Dragon Aflame

by Leela Ash

  She turned on the TV and sat on a stool next to the small bar in her kitchen. She flicked through her mail that was nothing but junk and financial demands and then crossed the room to the refrigerator. Inside was a sorry sight… eggs, milk and an old packet of ham. She rolled her eyes and slammed it shut. Toast would do.

  After making it and slathering it in butter, she crawled onto the couch with a cup of coffee and pulled a blanket around her. It was only six p.m. and she had a whole night stretching out ahead. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes and scolded herself for being so weak and pathetic.

  It’s just the hangover, she thought. Tomorrow you’ll be fine.

  She didn’t know when it happened, but at some point she fell to sleep on the couch, cradling the plate of half-eaten toast and her empty cup of coffee. She woke with a start when the commercials blasted throughout the room. She jumped up with a start and glared at the television, which quickly buzzed off and then flicked to white noise as if the signal had gone down. She picked up the remote and bashed it with her thumb.

  “Oh, come on,” she said.

  When her attempts failed, she chucked the remote across the room, gathered up a few of her interior design magazines, and made her way to her bedroom.

  Even though she had closed the blinds all the way through the apartment she still had the feeling she was being watched. It seemed to follow her from room to room and she even found herself checking under the bed before she climbed into it. She just couldn’t shake the feeling and after spending only five minutes flipping through the magazines she put them down, switched out the light and pulled the covers up to her chin. She lay on her back watching the darkness around her. She knew no one was there… but she still felt like someone, somewhere was lurking.

  She lay in bed with her eyes wide open and the hairs on her arms standing on end. Her heart pounded quickly until she finally succumbed to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Her dreams were fragmented and frightening. Everywhere around her were black eyes, following her…watching her. She was back in the bar, and it was empty and bright white, with green lights lining the floor and strange objects in jars. The men that she and Helen had met were there, and they were trying to get her to drink something. She threw it on the floor, but they produced another one, and then another.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed at them. “I won’t drink it!”

  When she woke up, she was drenched in sweat and there was a garbage truck outside of her window with a yellow flashing light casting a glow over her room. She sat up and leaned against the headboard. Her heart was pounding, and she was ice cold. She checked the clock, and it was six thirty am.

  May as well get up, she thought as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and put them down onto the wooden floor. She recoiled almost immediately as her feet touched something wet and slippery.

  “What the…” she said aloud.

  She looked down and there was a pool of water on the floor. It glistened in the yellow light of the trash van.

  “Gross,” she said as she looked up at the ceiling. She was sure the apartment above her must have had a leak, and she turned on the light and looked carefully to see if there were any drops of water still coming down. There was nothing and the ceiling looked completely undisturbed.

  “Weird,” she said as she shook her head and went to fetch a towel to clean it up.

  After making herself a quick breakfast and getting changed in front of the oil heater her mother had given her as an energy saver, she made her way out of her apartment and down the stairs. The air was freezing. More so than it had been lately, and she found herself running back up to her apartment to grab a set of gloves and an extra scarf. She layered herself up with them but still felt the chill as she walked through the halls and down the stairs.

  When she opened the main door to her building and started down the steps, she first thing she noticed was how much warmer it was out there. Within seconds she felt herself burning up and she ripped off the gloves and the two layered scarves. She shoved them in her mailbox and told herself she would collect them later.

  “Here’s to another day in paradise,” she said aloud as she made her way down the street, stepping over the mounds of trash that were scattered along the sidewalk.

  The feeling gripped to her all day. Even when she was at work and busy, she still had the all too real sensation that a stranger was watching her every move. In the middle of the afternoon, she couldn’t take it anymore and found herself running into the restroom and slamming the door before sitting down on the seat and taking deep breaths.

  “No one is watching you,” she said, “You’ve got to pull it together.”

  ***

  When she finally left work for the day and began her slow walk home, she found herself making a small detour down a street that was well known for its doctors’ offices. Her eyes scanned the various signs and rested on one that said “Psychiatrist.” Even though it had only been a couple of days that Victoria had been feeling this way, she knew that something wasn’t right and being all alone made her fear for her wellbeing. She approached the building and took a small leaflet from underneath the sign and then hurried away. She knew she wasn’t crazy, but the way she had been feeling was so unnatural and bizarre, and she had no idea what was happening. It had all started on the night out with Helen, and it hadn’t let go of her once. She felt gripped with paranoia and fear and she had the sensation of wanting to crawl out of her body and run far away.

  As she ambled slowly up the street towards her front door, the feeling was stronger than ever and she felt the familiar icy chill crawl back into her bones. She looked up and down the street, and she was sure for a split second that she saw the flash of the tall, slender outline of one of the men she and Helen had been chatting to in the bar.

  Oh my God, she thought, I’m being stalked! She remembered the way they had both come out of the bar and stared, watching them both so still and sinister. Goosebumps burst out all over her skin, and she felt a tingling shoot up the back of her neck.

  Get inside, Victoria, get inside now.

  She slammed the door behind her and rubbed her hands together to try to get them warm. It was freezing in there, and even though she was trying to save money she had no choice but to turn the heat up full blast.

  After an hour in the apartment, it was still ice cold and Victoria found herself in bed, quietly sobbing.

  What is happening to me? she thought. Am I going crazy?

  She gripped the psychiatrist leaflet and pulled her cell phone out of her purse and punched in the numbers. It was an answering machine, but she left a short message, trying the whole time not to sound too crazy.

  When she hung up the phone, she pulled the covers around her and closed her eyes.

  Just go to sleep, just switch off and rest…

  And somehow, despite all of her fear and emotions, she managed just that.

  Chapter Four

  The light came back. But this time it wasn’t the dull shine of the garbage truck out in the street. It was bright blue and green. Piercing and vivid inside her bedroom, shining down from the ceiling.

  She rubbed her eyes as she looked up at it, convinced she was dreaming. None of it could really be happening. She was asleep. Simple as that. She looked up at the light and at how it twisted and turned above her. It made patterns on the wall and splintered, turning her room into a maze of stars.

  Victoria didn’t dare breathe. Her hands were ice cold and fixed rigidly in front of her, gripping the sheets.

  “Who’s there?” she whispered.

  Was she awake? Could this all be real?

  She felt weightless, as if suddenly the gravity had disappeared from around her. She was still in bed, but she felt herself move an inch higher, as if she were drifting towards the ceiling.

  “No,” she said aloud, “No!”

  She grabbed onto her pillow and tried to turn herself onto her stomach so she didn’
t have to look at the light and could grasp onto the bedframe. She clamped her eyes shut, but she just couldn’t move her body. She felt paralyzed.

  Within seconds she couldn’t even keep her eyes closed. They wanted to be open. They needed to see what was happening. Even though she was trying with every fiber of her being to close them and shut it all out, they defied her and stayed wide open and alert. She was glaring at the ceiling and the shards of light. Strobes of it shone down around her and a hole slowly appeared as if the ceiling was cracking away above her. But instead of the upstairs apartment coming into view, it was a clear sky with a trillion stars.

  I’m dreaming, she thought. Wake up, Victoria, wake up.

  Her skin prickled with cold and she felt smooth, wet hands gliding over her. She screamed and tried to kick out, but she couldn’t move. The weightlessness became more pronounced and before she had chance to process what was happening, she was drifting up towards the hole in the ceiling, up through the light. She could feel the tingle of fingers running all up her back and combing through her hair. She screamed but no sound came out. She was tearing her throat into pieces but the air around her remained silent. There was no sound anywhere. She had never heard a silence like it, and as she drifted upward, the ice suddenly turned to heat. She was drifting out of consciousness. It was if she was lying on the beach under the blazing sun and her skin felt dewy and glistening. It was beautiful. She felt euphoric. She was warmed inside and out and the sensation was so intense and calming that she felt her eyes finally close as she crossed over into a blissful sleep.

  The heat rumbled through her and kept her calm. She was still aware of it as she slept and the silence turned slowly to the familiar sounds of the birds singing in the morning sun. When she woke, she was still in her room. She had been dreaming but it had felt so real. She breathed out a sigh of relief and for the first time in days felt calm and relaxed as she sat up in bed and woke softly. It would have been a perfect morning--the apartment was warm and the sun shone brightly through the blinds--but suddenly something struck her like a ton of bricks. She looked down at her wrists and they were bound to the bedframe with a silver wire that made them impossible to move, and she quickly realized her ankles were the same. As she looked up, the door to her bedroom seemed to melt in front of her, as did the rest of the room around her. As the features of wallpaper and photo frames slipped into a sludge on the ground before evaporating entirely, she was aware of someone else in the room with her. It was the man from the bar. The tall, slender man with the black eyes and the white blonde hair. He was standing in front of her and watching. All behind him a white, empty room was coming into view, and she realized that she was in it, tethered to a white table.

  “Who are you?” she screamed, “What the hell is going on?”

  The light was so unbelievably bright that she could barely open her eyes. She squinted across the room at him and noticed immediately how long he seemed. He didn’t appear to be the same as he was when she had met him in the bar. She knew it was him… but he was somehow different. His eyes were wider and he was taller. His fingers were long and his hands large. She squirmed against the table and cried out.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “Help me!” Victoria screamed.

  She tried her best to wiggle free but the silver restraints were keeping her perfectly in place, and she could barely move a muscle. It wasn’t long before she realized he wasn’t the only other person in the room. Slowly others, who appeared to look exactly like him, came into view out of the bright white light behind him.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, trying to remain calm. She could see being hysterical was getting her nowhere.

  “We’ve been watching you,” the man spoke. “We have been looking for someone like you for a long time.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, confused. “You are the man from the bar the other night, right?”

  He didn’t answer her but turned and walked away. As he disappeared into the crowd behind him, she looked at the other men standing around the table and could see that their eyes were all exactly the same as his. They were all large and black… She bit her lip and shuddered.

  Chapter Five

  The men surrounded her and started to touch her. She flinched as their long fingers traced her skin, and she noticed how pale and muscular they all were. It was as if they were human but super-size versions. They were all nearly identical in appearance, tall and buff with the shock of white hair that made their eyes look all the more intense.

  “We need to get you ready,” one of them finally said.

  She barely dared to breathe as he reached down between her legs and began to remove her underwear.

  “What are you doing?” she panted.

  “Do not speak,” another one of the men told her.

  They ran their slippery hands all up and down her legs, massaging her skin and working their way up to her navel. She suddenly found herself relaxed and calm. Their touch felt soothing and necessary and she was no longer afraid.

  “Mmm,” she murmured, and she found herself moving her body closer to their fingers so that she could grind up against them.

  “Do you know why you are here, Victoria?” one of them said as he reached under her t-shirt and pulled at her nipples. “Do you know what we want with you?”

  “No,” Victoria panted, her heart racing and her skin feeling like it was on fire. “What do you want with me?”

  “You are a perfect vessel,” he said. “Our Lord wants you to give him a child.”

  As he said the words one of the men at the end of the table slipped his long fingers between her legs and touched her sex. She gasped as he flicked her clit with one finger and slipped another inside her.

  “The Lord will like you,” he smiled as he felt how juicy she was. “You are exactly right.”

  The sensation that rolled over her body was the most intense she had ever felt. It had been such a long, long time since a man had touched her and now there she was with at least seven men… if they were actually men… running their hands all over her and touching her in the most erotic of places. They slowly began to remove her clothes and left them in a pile next to the table.

  “Who are you?” she managed to gasp out between the waves of pleasure rolling through her.

  “We are a far superior race,” one of them said as he traced his moist fingers over her lips. “We are here to join yours and ours.”

  “Where am I?” she asked, trying not to howl out as one of the men continued to work his fingers in and out of her, hitting her spot in all the right ways.

  “You are on our ship,” one said as he tweaked her nipples and licked up the side of her ear.

  “Ship?” She was so confused.

  “Shh,” the one between her legs said. “That is enough.” He withdrew his hand just as she was about to climax and Victoria gasped and moaned as he pulled away.

  “Don’t stop!” she panted, “Please!”

  “The Lord wants you,” he said with a smile. “I have to leave you for him.”

  The slippery hands all slowly pulled away from her and she writhed on the table in a fit of ecstasy and heat. It rolled around inside her, her orgasm subdued, although she knew it would not be for long. She looked up at the men with a need in her eyes that she could tell they were desperate to fulfill, but duty forbid it. They all stood around her with huge, stiff erections and she begged them to give one to her.

  “Please,” she pleaded, “Don’t leave me here like this.”

  “The Lord,” one of them said as they all turned to walk away, “He’s coming for you.”

  Chapter Six

  They disappeared into the bright light and Victoria lay there, motionless on the table. Her heart was pounding out of her chest and her skin prickled. She knew she was in a room, but it was so white and so bright, there was no definition as to where it began and where it ended. The silence came back and she knew she was alone. She li
stened intently and heard the soft sound of footsteps which gradually got louder. She craned her neck to see in front of her and he slowly came into view.

  The Lord.

  He was huge, powerful and absolutely gorgeous.

  Victoria shuddered and felt her sex pulse. He wanted her to carry his child… This was all so crazy, but at the same time she felt like it was also so completely right.

  He didn’t speak, but he moved closer to her and touched her softly on the chin. Victoria opened her mouth and let him trail his huge fingers across her lips and then he worked his way slowly down to her breasts. Her nipples were rock solid and erect, and they twinged as he ran the tip of his index finger across them. She was submitting to him. She wanted him to take her. He leaned forward and with a quick snap, the shackles that bound her hands and ankles came free and evaporated into thin air. He reached out and took her hand before pulling her up so she was sitting on the table with her legs outstretched. She was naked and looking up into his eyes. They were as dark and colorless as the others, but there was something about his that seemed more alive. There was a power inside of him, and she could feel it reverberating into her through each touch. He ran his hands over her soft, juicy curves and grunted. Victoria gasped and sat back and he pulled her to her feet.

  She stood in front of him and watched as his clothes evaporated before her very eyes. What they revealed was the most amazing body on his seven foot frame, complete with rippling abs and thick, muscular arms.

  “Wow,” she gasped as she took hold of one of his arms and squeezed it to make sure he was real. A little smile flitted across his face for a moment before it disappeared and she finally got the nerve to look down…