Hatched

2. Nicolas and Aly

Chapter Two

Nicolas and Aly

“Are you going to help me at all, or are you just going to pretend that you can’t see me, huh?” a strange voice asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

I glanced at the stranger who had fallen on top of me earlier, realising that he was conscious. He was speaking in Draconian dialect, and I was kind of relieved that he was a warden like me.

It started raining, and the cold wind ruffled my hair. The shell of the egg didn’t seem damaged in any way, but warmth wasn’t radiating from it anymore. I truly hoped that the creature inside was all right. The fall we took was pretty dramatic.

A very good-looking warden, who was still spread on the ground, was staring directly at me. He had brown hair cut close to his skull and vibrant purple-coloured eyes. I was just about to ask him about his class status when a strange vehicle sped past him, blinding me for a second.

“Get off the street, you moron!” a loud voice shouted. I didn’t recognise that man’s accent. It was oddly sharp. I could understand the insult, but I instantly knew that he wasn’t magical. I backed away towards the houses while my heart thundered in my chest. A wave of unease tightened inside my stomach.

The world around me started spinning, and my heart continued to race. I knew that this had nothing to do with the fall. It was just another stupid panic attack. I shut my eyes, waiting for it to pass. I kept trying to control the overwhelming anxiety, when another person walked past me.

The woman was a complete stranger, and she was very young, maybe in her teens. She glanced at the male warden lying on the ground and sped up. I guessed that she wasn’t planning to help us. Another vehicle drove by. I saw a man behind the wheel, staring at us and shaking his head.

I wanted to disappear from this strange world, find the way home, back to Draconia. Maybe this was just a dream and I hadn’t woken up yet. Even the air in this world smelled different. It was almost smoky and tasted salty like something had been burning for a very long time. There were terrace houses opposite and behind me, each one similar, but some had different doors and windows.

“Hey… warden girl. Help me out. I’m in pain. Someone stabbed me,” the same annoying voice repeated.

I took a deep breath and told myself that I couldn’t let my anxiety get to me now. The warden needed my help. He was bleeding badly, and he looked pale.

“We have to get you off the street first,” I muttered, and he nodded. Once I pulled him a bit closer to the curb, the knot inside my stomach began to unfold. He smiled at me and I thought the dimples in his cheeks were cute and I noticed he had very white teeth. He was dressed in a leather jacket, trousers and heavy black boots. I couldn’t tell if he was from a higher class or not, because in this world, all my senses were working backwards. And the tingling around my whole body wasn’t helping either.

I didn’t think that moving him was such a good idea after all, because a second later, he screamed, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He was out cold, so I leaned over to check his pulse. It was faint—he was still alive. A pool of blood was beginning to form around him, and it made me a little sick. Panic erupted, seizing the air in my lungs. This warden was in very bad shape and I had no idea how to help him. There wasn’t anyone else around, no more pedestrians, and even if there were, I doubted any of them would help based on the looks we had been getting. I glanced around in desperation, seeing lights shining from inside some of the houses.

Touching the unconscious warden, I began slapping him gently on the cheek and thinking about any kind of useful spell that might help him. The truth was that I had no idea what I was doing. The magic that I had sensed earlier was gone. Blood pounded in my ears. I didn’t want to think about the worst thing that could happen, but my overwhelming anxiety was slowly paralysing me. This warden was going to die here if I didn’t find a way to help him soon.

Several more vehicles in strange shapes and sizes drove past us. Time was running out. Hundreds of questions were rushing through my head when I heard a noise. Maybe the God of the Lower World, Qesborth, finally heard my prayers, because seemingly out of nowhere, a gentle voice spoke to me.

“Come on, dear. Let’s take this boy inside. I saw everything, and I think he needs medical attention. We cannot call an ambulance; they would send us to a mental institution.”

I looked down, and saw an older lady. She was smiling at me, touching my hand. She was talking in the same strange dialect as the man in the car. She was in a robe and slippers. The door to one of the houses behind me was wide open. The smell of roast beef wafted into the air. There were more oddly shaped vehicles on the road, and a man walked past us, picking up his pace. It baffled me that no one else was willing to help.

Ambulance? Mental institution? I had no idea what the old woman was talking about, but I was too scared to ask any questions. The older lady looked like someone that my dead friend, Dara, would have trusted, so I was willing to follow my gut.

Seconds later, the strange warden stirred back to a conscious state and smiled like he had taken magical opium.

“Hey, beautiful, you’re the woman for me. Will you date me? I think we would make a cute couple,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. I didn’t expect this old lady to carry him, so I hooked my arms beneath his shoulders and helped him to stand.

“Come on, we have to get out of here in case the Dark Ones followed us,” I hissed in his ear. “Lady, please, take my sack. There is something really important inside.”

She nodded and struggled to lift the egg for a bit. I didn’t know how, but he managed to walk with me supporting him. The bastard was heavy, but he smelled heavenly. His scent was musky, manly, like ground spices and a crackling fire—his breath was close to my skin, touching me.

I wondered what the heck was wrong with me. This was definitely not the time to start feeling aroused.

“This way, my children, this way,” the older lady said. I didn’t know how, but several minutes later we managed to make it inside her house.

She shut the door behind her and told me to head over to the first room on the right. It was a bedroom with a well-made bed and a small bedside table.

“You’re so beautiful,” the injured warden asked when I gently placed him on the bed.

He smiled widely and then passed out a moment later. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, noticing blood soaking through his shirt.

“I think we should remove his clothes. He’s bleeding,” I said to the older lady. She placed the sack on the floor and nodded. She wasn’t a warden; she had no magic inside of her. I could instantly sense the emptiness in my core when I was standing so close to her and it’s wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I just wasn’t used to being around someone that didn’t radiate with any kind of magical energy. It was a rather bizarre sensation, and kind of scary.

She made me curious and I wondered why she decided to help us.

“Good call, dear. Take off his clothes and I will bring some warm water and bandages,” she told me, vanishing into the narrow corridor.

Deep down, I wanted to believe that the warden was going to survive, but in any case, I knew that I had to fight for him. He might know the way back to Draconia—the only person who understood what was going on here. I wouldn’t want to stay in this world for longer than I had to. I truly wanted to return and let others know about the lies that the Dark Ones were spreading.

I removed his leather jacket first, aware that he was losing a hell of a lot of blood. He was warm, almost feverish. I felt his magic zooming beneath my fingers when I checked his pulse. I bit my lip and then prayed to our God to spare him. I just didn’t want to be alone in this strange world. He moaned loudly when I turned him on his front, but didn’t open his eyes. My thoughts were still racing, and I was itching to grab the band on my wrist. I needed to flick it fast to push away the mounting fear, the suffocation that I was beginning to experience. I had no idea where I was, or if other wardens and Dark Ones were still after me. The dragon egg was next to the bed.

I grabbed a knife on the bedside table and decided to cut off his shirt, tossing the damp material to the side. I had to find a way to stop the bleeding. There was a large open wound around his ribcage. I ignored how perfectly ripped his stomach was and tried not to notice the muscles of his chest. It was all irrelevant, but when I began to remove his leather pants, my chest vibrated.

“We need to clean the wound first and stitch him up,” the old lady said, suddenly entering the room. “You look exhausted, child. Why don’t you get some sleep? I will take care of him. I used to work as a nurse.”

She placed a bowl of warm water on the bedside table. I stared at her for a second, wanting to ask her who she was and what kind of world I ended up in, but thought better of it. None of this was relevant at the moment. She could help him, and I needed to let her work.

“I want to do what I can,” I mumbled, and she nodded, handing me a wet towel. Later on, I learned that her name was Alyson, Aly for short, and she knew exactly what she needed to do. I kept watching her with fascination, amazed at her medical skills.

“I saw you landing on the asphalt, but you couldn’t have fallen from the sky; otherwise you would have been dead by now,” Aly said, after she was done with his stitches. “Some kind of magical portal opened up and that’s where you came from. The handsome stranger fell through the portal straight after you. It wasn’t a pretty picture.”

I assumed that she was pretty old, but her hands weren’t even shaking while she was using the needle. I smoothed his hair, hoping that he didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t know how to respond. It was better if I kept my mouth shut for now. The woman was a complete stranger and I didn’t know if I could trust her. Moments later, when I was nearly falling asleep by his bed, she touched me.

“Come on, let’s go. He’s sleeping now, and you need a nightcap, dear,” she said, smiling at me. “You can tell me everything that happened to you tomorrow.”

I followed her to another room. Her house didn’t seem very big. There was a living room and small kitchen. Everything was cluttered, and it just seemed dated, like the old lady hadn’t changed any of the furniture in the house in at least a decade, maybe even two. In Draconia, wealthy wardens had money to buy antiques, and I suspected that the stuff in her house would be worth a fortune in my world. She nudged me, holding a glass filled with clear liquid.

It smelled strong, and I wasn’t sure if drinking it was such a good idea, but at the same time, I wanted to forget about the events of the day. The darkness was zooming inside of me like invisible demons, latching onto my emotions, and I wanted to ease the tight feeling in my chest.

“Cheers. I think we both deserve it. We have seen way too much blood for one evening,” Aly said, lifting the glass and then drinking the whole thing. I watched her, a little lost, but then followed her example. It was some kind of alcohol that burned my throat and made me instantly warm. Soon the tension around my shoulders began to fade. Then straight after, everything suddenly felt better. She poured me another glass, then another. Sometime later, I was drifting away, seeing Dara standing next to me and shaking her head.

I felt rough when I woke up the next day and slowly opened my eyes. Sunlight was streaming into the room and it hurt my eyes. I didn’t recognise my surroundings. The room smelled of fresh detergent and mint. It was different, pleasant, but not something that I was used to.

I was lying down on an old leather sofa in front of the fireplace, covered with a soft blanket. My head was pounding as I tried to remember what had happened to me last night.

I stretched my arms over my head, looking around. I felt like I was stuck in another era; there were a lot of small figurines scattered around and various papers on the corner table. I placed my fingers on the side of my head and started massaging it, hoping to get rid of the agonising pain, when someone walked into the room, startling me.

“Good morning, dear. I thought that I would bring you some breakfast,” Aly said, appearing in the doorway with a tray.

She smiled and placed it on the table in front of me. Then everything suddenly came back. I was being chased by the Dark Ones on the streets of Draconia. I remembered the dragon egg and the crack in the wall.

“The egg, where is my egg?” I asked, jumping to my feet, not seeing my sack anywhere.

“The large gold thing? Don’t worry, sweetie pie. It’s in the room with that poor fellow. Come on, sit down and drink your tea. You need a little time out for a while,” she urged me, placing her hand on my arm and then pushing me down.