The Breaking of The World

“She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t…fuck, she didn’t deserve any of this.” Zuri mutters to herself a distance away while the setting sun dips below the mountain overlook she paces on. I don’t know if she knows we can hear her, but knowing her, she probably doesn’t care. Wiping her spotless blade mindlessly, she curses this journey, and us, for taking from her. 

James sits behind me in front of the circular golden gate that we’ve spent the last month looking for. His sword lays beside him as he runs his red hands through his sun-kissed hair and paints streaks of blood across the strands. “It’s over,” he says in disbelief, mostly to himself. As I step over bodies of people I can’t bear to look at, I put a hand on his shoulder. He barely registers my comfort. “It’s really over.” He shudders and withdraws in on himself, clutching his knees like a scared little boy. 

“It’s not fucking over,” Zuri snaps at him. Marching over, she sends my skin crawling with the disgust in her voice. Though she is a head shorter, her presence looms over us. I hold my ground, though, by keeping my hand on James and positioning my small body between them. She won’t let me comfort her, but at least I can protect him. I will hold this group together by my fingertips if I have to. What’s left of us, anyway.

Zuri sheathes her knives and brushes past me. Even as I put a hand on her shoulder to calm her, she pushes my attempt at peace away and scoffs. Leaning down, she forces James to take his sword. That damn sword. The sword that sealed his fate and forced him into this. If he had never taken that sword, none of this would have happened. 

“In case you forgot,” Zuri growls, “the reason all of this happened is to kill that fucking dragon. The Dragon is in there, James. She’s going to be born any day now, and if we don’t stop her then…we need to stop her. Don’t let the weight of what happened, of what you did, come crashing on you now.”

“Zuri,” I try to interject, but she smacks my arm away and bends in closer to James. 

“Don’t try to protect him,” she spits at me. As she leans in closer to James, her hot breath dancing on his cheek, the resentment in her voice grows. “He’s the chosen one, isn’t he? Isn’t that why we all followed him? Isn’t that why she leapt into his arms and chased this fairytale? It’s time to do your duty, James. It’s what she would have wanted. She would have wanted you to grab that stupid sword and kill that stupid dragon.” She shoves the hilt into his hand, the almost translucent white becoming marred by the blood that leaks from his palm. 

I swallow, afraid that she’s gone too far this time. Her bitterness has steadily increased since we started this journey, but after last night…she’s making me wonder. But James doesn’t break. He doesn’t crack under the weight of what he did. He digs the sword into the ground and uses it to rise as he always does. He’s the chosen one, after all. I supposed even if he wanted to stop now, fate wouldn’t let him. The prophecies have to be fulfilled. 

Those damn prophecies bounce around in my head. All those books I used to bury myself in come swarming back at me. The Dragon will ride the winds once more, and she will remember who set her free to burn the world. Only through fire can the world that broke her be reforged.

James staggers forward before slipping. I grab him and do my best to support his large frame, holding him until he’s steadied his nerves. I give him a squeeze on the shoulder, a small gesture to let him know that I’m with him. He returns a pained smile. He places his leaking palm on the golden gate and it unwinds, opening into a cave in the mountain. The light of the fading sun is the only candle. 

As orange and red and yellow bleed into the black, jagged stone, we spot it. A scarlet, cracked egg sits in the center of the cave. The end of the world. 

“We’re too late,” I whisper. My words tremble like my body. “The Dragon is reborn.”

“We’re not too late,” Zuri shakes. She unsheathes her knives, ready to finish what we came here for. “We can kill it now!”

I recite the prophecy, even as Zuri screams at me to shut up, that she already knows, that it’s not too late, that if she hears the prophecies one more time she’ll lose her mind. I recite it anyway. “When The Dragon dies, she will be reborn. When The Dragon touches the sunset, the chosen will be forced to choose: to break the world or keep it together.” 

James takes hallowed steps into the cave, the setting sun painting him with strokes of fire and blood. The words of the prophecy carry him forward.

“There’s still a choice,” Zuri says with desperation, turning now to James who has crouched in front of the broken dragon egg. “Choose to keep the world together, James. Kill The Dragon now, and we can go home. We can just go back to the way things were.”

I want to scream at Zuri. The way things were? Things are as they are, and they are not as they were. Besides, why would we want to go back home? Why would we want to go back to that?

A screech, quiet and strained, echoes from the shadows. Fear slaps me straight. I snap an arrow to my bow, aiming wildly into the dark. Every part of me wants to run, to get out. Even if I don’t want to go home, I don’t want to face the world’s greatest fear. The stories my mom used to tell me take my breath hostage, of how The Dragon eats little children who disobey; the stories my dad used to tell me snap fear down my spine, of how The Dragon will return once more, and she will bring the end of this world. 

How did I end up here? 

Zuri pulls beside me. She is just as scared as I am. Even she isn’t too stubborn to stand alone against The Dragon. 

James doesn’t flinch. He reaches a hand out into the darkness, still crouched over the egg, and waits. From the shadows emerges The Dragon reborn, The Breaker of the World, She Who Eats The Sun. And she is a baby. Hardly bigger than a newborn kitten, she yawns and staggers over to James. With no reservations, this baby dragon with scarlet red scales walks into his hand and curls up on his bleeding palm. 

“It’s her,” James laughs, tearfully, as he scratches behind The Dragon’s ear. “It’s her, Zuri. It’s Ava. She has her birthmark. Right here, on her chest. She has the same crescent moon birthmark. Ava was The Dragon all along, and she’s been reborn.”

My heart plummets. I loosen my pull on the arrow, confusion and fear causing my heart to  forget its duty. I want to scream at James, to shake him until he gets his mind back. Has he gone mad? 

But part of me wonders. Part of me hopes. The prophecies I poured over for years in hopes of being pulled on a mystical journey that would take me away from home come flooding to my mind. They tell me that James might not be lying.

Born of love and taken from her love, she will fly again. Her dearest love and her oldest love will fight for her fate, and neither will be responsible for breaking the world. 

Zuri screams, her frustration and grief startling The Dragon. The Dragon, the supposed reincarnation of Ava, shrinks into James for safety. “Ava’s gone!” Zuri’s voice cracks. “She died last night, and she died so we could kill The Dragon! What is wrong with you? How could you even say that? Ava was pure, she was good, and she would not cause death and destruction. But this thing, this monster, will! This is not Ava, this is the end of the fucking world, and it sits in your palm.” 

“She came right up to me,” James says, almost to himself. “She knew it was me. Don’t you remember what she said? She told me she would find me again and that when she did, I would know it. The legends say the last Dragon was born of black scales as dark as the night, but this one has the same colored scales as Ava’s hair. Those same scarlet curls that I used to run my hands through now sit in my palm. It’s her, Zuri. It’s her. I know it more than the Gods know our hearts.”

Zuri points her knives at James and inches closer, approaching from a wide angle, just out of reach from his sword. As she speaks her voice quivers, and she has to let her breath catch up to her to avoid breaking. She draws every word out, carefully, trying not to let her fear and frustration show. “You knew her for half a year. I’ve known her since we were children. If she came back, she wouldn’t come back to you. She would come back to me. No, she would come back to finish the job. She would kill The Dragon because that’s what she died for. I get it, you’re not ready to let her go, but don’t conflate her spirit with the spirit of the thing we have to kill. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Deserve? Deserve?” James’ voice rises as he does. It almost startles me, the anger in his voice. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him this angry, and it’s a reminder that he’s still a man. Not just any man. The chosen. “Don’t talk to me about deserve,” he cries. “Did Zuri deserve to grow up without parents, lost and roaming the streets without so much as a friend to help her? Did she deserve to beg for scraps and dig through trash just to eat while those rich pigs in their castles tossed food out because it got burnt? Did she deserve to grow up fighting for her life, not sure if she would be warm enough to see another summer or full enough to see another full moon? Did she deserve to live a life so wretched that she couldn’t help but chase The Dragon? Did she deserve to die, Zuri? Tell me more about what she deserved!”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Zuri warns. “I’m the one who helped her. I’m the one who found her when she was drenched in sewer mud and blood, distrusting of everyone and more likely to rob you than listen to you. I brought her home, sneaking her into my room, giving her the only warmth she had ever known in her life.  I’m the one who got her out of that life, and all you saw was a healed version of her. You think I don’t know how unfair her life was? How unfair all of our lives were? The city hurt her just as much as it hurt all of us!” 

I can’t help myself. My mind is racing, putting the pieces together now, believing James’ craziest notion. Just by talking about Ava’s past, we are fulfilling the prophecy. “The Dragon grows without parents and without comfort. But she will grow, and she will fall, and she will be reborn in the memory of a past as black as night.” 

“Shut up,” Zuri screams at me. She points a knife at me before pointing it back at The Dragon. 

“Her life was black as night,” James says, “and she didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve to grow up in a world like this.”

“Oh,” Zuri says with aggressive sarcasm, “Mr. Chosen is here to talk about this horrible world we live in. None of us deserved this, but this is the world we live in, and that’s just how things go! And where were you? Living in a safe house with a happy mother and a caring father? You don’t know what it was like for us,” she cries as she gestures a hand over at me. “You’re mad because of the life she had to live, but we had to live that life too while you got to grow up oblivious of the injustices of this world. And still, the Gods chose you. And that’s fine! They gave you that sword, and they gave you this title, but that doesn’t mean you get to lament a world you never lived in. She grew up in a city more corrupt than any other in this Gods’ forsaken land, and still she chose to hunt The Dragon. Kill her now, James. Do what she wanted and for once, give Ava what she deserves.”

“If I kill her,” James quivers, “she’s gone forever.”

Zuri inches forward. “She already is,” Zuri says. She takes her knife and brings it closer, hovering over The Dragon, ready to dig the blade into…into Ava? Into the breaker of the world? Into an innocent, baby animal? 

At the last second, James recoils, snatching The Dragon away and shielding her with his body. “Maybe this isn’t Ava,” he scrambles as Zuri reaches over him to get to The Dragon, her knife flailing wildly as James keeps her out of reach. “Maybe this is the breaker of the world, but maybe that’s a good thing! If this world can take an innocent soul like Ava and leave her clawing for scraps while others bloat themselves, then maybe the world needs to be reshaped. Maybe the sun needs to be eaten so we can find some new light to reshape it all!”

“Or maybe you’ve lost your mind,” she screams as she slams James on the side of the head with the hilt of her blade. Still, he holds The Dragon steady, safe in his hand, as Zuri claws and scratches at him. 

As I watch them struggle over the fate of the world, James doing nothing to defend himself and Zuri doing everything she can to get to the small beast, I freeze. I watch them, stuck in place and unable to save myself. Just like it was before. Like it was when my parents would fight, when they would break everything in the house as I laid frozen in my cot. At least the fear would blot my hunger out in those moments. 

As if my body is prepared for this, I bury myself in those damn prophecies. I run through every prophecy, my head searching for some escape from what is happening in front of me. But there is no escape. There is no answer in them that can tell me what to do. The prophecies never mentioned me. They never spoke of a scared girl who followed her friends so she could escape her past life. They never said what she would do when her friends started tearing each other down in the light of the fading sun. They never said what she would do when she froze, as scared and helpless as she was when she was a child.

“She doesn’t deserve this,” Zuri screams. 

James returns a cry of his own. “She didn’t deserve any of this!”

Zuri slams her knife into James’ head once more, and the crack sends a tremor down my body. My temple pounds, my body remembering when I last heard that crack. I can almost feel the warm blood that poured down my face, can almost hear my father’s screams as I faded to black. My mind remembers; my body remembers. And I remember clinging to the prophecies as I lost consciousness. 

Only through fire can the world that broke her be reforged. Over and over, I held those words.

Before I know what I have done, I have done it. I jump on my friends. I push Zuri off, hold James down, and twist his hand. The Dragon falls free. The Dragon flies free. Her tiny body waddles and hops away from us, out the cave, and her scarlet scales seem to blend into the last red of the sunset. Zuri scrambles over me, screaming, as James looks at me in disbelief. 

Zuri chases after her but it’s too late. The Dragon jumps over the outlook and disappears into the clouds below. 

“What have you done,” Zuri trembles. 

I tremble. “I don’t know.”

“You broke the world,” Zuri says. 

“The world is already broken,” I tell her. 

Zuri looks at me with pity and disgust, her body trembling as she breaks down in tears. The grief she’s kept buried since we lost Ava comes leaking out. “Whatever happens,” she cries, “it’s your fault.”

Dread seeps over me. I stare at the cracked egg, wondering what I have done and why I did it. James staggers to his feet and offers me his scarred, wet hand. The prophecies come to mind once more. 

When The Dragon touches the sunset, the chosen will be forced to choose: to break the world or keep it together. Born of love and taken from her love, she will fly again. Her dearest love and her oldest love will fight for her fate, and neither will be responsible for breaking the world. 

I take his hand. My palm stains red.