Urban Dragon by j w troemner

Author:j w troemner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Arkay

M y leg twisted as I hit the ground. Something would probably be sprained later.

Overhead, Rosario fell backward, away from the demon that crawled up the wall. She was out of harm’s reach, along with the priest. Safe, then. Even if the priest meant her harm, he would have made a real shitty serial killer.

I tried to get up, but something wrapped around me, and it was cold and dark—

No, that wasn’t right. Two different sensations at the same time, warm and cold: Rosa was squeezing me closer, but in the process she’d dislodged the blanket. A semi rumbled across the bridge overhead, and its roar echoed around me. I’d been dreaming just now, hadn’t I?

“Arkay, get up,” I heard a faint whisper. “You have to get up.”

“Can’t sleep?” I whispered, burrowing closer to her warmth.

“Maybe a little.” Her face was lit half in silver moonlight, half in the yellow glow of a street lamp. “And don’t say it.”

I politely withheld my ‘I told you so’. “So this doesn’t have anything to do with those creepypastas you’ve been reading, then?”

“I told you not to say it.” She gave me a playful shove, but I nestled against her. She always regretted reading all those scary stories online, but that never actually stopped her from reading them.

“Was it the balloon one again?” I asked.

She groaned. “You had to bring up the balloon one.”

“Was it the Rake?” I guessed.

“Ugh. Stop already!”

“Ooh! Was it the one with the haunted Zelda game? That one was awesome.”

“For the love of—” She pulled her pillow out from under her head and smacked me with it. “No more out of you. Stop.”

“Not until you tell me,” I singsonged. It wasn’t nearly as mean as it sounded, either. Rosario was good at getting into other people’s heads and seeing the world the way they did, but things like logic and reason didn’t always get to come along for the ride. Talking through it was the fastest way of getting her out of the story and thinking critically again.

“Fine,” she said. “But only if you shut up.”

I drew my fingers across my lips.

“ThreeClaw, okay?”

I tilted my head, inviting her to continue.

“The story was about this thing called ThreeClaw. It sneaks up on you when you’re desperate, you know? Scared. Lonely. And then it promises to take away all the bad parts of your life. Only then it takes you.”

I drew another invisible line over my throat and stuck out my tongue for effect.

“Actually, it doesn’t kill you,” she said. “It... it erases you. Takes away everything you are. It’s still your body, but all your memories, your personality—everything that makes you you—is gone. You’re a stranger. And that’s...” She shuddered. A cloud passed over the moon and cast us into deep blue shadows.

“That’s not gonna happen,” I said. “You know why?”

“Because it’s a made-up story on the internet.”

“Nope.” I stuffed her pillow back under her head, careful not to snag her long braid. “Because if I ever meet this ThreeClaw thing, I’m gonna kick its ass all the way to Lake Michigan.

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