LUCKY

I hate the smell of fire. Not many good things are associated with it anymore. In the Old Times, my family used to go camping a lot. I remember roasting marshmallows and bits of meat over the open flame, but those sweet memories hardly cross me anymore. During my most recent encounters with fire, friends got scorched alive by sixty-foot dragons. If there's one thing I've learned since the apocalypse started, it's that trauma smells like burnt flesh.

"Hey, Lucky. Do you want to go mud fishing with the boys later?"

I look away from the firepit and smile at Ron. He's a nice guy, and he has been crushing on me since I joined this Colony. I guess I should feel lucky. Ron is one of the strongest young men around— thin and tall; standing at a proud one-hundred and thirty pounds, which is a lot for men nowadays. He's a good hunter; an excellent bachelor, but I'm not searching for a husband like most of the twenty-something year old girls left on Earth.

Honestly? I'm not sure what I'm searching for. The only thing I know is that it's not warming a man's bed so he can protect me from the dragons that want to warm me to a crisp.

I do my own hunting; my own surviving. Mom used to joke that I'm practically a boy since I keep my hair cropped short, use precious beauty magazines from the Old Times to wipe my ass, and no longer get my menstrual cycles due to malnutrition.

"No, thanks. I'm taking Daisy to collect plants."

My sister is undoubtedly a girl. She dresses like one and hell; she smells like one too. I'm often running so much that I smell like a pig's sty.

Daisy has always stuck to more passive hobbies, like collecting plants. Lately she's been checking out mushrooms, but since they're far from the Colony, she asks me to escort her. My sister is a big baby, but she's my big baby. Daisy is a wingless angel in a world full of flying demons.

I walk between the rails, passing families gathered together inside trains and on corners of train stations. It's cold and dirty down here, but it's less gloomy than usual it's Christmas time. Us humans always celebrate traditions and holidays . They're a trace of who we used to be.

I step over rotten cardboards and hop onto the platform. Kids are spraying graffiti on the brick wall ahead of me, but no one cares. No adult has enough energy to scold them. We're a missed meal away from starvation.

Commotion up ahead makes me pick up my pace. Bursts of sunlight illuminate my way to a group of adults that are bickering and becoming louder with every insult.

"Hey," I nudge Tink, my close friend. "What's going on?"

She sighs, and I worry. Tink lost too much weight this winter. She's skin and bones.

"They took one down," she answers.

I lead her away from the angry crowd to hear her better.

"Took what down?"

"A dragon, Lucky. They hunted one!"

Impossible. Dragons can't be hunted. In the twenty-eight years since they swarmed our planet, the only thing we've learned is that they can shift two-and-from a human form. Although they look like us, we are water and vinegar; completely different in nature.

The dragons are evil, just like humans were when they were alone. It's like there's a curse that falls on whoever rules the planet.

"But... where is it?"

"Fifteen stops down. The problem is that they're not sure what to do with it. Some want to... to eat it."

I cringe. Eat a dragon? That's disgusting, specially since they look so human in their weaker forms.

While I can see why eating one would empower some, make us feel like we're on the top of the food chain again, pride is a thing of the past. We can only afford to be humble now.

Hearing enough of the situation, I decide to look for Daisy. We need to relocate to another part of the subway system today. There's too much activity and bad news in this Colony.

Daisy won't like this. She always makes the mistake of getting attached to others. This is why I'm the one that keeps us alive, and she's the one that keeps us human.

"Have you seen my sister?" I ask Tink.

"Um... yeah. Sorry, Lucky, but she was around when they killed the dragon. Last time I saw her, she was down there."

Fuck!

I jog away. It will take me hours to walk fifteen train stops, but there's no other way. I need to drag Daisy away from that mess.

I stop by our train cart to pick up my backpack, and then I'm on the move. Luckily, there are still many hours of sunlight ahead. Many puddles, swarms of rats, and leering men later, I'm only half-way there. Time is running out. I'll need to take a shortcut, even if that means going to the surface.

I enter a train and grab the poles inside until I'm on top of it. There's a hole above that leads directly to the street.

"You must be crazy," a lone traveler warns me as he watches me struggle to climb out of our underground world.

Maybe I am crazy. I haven't been on the surface in two years, but for Daisy, I would dive into the mouth of a Dragon.

"Don't go. There's been too many dragon sightings this week," he warns me.

I ignore the man and grab onto chipped concrete to drag myself outside. I look up. There are no dragons, just pillars of how magnificent humanity used to be. I'm in Times Square, New York City. The buildings have shattered windows and fire damage, billboards now have washed-out colors like oil paintings, cars have been broken into by hungry scavengers, and plants have reclaimed the land.

There's still a haunting beauty to it all. I thought I would only see something like this in movies, but here I am. The main character of my horror novel.

I snap out of my trace and run across the street with my eyes on the skies. In the Old Times, I never paid much mind to the blue above us. I used to think it was pretty; that was it. Now, I'm terrified of the color.

There are no dragons in sight, but that doesn't make me feel very safe. They're complex, brilliant creatures with enhanced eyesight and scent. They're angry, too. They're always angry.

The sky blinks, and I drop to the ground.

Fuck. No.

I hear the flapping of huge sails— the one and only warning you're given that these things are coming.

My body warms, as if I'm already engulfed in his flame. I'm pressed tightly against the side of a car, but I know he can smell me. I'll need to enter a building. I need to scurry underground somehow.

I need to find my sister!

I can't see the dragon above, but I'm not waiting around for him to find me. With a deep breath— one that may be my last, I abandon my bag, tighten my muscles, and I make a mad dash for the nearest entrance.

I'm reminded of the roaches my family used to have in our apartment in the Old Times— always crawling from one side of the apartment to another, hiding in stubborn corners that no shoe can reach. I've become what I used to be disgusted by. I'm Lucky the Roach.

THUD.

The ground shakes so violently that the world jerks and I fall. I'm jarred by the beast in front of me. His scales are red, but his base skin is black like what remains of the towns he scorched.

I scramble to my knees. I'm not dying here.

Running is proved useless when a wing knocks me down and pins me to the ground. This move surprises me, because dragons rarely expose their wings when they're on the ground. They're protective of them.

My heart is at my throat, ready to jump out and abandon the rest of my body. The sick part of it all, though, is that my eyes won't blink or close. I'm mesmerized by the death that's about to be executed, even if it's my own.

The thing lowers its head. It smells like sulfur; ready to combust.

He has teeth the size of pillows, two long nostrils, golden eyes, and red spikes for hair. His looks alone are enough to give a weaker person a heart attack. He can kill without lifting a talon.

My eyes tear, but I produce nothing. I won't give him a scream, cry, or plea. I've already given these monsters enough.

His head is a foot away now. He turns his head to examine me with a single eye that's the size of a human fist. My brown eyes stare at that golden iris, and I tighten my bladder to keep myself from pissing.

He stares back, cool and collected, against his fiery and manic nature.

He turns his head, so his nostrils face me, and I prepare myself for fire. Instead of my flesh melt from my bones, all I feel is blows of air as the monster... sniffs me?

He knows I'm human, so why is he smelling me? This is another behavior that isn't normal. Another human would have been killed by now.

What makes me different?