Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Before Breya could catch him, Darren fell into the water. He landed face first in the river. As fast as she could she jumped down and caught him just as he was being rushed away. She grabbed his good arm and pulled him to the bank. She rolled him onto the dry land and leaned him against a tree.

She picked up his hand, expecting to see the bump gone, but instead she saw it had only gotten worse. The skin covering the oval had turned bright red; steam pouring from it. She watched helplessly as the skin turned brown and started steaming. She couldn’t do anything but watch as the now-flattened lump destroyed Darren’s hand. She tried to touch it but it was too hot. There was nothing he could do but wait.

Breya was trying to wake him up when she noticed that the skin on his hand had gone from brown to deep green; much like the color of Darren’s eyes. Only this green was so intense that it reminded her of an emerald. It swirled and turned leaving small black and white flakes in its wake. The sight stunned her. She would have sat there and admired the coloring of his hand, but her instincts told her she had to stay awake and aware. Only part of Darren’s hand had turned green, it had a diameter of about two inches on the longest sides.

The emerald burn on Darren’s hand reminded her of the ocean. Even though she had never seen the ocean she had heard stories about it. Some told her it was blue, others told her it was clear, some brown. Her father told her stories of when his grandfather saw the ocean. He said it was green; a dark, dark green that made the sky look like it was grey. That one was Breya’s favorite story. She always believed that she would see the ocean one day. And when she did, she knew it would be green.

Breya hadn’t noticed how much time had gone by when she finally regained her senses. It seemed to be getting dark. She looked around. A cloud covering was hovering over them. She couldn’t remember anything that happened during The Adumbration. She looked down at Darren’s hand. It was still green, even a little darker than before. She felt it. It wasn’t hot at all. There was dead skin all around it where it had been burnt.

The bruising was worse than she had expected. His arm was swollen up like a loaf of bread; already purple and black. It was clearly at least twice the size it was before. One spot on his arm was particularly swollen. It was the track all down his arm, starting on the underside of his bicep. A large, tube-like bump stuck out and ran all the way down to his emerald scar.

“Darren,” she said. “Wake up. Come on, wake up.” Darren didn’t move. “Hey!” she slapped him in the face. “I said wake up!”

“What!” Darren exclaimed as he woke up. “What’d I miss?”

“You missed a lot.” She pointed to his hand.

Darren looked at it. For a moment he looked like he was going to pass out again. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back.

“There’s no way we can hide that,” she said.

“Let’s try to focus on the problem at hand, please.” Darren looked around. “Right now we should be worrying about what to do with that thing we found, not trying to hide my arm.”

“I’d look at the sun, but…” Breya pointed to the cloud cover.

“How long was I out?”

“Yeah… I don’t really know. After you… did that, I… can’t remember.” Breya rubbed her eyes. Once sight returned to her, she saw that Darren had already stood up. He went over to the water and submerged his hand beneath the cool water.

He winced as the cold water stung his hand.

Breya waited a while, thinking. She stood up and walked over to him. She stood over him, studying his scar as it made the water swirl with the same green emerald the egg had shown with. She sat down beside him and waiting.

“Do you want something?” Darren asked.

“Uh, no,” Breya said. “Just waiting.” The silence seemed to drive Darren insane. He sighed and looked up at her several times. There was silence for several minutes as Darren soaked his hand in the water.

“This is all really weird,” Breya said. “Even I’m getting freaked out by this.” Darren ventured to touch his hand. He carefully placed his finger around the emerald area to make sure he could still feel everything. “I mean, I’ve dealt with some pretty weird stuff before,” Breya said, “but, this is just ridiculous. This is crazy!” Darren felt the dead skin in the border of the scar.

“Who knows what’s even in that egg thing of yours, or even why it was here in the first place!” Darren tried to peel off the dead skin but found that it wouldn’t come off. It stuck to his hand like a toothed worm on a fish. “What if we go back into the city and someone finds out?! What if we spend the rest of our lives in the sewer dungeon? What if Cerras decides to kill us? What would happen to the egg? The egg! The animal that’s in it? Whatever it is-”

“It’s a dragon,” Darren interrupted.

Breya was stopped dead in her words. “What?’

“I know what’s in the egg. It’s a baby dragon.”

“What?!” she asked again.

Darren was tempted to agree with her “what?!”, because he really didn’t know the answers himself and was a tad confused by everything that had gone down. “There’s a dragon in the egg! Are you going to make me say it again?”

“It depends… How sure are you?” If Breya would actually have looked at his face she wouldn’t have asked the question, but she was preoccupied at the moment looking at Darren’s hand which was glowing more intensely with the conversation.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure,” Darren said.

He took his hand out of the water.

“It’s glowing,” she said.

“I know!” he said.

“Darren. It looks like the egg.”

“Will you shut up for a second?” he said, perhaps a little too harshly.

Breya sat back in anger. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll shut up, because, apparently you can do everything by yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. Darren touched the marble green scar on his hand and winced.

“I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“I guess I just got a little freaked out.”

“A little,” Darren said. “I got freaked out too. Let’s get out of here. We’ve been outside for too long now.”

“Good idea,” Breya said. She stood up and went over to Darren. She extended her hand and, after he took it, pulled him up to his feet. As soon as Darren was upright, he stumbled. Breya caught him and he steadied himself.

When they arrived at the warehouse entrance Darren stopped to rest. The entire walk back had given Breya a lot of time to think. One question was just eating her away. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. “Darren,” she said. “How did you know that it was a dragon egg?”

“I just know. It’s like I’ve known all along. And back there, it just came out.” Darren looked at his arm. “It all makes sense, though.”

“How?”

“What color is the egg?”

“Green.”

“Look at my hand.”

“Oh…” Breya said. “Wait. If it happened to you, then why hasn’t it happened to me?”

“Maybe it will,” Darren said.

“Let’s try to figure this out,” Breya said. “The egg in green; and your hand is green. So, they have something in common, right?” Darren nodded. “If they’re tied together somehow, then you also play an equally important role in this. What is it?” Darren didn’t have anything to say. “And if you got messed up after we found the egg, then there’s something different about you.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I found the egg first. I touched it first. It should have been me that happened to.” Breya paced back and forth. “But, why was it you. I mean, I always knew you were different, everybody does, but not this kind of different.”

“Well, if you’re right-”

“Of course I am!”

“That means the dragon’s mine.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… I was the one that found it.’

“So, you want to keep it?”

“I’ve always wanted a dragon.”

“Look, if you wake up and have a mark on your hand, then I’ll gladly give him to you,” Darren said. “For now, I think it’s safe to say the dragon is mine.”

“It does look that way, I’ll give you that.”

“I’m not trying to be selfish, but it seems the right thing to do that the person with the mark owns the dragon.”

“Alright,” Breya said. “He’s yours.” “Thanks. You can help care for him if you want.”

“Shut up and make your point!”

“That was it.”

“It was kind of lame… whatever,” Breya said. “I admit, if I found the egg two hours before you did, but you still got the mark, then clearly it wants you.” She had an idea! “Wait!” She looked around cautiously. “If it wants you, then you must be… Darren, you must be a wizard.”

“I was thinking that same thing too... but for some reason it just doesn’t fit,” he said.

“Just think with me for a moment. Remember the old stories about the wizards and their dragons? How no one could own a dragon unless they were a wizard. It just wasn’t possible. The dragons knew who their wizard was even before they were born.” Breya got closer to him. “And some people who didn’t know they were wizards just randomly found an egg and took it home. Because fate knew that they needed the egg.

“But we just stumbled upon it! I didn’t know about it or anything.”

“Of course, Darren! That’s always how it works: every wizard, whether he likes it or not has a dragon that he has to raise. It’s in all the old stories.”

“Oh right! It’s all in the stories! The stories aren’t real, Breya! We’re the ones who believe that! They’ve never been real.”

It took Darren a moment to absorb what he had just heard out of his own mouth, because at this point he was starting to believe that at least some of the stories were real. Breya was right in a lot of ways. It was hard to accept the fact that he was a wizard. There were a few awkward moments after that; like the moments after Darren told Gwyneth he loved her. Nothing really happened; they just stood there, looking at each other.

“Um… so, just to clarify everything: We have a dragon, I’m a wizard, and no one knows about this except you and me. “Bingo,” she said.

“How are we doing to do this without getting caught?” he asked.

“We could say you fell and broke your arm.”

“That’s a stretch,” Darren said, looking at his arm.

“I could make it work. I’m a great liar,” she said with pride.

“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” Darren asked. “We were kind of thrown into this together.”

“There’s always a way out,” Breya said defiantly.

“Let’s hope.”

“We could run away. We could hide forever. We could kill the king and take over the country.”

“Not a big fan of any of those… except maybe the last one,” Darren said. “But it’s too risky to do by ourselves.’

“Well, go ahead and take all the time you want!” Breya said. “That’s one thing we have the most-”

“We’re staying.”

“Oh… that was really quick.”

“Come on.” Darren tried to stand up, but immediately sat back down. He was too weak to be doing anything sudden.

“We can’t stay!” Breya said.

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?” Breya almost screamed at him, but then caught herself. “We can’t keep a dragon and a secret at the same time,” she said quieter.

“I thought the dragon was the secret.”

“What on earth would make you think that we can stay?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m the wizard. I made the decision. We’re staying.”

“Then I don’t want anything to do with you anymore.”

“So, what? You’re just going to dump me?”

She didn’t answer. Breya just walked to the door, opened it, walked through and slammed it shut.

“Breya, come back,” Darren said. But she didn’t come back. There wasn’t a sound behind the door. He sat there for several seconds. “You are stupid,” he told himself. You idiot! Why won’t you just leave with her?” Darren was silent for a moment. “She’s right, isn’t she?”

“She sure is!” came a voice behind the door.

“Breya!” Darren stood up and opened the door. “What are you still doing here?”

“I’m listening to you talk about how stupid you are.”

“Get out of here!” he ordered.

“No,” Breya said.

Darren was altogether confused about what was going on. “Are you with me or not.”

“I’m with you,” she said reluctantly.

“We’re still staying,” he said. “You know that right?”

“I don’t really care anymore, Darren. Let’s just go home.”

He walked through the door and closed it. They went silently to Darren’s barn, no one uttered a word. Darren’s arm was so swollen and stiff he couldn’t move it. His fixed shoulder joint made walking stiff, but they managed to reach his barn by nightfall.

Breya opened the barn door and entered, followed by Darren. He lit a lantern and looked around to make sure no one was in the barn. A faint green glow came from a pile of manure and hay in a corner. “I thought we covered him up enough so he wouldn’t glow.”

“We did,” Breya said.

Darren set the lantern on the ground and picked up a shovel. He handed it to Breya and she started shoveling the poop off of the egg. As soon as he could, Darren got down on his knees and touched the egg. “He’s glowing brighter. And he’s really hot now.”

“Darren…” Breya said. “I think you’re egg is going to hatch soon.”

“I know,” he said.