by Paul Cude
A thousand questions bubbled to the surface of Flash's mind. Instantly he filtered them all, leaving only the most important.
"What about the gold-coloured naga? I can't possibly handle him."
"We'll take care of him. You just manage the human shaped one, and get ready to cover your ears."
"There are so many things I want to ask."
"You have to go now. It's the only opportunity we'll have. You must bring back help. The naga prisoner you see here is their king. They can't free him, that's why they are co-operating with these... scum. You must get help and free the naga king; the fate of a lot more than just the dragon domain depends upon it. Now go, or it will be too late for all of us."
Flash felt the foot of the human shaped naga step off his back as his stolen jacket was thrown to the floor in front of him. Immediately poised to strike, knowing that every moment he delayed might cause him to fail, the chance of getting some of his stolen clothing back was just too great to pass up. Boots were tossed on top of the jacket, followed swiftly by his leggings. That was it. Channelling every bit of dragon magic he possessed, he rolled over onto his back and sprang to his feet, virtually on top of the human shaped serpent. A puzzled grin crossed the face of the naked naga, as Flash pumped the entire contents of the watch's poison darts into the surprised monster. For a split second, he thought that it hadn't worked for some reason. That was until the human form crumpled to the ground in a heap, wearing just his stupid grin.
Gold glanced across at Flash menacingly, his look alone causing Flash to have one of his epiphanies, the ones he only had when he was a hair's breadth away from death. He needn't have worried though. Before the naga had a chance to exact revenge, a wave of high pitched sound came screaming towards them. Flash scrambled to cover his ears as the wave knocked him off his feet. Feeling his ears leaking, blood he assumed, he glanced over to where Gold had been. Flash thought he was in pain from the sound wave, but as he studied the naga, he duly revised his assumption. The seemingly unstoppable creature was writhing around on the icy floor, screaming incoherently, its gills expanding and contracting at an alarming rate. A voice in Flash's head told him it was time to go. Unable to work out whether it was his own, or the other dragon's, slipping on the leggings, boots and coat, he turned and looked back at the prisoners one last time.
"Go!" commanded the other dragon in his mind.
Having now stopped producing the sonic wave that had rendered Gold useless, the naga king looked directly into Flash's eyes.
As he did so, Flash heard a very different voice inside his head. A dreamy, screeching kind of voice that said,
"You must get help, to free us all. Only then will my kind desist what they are doing. You must bring help, for the good of both our kinds."
With that, the king looked away. Flash knew his time was up. It was now or never. With one last look at the semi naked human dragon, Flash turned and flung himself head first into the icy flowing water.
The magic that had been cast on him still held was his first thought, as he tried not to pass out from the shock and pain of the water. His second thought was that it hurt more now, entering the icy torrent a second time around.
Light from the cavern subsided as the stream became fully enclosed underground, quickly leaving Flash encased by fast flowing water and tiny bubbles of air, unable to see further than two feet in front of his face. How on earth was he supposed to see when the stream separated into two? Kicking with his feet and flailing about with his arms, he tried as best he could to stay over towards the left of the channel, scraping himself along the side of the icy, underground tunnel as he did so.
A sharp right hand bend, followed by a steep drop sent him tumbling head over heels as the freezing water numbed his exhausted body. As he came out of the roll his face smacked violently into a solid, vertical piece of rock, right in the middle of the stream.
'Oh my God,' he thought. 'This is it! This is the point where the stream separates.' Scrabbling with his hands, he managed to get a handhold on part of the rock that he'd just banged his face on, realising belatedly that he'd tumbled over to the wrong side of the stream, and was now perilously close to plunging down the right hand side of the stream, almost certainly to his... DEATH!. Holding on for all he was worth, despite the fact that he could barely feel his fingers or hands, fast flowing water continued to pulverise his body as he flailed about, all the time knowing that the longer he remained here, the more likely it was that he would be carried to his doom down that side of the stream.
Digging his fingernails into the rock, he used every muscle in his entire body, willing them all to work, ignoring the pain he felt in each and every one of them. It started to work as his head became level with the top of the rock. All he had to do was pull himself up just a little higher and then he could get one arm over the other side and pull himself into the left hand stream's current. Concentrating hard on pulling himself up, he failed to notice the tiny slivers of water that had started to seep through the magic that was keeping his head dry and surrounded by air. The surprise at feeling the ice cold water running across his face nearly caused him to lose his grip. Opening his eyes, for they'd been closed as he'd willed his muscles on to greater things, he saw that the water had started to leak around nearly every part of his face.
'The mantra must be wearing off,' he thought, totally terrified. 'I'm going to drown in only a matter of moments.' It was this thought, and this alone, that gave him all the energy and motivation he required. Scrambling up the rock, he threw himself into the current on the other side, zooming headlong into the fast flowing water, concentrating on what was in front of him and the watery pocket encasing his head.
Tiny rivers had started to flow around his face now, so much so that he'd swallowed a couple of mouthfuls accidentally, and had taken to spitting some of the water back out and away from his face, which hadn't worked out as well as he'd thought. As the tunnel started to widen, the stream started to slow, the icy white sides of the tunnel becoming smoother, a bit like an underwater bobsleigh run. Hoping that the changes were indicative of reaching somewhere outside the mountain, somewhere he could exit the stream, still the water leaked in around his freezing, throbbing, bleeding head.
'Must have been where I hit the rock,' he mused, spitting out blood along with a mouthful of icy cold water. Tongue and teeth burnt from the cold, his hope that the river would be leaving the mountain and coming out above ground seemed to have been dashed. The much slower flowing water was still firmly trapped in a dark, icy tunnel, punctuated by only a few random eruptions of bubbles from the stream bed. In that moment he knew that time had nearly run out. Only a small amount of air remained around his face, air that he knew could disappear any time. Desperation forced him into action as he started to swim as fast as he could, all the time taking deep breaths of the remaining air, knowing that any one of them might be his last. Rounding a huge corner in what seemed like the widest part of the stream he'd come across so far, he pushed on, forcing his legs to move for fear of drowning.
Moments after taking another deep breath, the remaining air surrounding his head bobbed away, with the magic having totally died, leaving him terrified and exhausted. If he could have done, he would have cried. The irony of being surrounded by this much water and wanting to add more in the form of tears nearly made him laugh. As the current carried him along, he held his breath and looked back on what had been quite an adventurous life. A dozen or so thoughts and images whizzed past him, but instead of lingering on what had been, he was jolted into action, not wanting to end it all here and now, with nobody knowing how he'd died. He wasn't the sort of being that calmly laid down his life and surrendered. Alright, given the choice, he probably would have opted for an all-out fight to the death, with amazingly bad odds and just a hint of glory.
'Well,' his mind reflected, 'I haven't been given the choice but that doesn't mean I'm just going to give up and drown.' Urging his legs on, he kicked as hard as he could, h
is muscles burning with pain as he did so. Knowing that at best he'd have another minute or so before he was forced to expel the air inside him, he was determined to fight to the very end, albeit in a very different way from what he'd have preferred. Swimming for all he was worth, he seemed to be moving faster and faster.
'The current is increasing again,' he thought, ploughing on. Soon wave after wave of bubbles obscured his vision, as he moved through them at unerring speed, much like a torpedo locked onto its target. As his cheeks, with the remainder of his air, were battered and bruised by the rushing water and the bubbles, wanting nothing more than to expel his last breath, co-ordinating his arms and legs became vastly more difficult. Concentrating hard on not opening his mouth, as he pitched through another curtain of bubbles, a torrent of white water engulfed him, dragging him round a bend and into an almost vertical drop. Fighting not to open his jaws, while wanting to scream, he hit the bottom of the river bed hard, jarring his right knee and elbow, both at the same time.
Only a few seconds away from drowning now, he could feel his mouth about to open of its own accord, knowing he could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Unexpectedly, a haze of light appeared through the bubbles up ahead. Clamping his mouth shut with all his might he surged forward. Black spots started to cloud his vision, but he pushed himself on. Rising upwards towards the light, he had no option but to open his mouth. As his body continued to potential salvation, the freezing water raced down his throat, filling his lungs. Amazingly, he broke the surface of the stream, out into the bright Antarctic daylight. The spots before his eyes were getting worse; only tiny openings in his vision remained. With both his arms outstretched, he pulled himself for all he was worth out of the freezing cold stream, and flopped onto the snow covered bank. Rolling onto his side, his body started throwing up all the water it had swallowed, the cold continuing to nibble at his soaking wet body, paradoxically piercing him like a red hot poker. With the excess water having left his body, he passed out, only inches away from the bitter stream that had so very nearly cost him his life.
Barely five minutes later, his built in survival instinct kicked in, and in a staggering display of stubbornness, he awoke, wishing with every part of his body that he hadn't. Feeling worse than an alcoholic's hangover, and shivering on an international level, he knew that he had to get back to the dragon domain and warn the king. Nothing else existed, only that one thought. Getting to his feet, he staggered slightly, before dropping back down to his knees, his head so muzzy he couldn't concentrate. Two deep breaths later, he was back on his feet, knowing he had to get a grip, get his bearings and find a way out of this hellhole and back to the dragon world. Glancing back round at the body of water he'd just come out of, he found that the stream only broke the surface for perhaps twenty feet or so, before disappearing back underground. The bank and the surface of the stream were shielded from the normal roaring wind by a wicked looking rocky overhang that hovered menacingly over him right at this very moment. As he took all of this in, a little voice in the back of his head screamed,
"They'll come after you. As soon as they've recovered, they'll come."
Instantly, he knew what he had to do. Shivering violently, he removed his precious watch, noted the time and GPS location of where he was, and then set it down in the snow. Rubbing his hands together in an attempt to get some feeling back into them and his fingers, he set about turning the watch into an explosive device. Of course he knew how to do it, and under normal conditions it would only take a few seconds, but his frozen fingers made it hard for him to depress all the small buttons in the right order. At the rate he was going, he'd be lucky not to blow himself to smithereens.
Eventually, after lots of fiddling and a large amount of luck, he managed to set the proximity detection function. Setting the countdown to sixty seconds, so that he had enough time to get out of range, he depressed the button to start the countdown, leaving the watch on the icy bank, pressed into the snow. After the timer had counted down, any movement at all in a radius of thirty yards would set off the explosive device. Turning away from the watch, he started to jog slightly, buoyed by the knowledge that he had once again escaped certain death by the skin of his teeth.
A few paces into his jog, a thunderous splashing noise erupted from the stream, forcing him to turn round. A vision from hell appeared, dripping wet, on the water's edge... the golden-coloured naga who'd captured him previously, the one that he'd last seen flailing around on the floor of the icy prison, barely conscious, stared at him from fifteen yards away. Flash couldn't believe what he was seeing. Another forty seconds or so and the naga wouldn't have been a problem, because the explosive he'd just planted would have gone off, either killing the naga, or trapping it below the surface of the stream for good. Fighting off waves of exhaustion that were just begging him to lie down in the snow and call it a day, he couldn't believe that he'd come so far, avoided death by a gnat's... well, whatever it was, only for it to end like this. If it weren't for the deadly seriousness of it all, he'd be laughing his head off.
Cocking its head to one side, the naga's gills expanded and contracted briskly. Bright yellow fluid dribbled out of both its tiny little ears, dripping down the scales on the side of its head.
'Of course,' he thought, 'I bet it can't hear a thing after being hit by that sound wave from the king. If I can string this out a little longer, maybe I'll get out of here yet.'
Flash and his enemy, Gold, were both standing well within the blast radius of the explosive that was about to go off. The only difference between the two, was that Flash was fully aware of this, and the very deaf naga was most certainly not.
With two seconds to go, the alarm on the watch would beep constantly, priming the proximity sensor. After that, anything that moved within the radius would set off the charge, which in turn would bring down the rocky overhang above. And he was still very much within that radius.
Pure evil and malevolence gripped the naga's face. If ever the phrase 'murder in his eyes' was apt, it was here and now. Flash knew he had to play for time, keep the naga in the blast radius, and avoid being killed. Feeling like a juggler entertaining an audience, at least the adrenaline pumping through his near perfect replica of a body made him forget about how cold he was. Letting a panicked expression envelope his face, he waved his arms about in the air, pointing in different directions, all the while mouthing gibberish at the naga. More than a little suspicious, given how he'd been fooled once already, the beast watched Flash fall to his knees in the snow, looking vaguely injured and much less threatening. From Flash's point of view, it appeared to be working, with the naga not having moved from its spot next to the bank of the stream. Continuing with the gibberish, he watched as the serpent like monster turned its head in an effort to rid some of the blood from its ears, and find out exactly what Flash was trying to say. Very soon, time was going to run out. His best guess told him that there were still about twenty seconds remaining, and it looked very much like the naga's patience had just expired.
'Perhaps if I surrendered,' he thought, clearly as desperate as ever. Ever so slowly he unzipped his jacket and tossed it into the snow. Carefully, all the time watching the gold-coloured naga, he raised his hands in the air, to signal that he'd surrendered. Once again, he mouthed absolute rubbish, hoping to keep him off balance and buy himself that extra bit of time. A strange smile crept across the scaly face of the naga as Flash raised his arms and surrendered, a smile that turned to confusion when it couldn't understand what his opponent was mouthing towards him.
'Whatever it is,' thought the naga, 'it seems to be important.'
Shaking its whole body, flicking off a mound of snow from its tail in the process, the naga zigzagged towards Flash, its gills working furiously. A calm sense of acceptance washed over him as he stood motionless, arms high above his head. Abruptly, the naga stopped, staring down into the snow where the watch lay, only six feet away from him. It was then that the watch started to beep continuously, and th
e lights on its dial flared into existence. A look of absolute horror crossed the naga's ancient face as it realised once again it had been tricked. Flash's eyes locked onto the naga's just long enough for him to mouth the word, "Sushi," before he turned round and threw himself for all he was worth in the opposite direction to the watch and the doomed monster. All of this happened in roughly two seconds. The naga tried to flee.
BOOM!!!!! Flash's watch exploded, shattering the peaceful expanse. Thrown about forty feet in the air from his prone position, Flash landed face down in the fresh snow. Huge slabs of rock came raining down on top of the stream itself, each sounding like a little explosion. Dust, snow, rock and ice filled the air. After a thirty second period of wishing he were dead, Flash staggered to his feet, choking on debris in the air around him. Covering his mouth with one hand, he stumbled back towards the blast's epicentre. Trying to clear the dust, snow and ice in his path, to see exactly what had happened, suddenly he trod on something... squidgy, and most certainly not snow. Looking down, he immediately recognised that he'd trodden on a thick section of golden naga tail.
Instantly he became ready to fight, that is until he looked along its length. Some seven feet or so from the tip of the tail, the part that Flash had inadvertently stepped on came to an end, cut brutally in half by the explosion. As the debris cloud started to settle, Flash could just make out the rest of the golden naga's body, twenty or so feet away from its severed tail, embedded in the snowy plateau. Kicking the tail as he moved past, he made his way over to the main part of the naga's body. Even from where he was, he knew the beast was no longer any sort of threat to him. Reaching the body, the monster's eyes fluttered furiously as it attempted to draw breath. Throughout his lifetime he'd seen beings die before and was pretty sure that this one was very close to death itself.
