Bury Me Special Edition

The world ended the night I was born. 

Coincidence? 

I think not.

Fifty years ago, the human world was just peachy. Sure, they had their wars and their problems, but everything went to hell in a handbasket the day I arrived on the scene. Granted, the day I arrived was the same day a portal from Arcadia ripped a hole in a bustling city, but I hadn’t believed in coincidences in a long time. One plus one always equaled two. Now this world was full of monsters and magic and a bloody fight for territory, space, and power. 

And that fight was why we stayed down here. So people couldn’t steal me—couldn’t use me. 

Vaspir should’ve come back by now.

The catacombs beneath New York City weren't known to many before the world ended, and now after, that knowledge had dwindled down to just the two of us. Below the city proper and under the subway, we roomed with the skeletons of this world, doing our best to survive. 

In my fifty years underground, Vaspir had been by my side for every one of them. Teaching me, guarding me, helping me get ready for the future he swore would be ours. 

Two days ago, he’d left to get supplies. 

He hadn’t been back since. 

At least… I was pretty sure it had been two days. Without sunlight, it was tough to track time down here. Somehow there was this little instinct in the back of my mind that seemed to whisper when the days changed from one to the other. 

It told me other things, too, but I didn’t listen to those. Not anymore.

I wondered from time to time—when I let myself wish for fresh air and the breeze on my skin—what the sun might look like. In my books, they talked about how it was a brilliant star, shining its light over all the land. Those same books spoke of the breathtaking beauty of the moon, too, and I longed for it just as much. 

But more often than not, I wondered if any of it were true.

Vaspir always told me that they were just stories. Fiction, he called it. It meant that they weren't real, that they were just imaginings of some long-dead person, a tale they made up to feel less alone. He told me the world now wasn’t anything like my stories. That it was dark and cold and full of dangerous people only out for themselves. 

Monsters, he called them.

But whoever envisioned all those things had to have witnessed something close to the magic in my books. The mind's imagination could only go so far, right? 

Plus, sometimes the details in my books helped us survive.

Over the years, we’d rigged running water and lights, stealing magic from the subway above to power both. I learned how to preserve food, how to bandage cuts—how to live. With Vaspir’s help and my books, I learned how to fight, how to dream of something more. Sometimes when Vaspir wanted to punish me, he'd turn off the lights, cutting the magic to my room so I couldn't read after bedtime. 

But those days were long ago—before I learned how to conjure my fire and read with my own light.

Conjuring fire was just about all I could do. Vaspir called me a dragon—said I was special, royal, someone to be worshipped—but only if I could shift. Only if I could turn into the gold dragon he swore I was. Only if I could fulfill the destiny my mother said I had for me. 

A mother I’d never met. 

A mother long dead.

Sometimes I thought Vaspir was lying—that I couldn't possibly be what he said. After fifty years of being down here, after all the torture I’d endured to try and bring my dragon forth, one would think that if there was a dragon to be had, it would have shown up by now. The best I could do was brandish a little scale and conjure my fire. 

Fifty years of tests, of trials, and all I had to show for it was a back full of scars and a scale or two.

Vaspir was a boar, his tusks so long they nearly reached his eyes. In his regular form, he was not much bigger than me, but as his animal, he was enormous. I'd watched him shift many times, the bones snapping, cracking, the muscles rippling as they reformed into something new. 

If he could do it, why couldn't I?

Maybe it was because of how we’d come to this world. Vaspir often told tales of how we’d arrived here from Arcadia, how he'd been entrusted with me by my mother before she’d died with my egg in her arms. About her prophecy that I would be a queen one day. How he’d escaped from our world into this one, hunkering down to keep me safe until it was time for me to rise.

If I would ever rise. 

But I didn’t want to be worshipped. I didn’t want to be a queen. I just wanted to be free.

Picking my way through the dark tunnel, I let my fingers drift over some of my favorite tombs. Over the years, I’d explored every nook and cranny of this catacomb, imagining the lives of the people entombed here. All I had were their names and how they’d died, but I’d dreamt up whole lives for them full of adventures and love and joy. I’d made my own stories, knowing there was no way for them to be true.

Reluctantly, I edged closer and closer to the boundary Vaspir had set when I was a child. Just a little bit past the rocks he’d set as the barrier, there was a cage-like ladder that led to the subway tunnels. I’d only been up there once a long time ago, but I was getting desperate.

We’d been close to running out of food a week before Vaspir left, and since he’d been gone, it had dwindled to almost nothing.

A gang of pixies ran the subway above with an iron fist, but I knew one of them. Moriah had been nearly killed after a run-in with a higher Fae forty years back. He’d nearly torn off her wings and almost beaten her to death.

She’d fallen from this very ladder, and had I not nursed her back to health, she would have died here. Moriah was my only friend aside from Vaspir, and I didn’t exactly consider him a friend. Vaspir was like a guardian, a teacher, a sometimes lover, a torturer, a warden…

My nerves nearly got the better of me as I climbed toward the hatch that separated me from the rest of the world. Vaspir couldn't hear it like I could, but the subway had always been loud, rattling above us, shaking the walls. I had about five minutes before the next train arrived. Again, those five minutes were a bit of a wag. Time for me was as elusive as the sun.

But if I could find Moriah, then maybe she could get me some food. Maybe she could find out what had happened to Vaspir, maybe… I wasn’t ready to think about leaving yet. I still held out hope that Vaspir was just caught up.

But another part of my brain screamed that he was never coming back. That he’d left me behind, cut his losses, returned to the home he spoke so highly of. A home I'd never seen. Or maybe someone had hurt him, trapped him, killed him… 

He’s fine, Cira. Don’t be stupid. Stop letting your imagination run away with you.

But that voice sounded an awful lot like Vaspir’s and not my own.

My hand trembled as it closed around the latch, but gritting my teeth, I opened it, shakily climbing into the subway tunnel for the first time in my life. This tunnel wasn't much different from the catacombs below—fewer dead people, obviously, but it still smelled of the dank earth and a little like the dead.

I didn't know what I’d expected to find stepping out into this new place, but this wasn’t it. Did I think Moriah would be waiting for me, ready to give me exactly what I needed? That just because I did a hard thing that the world would give me everything?

They will come for you one day. They'll rip you from this place and take everything there is to take. They will steal your scales and your hair and your blood. They'll pluck the eyes from your skull and peel the skin from your bones. They'll breed you, steal from you, and when you are a dried-up husk of the girl you used to be, they'll take the very life from you.

Vaspir’s words echoed in my head as I tried to move farther into the tunnel. It didn’t matter that I had crossed into this new world, I couldn't make myself take one more step away from the hatch. Swallowing, I scurried back into my little hole, cursing the fact that I might never be brave enough to leave it.

Slamming the hatch closed, I locked it and nearly fell in my hurry to get back to safety.

They’ll take everything you are and everything you’ll be. Until there is nothing left.

The very breath caught in my lungs as I jumped over the rock barrier and raced back to my little nook in this small world. Tears burned my eyes as I forced my lungs to work. 

Fifty years.

Fifty years, and I couldn't go more than one step past my home.

Half a century, and I couldn't so much as move one toe out of here. I might as well go lay down in one of those tombs—might as well just lay down and die. What good was this life if I couldn't live it? What good was the breath in my lungs if I had never gotten to take in fresh air? What good was the fire that danced across my skin if I couldn't feel the sun on my face?

Gritting my teeth, I cursed every tear that raced down my cheeks. I loathed every single one. Because if Vaspir didn't come back, I would be truly alone for the first time in my life—stuck in this tomb as if I were already dead.

You were meant for more than this.

You were meant for more than hiding, more than scraping by with a little life and no happiness.

That sounded more like me. I’d let Vaspir in my head for far too long. I’d already started fighting back on his torture, on him taking me to his bed. Why couldn’t I fight back on this, too? Why couldn’t he take me topside? No one knew I was a dragon. They didn’t have them here. Why would they assume what I was? If I couldn’t shift, I could keep it a secret, couldn’t I?

He’s going to tell you no. Just like he did when you were six, and thirteen, and thirty. He’ll remind you that it’s too hard to keep your oddities hidden. 

But Vaspir wasn’t here, now, was he?

My gaze fell on the wall of books I’d collected—or rather, Vaspir collected for me. I’d read and loved every single one. Leaving them behind made my eyes tear up once more. But then my gaze drifted to my bed and the small stacks of clothing that served as my wardrobe and the collection of weapons I’d mastered over the years. There was more than this out there and it wasn't like I couldn't return. I could leave this place and see the world.

I could.

I would.

Just as soon as I got the nerve.

Spinning on a heel, I went to our food prep area, nabbed an empty potato sack, and raced back to my room before I lost my nerve. I stuffed it full of clothes and my toothbrush, not bothering to pick a book. If I tried to choose even a handful, I would lose my fickle courage and decide to stay.

Drawing the bag closed, I tossed it over my shoulder, ready to finally leave this place—to see the sky, breathe the fresh air to… I wasn’t three paces out of my room before the shuffle of feet registered. 

Six sets. 

There were six people—seven if you counted me—in a place that was only ever meant to have two. Moriah had only been down here the one time and had never ventured past the hatch again. 

Their scents filtered into my nose. 

Men. Six men.

Gently, I removed the bag from my shoulder, soundlessly setting it on the ground. Two paces later, and I had a lightweight axe in my hand. 

Vaspir had warned me that one day they would come for me. 

It seemed like today was that day.