wings, legs and my metaphorical balls. In other words, I was screwed.
And not in a pleasant way (not that I’ve ever experienced pleasant screwing, but I hear there are those who have).
Down, down, down, into the bowels of the lake she drove us both. Finally, there was nowhere else to go, and she slammed me into the rocky bottom and held me there with eight of her heads and her thorny tail. The ninth head opened wide that ugly maw and unleashed a continuous stream of hellfire upon my broken body.
And then…
Well, it was rather gruesome what she did, so I won’t be going into details lest I spoil your supper.
She might have torn all the flesh from my bones, then crushed those bones one by one. She might have ripped my wings to shreds and carved open my chest and laid open the cavity to expose my beating heart. She sliced open my belly so that all my entrails spilled out.
I’m shocked she didn’t bite off my genitals too—those don’t grow back no matter how we Immortals heal, you know. So I’d have been a blessed eunuch for the rest of my miserable existence (truly, I have absolutely zero need for them, except pissing might pose a slight challenge afterwards). Maybe dragon balls weren’t appealing, who knows.
She left my eyes intact too, though she did rip one of my cheeks out.
She could have killed me many times over when only once would have been enough.
But she didn’t.
She didn’t rip my heart or guts to shreds, or yank them permanently out of my body. She didn’t gnaw my head off either. She didn’t take me apart limb by limb so that I could never be put back together.
Maybe she thought that was too good for the likes of me. Willful Creature who dared rebel against her, preventing her from attaining her ultimate prize.
Instead, she left me at the bottom of the lake like fish bait. Well, more like the leftovers of a piranha attack. Pieces of me hanging onto my skeletal frame by mere strings of muscle and skin. Many more pieces missing entirely.
I’m not sure I remember the agony all that…mindless annihilation must have incurred. Maybe I wisely blocked it all out. After all, I’m no stranger to extreme pain or torture. This massacre definitely ranks up there in terms of violence and destruction, but somehow, it’s not as bad as the time I defended Ninsa as a boy.
Maybe it’s because I maintained dragon form (don’t ask me how, but I did). Maybe that magical creature didn’t process brutality and pain like humanoids did. Whatever the case, I don’t recall the details of my own evisceration in terms of how it felt.
And after she left, just disappeared like dissipating squid ink, I was left alone to rot on the bottom of the lake.
I should be drowning, slowly suffocating to death since I seem to have no more blood to bleed out, and no bones that haven’t already been pulverized.
But I’m not.
It occurs to me that I can breathe just fine underwater in my dragon form. Somewhere beneath whatever remaining scales I still possess are gills. I feel them fluttering belabouredly. Reminds me of Darth Vader gurgling through his mask at the end…
At some point I close my eyes, thankful that I still have lids to close.
Which brings me to my present state of being, surrounded by silence, save some distant, indistinct, muffled sounds, immersed in fluid so that I feel weightless, floating…as if I have returned to the womb.
I feel no pain. All is dark. It’s restful here, wherever I am. Perhaps I can finally be at peace. With myself. And with the universe that has always forsaken me.
It feels good to be dead…
Then, suddenly, my darkness got darker.
Like a solar eclipse, something large and formidable blocked out all light. It dove toward me from above; I can make out the sound of its entry into the lake, the vortex of currents it created with its strength and size.
It’s coming for me, whatever it is.
I can feel its approach like a fire in my blood.
(That’s from a song, by the way. Far be it for me to plagiarize. I love singing it in my old karaoke bar…ah, good times).
Without warning, I am engulfed in an explosion of flames.
Fuck!
Now that fucking hurts!
I open my mouth to scream and scream, but the water chokes out any sound.
No!
I shouldn’t be able to feel any more!
I don’t want to feel any more!
I’m supposed