get sick because we woke up and got a mask to him before he had inhaled too much. You, on the other hand, were a different story.

  “Anyway, we had to flee because they were also dropping a few regular explosives. Then, when we were all clear, Father gave you some syton medicine. It didn’t help you much though. You fainted. Then you were about to die and nothing could stop it. Except for a flamien (a rare kind of creature’s) eggshell. It has incredible medicinal qualities and can cure almost anything, but they are very rare now. We had an old unibear tracker, though, and it turned out the very last one was pretty close.” She took a quick breath and continued, “So Force went and got it but he had made a promise to the dying mother that he would protect it when she wrote out a message to him. So he came back here and you were almost dead and Liam, father, and I were fading. It was pretty scary to feel myself fading. Then Junior hatched just in time and Force saved you!” Tivia inhaled deeply.

  Gale felt very grateful and amazed at Force’s bravery. From his tense feelings as he remembered the experience, she could tell that it had been harder than Tivia made it sound.

  She looked at Force with a smile. “You had quite an adventure! You’ll have to tell me more about it later. Thanks.”

  He looked away embarrassed.

  “You’ll also have to tell me more about Junior!”

  Force stood up and everyone else took the cue. “We had better let you get some rest now. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

  Gale didn’t argue. She was nervous about the lost time, but she knew it wouldn’t be any good if she fainted along the way. Force was the last to leave.

  “Thanks,” she said again, then she went back to sleep.

  Gale spent the rest of that day taking naps, eating, and learning about Junior, who had taken a liking to her. Force enjoyed her wonder when he told her about the battle between the two beasts, the message, and how the flamien had been created. Gale was getting better so fast that she knew she would be ready to go the next morning.

  A woman of about thirty stood. The dark night sky was full of sounds. Bombs were going off around her. Bricks and steel were falling with a fiery vengeance. Everything was going up in flames, people were falling around her. Screams filled the air. Everything gone. Everything gone. She stood stock still watching a tall, spiraling building cave in on itself.

  My life, everything I have, everything I’ve built, the projects I’ve been working on for years. Gone! All gone! My home is crashing down. The city where I grew up is being destroyed! No! Tears slipped down her cheeks. The horror of losing almost everything of value to her. Fear coursed through every bone she had. She was terrified. Everything gone. Everything gone.

  “What will I do? Where will I go?”

  At that moment a man appeared in front of her out of thin air and pulled her out of the way of a falling piece of debris. “Run!” he called before disappearing. Everything gone. Everything gone. She ran over a very large map that covered the earth. She was careful not to step on Keesen and Draysok. Then she headed toward it, hoping to rid the world of the horror she had seen and the terror she had felt.

  Gale woke up in the middle of the night from her dream. Some parts of it had been very vivid. As she settled back down to sleep she thought, That is what it must be like for some of the people with me.

  “We have prepared to go whenever you are ready!” called Force.

  Gale jumped up from putting on a pair of shoes that had been in the black bag from Dellinia. “I feel great! Let me put on my cloak and I’ll be ready to go!”

  Tivia was with her, helping her pack the few things that needed to be packed. “I suggest that if you want to stand out and be noticed then you should wear that coat and cloak, like in that camp that I was telling you about with the failed rebellion people. That may help your cause. But you probably shouldn’t wear that while going to the cities. You pop out when it’s on you.”

  Gale smiled and replied, “Thanks, I didn’t even think of that.”

  Tivia smiled, “Whew, I thought you were going to think that I was jealous.” Her cheeks turned red.

  Gale laughed, “Don’t worry. I know you’re trying to help me.”

  “What am I going to wear for a coat besides this?” Gale asked, “I didn’t come dressed very appropriately.”

  “I’ll lend you some of my things later,” offered Tivia happily.

  “Thanks.”

  Gale and Tivia joined Liam and Force. Junior rushed up to Gale with a playful smile on his face.

  Gale laughed. “I can only imagine what other types of friends you have made! Did you ever know an alligator?” Gale joked at Force.

  He laughed, “Actually, yes!”

  “What? Really?” she asked in awe, but Force wouldn’t say another word about it.

  A few minutes later they all set out towards the city of Draysok.

  Ovev stood waving and calling, “Good luck!” to them.

  A snowstorm came up when they had been walking for ten minutes. Gale didn’t waste her breath talking. She could barely see in front of her, so while fighting the wind and snow with every step, she had to make sure that she was following Force. He had the Dellinian GPS and was using it to navigate.

  They continued to trek on for two more stormy days. They were all relieved when they saw another tent village and the storm stopped.

  “This must be it!” said Tivia with excitement, “Come to think of it, I think they call it Zobar!”

  “That’s useful information!” Gale replied.

  Again they walked into a tent town, but this time there were four of them instead of two. They were trying to stand out rather than blend in. Hopefully, when they snuck into Draysok they would be thirty in number.

  Zobar didn’t have a wooden building, but Gale noticed what seemed to be an underground bunker.

  “Where should we go to get people’s attention?” Gale whispered to Force.

  “There,” he answered, pointing to a previously unnoticed clearing where about ten people were milling about.

  “Are you ready?” asked Force.

  “Yes,” replied Gale with uncertainty. Her stomach had butterflies. She had never done anything like this.

  Force dug into the black bag, then drew out a miniscule block of what looked like wood. How is that going to help us? He laid it on the ground and pushed a small niche in it’s side. Slowly it expanded until it was about two feet tall and two feet wide. Force motioned with his hands as if saying “you first”. She built up her courage and stepped onto the block. It made her a little more than a head taller than everyone else moving about the clearing.

  “Hello people of Zobar!” At this beginning she grimaced, How stupid can I sound? She continued, “My friends and I have a plan to overthrow Jaegear and Ginvay! We need help though, we can’t do it alone. We are asking those of you who still have hope to join us.”r />
  Nobody was even paying attention, except for one man who shouted, “We don’t want more rebellion! We tried once and failed. Many of us died. We did our part, now we will do no more!”

  Gale glanced at Force in dismay. This was an unexpected problem. It’s hard enough to speak in front of a crowd that is cheering. How am I supposed to keep talking to people who don’t want to hear what I have to say?

  Gale stood taller with determination and shouted, “We have a plan, we have a chance! Ginvay and Jaegear might destroy the world if you don’t help us! They only care about themselves!”

  Again the man shouted, “I have news for you! They already have!”

  “But someday they will die and humanity will be able to build itself back up! But before that happens they might end up accidentally killing everyone! They need to be removed from their positions!” Gale answered back. The fire in her spirit was being kindled. “Perseverance is trying over and over again, and perseverance is what creates hope. There have been so many times in history when people have said something was impossible, but it ended up happening anyway. You have all seen how they’ve destroyed so much of the world in just twenty years. If this is what they’ve done in twenty years, then what will they do in the next forty? Will humanity even be able to survive?”