Myths and Legends
By Sarena Flanigan
I fall.
Surprise stops me from even screaming, but the fall ends abruptly with my feet hitting dark cement and twisting under me. The scream comes then, pain stabbing up from my left ankle.
I gasp a sob, trying to look around, but it’s pitch black. There’s only the distant light from the broken grate above, from streetlights shining on the sidewalk I’ve walked hundreds of times before, and not once wondered what was below them.
I fumble with my phone’s flashlight, and look around for a ladder out of the manhole. There isn’t one. How the hell do I get out?
The panic finally hits, and I start hyperventilating, breathing the damp, earthy air of the city’s underworks, faintly laced with the smell of stale piss.
Have to get out have to get out.
There’s no ladder! A tunnel, not quite man-height, continues ahead and behind. Electric wires run along the roof, and under a metal grate over the damp ground. The cement is cracked.
“Help!” the scream erupts harsh and high pitched. I angle my mouth back up to the manhole and yell, “help!” again.
I wait. I can’t hear much from up there. Which means that no one up there can hear me down here.
Heart pounding, I look along the tunnel again, extending into darkness. If I go, I could get lost. Who even knew there were tunnels down here?
“Help!” I bleat again, pitifully. Uselessly.
I check my phone, but there’s no reception.
Emergency calls only, reads the screen. This counts as an emergency, right?
I dial 000 and wait. It doesn’t ring. Just…silence. After a moment, the tone goes beep beep beep. The call disconnects.
Tears well in my eyes. I just want to go home. It was meant to be a twenty-minute walk from the station. I want to go to bed. Now how long will I be here for?
I stare into the darkness. What if I die down here?
My feet are moving before I’ve even decided to try. I set out one way. A ladder. I just need to find a ladder.
At least my phone still has over forty-percent charge.
I walk for ages and ages almost doubled over, until my back starts aching. The cracks running along the tunnel are sporadic, sometimes covering all walls in thick spidering webs, sometimes invisible. After what feels like forever, but has only been twenty minutes according to my phone, the cracks get worse, and my feet start scuffing cement debris.
But then my flashlight falls on something other than darkness ahead, and my heart sinks further. The tunnel is collapsed. The roof has fallen, leaving only tiny gaps that maybe a hand or a finger could fit through. To the side is something I might be able to fit through, though; a gaping crack in the tunnel wall. But that’s the problem all over again. If I leave the tunnel, maybe I’ll never find a ladder out. Maybe I’ll be lost forever. But do I walk twenty minutes back to try the other way? What if it’s caved in too?
I peer into the space behind the cracked tunnel wall. The torch isn’t strong enough to pierce much, but the air is different from there. Much earthier, and no staleness.
I bite my lip. I suppose I can climb in, have a quick look, and then climb back out?
Again, I’m already squishing through the hole before I’d even decided to. Good thing I’m not any bigger than I am, or I wouldn’t fit.
After a brief, wriggly little passage through old, compact earth, the darkness opens into a larger space, like a cave. Okay, I am definitely not going to be able to get out this way.
The darkness moves. A small shriek escapes me as something slithers past.
Something big. My phone shines off something dull and grey, but then it’s gone, slithered to the other side. I whirl around, and this time see the unmistakable mottling of scales.
“Muluk yorinya,” hisses a silky voice in the darkness.
A shiver runs through me, and I take a step back, but the sound comes from all around, the creature moving too quickly to be able to see much of it.
“Muluk Yorinya!” it repeats angrily, and I hear the sound through my whole body, not just my ears.
“What do you want from me?” I gasp, still spinning as I try to keep an eye on the thing, try to not get eaten by something that is scaly and at least as big as I am, if not bigger.
The phone is wrenched roughly from my hand, where it falls to the ground with the flashlight down, plunging us into darkness.
Stillness falls. Whatever the thing is, it’s stopped circling.
“Want,” the creature snaps.
“Want?” I repeat. Want… no light. Was the light upsetting it? “I’m sorry.”
I cautiously move forward to pick my phone up, and that doesn’t seem to upset the creature. Just as cautiously I pick up my phone, quickly clicking off the light.
“What you?” they ask. “What speak?”
A talking, scaly creature. Maybe there’s a gas leak down here, and I’m hallucinating. If so, I’m probably already dead. I exhale sadly. “I guess I’m a human, and I speak English.”
“Englisss…” it hisses. “Yesss, Englisss… I know thisss.” There’s a pause, and I’m not sure if I’m meant to reply. “What name you? No, what you name. No… blekendulisss nunka Englisss.”
“Err… my name is Sherry, but I didn’t catch that last part.”
“I ssay, ‘Englisss isss bad sspeak. I… I…” Another contemplative pause. “I Drakisss.”
“You’re…a dragon?” Yep. Definitely hallucinating.
“Yesss, but name Drakisss.”
“Well, Drakis, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” And to not be eaten. Yet.
“Pleassure? No. Humansss never pleassure meet drak’e. Ssay me, how you come here? Human no come many tawn.”
“Tawn? I fell. Down a manhole. It broke under me. I want to get out.”
“No tawn?... hmm…wrong word. Many spin, many ssycle, many…year. Yesss, many year.”
“You’ve been down here all this time?”
“Yesss. Better to be alone, than be dead.”
Can’t argue with that logic. “Well, if you like, I can just…go.”
“Hmm… cave in closse tunnel, yesss?”
“Yeah.”
“Drakisss knowsss way out.”
“Really?! You can help me get out of here?”
“Yesss. But there isss prisss.”
“A price? What price?”
“Sserry tell Drakisss sstory. Sstory about world above.”
“A story?” I frown. I’m no master story teller. But I am keen to go home. Actually, this would make a great story one day. But that’s not helpful right now. “What kind of story?”
“A new sstory, a sstory of when you live.”
Hmm… I scan through anything I think that would make an interesting story. “Okay.”
I settle down to sit with my legs crossed, because my ankle still bloody hurts, and I’m tired. “The world above is busy, people rushing about frantically worrying about jobs which, actually, probably don’t need doing.” Much like my own job. “And there’s so many inventions that help people go places faster. There are metal carriages that carry people faster than a galloping horse, there’s even bigger metal carriages with wings that let people fly from one side of the earth to the other in under a day. There are devices that let us talk to each other from across the world in real time. Like this.” I hold up my now-darkened phone. I assume Drakis can see down here, if the light annoyed them. But I certainly can’t. I’m just talking to darkness now.
Hello darkness my old friend, and all that.
“Humansss alwaysss liked metal.”
“Even more so now. Except, they invented this other thing, called plastic, and it’s not very good. It’s ruining the world.”
“What isss plasstic?”
No idea, honestly. “It’s man-made. It can be either hard, or soft, whatever we need it for. It uses oil to make. It doesn’t rust, but it does deteriorate, crumbling into itty bitty bits, which are now filling the oceans, the land, the air, and even our own bodies.”
“Ahh yesss…” Drakis murmurs dreamily. “That isss the man Drakisss knowsss… Ekssept, the humansss of thisss land are better. They ssee the land asss alive. Thisss is why Drakisss chose to ssleep here.”
I grimace. “Not any more.”
“No, not anymore. Drakisss heard the mining long ago. Knew that change hasss come.
“Yep, change has well and truly fucked this land too. But back to the story. When a plague broke out in a marketplace, transferring from a bat to a person, all those fast devices let the plague spread really quickly across the whole world.”
Drakis chuckles, but doesn’t comment.
“And all the governments around the world reacted differently. Some of them decided to do nothing, leading to thousands of deaths and even more long-term health implications, while some of governments put their whole countries into lockdown to stop the spread. Which stopped the spread, but caused other problems.”
“Governmentsss? Not kingsss?”
“Correct; most of the world is democratic now.”
Drakis makes an odd rumbling noise. “Uneksspected… Pleasss, continue.”
“Um. Well, the government here was pretty strict. So, we weren’t allowed to go anywhere. We had to stay home, and couldn’t see family or friends. We used devices to talk to them, and adapted to different ways to do things. Learnt to do things from home. In some ways it was good. We stopped using so much oil. Stopped making so much stuff, stopped going so many places. But some of us got really hurt by the absence. We missed our family and friends too much. The world closed in on us, just our little selves, in our little homes, being small. We stopped looking forward to anything at all.”
“You became ssad,” Drakis observes.
“Depressed, yeah. I’m still working through it.”
Drakis rumbles a slow, thoughtful, “hmm.”
I wait.
“Drakisss’s mother wasss killed by huntersss.”
“I’m sorry.” People are the worst. Who would meet a sentient creature, capable of speech, and think, “cool, I should kill it!” That’s literally murder.
“Five other humansss have told me sstoriesss.”
“Oh, really? What about?”
“There wasss a…poet? Ssakessspeare?”
“That’s a good one.” Maybe I should have chosen to talk about the arts and humanities too. My bad. “This is a great age for art, too. We have a way of capturing moving pictures, and showing it. With sound, too. Film, it’s called. It’s a really big industry. And things like that kept us entertained all through the pandemic. Got us through, in a way.”
“Indusstry… Tell me, do they sstill hunt rare creaturesss?”
I pull my knees into my chest. “Yeah,” I sigh. “For traditional medicines, or food.”
Drakis’s rumble is a snarl. “Food. But when I eat sseep, I am the monsster? Sseep are a plague.”
“And cows. Don’t forget the cows.”
“And chickensss. Disseassed creaturesss.”
I chuckle. “There are a lot of vegetarians nowadays, at least.”
“Vegetariansss? You mean humansss desside to not eat creaturesss?”
“Yup. We know so much about health, medicine, and how to make new foods, that people don’t have to eat meat. Some even don’t eat any part of an animal at all, no dairy, no eggs. There are also people trying not to use plastics, or to minimise oil or electricity usage, too.”
“What isss electrissity?”
“Errr… It’s lightning, I guess. Lightning that we can create and control?”
“How doesss one control lightning?”
“Errr…currents, I guess. Kind of like water.” I have no idea how to explain this type of thing! “Stop the current, start the current, have reservoirs of it…”
“Hmm… Well, I am pleassed medissine hasss improved passt killing dragonsss and eeating our heartsss.”
“Mm-hmm!” I agree wholeheartedly.
“But tell me of weaponsss. You cannot tell me war hasss not improved too.”
I frown. “Yeah. It’s improved to the point where we can barely fight anymore, because we will destroy the entire planet.”
“How?”
“Um. It’s a special kind of material. It creates a huge explosion, and also makes the land dead and uninhabitable for thousands of years afterwards.”
“What isss it called?”
“Nuclear weapons. Uranium. It produces radiation.”
“Hasss it ever been ussed?”
“Yeah,” I kick my feet over the back ground glumly. “We had big wars, like a hundred years ago, that involved the whole world. Two world wars. They ended the last one with a ‘show of strength’ that involved dropping one of these bombs on a whole city.”
“And many died?”
“Many died,” I confirm. “Many, many, many.” I stare into the darkness.
“And what elssss?”
“Guns,” I sigh. “Metal rods that shoot bullets from them at speeds fast enough to go straight through flesh.”
“What do they usss the gunsss for, if they can barely fight anymore, becausss it will desstroy the planet?”
I snort darkly. “Good question. In some parts of the world they use them to shoot small children. In others they use them to have minor proxy wars, in which many die in parts of the world where other parts of the world refuse to get involved, for one reason or the other.”
Drakisss sighs tiredly. “At firsst, you made me want to ssee it. This fasst world, where metal birdsss carry people acrosss the world, and moving picturesss provide entertainment. But now, I will tunnel deeper, ssleep longer. Maybe when I awake neksst, I will learn if I am ressisstant to ‘radiation’ or not. But thank you for your sstory, Sserry. You, I think, would not kill a dragon for food. You, I think, are why I do not hate all humanss, why I do not wiss you all dead. But I will not assk you why the ground growsss warmer. I do not want to know. I am not ssurprissed by anything you have ssaid, ssave by the democrassiesss, and the vegetariansss. I cannot hope. Insstead, I will dream; dream of a time when I can fly again. I will show you how to leave.”
I feel like crying at the sadness in the Dragon’s voice. This world-weary, ancient being, constantly tunnelling deeper to escape the relentless expansion of humanity.
“I’m so sorry, Drakis,” I say as I climb to my feet and stretch.
The dragon rumbles. “For what? For ekssissting? For not sstopping humansss with more power than you? Thisss way.”
I frown as I follow the sound of slithering, using my phone’s screen, but not the flashlight, to see where the uneven ground is. “I’m sorry for your mother, and for the rest of your family. For human nature. Sorry that you have to tunnel deeper, sleep longer.”
We pass into another tunnel, this one natural, with no cement or cabling. I have to stoop again, whereas the pale, snaking body ahead of me, wings tucked tight and uselessly against their sides, moves easily through the space.
“Asss am I, little human. Asss am I.”
We don’t travel for long before we have to climb. Drakis makes it easily up the rock, whereas I take longer to find handholds in the dark. But it’s not a big climb.
More uneven passages, but now with the smell of damp again, and tar. Moss. Something small and fluttering even bumps into my face, making me flinch, before it flies off again. We come to another little incline.
“Here, little human. Thisss will continue, then come out insside a hollow tree. There may be earth. It if it isss too much to dig through, I will help, but otherwisss I dare not go further.”
“No, I understand. It’s not safe for you. Take care, Drakis.” I squeeze past the enormous reptile in the dark. Their scales are dull and dirty grey, their wings little more than cobwebs pressed against their hide. I wonder how long they’ve been underground for. I take care not to shine my phone screen in their eyes.
“And you, Sserry. May the world be kinder to you than it hasss been.”
“And you too.”
Not knowing how better to say goodbye to this sad, lonely creature, I turn and climb.
The air freshens, and I turn my flashlight on again when I come to a crawlspace at the top. On my knees and elbows I crawl forwards, until dry leaves crunch under my hands, and the light of dawn peeps through gaps between roots. I shift some leaves and dirt, and wiggle out around the roots.
I emerge on the side of a hill. I’m in the park near the edges of my suburb. I could easily use my GPS to find my way home. But I don’t want to. Not yet. I’m no longer eager for bed, even though I’m wearier than I’ve ever been before.
Instead, I stand and watch the dawn.
I imagine a world where dragons fly through crisp lightening skies, and myths and legends survive. I imagine a world where people live in enduring harmony with the land, like the First Nations have for thousands of years.
I try to imagine a world where people are kind, and where people don’t kill for sport or greed.
But I can’t.
Sarena is a biochemist on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia, where she serves two feline overlords. Aside from her cats, her greatest love is spec fic of all persuasions. She has short fiction published in Etherea Magazine, Unlocking the Magic, and in Stories of Hope, and she also paints when words alone are not enough to capture the wild dreamscapes in her head. Visit www.sfflanigan.com for more.