NOVEL WEB Chapter 24: Eclipse, Part 2
My eyes opened to a beautiful starry sky, a bright, shining moon, and a flat, featureless expanse. I was here again, this damn nightmare, it’d been a while. I needed to wake up. I had to wake up! Cyrus was dangerous, and Erica had no idea! I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to force myself back into consciousness, I pinched myself hard, and when all else failed, I just screamed “wake up!” at the top of my lungs. Shocking absolutely nobody, none of those ideas worked. Try as I might, I couldn’t simply wake myself up from the dream. Ah well, even if I couldn’t wake up, that didn’t mean I had to stay idle. I took slow, measured breaths as I felt my body temperature drop, a cold layer of frost beginning to coat my skin, and the silver glow of moonlight burning from within me. Then it clicked.
If I was “little moon”, and he had to “pay me back for last time”, then did that mean-?
“Cyrus?!?”
I called his name on impulse, my voice echoing off nothing, bouncing and repeating on and on across the barren field. Finally the echo faded, and I was left with silence. Moments passed, and there was nothing: no reply, no sun, and no burning or pain. Then the sun erupted over the horizon, blisteringly fast, crashing into me long before I could react. It was all I could do to shield myself, and the pressure just wouldn’t let up, the weight and the heat kept bearing down on me until my ice melted and flesh was being scalded instead. Tendrils of plasma ripped down my throat and filled my lungs with raw fire while still others wrapped around me, pulling me deeper into the boiling mass. It hurt. Oh fuck it hurt! Never, in all the months that the sun had tormented me like this, had the pain been so terrible. Even as the raging inferno boiled me from within, I could hear a voice clear as day. It was laughing.
“You called, little moon?”
I screamed. It was all I could do. The pain was so severe that even the simple effort of forming words was beyond me. I don’t know how long I sat there, just screaming and struggling and waiting for it to end, but eventually, after what felt like hours, I felt a cool hand touch my wrist.
You have to wake up.
There was a voice in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t mine. It was the voice of a woman, calm, confident, strong, and reassuring. Another cool hand touched the back of my neck.
They’ll kill her if you don’t.
Another voice, a different voice. An old man this time, with an air of dignity and confidence. A third hand brushed against my calf, cool and comforting like the others.
You can save her, but you have to be brave.
The voice of a little girl, sweet and light, but tinged with something else, a pain far greater than anyone her age should have to bear. Suddenly, cold hands brushed icy fingers across my whole body, a whole chorus of voices cried out to me as one.
Wake up new moon. Save her. Save yourself. Wake up new moon. Wake up Aoife!
Silver and blue flashed brightly before my eyes, and I saw myself from the outside. I didn't recognize her. She was a young woman, with pale skin and silver eyes and hair a deep midnight blue, her horns spiraled out over her head, small patches of sapphire scales made winding patterns across her form, her long reptilian tail was lashing frantically from side to side in her panic and her rage. I almost didn't recognize her, but deep down I could tell, that really was me, wasn't it? That woman was me, and she- I wasn’t alone. All around me were dozens of people with scales and horns in silvers and blues, and they were holding me tightly, shouting their encouragement.
Aoife, wake up! You can do this! You can win! But you have to wake up!
That was my name, wasn’t it? Aoife. I liked it, it felt right. I was Aoife, and maybe, just maybe, I was a woman. I felt kind of dense, to be perfectly honest. Of course I was a woman! It was like Willow had once told me, “The first step towards realizing I was trans was realizing that men don’t want to be women.” She'd told me that, and somehow I hadn't realized until just now! I wanted to be one. I wanted to be a woman so bad it hurt, so why not just do it?
That's not all though, I’d realized something else as I looked down at my struggling form. In my dream I had huge horns, a gorgeous tail, and was a hell of a lot scalier than I'd been in real life, but why was that? Why was I able to conjure these massive blasts of ice with a scream? The answer was simple. I hadn't accepted this before. I didn't realize I wanted this, so I hid it from myself. I kept it locked away in dreams. I stopped being human a long time ago, and maybe I never was to begin with. It was past time I accepted that.
With a flash, I was back in my own skin. No longer witnessing my own pain as a spectator, the heat was back, and the roiling agony came with it, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t care. I was asleep, and Erica was out there, and she needed me. My scream became a roar as my body stretched and twisted. My smaller patches of scales spread rapidly to protect me from the relentless heat, my short little claws grew out to long talons as my arms and legs shifted and cracked, wings exploded out from my back spreading wide and menacing, and my face elongated into a reptilian snout. Shimmering constellations spread out across my wings, and upon my chest shone a crescent moon in blinding silver. With a deep breath in, I felt my body rapidly cool the air in my powerful lungs. Oh hell yes. In the landscape of these terribly real dreams, assaulted by a living embodiment of the sun, I shrieked as I fired off my breath for the first time. A rolling wave of frost crashed into the sun like a semi truck, smothering its flames in a heartbeat, and there he was. Towering over me, with scales shining like brilliant gold, Cyrus reeled back in surprise. Older, bigger, stronger indeed, he was longer than a bus without his tail, with it, he was nearly double that, with his shimmering scales and an orange sun blazing on his chest, his horns curled like a ram’s. I felt like a mouse in front of him, closer to the size of a large draft horse, but that didn’t matter, I’d caught him off guard, and that was all I needed. I rocketed upwards, a brilliant streak of blue and silver, and crashed into wakefulness once more.
Now where the hell was my friend? I sat bolt upright as my eyes fluttered open, panting furiously, I was about to stand when I heard a familiar sound. I whipped my head to its source and saw Rob, sitting there alone, with his shotgun leveled at my chest.
“You’re up early, aren’t you? Bit of a shame, that. Cyrus wanted to be here when you woke up.” He gave me his gentle smile, full of warmth and compassion, even with his finger on the trigger.
“You feeling ok, sweetheart? That was a hell of a dose of presence he hit you with. If you were a human, you’d probably be dead… or crazy. Good thing you’re a dragon then, isn’t it?” He chuckled softly, like he always did.
“You knew?”
He laughed again. That was good, I needed to keep him talking, I needed time to take stock of the situation. As I woke up fully, I realized that the changes I’d seen in the dream had carried over. My horns were tall and proud, my tail was curled beside me where I sat, and I was definitely missing some of my old “equipment” down there, not to mention the modest breasts I now sported. If all that had been real, then odds were the other stuff was real too. I thought my scales could probably take a bullet, but I still wasn’t sure, and it’d take too long to complete the transformation, he’d shoot me if I tried.
“Of course I knew, A! Cyrus had me watching for you from the start, in fact! He said to me, ‘Rob, if you should ever encounter another like me, make sure she arrives here safely’, so I did. When I saw a lost little dragon wandering in our direction, I followed ya, and got you here safe.”
“But why? What does he want from me? Why do you let him order you around like that? I- I trusted you Rob!” I was hurt, obviously. I’d liked Rob, trusted him, but I’d also only known him for a day. I had to keep him talking, so I played it up, and continued to analyze the situation.
I was in a bedroom, and Rob was sitting next to the only door. My bag was nowhere to be seen, and neither were my clothes. Someone had changed me while I was sleeping, and I was now wearing some kind of thin nightshirt. None of this helped me though. In order to do anything, I needed to get that gun off me, my mind blasted through idea after idea trying to figure it out.
“Why do I listen to the boss? Well that’s pretty simple little lady. He saved my life! When a group of giant wolves was gonna tear me apart, he swooped in like an angel and saved me. All else aside, he’s stronger than me, stronger than you, and he keeps this place safe. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He cleared his throat. “As for why he wants you? What he wants from you? Hell if I know! Maybe he just wanted a lady dragon around? He only ever called you a ‘she’ after all, even before he met you!” He kept laughing. Chuckling at even the tiniest things, it was starting to feel less jovial and more manic with each minute that passed. Maybe…
“Why’d you rack the shotgun like that?” He stopped laughing, staring at me quizzically. “The shotgun. It was already loaded, wasn’t it? I’m staring at a shell on the ground right now, were you just trying to be intimidating or something?”
He looked at the shotgun in his hands, then the shell on the floor, and then back at me. I was worried I’d misjudged him, he just sat there for a moment until suddenly he started cackling madly. Tears streamed from his eyes as he laughed at my mediocre attempt at comedy. His arm twitched as he laughed, and for just a split second, the gun was pointed away.
I flung myself off the bed, grabbed the gun in both hands, and snapped it in two. Before he could recover, I had him by the throat and pressed him against the wall.
“Where is Erica?!? Where is she? What have you done to her?”
Rob just laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed as he turned to liquid in my hands. Slipping out of my grip like sand through my fingers, reforming behind me. He popped the cork from one of the bottles on his belt.
“Heh, I knew the slime farm would be useful, just a shame nobody else appreciates a good slime potion. To answer your question, part of her is right here.” He said as he tipped the bottle, slamming down the red liquid inside. In seconds, he’d doubled in size, sprouting massive bull horns atop his head. He laughed as he threw the bottle aside. “The rest of her? Well how did Mick put it? Soon enough Cyrus will drain her for all she’s worth!”
