Draka

My body was on fire. Every muscle strained as I fought to keep my hold on the slick rocks, damp and slimy from trickling water and whatever lichen or algae could grow on them in the total darkness. Stupid! I was so stupid! Going into these caves alone, without letting anyone know? Just texting Andrea that I was ‘going out?’ What was I thinking? And then, when I found a new crevice that wasn’t on the map, I blithely crawled in there. Sure, the cam that I used to fasten my rope should have held, but perhaps, just a thought, I should have tested it properly before putting my full weight on it?

I’d been rappelling into a cave that opened a short way into the crevice when my cam failed. Rappelling off a cam in the first place wasn’t the brightest idea I’d ever had. Sure, it had always worked before, but that was no excuse. I dropped… I couldn’t tell how far. It was quick. Two or three metres, maybe. I didn’t break anything, but I also couldn’t move for a while.

Everything hurt.

When I realised that my rope had come down with me I did my best not to panic. Both my headlamp and my backup worked and had plenty of battery left. The cave continued into the depths. The entrance to the passage was oddly symmetrical and even with the danger I was in it tickled my curiosity, but it wasn’t an option. I had to get out.

I searched the walls under the ledge I’d come down from. After a while I found a route back up that looked climbable to a good boulderer, and I wasn’t good, I was fucking great. It was my life. I was an instructor, and my gym used me to grade walls. Ten or twelve metres with decent holds? No problem.

I was so close to the top that I could taste it, when I slipped. My feet came off the wall and I dangled, held up only by my fingers, as I tried to find something that would let me put some weight back on my legs. I was still not panicking. I was strong, and I had endurance, and I had trained for something like this because I knew that I was reckless and arrogant enough to take risks that might put me in a situation like this. I secured one foot and tested the hold. Then the other. Taking a deep breath, I relaxed a bit, just a tiny bit, and reached for the handhold that would let me reach the top.

My other hand slipped, and the wall fell away. That’s when I panicked.

I woke in darkness. My lamp must have shut off or broken in the fall. I was in pain, but the second fall didn’t seem to have done any more damage than the first. My back ached and I must have landed on my arse because my tail hurt, but nothing felt broken. Two falls, and no breaks. I was quickly running out of luck.

I think I must have been concussed or something. That’s the only way I could explain the confusion of the next half hour or so. I felt around the floor for several minutes before I gave up. I couldn’t find my gear anywhere, which was extremely weird, but I was knocked around enough that I decided to just go by feel. I’d always had a good memory for holds, and figured I might be able to make it. Dumb and cocky. That was me, and I was at peace with it.

My neck was stiff so I stretched it a bit, and it felt weird, which is never a good sign. It felt like it turned too far, but I decided that was a problem for once I got out. I was rewarded for my efforts by a dim light, high up, which must’ve been where I came in. I didn’t remember leaving a light there, but I must have. No other explanation. I got up stiffly and made my way to the wall right below the light. Feeling around, I found my first handhold. Great! A little higher than I remembered, but I found it. Then the next, and then my footholds. Everything was a little higher than I remembered, and a little farther apart, but I stretched easily enough and found them.

With painstaking slowness I made my way up the wall. I felt strong and confident, sure that I’d make it this time. I gripped my holds tightly, and I could swear that sometimes it felt like my fingers actually locked in the stone, leaving me rock solid for the next stretch. The light got closer and closer. The hardest part was right at the top. I didn’t want to risk using the treacherous hold that I’d slipped on, so I had to hunt around for agonising minutes until I found one that would serve. But I made it. God damn right, I made it. An eternity after I began the climb I had both hands on the edge, then both elbows, and then I was up, panting and laughing hoarsely. My voice sounded weird, but I figured it was just the cave throwing the sound back oddly.

“Fuck you,” I growled at the darkness. “I win.”

Squeezing my way back out through the crevice was easier than I remembered, though my back kept scratching against the rock. Getting out was a huge relief, and the farther I got from that damn pit I’d fallen into, the better I felt. I was a little weirded out, though, when I noticed that the light didn’t come from anything I’d left there. Instead there was something growing on the wet stone that gave off an extremely weak, greenish white glow, like the glow-in-the-dark stars I’d had on my ceiling as a kid. By now the pain was catching up to me and I didn’t stop to wonder about it. I had to make it out of the cave and get some help.

I knew the way out, but things were wrong. There were rocks in the wrong places, stalagmites and stalactites that I didn’t remember. The general twists and turns of the cave were the same, but some passages were wider or narrower than I remembered, and everything felt a little too big. Even so I made my way up and out, towards the surface. My legs burned and my hips hurt, and after a while I had to drop to my hands and… not knees. Feet. I walked on all fours, and it immediately felt much better, the burning in my hips receding. I must have really hit my head, because I could swear that I occasionally banged my butt on something. It didn’t matter. As long as I made it out I could find people, or a road, and then I could get to a hospital and everything would be alright. I wasn't dumb enough to try and ride my bike out, not the way I was feeling. Then I realised that I could just call someone to pick me up, and that I should check if my phone had made it. I went to open my padded belt pouch and…

What the hell? Was I naked? My hand touched rough, bare skin. Why had I taken my clothes off? What the hell had I been thinking? How hard had I banged my head, anyway? Now I had another problem. What if I got to the road and a lone guy stopped? Should I trust him or run? I'd never had what you’d call a classically feminine figure, but there were probably plenty of bastards who wouldn’t care about that if they saw a naked, injured woman walking by the road. Most guys would probably want to help, but was it worth the risk?

Dammit! Okay, I told myself. Plan for it. If I saw a lone guy or a group of guys stop, I’d just run and try again once I lost them. If there was a woman in the car I’d have to risk it. Fine. Plan made.

I saw light up ahead. Proper light trickling in from outside. I sped up, reflexively falling into a pretty comfortable all-fours gait, eager for it all to be over and sure that I’d be back in a few weeks anyway. I saw the tall crack in the rock that led to salvation, the light blinding me as I approached. I passed through, blinking, and didn’t understand what I was seeing.

Between the high walls of the crack that led to the cave entrance, I could see a vast , rolling forest stretch out before me. The signs and the parking lot outside the cave were nowhere to be seen, and neither was the road. Instead I stood on a deep ledge above a steep cliff, a small stubborn tree and some hardy weeds my only companions. There was no way down. No easy way, at least. The cave I had entered was in the hills, sure, but there had been a forested plateau right outside it, with a road and all. This was high on a steep mountainside. I blinked, stupidly hoping that the bright sunlight was messing with my vision, and then sat down hard, taking my weight off my hands. That just made my butt hurt instead, and no wonder. I was naked, wasn’t I? I looked down at my legs and feet and…

Scaly black hide. Four toes on each foot, each with a curved claw coming out of the end. No, wait. Five toes. One was set so far to the side that I missed it at first. This little piggy went… what? I looked at my hands. Four fingers and a thumb, each one clawed. Thick hide on the palms and pads of the fingers. Scales like little black shields on the back and running up my arms to my shoulders, down my chest…

Huh.

Again, I never had much in the way of curves, and I was fine with that, but what little I’d had was gone. Instead I saw scales covering bulging muscle, and further down… no hair. I started to bring a hand down, then remembered the claws. Instead I bent forward, way too easily, and took a look. This confirmed that, yeah. No nothing. Okay. Oh, wow. I twisted to look at my back and saw more scales but, more importantly, I twisted my head all the way around and looked at my back. My neck was longer and let me turn my head far enough that I could just casually inspect my own butt, which might have been funny if not for the long tapering tail growing out of it and the two folded wings coming out below where my shoulder blades should be.

“What the… what is this…?” I stammered. It was all I could do. My voice was lower than I was used to, but richer and with a slight hiss to it. Still feminine though. Kind of smoky. They’d love this on Insta or Tik-Tok, I thought to myself, and started to laugh. Gently at first, then louder, more and more violently. I couldn’t stop myself. I was screaming hysterically with laughter, retching and hiccuping as I touched the snout extending from my face and the dumb little stubby horns growing out of my head. After a long time, out of breath and my stomach cramping, I started to calm down. My laughter slowly petered out, and then I felt the top of my head and realised that I had no hair there either.

“No more bad hair days!” I announced triumphantly to the vast, open sky before me, mad laughter taking over again until I collapsed on the ground, shaking with laughter, and then with tears.

I woke up. It was too hot. My scales were black. My scales. And I was lying in the sun. I got to my feet, all four of them, and crawled back into the cave to sleep and be miserable in the darkness, and maybe wake up somewhere better.

When I woke up the sun was rising above the forest, and I was thirsty. I was pretty sure that this wasn’t the next day. I dimly remembered waking, then going back to sleep, many times. Sometimes I’d cry a little, or a lot, before I slept. But now I was thirsty, thirstier than I could ever remember being. I dragged myself out of the cave and looked across the forest. There were breaks in the trees; small ones with rising smoke that could hold villages, but also large, wide ones where there might be lakes and narrow ones where there could be rivers. Far in the distance, right on the horizon, was the shimmer of something that might be a sea. Water. I desperately needed water.

I wasn’t sure if I’d died and this was hell, or if I was in a coma somewhere and this was all a dream, but I was not going to just give up and die. I looked at the mountainside. It was steep, but it wasn’t vertical. I should be able to climb down it, maybe even do a controlled slide near the bottom. I carefully found a hold, then immediately slipped as I stretched out my leg. I must have been weak from hunger. Luckily, I instinctively spread my wings and lashed my tail for balance, and managed to stabilise myself before I slid or fell. My wings. The two giant leathery things on my back.

If I call myself dumb enough times, I told myself, it might stop being true.

I got back on the ledge. I looked over the edge and decided that, if what I was about to try worked, great. If not… I wouldn’t be any worse off than I already was. Not a great thought, but it felt true. Then I spread my wings. It felt completely natural, almost like a second set of arms, and my body knew exactly what to do. I flapped them experimentally, and nothing much happened. I tried again, harder, and felt the weight on my limbs lessen. Deciding that I may as well go for it, I bent my legs and lifted my wings high. I took a deep, only somewhat shuddering breath. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I jumped and flapped hard at the same time, and I took off!

Of course I started to fall again immediately, but reflex and instinct knew what to do. In a moment I was beating my wings, almost lazily, hanging not at all stationary in front of the ledge. I was swerving all over the place, but I was flying. I was flying! With a scream of triumph I turned and dropped, locking my spread wings to glide. I swooped across the treetops revelling in the glorious feeling until I hit one of them with my wing, lost control, and smacked face first into a tall spruce. Or maybe a fir. Some kind of giant Christmas tree. I tumbled, crashing through the branches until I hit the ground.

That was three falls, this one with a high-speed collision. I was still alive, and still nothing was broken except my pride.

I decided that was enough flying, and started limping towards the nearest break in the trees. I had a pretty good idea about the direction, and in my experience you would usually come across brooks and streams here and there anyway in a forest. I heard birds singing and the occasional animal crashing or sneaking through the underbrush, and sometimes I thought I smelled something on the wind, but nothing bothered me. Being a giant winged lizard had that effect, I supposed. I still hadn’t put a name to what I was, though it was pretty obvious. I just hadn’t accepted it.

What I found when the trees broke was not a river, or even a stream. It was a road. To my right it crested a small rise, long, wide and slightly curved, with two tracks and some sparse grass and sometimes a brave sapling growing down the middle. The road showed signs of recent use. Even I could figure out that hoof-prints and wheel-tracks would disappear before too long. That meant people, and people meant help! But first I needed water. I knew that the road was here, and I could find it again easily. I would get some water, and then, once that was taken care of, I’d find some people. I wasn’t sure what I would do once I did, considering my new look, but I would have to take it one step at a time. Even getting stuck in a lab or a zoo was better than dying out there, alone.

I wasn’t sure anymore where the water might be, so I decided to give flying another shot. The trees grew thick and tall around me, so my best bet seemed to be to use the road as a runway. I found a stretch where the trees didn’t crowd in above it, then got into a sprinter’s stance – well, kind of. I had four legs now – and started running, hoping that the speed would give me some extra lift. When I was going as fast as I could I leapt and beat my wings, and it worked! One beat had me gliding above the road, another few brought me above the trees, and then I was speeding along just above their tops, birds scattering in panic and me having learned absolutely nothing.