A Drop of Ink | short stories

Fiery

Fiery

She hears the slurs from afar.

When he stops in front of her and addresses her from the side, she looks at him in confusion, not knowing what he wants from her. He must mistake it for naivete, for he looks her up and down for an agonizing second before the words burst out of his filthy mouth.

They hit her like a slap and an unwanted, unwelcome feeling seeps through her. She doesn't know what to do. What to say. Just stares at him as if not believing what she just heard. But he repeats them, louder this time for everyone to hear.

Her heartbeat races as heat creeps up her neck and onto her cheeks. A mixture of anger and sickness rises inside of her, but still she feels helpless, stumped and there's no salvation in sight.

She looks away, tries to ignore it, but the feeling of humiliation is there, the disgust. She tries not to let it faze her, tries to keep her hands from shaking and the nerves from showing. Crying in front of this stranger would only make him feel more powerful.

She closes her eyes, takes a breath and whispers a foreign word almost as only to herself, almost like a mantra. But it's so much more than that.

Something stirs. From between the tresses of her hair, a tiny creature emerges. The leathery band against her throat reveals itself as not a necklace, but a scaly tail as the little beast's head pokes through her hair.

Serpentine eyes fix onto the man in a menacing stare as the fiery creature moves on her shoulder. He gawks at it, as if he can't decide whether he's dreaming or having an alcohol-induced hallucination. The dragon smiles a predatory grin as it sizes up its prey.

She whispers something again, another foreign word, a command and the dragon blows smoke through its nostrils, takes a deep breath and the stranger goes up in flames right in front of her eyes.

She smiles as the fire heats her face and scratches her dragon's head.

Have fun in hell, she thinks to herself.