Hello and Happy New Year! 2020 was not easy on any of us but hopefully, 2021 will be better. There's a lot of social, economic, and personal work that needs to be done. I wish you all the best, and I hope that we all make improvements in our lives. With well-wishes out of the way, if you would like to support my content, please become a patron on my Patreon. Also, buy and review my poetry book "Living Day By Day: A collection of poems".
In the middle of winter, a party of wool cloak figures drags an unwilling woman through several feet of snow. The chains are to restrict her from furiously squirming and pleading, as she's been gagged to silence any opposition she may have. Her clothing is only warm enough to allow her to continue a steady pace towards her unknown destination. The frosty weather stings her barely protected flesh. Seeping through her clothes and puncturing past her skin, the cold pierces her muscles and bones. Until her blood turned gelid, freezing her within. She was now unbearably cold none of the others cared to warm her. They're trying to isolate her from them. So that when the time comes to abandon her, they will feel nothing. Becoming a body of ice, she curses her home for her unwanted duty. She has done nothing to deserve her unknown fate. But in such desperate times, would she have been blind to the suffering she's dealing with if someone else were in her place? No, she wouldn't have, because there would have been a way to bring prosperity to her hometown while not sacrificing anyone. But that's not what everyone believed.
The past year has run the village dry of resources. The city council believed that they had to make a drastic decision to change the city's plight. Tragically that decision will likely cost the woman her life. Her escorts are determined to deliver her to a place that is supposed to be bygone. There's an old legend documented in the public history of a terrible but useful monster living in an unoccupied area nearby. During times of desperation, a sacrifice is made to the beast. The monster is expected to relieve any calamity the village faced. Seventy years ago, the small city was making frequent sacrifices to the beast. The people were rigorous back then and ensured that at least once a year there's a sacrifice. But in the city's prosperity, the citizens disregarded making a sacrifice each year. With time, the thought of making a sacrifice was absurd. The village was prosperous, and talk of separation from their "earned" wealth was dismissed. When the last of citizens alive during the time of frequent sacrifices died, misfortune struck. Since so much time has passed since the previous sacrifices, this new one must make up for their neglect. Instead of valuable objects or slaughter livestock, a person is considered the best gift after over half a century of neglect.
That's where the woman came in. She has yet to be married and doesn't hold any job important enough that she couldn't be interchangeable with someone else. None of her family is politically or socially powerful enough to stop her from being chosen as the city's sacrifice. Without a strong voice to advocate for herself, she was subdued into being the one to correct what the citizens assume they did wrong. The longer the company goes, the harder she quivers in her inadequate clothes. Only the severe shivering can provide her warmth. With each step forward she takes, the more strenuous it becomes to take the consecutive tread forward. Even when she stumbles from fatigue, she's only shoved to keep walking. There's no longer any sensation in her legs as her death walk goes on. The endless white of barren land surrounds them. The soft jiggling of restraints the only audible sound, for all other noise becomes smothered by snow. The pricks of pain because of lack of warmth take over the woman's mind. Foreseeing what will happen to her causes another fit of desperation. What felt like another hour of numbing anxiety ended when the group halted. Before the small party lies an inky abyss of a pit. The abyss swallows all sound surrounding it. Here's where the monster lies.
Quivering harder now, the woman desperately turns to arouse pity from her fellows. Their faces show only blanketed acceptance as she's shoved into the darkness. A human sacrificed is made. During her fall, time is contradicting itself. She's dropping faster to an unknown bottom but hanging mid-air. A high-pitch ring echoes within her ears as the cold blue sky fades to inky black. What was her previous life has faded away like the lost sky. Her conscience and body separate as she continues to plummet into the abyss. With mind and body divorced from each other, she has to question where she went wrong in her life. She was normal. But that might have been the problem. If she was from a wealthy family or a politically important one she would have been safe. Being white would have probably done the trick too. When that thought flashed through her mind, she crashed into a fleshly mass.
The mass is chilly and scaly. It's similar to alligator skin in texture. However, what she landed on isn't an alligator. It's far too massive to be such a thing. This mass rumbles beneath her, and a silk voice echos in the darkness.
"It's been a long while since something been forsaken in my home," the feminine voice continues, "although this is the first time the discarded has been a person."
Shock overwhelms her as the monster was not supposed to be able to speak. How can such a thing be possible? She expected death, not conversation. She has to find a way to answer or else the monster will take offense. Shaking her head violently, she finally manages to get the gag out of her mouth. Taking a gasp of air, she gathers her thoughts and tries to appeal to the monster.
"Are you...are you the one who blesses the nearby town prosperity?" she squeezes her eyes shut despite it already being pitch black.
"Town, what town? I never bother with humans unless they bother me." the monster pauses, "What is your name anyway? I know such things are important to humans."
Her voice is pitch a tone higher, "Amber, my name is Amber. I'm from a human settlement not far from your home. Years ago, my city threw valuable objects into the opening of this pit. We believed you granted us prosperity for our sacrifices."
The monster's suppressed giggles nearly cause Amber to fall off the monster's belly. This tradition, which was abandoned, was renewed so that prosperity can once again return to the village. Amber's city was desperate enough to even resort to human sacrifice. As they believed the lack of sacrifices for the past seventy years is the cause of their recent downfall. Yet this beast, that's invisible to her, dares to laugh. She was discarded into a crater, that looks like it leads to hell, to hopefully appease a monster that never cared about her township, anyway. What fools they'd been. Nothing they did seventy years ago and now meant nothing to this beast. Life is cackling at her and her township for ever believing in such nonsense. The monster thought they were tossing away junk into its home. As if her home were rude neighbors. They are pathetic, and she's pitiful. Amber's mouth sours. The deep frost that embedded inside her above the abysm, restores itself in front of her mind.
"Now, now, don't go getting lost within your tiny head, Amber." the beast's tone irritates Amber.
Refusing to be the only one whose name is exposed, Amber asks, "Since you don't possess a name, what are you? I'd hate not to know what you are."
"I believe you, humans that is, know me as a dragon." the dragon's tone carries snide notes to its answer.
It seems the fact that humans, which the dragon doesn't think highly of, titling its existence is a sore spot. The dragon that has likely outlived thousands of humans could not bear being subjected to ants. Then an ugly voice whispers inside her inner ear. Why not use the dragon to get revenge. They cast you aside, why not burn the city down along with the old system. Soot and ash as payment for what has happened to her and those similar. Let Amber be award with the embers of her home. Such a vision just couldn't be resisted.
Amber makes her proposal, "Dragon, would you be willing to terrorize those who littered your home?"
"Oh, Amber, you must feel terribly wronged. But since you insist, I would relish in paying a visit to the humans who disturbed my years of quietude. Let us be off, and do try to hold on and not fall to your death, Amber." the dragon quakes beneath Amber.
With a new goal set between Amber and the dragon, they rise from the pit of the abyss. Amber's ears pop as she ascends in elevation. The darkness gives way to light as the bleak sky greets the allies. The gelid landscape nothing but blurry scenery as the dragon surges in the direction of the village. The rush causes hysterical laughter to burst from Amber's chest. What had taken hours of gradual trudging through the snow to reach the pit from the city takes minutes. With only a couple more flaps of the dragon's wings, they'll be above the township. At this height, Amber can sympathize with the dragon's views on humans being ants. From above, Amber is finally strong. How the city has been in the last seventy years is no longer sustainable. These old systems that allow the less privileged to be sacrificed need to burn down. And from it a new generation that values everyone.
Unintelligible murmurs lift from below, watching downward, Amber sees waves of everyday people expelling from the township. The dragon swoops towards the city below and releases purifying fire upon the township. Layers of fires consume the fridged structures and those too attached to worldly things. Memories that Amber misremembers get devoured by the flames. Such a fate to the good memories hurt, but this chance to start over is worth the price. The dragon spends the rest of the day dipping down to scorch more of the town. With night, all that is left is soot and ash. The dragon lands a bit from the tarred remains. Amber slips down from the scally back. She's remains restained from her earlier journey. The dragon and Amber get a visible look at each other. What classifies as a smile greets Amber's own.
"It has been a pleasure, Amber. If there's ever a time you wish to see me again, you know where to find me", the velvet voice goes on, "You're not terrible, for a human. I would appreciate the company."
Amber suppress her laughter, "You are a wish-granting dragon, and repaying you for your kindness with visits is a reasonable payment."
"What a funny human you are. Best of luck with rebuilding your settlement." and with that final goodbye, the dragon graces the sky and returns home.
Amber strides toward the crowd of fellows who abandoned the burnt city. Many will be angry with what she'd done. Although everyone was exhausted with the previous way of life, what she's done was dramatic. But their lives were overdue a drastic shift of living. How they were before was gradually killing them all. She was the first thrown into a pit that promised an ideal life that many didn't live. There's no telling how many more people would've been tossed into the abyss in the vain hope that things will turn around. That prosperity will come through human sacrifice. That lie could have cost hundreds of lives on top of ruining the lives of those not sacrificed. Amber never thought of herself as a leading figure, but she had decided to spark a new way of life. On the back of an unstoppable force, Amber helped usher in a new way of living. Her actions shattered the old system, and now she has fixed what she busted. Amber's family spots her and drowns her in questions. A pair of gentle hands, free her from bondage. The chains get buried under the snow, as they all start a new life with embers as their guide. END.
