Dusk of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  The celebration of the young turning old

  From the sun that paints the color of blood

  A rain of great fires shall unfold

  Shimabellia shall be covered in a fiery flood

  Many lives associated with the light

  Will fall and die under the sky of the night

  From the shattered ashes of the unwanted dead

  Shall rise an island of death and dread

  Alarmed of this memory, Valverno dashed back to the village with the greatest speed. He soared in front of the others. He came into the eyes of the Dragon King, blocking the giant lizard’s eyes of the comets. “You need to have the Dragons to move everyone from here!” Valverno ordered loudly.

  The Dragon King blinked his amber eyes upon Valverno’s rushed voice. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand what you mean. Why not watch a rare comet shower of tonight?” The large lizard didn’t seem to put care in Valverno’s sudden order.

  “I don’t care, King of Dragons; WE NEED TO GO! We need to get the people off this island NOW! We need to—”

  “What’s that?” cried Marina.

  Valverno and the Dragon King looked at Marina pointing to the sky. Suddenly a bright lit the ground and the houses in view glowed brightly if the sun has risen. Valverno looked to the sky and saw a wider, much bigger comet falling from the sky.

  Burning brighter than the sun and falling slowly than other smaller, thinner comets, the huge comet burned light through the dark sky. A giant, smoldering rock like a giant boulder flared in a bright yellow-orange spark. It left a large trail of smoke as the comet descended from the sky.

  It rained down faster than the other smaller, thinner comets and this was a giant rock that looked nothing compared to the other comets.

  Vaeludar, the Dragon King, Marina, and every person and creature in the village saw the comet soaring down for the sky down toward the far eastern horizon. As quickly as it came, it vanished and a bright light flashed like an erupting volcano from where the comet vanished to.

  The flashing light dimmed after one quick, eye-blinking second. A large cloud formed in the shape a large mushroom stretched high to the sky and scattered circular, cloudy waves from its summit. It circulated smoke and a scent of burning wood.

  Valverno felt a presence of heat rising like in the summer. He felt a powerful wind blowing from the direction the cloud of smoke rose. Then the ground shook like a powerful earthquake if a hurricane was trying to emerge from the ground. And shockwaves suddenly broke down many huts and houses and the people were suddenly collapsed, if they were pushed to the ground by ghosts. Cracks broke above the crevice surface.

  What was silent broke into loud screams of horror. Human screaming echoed in the air, and Valverno knew what was coming; he was warned by Lusìvar that this day was coming. He flew closer to the Dragon King’s eye and shouted, “Get the humans off this island now!”

  Valverno flew away from the Dragon King and soared high above the village. “GET EVERONE OFF THIS ISLAND NOW! NOW!” he shouted from the top of his lungs. He shot down and picked up Eliana and the twin girls and dropped them on the nearest Dragon.

  In a matter of seconds, all the Dragons reacted quickly took the sky. The Pegasi and the Griffins suddenly took off in a gravely speed. Many flew and picked up humans with ease, carrying two or three and up to six for the Dragons.

  But many of the people screamed in terror. They ran in different directions. Amid the chaos, Valverno grabbed Marina and placed her on the Dragon King. “Get her out of here and make for Isla Maeli!” shouted Valverno.

  “Valverno!” Marina’s voice cried.

  “Demigod!” the Dragon King grunted.

  “That is a divine order, Dragon King! Get her out of her!”

  The Dragon King grunted and took to the sky. The Siren’s face showed a worried before the Dragon King went flying off.

  Valverno took one more look at the mushroom-shaped cloud that stretched toward the sky like large rainclouds. The cloud spat out it’s out its own comets. It grew and stretched like the spread of rainclouds in in grey sky ignited with fire and smoke. It widened and it was heading for the land the villagers, the creatures, and Valverno lived on.

  The spreading cloud of smoke and fire were coming their way, to the island of Shimabellia. It flaring light sparking from within sent out heating shockwaves that cracked the ground’s surface.

  Valverno made no hesitation to look away and soared higher into the air. The frighten people below were scattering like a swarm of ants that lost its queen. Then he waved his hands and sent out an airy wave of a blue energy down toward the people running and screaming toward each other.

  The power he sent down suddenly made the people stop and look at him. Their eyes stared at him; this power he sent killed their chaotic screaming

  Then he soared to the ground and slashed the air with the claws of his hands and a thin light appeared. He flew across the village in the air and the light expanded. A large image appeared: a beach with waves beating against. “Through the portal everyone! Move! Move!”

  The demigod made a portal for everyone to move into. And without a moment too soon, everyone rushed through into the portal. The people swarmed into the portal and Valverno made sure the portal was big enough so people could fit through the portal in hundreds.

  “Brother, look out!” called out Sora’s voice.

  Valverno’s eyes swirled away to see what was coming, but it was too late. A comet was hurling toward him. He lifted up his left hand to stop it and the comet exploded upon impact on the palm on his hand.

  Valverno growled loudly and the explosion sent him flying through many of the village’s buildings and tearing them all down.

  “Elder Brother!” shouted Sora’s voice.

  He landed on his feet digging into the ground as he felt a great numbness of pain swelling within his arm and the armor he wore shattered into fragments like smashed glass. All of his armor was destroyed and leaving open half-naked human body.

  Valverno quickly covered his arm with his left wing and looked toward the village. With his arm hidden, he had no idea how bad his arm was. However, the muscles from finger-to-shoulder gave him the idea how bad his arm was.

  The portal he made had vanished, and the people were without an exit. Many of the people were being picked up by the creatures, but too few were being picked from the ground. Centaurs picked up many people as the horse-men trotted through the heavy crowd.

  Seeing only small handful of people running and suddenly comets falling upon the village, it was a desperate moment the demigod wasn’t thinking clearly. People were scattering and running, and a blazing, mountain-sized cloud was coming their way at rapid speed.

  Valverno couldn’t make a portal without both his hands; the magic power to hold open a portal was too powerful to hold open like holding a boulder with one hand. He growled again and raised his right arm in the air, glowing a white mist from his fisted fingers.

  Once again, the people stopped running, and they were raised into the air. Every human being was raised into the air, if gravity lost its power.

  Buildings, trees, rocks, and many earthly minerals rose from the ground. Green leaves and the branches leaves clung to had been brushed off from tree barks, making the trees like logs. The trees themselves morphed from logs to large rounded shapes quickly taking shape with the other minerals.

  Ships!

  Valverno was magically making ships with one hand, and it was consuming his own body power. He hasn’t felt this outstretched of his magic power since his escape from the Ice Serpent while flying through a mountain pass with a former princess clinging to him.

  The humans soaring in the air were placed into the ships and were suddenly launched into the air, flying toward the west, the opposite direction of east where the dangerous the explosion was ignitin
g from. Doing this made Valverno collapsed to his legs and one hand touching the ground preventing his entire body from collapsing. He gasped for air heavily, and he felt weakened by this use of power.

  He felt his power within him being drained by the second, as if the strength he’d received from the two armor artifacts was leaving him. It must have been when the comet that burst Valverno’s left arm, and severed half his power.

  With hundreds of comets exploding and flying from the oncoming smoke rising like smoke released from an erupting volcano, Valverno saw it was now impossible to try to save the island. He got up to his legs in a weakened state that he could barely stand on his two feet.

  He widened his wings to take to the air. With his left arm not covered from his wing, he tugged it against his chest. He used his right hand to make a small glow on his injured arm. And he made a mad fly to the air just as two more comets hit the spot he stood from. He soared a small distance and just beyond Geraldus’s mansion.

  But he soon found little strength in his wings and he collapsed to the ground, using his wings to glide instead of falling. Valverno also felt his wings losing the speed power he needed to fly. Somehow, one comet had weakened his magic power of his strength and speed through the means of harming one entire arm.

  “Brother!” Sora’s voice called again. His sister floated close him and tried to come in close.

  Valverno waved his right hand and sent Sora flying toward a small portal that was opened by a flick of his tail. “Valverno, no!” Sora’s voice called out. He had no wish of his half-sister being in the same condition that he was in.

  The portal vanished when Sora was pushed into it and a comet struck it. Valverno paid it no mind as Sora was safe, and he was flying away from the danger erupting behind him.

  He continuously flapped his wings to keep up his flying paste. The speed he was flying at was the slower than a sprinting deer. But with an injured arm that took his entire body’s stamina, Valverno still flew at the speed he was flying at. He’d barely had enough strength to keep himself in the air.

  Winds of a high heat hot like the summer sun gushed through his face. Sweat swept from his skin and hair. His eyes were dripping tears not of grieve but exhaustion from the rising heating temperature.

  Valverno furiously kept flapping his wings nonstop from the rising fumes of smoke spreading like erupting smoke descending downhill from a volcano’s summit. He felt all of his strength leaving him and descended closer to the ground. Without the help of his sister, Valverno was going to be incinerated.

  But he needed the strength to continue forward. He still kept flapping without showing mercy to his wings, if he was torturing himself to death by flight.

  Valverno kept doing this and narrowly dodging more than a dozen comets he was nearly struck by. He kept pushing himself and flew westward toward the seashores of Shimabellia.

  Finally, he got his destination. The shoreline of the sea was ahead of him and the sparkling light behind him lit was ahead of him. But to his eyes, the boats he magically created were on the shorelines; their appearances meant they weren’t launched far enough from the island’s shorelines.

  Valverno flared his eyes with in a terrible glance. He thought he sent the boats away from the shorelines of the island and out to open sea. The hot air he was feeling was rising rapidly and he looked behind to see what was coming.

  The cloud of the spreading, fiery smoke was coming, and it was larger and closer to Valverno’s eyes than he’d ever imagined. The flare of its orange and grey color molded the nearby lands. Right was right on top of the island and larger than any up close mountaintops. His eyes reflected of how big, gigantic, fuming, and toxic the soaring fumes are like a forest fire.

  With one hard leap, Valverno jumped from the shorelines and over several of the ships, as the rising flares dosed the shorelines right behind him. Valverno drew out the Crystal Sword and swiped in the air if he was cutting paper.

  The sword sent out a wind gush and all the ships he’d created sailed across the sea at a great speed. And suddenly, his strength has left him. Valverno splashed into the sea. He found himself waving against the hard waves of the waters and battling against them.

  The watery waves rushed and swayed like a lake during a scary storm during the night. Darkness stirred Valverno’s vision. He felt the weight of the water rushing around him. With his left arm injured, he used what strength he has left through his free arm and wings to swim to the surface of the water.

  He gasped once his nose touched the open air and inhaled what he could with one gulp. His head was just above the surface waving very hard for him to keep afloat. He saw a large orange flare reflecting on the water’s surface and little darkness clouded his view. Valverno looked around and saw the ships sailing away. And in one duck, Valverno held breath from in his lungs and submerge himself into the ocean water.

  Valverno found himself being walking over a land of rocks the waves pushed him toward. Somehow, he felt some strength in right arm, but his left arm, which was covered by his left wing, was swelling with numbness and pain. The demigod was standing on rocks when the water drifted him along a shoreline.

  Once he walked ashore, he felt water draining from his hair. He was soaking wet and water swept down his naked, soaked skin. His underwater swim gave him strength to use magic freely and used the waves of the water to move the ships with his swimming speed.

  For a quick moment, Valverno briefly closed his eyes and sniffed the air; there was a big scent of smoke. He felt more at ease than before flying away when he felt like a heart attack was hitting him. After a while, he opened his eyes and saw many people coughing and gasping.

  Dragons, Griffins, and Pegasi stood near people who have dismounted from the creatures. Centaurs stood by the shores the water waved against, gathering people from the ships that arrived on the shore seconds before Valverno did. Several Unicorns used their horns to heal any people coughing heavily.

  There were only a handful of creatures with only a few hundred people standing or siting.

  Among the coughing people and stares of creatures not looking at the demigod but behind him, loud shouts of grieving cries boomed in Valverno’s ears. The cries were someone who lost people they loved. Some Dragons growled in agony, Unicorns and Pegasi groaned, and Centaurs only stared with traumatized looks; many of them looking behind him toward the east.

  He blinked his eyes and his mind felt a temptation not to look behind, but he had to. He needed to see what they were looking at and turned his eyes in the direction many of thousands of eyes were staring at.

  And Valverno’s couldn’t be more horrified as his traumatized eyes were looking up a long horizon screened in a blaze of orange, flaring smoke covering a black mass of land stretching over miles.

  Shimabellia was burning!

  AN ISLAND DESTROYED

  There were many cries from human and creatures alike. Just a minute after Valverno saw Shimabellia up in smoke and flames, people looked at their island home and their reactions were both in grieve and shock. A great trauma sterilized

  With the other people and creatures, he was in shock at the sight of the flames. His home island, the island he lived on for many years, and the island he brought to life from ancient times has ended up the same way as Pangaea, was destroyed. He felt gloomy as his mind sank with deep sadness; he lost another home.

  The many cries Valverno heard he also can feel within the criers’ hearts. He imagined what the people were feeling and the trauma they’re experiencing; he felt the same way when Pangaea was lost to him. He could cry out loudly and join his grieving with the people who lost their island home

  “Valverno!” cried the screams of Marina and Sora.

  Valverno’s ears flickered at the sounds of his wife and sister. His thoughts were mentioned with greatness and turned to see them running to him.

  Both girls
came dashing to him and they wrapped their arms around his neck tightly. Valverno grunted loudly when Sora jumped on his left side. Pain wallowed on his entire arm, which felt if a horde of bees stung every inch of skin.

  Both girls immediately let go before they could enjoy a brief reunion. Their quick reaction of hearing Valverno’s painful grunt made them move back and they gazed at Valverno collapsing to his knees and placing his right arm around his left wing.

  “Valverno,” said Marina. “What’s wrong?”

  Sora was breathing nervously as to why Valverno was kneeling down while all he did was save an entire village.

  Valverno blankly looked at Sora and Marina. He suddenly felt weakened by the sudden pain he felt exposed from Sora’s grip. His hybrid eyes looked down to see his right hand holding his left wing, which was covering the left arm. From his folded wing, blood was dripping.

  Valverno removed his hand and unfolded his left wing. He gasped at the sight when he looked at his left arm: it was torn, burnt, skin-cut, and bleeding. The long scales that grew from finger-to-shoulder were gone like autumn leaves that fell of a tree branch. Streams of red blood drooled down red skin of a human arm.

  The demigod was breathing hard when he was looking upon his left arm that lost a layer of dragon scales that exposed a human arm with red skin and blood streaming down. And it took one comet to destroy one entire arm covered heavily in dragon scales.

  “Oh, Valverno,” gasped Sora. Sora knelt down beside Valverno and looked at his wounded arm. She softly touched the skin, which Valverno grunt but softer. Then her hand glowed and used this healing power to shallow Valverno’s wounded arm. “You’re lucky you have this arm after losing one layer of dragon scales that protected it.”

  “And it took one comet to make one of my arms to look like this,” said Valverno. “I should have known this unnatural event would have taken place, but not like this.”