I never knew my mother, or my father. I hatched out of a tiny egg in a shallow depression in a narrow stream, along with a couple hundred brothers and sisters, and several thousand cousins and other, farther distant relations. We hung around in the stream for almost six months, but then the water grew cold and every living thing within a mile of the stream suddenly decided we were the tastiest things on the menu.
So we turned downstream, following the call of some distant voice, and soon our stream joined another and we met up with more little brown fish searching for a better life. The streams grew larger and swifter and my little heart fluttered, my whole body quivering as we drew near something very important.
I didn't know what it was, or what it meant. One minute I was swimming along, the next I was falling, tumbling through a strange nothingness that stung my skin and made it hard to breathe. I hit the water so hard it hurt and the force drove me down into the gravel at the bottom. I couldn't move, pinned down by the thundering water. My wide eyes stared into a darkness behind the pounding water, and in that darkness I saw something that made my cold blood turn to ice.
Eyes, a dozen of them, reflecting the faint light, staring out at me from above wide jaws filled with needle-like teeth. They crawled forward on fins tipped with black claws, their long bodies covered in mud and slime. Needless to say, I panicked and managed to thrash my way free of the water's heavy hand.
After that, the trip downriver was a breeze. The channel drew deeper and wider and the water slowed to a comfortable pace. A few days later, we reached the sea. The water tasted awful! It stung my eyes and skin and we all lingered in the mouth of the river, wondering what we were supposed to do now. Heading back upstream was impossible, but so was venturing out into that horrible, salty sea. I felt betrayed, led astray by that distant voice. To make matters worse, I couldn't hear it anymore.
Hours passed and I began to notice changes in me, not the least of which being that my fins were changing from brown to gold. The saltwater didn't taste as bad, either. The fish that had arrived before us were starting to swim out into the bay. After a while, the voice called to me again, telling me that I was ready now. I swam out into the sea, and there I remained for ninety-nine and a half years.
It's spring now and I can hear that voice again, calling to me, not from the sea, but from the mountain stream where I was hatched. I'm old and I'm tired, my body nearly six feet long, my scales a deep, burnished gold, but I can't ignore that voice. I head for the river. Of the thousands of us who made it to the sea, only a handful answer the call now.
The freshwater stings me now, just like the saltwater did all those years ago, but I can't change back. I am a creature of the sea, and the river is killing me. I forge onward. I don't know why. I hurt, I want to rest, but I keep swimming. I don't have time to rest. The water rots my scales, flaking off the gold and leaving them grey. The deep, wide channel grows shallow and narrow, and my heart begins to pound.
I can hear the roar of the falling water, feel the froth on my aching skin. The river is so narrow. There's no room. We struggle and fight, filling the water with our skin, bits of our tattered fins. We're bleeding, dying, but the voice is stronger now, an urgent cry we can't ignore. Desperation sweeps through us. Time is running out.
Ahead of me, someone makes the first frantic leap out of the water. He falls short, vanishes into the churning water. We wait, watching for him to emerge, to rejoin us. A cloud of blood and bits of tattered flesh drift past and a vision from my fingerling nightmares emerges from the dust of time; the cave behind the water, filled with eyes, teeth, claws and slime. None of us will make it.
I can't take it anymore, the pain, the longing. I surge forward, I leap. Others leap with me. We fall back, tumbling, banging against the rocks. I can't do this. I leap again. Teeth rake down my side, strip the webbing from my fin. It doesn't matter. I have nowhere left to swim to. I leap. I don't understand, but I leap. The voice wouldn't call us without reason. It would not call us all this way, just to die. I have to know, I have to see what is so important. I leap, with all I have in me, with everything I have left.
The water claws at me, trying to drag me down, to pull me back. I thrash my tail, my side scraping across slick stone. Things inside me pop, tear. The water is dark with blood, my blood, but I have done it. I have leaped the water. The voice whispers to me, well done, my child.
I can't breathe. I lay on my side, the water too shallow to support me. I feel like I'm wrapped in something heavy and dead. It's revolting. I try to shrug it off, and my skin splits right down my spine. My heart pounds and I start to thrash, shoving the rotting flesh away from me. I scramble up onto the shore and stand on shaking legs. I turn my head and stare at my body, long and lean, the sun warm on new, glittery silver scales. I'm a dragon.
This is why we struggle, this is why we suffer. My heart sings as I turn my face toward the sun, and rise up into the sky.
------------------
Author's Note: I have this on other sites--GaiaOnline, StoryWrite, and my personal website--under different usernames, so if you recognize it from one of those place, I didn't steal it.
