Lost Change

Chapter 8

I flew aimlessly for an hour or so - it was a warm summer evening, and the air was hot enough around me that I felt I could fly for hours. Or it was a winter evening, and this place was just nice and warm all year round. Either way, the evening air was fun to glide through.

I didn't really have any idea of where to go, other than away from that building, and flying free through the outside air just felt right. Even my headache cleared a little as I flew, though the dull pain never entirely went away. The sunlight was fading, but there was still more than enough to see the world with.

The building was on the outskirts of a city - or rather, the outskirts of what was left of a city. From the air I could make out buildings in the distance, growing closer together as they got farther from the lab, and if I squinted enough I could see hints of skyscrapers beyond them. All of the buildings showed signs of damage - scorch marks, walls missing, shattered windows. There were other signs of damage as I flew - giant sections of street missing, electric poles fallen over and trailing wires across the ground, cars crashed into each other. It had also been done some time ago - there were signs of burst pipes, but there was no water coming out of them. No electricity sparked around the downed power lines. No street lights glowed in a vain attempt to direct traffic. The 'blood' of the city had all run out in the time since the disaster, and now there was nothing left to bleed out of the wounds.

Whatever disaster had occurred, it hadn't been limited to the building I had woken up in.

I had a sinking feeling as I saw more of the city. Ever since I had listened to the recording I had begun holding out a faint hope that whatever had happened in the lab had been intentionally done to it. That somebody had found out about what was taking place inside it and tried to put a stop to it - maybe some of the other subjects had escaped, maybe the scientist in the recording had been wrong and they had kept enough memories, and they had found help somehow. It wouldn't explain why the building had been abandoned... but it would still mean somebody out there was aware of what had been done to me, and might be willing to help me. Maybe even mean that others like me were still out there.

But this...

This much destruction was clearly not related to the lab. It was simply too great. This was not a strike against a few horrendous criminals performing illegal experiments.

This city had been caught in a war.

As I glided over more streets, I found more signs of a battle. Mangled metal on one street in the shape of a fighter jet, all that remained after a crash. A tank knocked on its side. Firearms abandoned randomly. Empty uniforms, left crumpled on the ground like the various outfits I had come across in the lab.

And no sign of any people. No rescuers searching through the crashed cars. No looters recovering the abandoned clothes and supplies. No survivors wandering aimlessly through the streets in shock.

No sign of any other dragonets.

I was alone.

Whoever had been in this city had clearly tried to put up a fight, but had just as clearly lost that fight. Horribly. I glided along in silence, too unnerved by the stillness to even want to risk disturbing it with a flap of my wings.

At best, whoever lived here had been driven away. Forced to retreat, forced to flee. Maybe they were refugees somewhere now; maybe they were preparing for a counterattack against whoever had done this. But the awful suddenness... all the crashed cars... the items simply left where they had fallen, some of them seeming to be ones that would be extremely valuable... the abandoned clothes... the more I saw, the more certain I was that everyone here had simply been wiped out.

I broke the silence with a soft warble of distress, then banked to fly away from the city. I couldn't stand to see any more of it.

I flew for a little longer before the sun set. I had worried it would be dark - without any lights in the city, I wasn't sure how I would see - but I had to stop and hover in surprise at just how bright the night became.

Stars shone brilliantly without any light from the ground to compete with. They winked into view as the sun's light faded, as if they had been waiting with excitement at their chance to shine. Hundreds, thousands of them, stretched out in every direction around me as I slowly flapped my wings.

I still couldn't remember much... but I knew I had never seen a view of the stars as pretty as this one. Maybe it was the lack of light from the city. Maybe my new body's eyes were better able to pick them out of the background than human eyes had been. Maybe being higher up in the air gave me a better view somehow. The reason didn't matter - the night sky was alive with their lights.

I wondered how much brighter it would become when the moon rose. I didn't see it anywhere at the moment, which made me wonder if it was a new moon tonight. I hoped not. It would be nice to see it among all these stars.

I continued flying back towards the outskirts of the city and gradually began to remember things. Little flickers of memory - a gas station that seemed familiar, a street intersection that brought a sense of frustration. I dropped closer to the streets and flew slower, trying to follow the subtle familiarities.

Some instinct told me to turn left onto another street, and I followed it. The buildings looked more like homes here, spaced apart with overgrown lawns surrounding them. I continued onwards until I felt the sense that I should turn again. I followed that feeling down three more streets, then followed it into a driveway.

I landed on an overgrown lawn and looked up at a small, simple home. It had scorch marks along the roof as if something had caught fire there, and the tree in the yard was nothing but branches, but... I recognized it, even with my fragmented memories.

This place had been my home.