"Get back over here, you damn whore!" Emi ducked as she heard the grunt of effort from behind her followed by the whir of a beer bottle flying towards the back of her skull. Bending as low as she could to the ground, she stumbled over her own feet in the process of escape, the bottle breaking into a million glittering pieces on the concrete no more than a few feet in front of her. A howl of anger echoed in the empty neighborhood as Emi continued to run for dear life through nearby backyards and alleyways, wanting to put as much space between herself and her father as possible. If she tried hard enough, she could recall a time when she and her father had been happy. That had only been when her mom was alive though. They had been the very picture of a perfect family with game nights, inside jokes, weekend visits to the park. Even when Emi's mom had been falling ill, she had always put on a brave face and continued to go on like normal. Her facade only made it harder though when Emi's mother had to be hospitalized and eventually transitioned into what Emi liked to call 'The Great Equalizer'.
As her father adopted the habits of an alcoholic and her brother ran out the door with the police close on his heels, Emi had liked to imagine how foolish they would all feel when death finally came for them. How their lives would suddenly look so pointless, and their overwhelming guilt for leaving Emi alone to feel the aftermath of their actions would follow them though into the black emptiness and they would live with it for the rest of eternity.
Emi placed her hand on top of the low chain link fence and, resting all of her weight into that point, threw her legs over the top and landed neatly on her feet, continuing to run as if her dad could still possibly catch up with her. Lost in her own thoughts, Emi paid little attention to where she was going. The familiar suburban sights melted away into wilder scenery and Emi paused her train of thought for the briefest of moments to make note that she had to be entering the woods that surrounded her hometown.
There were many disturbing stories surrounding the area, but Emi was a frequenter to the woods; and knew that every single story was mere myth. Her legs eventually began to ache with a dull, throbbing pain as evening descended on the horizon, and after slowing down reluctantly to a walk she collapsed on what appeared to be a soft patch of grass. In a moment of blissful silence, the trees rustled in the breeze overhead and Emi listened for the whispery voice of the wind, as if for some sign of hope. Unsatisfied by its silence, Emi eventually rolled over onto her stomach, feeling the dirt and pebbles beneath her protrude into her abdomen. A few moments of mental calculation, and Emi surmised that she had gone farther into the forest than ever before. It was still hard to tell how far she had gone though, when the same scenery repeated itself over and over again.
The chilly night air came in on a soft summer breeze and shivering in her tee-shirt and jean shorts, Emi was faced with the task of having to return home yet again. Were the world a perfect place, she would have abandoned her father years ago. She had learned to look after herself entirely by the time she was twelve, but with no other family to turn to, she had to stay with her father to complete high school. Emi had already run away once and she had been forced to face reality - of her position as a minor - and save the sweet taste of freedom for when she had enough money to move out.
Pulling herself up onto her feet, Emi brushed herself clean of the dirt, noting the brown smudges that now stained her clothing. With a sigh of dismay, she looked towards her feet to make sure that nothing had been left behind, when she noticed a peculiar stone. It had to be at least the size of her fist, and was embedded into the Earth so deeply that only the very crown of its shape could be seen.
The pure moonlight sifting through the tree leaves was making it sparkle with every shift of the branches overhead, and excitement built up in the back of Emi's throat. If it were of any value, she could sell it…maybe even get enough money to go to college! She dove at it like a beggar for change, digging around the edges, the dirt underneath her fingernails building up as she clawed her way down. Working at the stone for what seemed like hours, it finally came about halfway out. Grasping it with her dirtied hands, Emi braced her feet in the dirt and pulled with all of her might, groaning as she tried to coax the stone from its earthen prison. The stone seemed reluctant to move, but Emi was equally persistent, and continued to tug with all of her might.
Just as Emi thought she felt the soil give, the stone erupted into pure light. It shone with colors that she had never experienced before in her life, and so overtaken by the beauty of it she fell backward in awe, only able watch as the light began to take form. At first it appeared to be no more than a vague rectangular shape, but soon enough the details came into perspective and Emi registered what it was that she was looking at. She could hardly believe her own eyes, but there was no denying what was in front of her, so close that she only had to reach out to touch it. A dragon. Were she in her right mind, Emi would have turned tail and fled, but she was frozen to the spot in fear. The dragon was solidifying. Her hopes of escape had vanished immediately.
A huge sigh of release washed over on Emi like an enormous blow of a fan, as the dragon opened its mighty jaws, and she raised an arm to shield herself from the emission, convinced that she was already being swallowed into the belly of the beast; that her mind was playing tricks on her to help make death less mortifying to experience. As the seconds ticked by however, Emi found herself still sitting on the ground, her arm bent over her head defensively. Out of curiosity, or sheer stupidity, she lowered her arm to stare up at the beast before her. It had scales the color of blood and mud, and eyes like brilliant stars in the night sky. The creature's claws were each the size of a dining room table and were its eyes not so bright she would have ever been able to guess how tall the dragon was. "So...we meet again."
Emi was shocked to hear it speak, looking up at it with sincere confusion, which dragon seemed not to notice. "Trapped for eons in that damned stone and not even having a pleasant view of the world. I can only hope my brethren were far more fortunate than I." It chuckled beneath its breath and Emi slowly began to rise to her feet, finding that its friendly attitude thus far would make for a good opportunity to escape. The dragon was wiser than it appeared though, and its eyes snapped down to looked down at Emi as she took a step backwards. Towering over the girl, the dragon lowered its mighty head to be level with Emi's eyes. "I did not mean to startle you, young one. For freeing me, I will grant you the gift of truth. There is so much you don't know, and while this may be a gift, I assure you that it will come with many consequences on both of our parts." The dragon pressed its flat nose right up against Emi's body and released out a long, drawn out breath. Emi recognized the smell as something akin to incense or bath salts, and enveloped by the pleasantness she fell back, absorbed into the darkness of unconsciousness.
Emi was looking down at the world from what appeared to be the Eath's atmosphere. It was as solid as concrete beneath her feet, but she could not help but walk with a slow, heel-to-toe pace, afraid that one wrong move would send her tumbling down to the mountains far beneath her. She had to be losing her mind. Had she eaten something in the forest that was making her hallucinate? She dropped to her hands and knees as she tried to search her memory for something, a single inkling as to what had happened, when an enormous shadowy outline passed beneath her, no more than a few hundred feet away. Looking harder, she noticed there were a number of them. Not as many as a flock of bird but the creatures were certainly copious. Emi wished for a closer look and suddenly her eyes zeroed in on the earth below, akin to a satellite. She still had a bird's eye view, but now she could make out the inhabitants of this strange place.
There was nothing particularly strange at first: houses, shops, markets, children, animals. Perhaps it was only a few hundred years in the past, from the looks of things. As she focused her attention on the individual objects and people though, Emi noticed how wrong she was. There was no denying that there was a merperson with a bowl of water around their head selling high-tech weapons to an anthropomorphic creature who was apparently on a date with a vampire who was shielded from the harsh sunlight by an umbrella made out of what she hoped was snakeskin. Everyone was strange in this world, not one person appeared as if they were entirely human. "This is the world as we once knew it..." The dragon's voice, echoed from seemingly everywhere as it spoke to her. Emi felt her heart skip a beat in surprise as she turned to look around, hoping to find it, despite knowing in her heart and bones that this was merely a vision.
"All different kinds of creatures walked together on this plentiful planet, already experiencing the energy crises that your kind face today, and overcoming differences…all but one." There was a kind of mournful silence and Emi stayed quiet as she waited for the dragon to continue. "Greed. Every race imagined its own ideal world…a world where their kind reigned supreme over the rest." The scene behind Emi changed and she turned back to look at the place she had viewed mere moments before. It had turned into a battle zone.
Men, women, children, they all lay dead in the streets. A montage of scenes flooded Emi’s mind; visions of fantastic beings thrown through the air by the force of plasma grenades, seemingly ordinary people were punching dragons as if they were no more than a pillow. "And they fought to obtain it. The Creator saw his perfect world succumbing to ruin, and he had eventually decided he had seen enough. We were beyond hope. Our numbers reached impossibly abysmal numbers. In a great feat of magick, He wiped our memories and trapped our souls into that of the helpless human. That was how humans were created. Dragons are a particularly tricky species so we, along with a few other creatures, were trapped in different objects around the Earth. To lay in eternal sleep till the end of days. And gods and goddesses..." The dragon seemed to emphasize this strongly and Emi furrowed her brow, "were recycled. Billions of the creatures we once knew have lived and died as worthless creations of the Omnipotent One, never realizing that they are far more extraordinary beneath their skin. That is what I am providing for you, Nemesis." The vision ended quickly, and Emi gasped for breath on the grass back in the forest as she was returned to her body. Spluttering for air, she looked up at the dragon in confusion. "You are the goddess of righteous justice and the equalizer of all evil deeds. Perhaps it is fate that you were the one to find me."
Nemesis? The name sounded so familiar, and something within the Emi clicked, as if a switch was turned, the floodgates opening to release the hidden truth within. A life she had, that she never knew she had once lived: slaughtering the evil who tried to manipulate the good and innocent, wandering the earth as a worshiped hero. How could the Creator do this to them? "The Creator made a special force of angels to make sure that none of us were ever awakened." The dragon continued after she had been allowed a few moments to come to terms with her new body. "Many before you have found their true selves and died within hours to their blade. If you are to die you will be recycled, as you have been many times before, but clearly it is not so simple to be reawakened. I cannot help you, as my time on Earth will be very, very short. A dragon will not manage to wander far before being found." The dragon chuckled sadly and Emi stood, smiling ruefully as well. The two had gone on quests together, were friends older than time. "If you happen to find another stone again, I suggest you do the same thing as you’ve done to me. But I must be on my way…as should you." The dragon unfurled its webbed wings, flapping them slowly at first. Its body slowly began to rise from the ground, hovering briefly over Emi's head as it beat its wings faster and faster, soon becoming a mere speck on the horizon as it took flight to parts unknown. Nemesis looked down at her body and growled in frustration. This was the world she was forced to live in? Not likely. She was going to keep her mind and regain her eternal life no matter what, even if she had to face the Creator himself. But first, she would have to find familiar allies to awaken...
((PM me to continue!))
