Draconic Amnesty

Prologue

January 2, 2002

Elias stumbled and crashed into the snow, his feet tingling as if they’d fallen asleep. Jimmy, his best friend, thudded into something, likely the triple-decker snowman they’d spent all of yesterday building. No one moved for several seconds.

Elias rolled onto his back and squinted. The shadow — there had been a shadow — no longer shielded his eyes from the dawn’s light. Aside from the miniature clouds formed by his rapid exhalations, the winter sky was clear.

The tingling sensation dissipated. Disoriented, he rose and shook his head. His shaggy hair, hardened with lingering moisture from a hasty shower, didn’t move much. But he did.

He darted over to Jimmy and pulled him from the snowman’s chest cavity. Jimmy stood, wobbled, and collapsed just before a carrot-nosed head slid from its damaged perch and crumpled onto the ground. The snowman’s eye, a ping pong ball painted black with permanent marker, rolled a short distance.

“What happened?” Jimmy sat upright, then rubbed his left cheek with a mittened hand. 

“I don’t know.” Elias knelt and brushed powdery clumps from Jimmy’s gray jacket and short hair. “You alright?”

Jimmy blinked a few times and swallowed. His mouth hung partway open on his freckled face. “I feel shaky.”

“Me too.” Digging his boots into the slush, Elias braced himself and pulled Jimmy to his feet, not an easy task given his friend’s weight. Although they attended the same third grade classes, Jimmy was a year older and significantly heavier.

“I lost control of my body.” Jimmy stared at his jittery hands. “My legs stopped moving. It felt like when I stuck a paper clip into the outlet.”

Elias’s navy parka and frayed jeans were undamaged, but he winced as he bent his right arm. He’d landed on his elbow. “I’m goin’ to tell Mom. You ok?”

“I’ll be alright, I think.” Jimmy batted snow from his clothing. “I’ll go ask my dad what that was.”

Elias nodded and took off across Jimmy’s front yard toward his own house. Although the unusual shadow no longer carpeted his path, the air reeked — a smell of burning wires. The porch and ceiling fan lights, the latter visible through the living room window, were dark.

He threw open his front door, slammed it shut and flew up the stairs. “Mom, what was tha —”

Taylor, wearing her pink coat and rainbow scarf, waited for him on the faded sofa. She’d managed to put on her single boot — the color of which matched the trickle of blood from her left nostril. However, the thin crimson line on her upper lip didn’t surprise him as much as her closed eyes and her expressionless face.

She wasn’t smiling.

He dove to her side and gently shook her shoulders. “Taylor, wake up.” After sweeping the amber locks from her face, he wiped her nose with his hand. There wasn’t much blood, probably nothing serious.

Using forefinger and thumb, he pried her right eyelid open. Her eyes, though still blue-green, lacked something he’d never seen missing in his little sister.

That didn’t matter. He blinked to clear his vision. He just needed to attach her leg, like he should have done earlier.

“Sorry I was gone for a few minutes, Taylor.” He inverted the prosthetic liner and rolled it over her leg until it passed her knee, ensuring no bubbles were present. “We’re going to the creek again today. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

He lifted her right hand. They held hands a lot when traveling outside; she insisted on it and, in spite of the Jimmy’s teasing, he didn’t mind.

So when her hand was lifeless and limp instead of warm and soft, when his touch evoked no reaction, when the most energetic person in the world refused to acknowledge his presence, his stomach twisted into a knot, his face drained of heat, and his heart beat faster — as if a ghostly entity laid claim to his organs and squeezed.

He ran into the hazy kitchen and dropped down beside his mother. Broken china — shards and slivers, black, like beetles and leeches — littered the pale linoleum.

“Mom!” He tugged at her arm. “Wake up.”

His mother’s eyes fluttered, then opened. “Elias?” She sat up and looked around, surveying the damage.

“Mom…” He swallowed the brick of discomfort in his throat. “Taylor…something’s wrong.”

His mom’s hazel eyes widened. She bolted upright, her shoes crunched glass, and she lurched into the living room.

“Baby, wake up.” His mother’s panicked voice carried into the kitchen.

With everything blurry, he staggered into the living room while his mother, a registered nurse, administered CPR to his sister on the carpet. She had her phone out, but it was dead.

The TV was dead.

The lights were dead.

“My baby!” His mother’s voice cracked as she continued the chest compressions.

The room tilted and swayed until he dropped onto his knees, landing beside a stuffed animal. He picked it up.

It was Izzy, Taylor’s frayed but favorite teddy bear. He’d given her the toy for her fourth birthday, two years ago. She rarely went anywhere without it. She’d likely haul it outside again today, its pink fur in stark contrast to the alabaster snow.

His mother screamed.

Taylor wouldn’t want Izzy laying on the ground like that. She’d want to hug Izzy when she woke up, a big gap-toothed grin on her face.

The scream morphed into a cacophony of choked sobs and guttural wails.

Curious how wetness tickled his cheeks, something that usually only happened when he was sad. Why should I feel sad? Taylor’s only sleeping.

She’d embrace Izzy soon; she’d help rebuild the snowman soon; she’d hold his hand again soon.

She’d wake up…

At that moment, some things came back to life: the ceiling fan whirred, a kitchen appliance beeped, and the VCR blinked twelve o’clock.