Aura

    Jack leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, random blots of colour swarming in the darkness behind his eyelids. When he opened them the words on his monitor swam disturbingly, a small… absence… following the focus of his vision as he tried to read. It was as if something had punched a hole in his reality, leaving the edge puckered, scarred, distorted.

    He felt a surge of panic, his heart accelerating as he blinked furiously in an effort to clear his sight, little worms of absence crawling out from the hole to wriggle across his field of vision.

    Jack got up from his chair and staggered out of his bedroom, almost tripping on yesterday’s trousers as he made his way to the door. He blinked again and again as he stumbled down the stairs to the front door and fumbled with the latch, hoping each time that his vision would clear.

    He opened the door and stepped outside, his arms prickling with goosebumps in reaction to the sudden chill. He breathed deeply, hoping against hope that the crisp air would clear his senses, make the disturbing visual symptoms go away.

    He looked up at the steel-grey October sky and watched the edges of the absence ripple with a silvery hue. The absence itself was not black but rather transparent or colourless, matching the background of his visual field but obviating any details in that area like a badly focussed lens.

    As he looked into the cloudy sky a crow took flight, its caws echoing across the rooftops. He watched it go, the black wings an animated scribble against the sky.

    Then it flew into the absence in Jack’s vision and at the same time he felt a sharp stab of pain just behind his eyes. He winced and tightly closed his eyes as the pain seeped away.

    When he opened them the absence was gone and the crow was lost to sight.

    Jack blinked a few more times to be sure, relief surging through him. He wasn’t going blind or having a stroke as he had initially panicked. And yet… what else could cause a symptom like this?

    He went back upstairs and returned to working on his chemistry report, nervous at first in case his monitor started to swim once more into the absence he had recently experienced.

    About half an hour later, Jack’s first migraine hit.

    Once the excruciating pain, nausea and desire to do nothing except lie down in a darken room had passed, Jack dragged himself back to his computer and started searching.

    Terrified that something was seriously wrong with his brain, he searched for “holes in visual field followed by severe headache”. As his  head continued to pound with an aftershock headache he read page after page about migraines and found out that the visual distortions he had experienced were called “Aura”, and acted as the harbinger of migraine for some twelve percent of sufferers. The absence in his vision that had so scared him was called a scotoma.

    Somewhat relieved by his research, Jack went back to bed.

 

    Jack was in the lounge watching Formula 1 on telly a few weeks later when he began once again to see the disturbing visual symptoms of aura. Rather than fear this time he felt a sense of inevitable dread, knowing that a debilitating headache would be following hot on the heels of the aura.

    He tried to keep watching telly, but after awhile the hole in his vision grew severe enough that it was almost painful to watch. He stood up, mumbled something to his father about having a headache coming on, and went up to his bedroom.

    He sat down on his bed with a sigh, slumping with his head in his hands and his eyes closed. He opened them when he heard a soft '”Mrrew?” from the door, a smile already forming on his lips as he reached out to encourage his cat, Smoky, to come see him.

    The silky grey cat approached eagerly, making another soft noise of concern for her master, and Jack gave a little laugh.

   “Here girl, there’s a good kitty. Come to help your… uh!”

    Pain knifed him behind the eyes as Smoky crossed the silvery boundary of the scotoma, and Jack winced his eyes shut. He heard a soft thud followed by a gush of liquid, the sound of cat-claws scrabbling against carpet, weakening, stopping.

     Jack swallowed nervously and slowly opened his eyes, intuitively afraid of what he might see.

    He made an involuntary sound of disgust and shock and stood up quickly when he saw half of Smoky lying on the ground in front of him, blood spread out in a wide puddle from the bisected cat. Some of her guts had come loose in her death throes and now lay on the carpet like fat red worms, all soaked in blood. The point of severance was horrifically smooth, as though his cat’s front half had simply ceased to exist.

   He saw all of this far too clearly, because the scotoma had gone.

 

    Jack cleaned up quickly, knowing that he would soon be incapacitated by the migraine itself. He cried as he put Smoky’s remains into the liner of his wastepaper basket, horrified and scared by what had happened. He mopped up the blood as best he could and put the sodden handkerchief in with Smoky for later disposal.

    As the migraine set his brain pounding and tied his stomach in knots, Jack slumped in bed with panicked thoughts about what to do whirling around and around in his head. Eventually thinking grew too painful and he let himself switch off, slipping into darkness.

   

    In the end, there wasn’t much he could do. He buried what remained of Smoky out in the garden while his parents were out, and he went to see a doctor about his headaches. The doctor told him that he was lucky to have aura with his migraines in a way, as if he took a certain drug when the aura started it might entirely prevent the headache from taking hold.

    Jack didn’t feel lucky, but he could hardly confess that his aura seemed to be… eating… things.

    He thanked the doctor, took the prescription and got it supplied by the pharmacist. He decided that, if it happened again, he’d just have to avoid looking at anyone until the aura passed.

    What more could he do?

 

    He was in an English Literature class a week later the next time the aura began. As his teacher lectured about Hamlet he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, terrified of what might happen if he let them open.

    His teacher paused in what he was saying, sighed, and walked quietly over to Jack.

    “Are we keeping you up, Jack?”

    Mr. Peterson’s voice was loud and right in his ear. A few of the other kids laughed at Jack’s expense.

    “No Sir,” Jack replied, a tremor in his voice. “I was listening to you Sir, but I’ve got a migraine coming on, Sir.”

   “Open your eyes when you’re talking to me lad, migraine or no migraine.”

   Jack swallowed drily, his eyes squeezed so tightly closed that he could feel his skin wrinkling “Please Sir, I really can’t.”

    Mr. Peterson sighed. “Well then, I suppose you’d better go and see the school nurse, hadn’t you? And after that you can see the headteacher.”

    Jack swallowed again and slowly stood. “Yes, Sir.” he mumbled, and started to blindly make his way out of the classroom.

   He almost tripped several times as he fumbled his way to the door, and from the sniggers he heard he was pretty sure that at least a couple of these were deliberate.

    When he got outside he listened carefully to be sure that nobody else was in the hallway, then opened his eyes a tiny sliver and made a run for the boy’s toilets. It should be safe to hole up in a cubicle there and wait for the aura to fade, he reasoned.

  The toilets were empty, and silent apart from the gentle drip, drip, drip of a loose tap. Jack poured cold water into his hands and splashed it on his face, relief flooding through him that he had managed to avoid looking at a teacher or other student while the scotoma waited hungrily.

   He reflexively looked up from the sink to check himself out in the mirror.

   Or rather, most of himself. The scotoma blotted out half of his face.

    Pain knifed into Jack’s frontal lobes, and then…

Nothing.

End

The Seed of Chapter 1

This is the start of a novel that I’ve had outlined for a while but not really done anything with yet.

Does it manage to capture your interest? Would you want to read more? I’d be grateful for your thoughts.

Chapter 1

Zack barely grunted at me as he slouched past in the hall, the tinny music blaring from his earphones providing him all the excuse he needed to pretend I wasn’t there. It wasn’t a surprise, after the events of the last few days, but it still hurt. As Zack slumped down the steps I let my frustration and anger get the better of me for a second and I slammed the front door behind him as hard as I could. After an all-too brief moment of catharsis I swore under my breath and went to fetch a dustpan and brush.

Zack continued to the bus stop, oblivious.

I winced as I stooped to sweep up the shattered glass, my thigh injury protesting at the motion with a stab of intense pain. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, beads of sweat popping out on my forehead as I stubbornly worked through the agony.

By the time I stood up I was shaking, the glass making a shifting, tinkling noise in the pan. I leant against the door jamb for a brief rest, feeling the world pulse vertiginously and my vision haze over with black dots.

The cool breeze wafting through the shattered glass panel in the front door helped though, and soon I felt strong enough to walk into the kitchen and dump the broken glass in the bin. After that I poured myself a glass of water and drank it slowly, leaning against the kitchen worktop.

“Oh, Jack, you look terrible.”

Sue bustled into the kitchen wearing one of her power suits and a subtle fragrance that made parts of me ache. She looked half worried and half annoyed, but her hand when she laid it on my brow was gentle.

“What on Earth do you think you’re doing? You should be resting.” She took her hand from my brow, looked at it, and then patted me awkwardly on the chest, coincidentally wiping her sweaty palm on my shirt. “It’s only been three days since the accident, for crying out loud.”

I sighed and shifted uncomfortably, my thigh still throbbing. “I just wanted to see Zack off to school this morning. Not that it did any good.”

Sue frowned and grasped me by the shoulders, as if she wanted to shake some sense into me. “Jack, he’s thirteen. His friends and their opinions of him are all that matters. You have to give him time, that’s all. He’ll forgive you, eventually.”

I nodded vaguely and swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

“And will you?” I asked, reaching out to mirror Sue’s gesture, my hands resting gently on her shoulders.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she replied firmly, giving me a gentle shake. Then she leaned forward and kissed me briskly on the forehead, as if to distract me. “Now, I have to go. Love you, get some rest!”

As Sue walked away I slumped back against the worktop and shut my eyes. Three… two…

“Jack?! What the HELL did you do to the door?!”

The house seemed far too empty after Sue left for work, and part of me just wanted to take her advice and crawl into bed for the rest of the day… or the week. The rest of me was heartily sick of bed, however, and decided to do something productive instead.

By the time I’d finished cutting a piece of plywood down to size and nailing it over the broken window I felt as if someone had unzipped my skin and poured a sack of broken glass inside before doing me back up again. I was breathing harshly and my ribs burned fiercely with every breath I took, but despite that I felt better for having achieved something.

I stumbled into the lounge and collapsed onto the couch, cold sweat streaming down my forehead and cheeks.

The Last Dragon

They flocked to see him as he lay dying, coming in pairs, trios, and whole extended families to touch his scales and to feel the heat of his huge body. Their voices were hushed and full of awe as they surrounded him, children looking up at him with wide eyes while their parents watched warily for any sign of aggression.

He could not see them for his eyes were caked with blood and dust and he was too tired to open them, but he could not sleep for the fingers poking and prying at his flanks, for the susurrus of their voices.

How had he come to this?

When he was young, his strength and vigour had been famed for thousands of leagues around. His might and virility had made him the preferred mate of many a female and he had watched with pride while they fought with each other for the honour of bearing his eggs.

In those days his scales had glittered as though polished by hand, his diamond teeth had shone against the redness of his throat, and the draught from his mighty wings had caused trees to bend and collapse as he launched himself into the air.

He fought proudly and honourably all his life, vigorously defending his territory from who thought to steal it from him, fighting to the death if necessary to safeguard his land and his broodmates.

Then men came, and nothing was the same again.

They had a hunger for land like that of no dragon he had ever met, expanding faster than belief and shaping the world around them to their liking. From valley to mountain to sea the men spread, digging into the earth for the precious metals contained within and cutting down entire forests to fuel their expansion to other lands across the sea.

The dragons defended their territory of course, but what are honour, might and glory compared to stealth and cunning? The men suffered terrible casualties at first but there were more of them, always more. They learned from their losses and began to employ tactics the dragons could never anticipate or even comprehend.

They poisoned wild animals and lakes so that incautious dragons might feed from them and be poisoned likewise, tiny doses of death building and building over time until a victim was weak enough to be attacked in relative safety. They lured a broodmate away from her nest by mimicking the calls of a rival dragon and smashed her eggs meanwhile, then when she returned lay waiting for her to spend her rage and anguish before attacking while she lay exhausted.

They did these things and a hundred more, always adapting and learning with their agile minds while the dragons did everything they could to defend themselves and their territories and still lost.

Out-bred, out-thought and out-done in viciousness, the dragons could do little but struggle futilely against the gradual genocide of their race.

At last, only he remained.

Now he lay upon the hard ground, his scales dulled with time and wear, his teeth chipped and blunted by hundreds of years of use. Manacles affixed him to iron rings embedded in the earth so that he could move no farther than a few inches without reaching the end of his tether. His wings were bound to his shoulders with vast metal hoops, in order that he might not knock people over with them.

The spears and arrows which they’d used to bring him down still bristled in his back and flanks, thin trickles of his rich blood bursting every now and then from the half-healed wounds and coursing down his flanks in sticky rivulets. His great jaw was muzzled by another steel band that bit cruelly into his flesh, the wounds suppurating and oozing pus under the metal.

He was the last of his kind, alone forever, surrounded by human gawkers and waiting to die as he lay half asleep.

Now pain stung him fully awake as a scale was levered away from his tender skin and wrenched free. His eyes cracked open and old rage filled him again. He drew a deep, rattling breath through his nostrils and hissed it out between clamped teeth as he strained against his bonds.

His heart beat faster and faster as chains rattled and iron bands groaned, the crowd scattering away from him in panic as he struggled. At last he had no breath and the bonds still held but he defied his own body, sucking in as much air as he could between convulsions.

His heart stutter-stopped and bright flashes of light flickered across his vision, a terrible pain seizing his chest. He subsided once more, flanks heaving, and felt his rage washed away in a rising tide of despair.

“Look what I got!” a boy shouted, holding the scale aloft like a trophy as blood dripped down his arm and spattered in the dust.

The dragon faded away from the world for a time.

As bells rang out the curfew the dragon woke again, then groaned and subsided once again into an uncomfortable near slumber. At first, it seemed as though he was dreaming when he felt a gentle touch on his eyelid. Water trickled down his cheeks and dripped from his chin as the crust was washed from one eye and then the other.

His eyes slowly, tiredly opened, and saw framed by the moonlight the silhouette of a small human. A youth, he judged. He heaved a tired breath, and slowly closed his eyes again. ‘Leave me alone, human.’ he rumbled, the sulphurous stench of his breath washing around the human boy. ‘Have you not tormented me enough during the day that now I must be tortured at night also?’ The words were muffled by the cruel muzzle, but audible nonetheless.

‘I’m not here to torment you, old fellow.’ the boy replied kindly. His hands came to rest atop the beast’s gigantic skull, gently rubbing the smooth scales there.

‘Then what?’ the dragon moaned. ‘All your kind ever does is persecute me.’

‘You don’t deserve this.’ the boy replied, his voice a mixture of mingled sadness and anger. His hands touched the steel muzzle, and the dragon felt him wince at the feel of raw flesh around the edge of the metal.

‘Whether I deserve it or not, here I am. I am dying, and soon my carcass will be all that remains of my race. Perhaps it is best this way.’

The boy shook his head, the musky scent of his youthful body filling the dragon’s nostrils as he leant forward to embrace the vast creature’s neck. ‘You will die free, because it is the very least a magnificent creature such as you deserves.’

The last dragon snorted and closed his eyes again, feeling the boy against his time-worn scales. ‘And you’d free me, I suppose? Impossible, you’re a mere boy.’

‘I will see you free, this I promise.’

The boy stole away into the night, leaving the hope of his promise behind…

Only for it to fade away as another week of tormented days and lonely nights passed by.

Then, one night, the beast woke from his half-sleep to feel the boy’s hands resting on his snout again. ‘Are you here to release me?’ he asked, not believing that this could possibly be true. He was weak now, from lack of food, and knew with pragmatic certainty that tomorrow would be his last day of life.

‘Yes. You will die free, as I promised.’

The dragon scented the salty taste of tears trickling down the boy’s cheek, heard the metallic clicks as the youth began to release him from his shackles.

‘I must hurry, before they change the guard and find the keys missing…’ the boy murmured, working fast to unlock the great padlocks securing the dragon’s bonds. The beast groaned and opened his eyes to stare up at the moon, his body trembling in anticipation.

‘There.’ said the boy with satisfaction, as the last of the chains fell to the ground. ‘You’re free! Now, fly like the wind and enjoy your last night of freedom.’

The dragon mewled in gratitude and extended his rough tongue to lick the youth’s cheek.

‘Go!’ the boy cried, urgently, laughing and crying at the same time as he felt the lick.

With a growl, the beast unfurled his wings and took tiredly to the air with ponderous flaps of the vast pinions. The boy was knocked down by the first downdraught and lay looking up with an expression of awe as the last dragon took flight and dwindled against the starry sky.

The vastness of the sky seemed to caress his tired, scarred old body as he flew through it with slow beats of his wings, his tail lashing behind him as he travelled under the moon’s cold eye. He flew on with renewed vigour as the moon set and dawn came once again, heading towards the mountain fastness that had always been his home.

He alighted at the peak of a tall mountain, his eyes closing in exhaustion as the warmth of the sun kissed his tired body, seeping through to his aching bones and soothing him with its glow.

With a great sigh, his head collapsed to the ground, the scent of grass and sweet flowers filling his nostrils as his heart slowed and finally stopped.

The last dragon had gone to where no chains would ever bind him.

Coffee Part 5

I staggered back over to the computer, drops of blood running down my tie and plopping to the carpet in fat splatters as I went. My hands were crimson too, gloved in blood that felt slippery and sticky at the same time.

I sat down and opened the new e-mail, leaving smears of blood on my mouse mat. It felt strange, sliding my hand through the blood, viscous like a layer of oil under my palm.

I worked hard to read the text on screen through my bleary vision, and eventually made out:

"Thank you for your assistance with our experiment.

"I can now inform you that the drug we administered was non-lethal, and that the effects should quickly start to fade.

"By the time the police arrive, in twenty minutes or so, you will be back to your normal self.

"Goodbye and good luck ;)"

I read it again, and again, feeling a state of shock and horror setting in. The fact that I had killed a woman to ensure my own survival was bad enough, but for it to have been a game all along? Some kind of sick experiment?

I found myself crying, silently at first as tears mingled with the blood on my face and then in huge, racking sobs.

I was still crying when the police found me.

Coffee Part 4

I stood up and went to my colleague's desk, both hands behind my back so that she wouldn't see the blade. She looked up at me with an expression of faint curiosity and paused typing, red fingernails poised over her keyboard.

I stumbled, feet clumsy and dragging. Sweat dribbled into my eyes, stinging them, and I wiped my forehead with a sleeve.

The wrong sleeve.

Her look of mild curiosity transmuted to fear as she saw the letter opener in my hand, and she defensively folded her arms across her chest.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

"I'm... sorry," I answered, haltingly, and then I slashed her throat.

I felt revulsion welling up in me as I felt the resistance of skin and cartilage under the dull edge of the blade. Blood started to run down her neck, but in thin trickles only. She made a strangled scream and grabbed my wrists, but her petite body made her strength no match for mine, even in my weakened state.

With a grunt I reversed the blade so the serrated edge was pressed against the wound. As a mixture of panic, revulsion and disgust swirled inside me, I began to saw.

Her struggles didn't last long. Dark blood pulsed in thick, slow streams as I cut through her jugular vein, and her strangled screams became a wet, thick noise. At the edges of the cut her blood became frothy, brightening to crimson as she sucked air through it.

When she died a terrible death rattle emerged from her cut throat, a long and rasping gurgle that reminded me of a blocked drain. I dropped the letter opener and staggered backwards, a sense of eerie disbelief colouring my perceptions.

Her front was plastered in blood and her desk was a scarlet nightmare. Even her keyboard was full of blood, the neat angular channels between her keys like the drains in an abattoir's floor.

My computer beeped.

Coffee Part 3

I stood up and went over to the window, my mind racing. It was surreal watching people in the street below going about their everyday business as I died by inches no more than a couple of hundred feet away.

I looked at the windows of the buildings opposite, trying to find someone watching, something that didn't fit somehow. I saw nothing but reflections and shadows.

I sat down again and slid a letter opener from the stationery carousel on my desk. One edge was dull but the other was sharper and serrated; perhaps it would do the trick, I thought.

Disgusted with myself I put the opener back into the caddy and raked sweaty hair back from my brow, my hand trembling.

This had to be some kind of obscene joke, didn't it? Some kind of test? 

But what if it wasn't?

I glanced across at my oblivous co-worker. She was leaning forwards in her chair, lips pursed in concentration. In her glasses I could faintly see the reflection of a spreadsheet.

I didn't know I was going to do it until I was standing up, the letter opener suddenly in my hand again.

Coffee Part 2

I stood and made my way over to the water cooler, almost tripping over my own feet as I went. I drank down a cup of water so cold it made my teeth ache and then swallowed another in quick succession. Water blorped in harmony with my guts as the chilled reservoir refilled. 

I sat down again and re-read the message, desperately hoping that I'd misread it earlier. No such fucking luck.

"Seriously, you look really awful," my colleague said, sounding genuinely concerned. Could she really be such an excellent actor?

"I... I'm not feeling too great," I admitted. "Did... did you put something in the coffee?" I smiled to make it seem like a joke, but just from the feeling in my lips I coud tell that it looked more like a grimace.

She just laughed and said something about how funny I was, then went back to her work.

My computer bleeped again and I opened the new e-mail with a groan.

"Kill her if you want to live," it said.