Page 1 of Pierce

1

Pierce

It wasthe silence that startled me into wakefulness.

Not that life in a cave was ever truly silent. There was always noise somewhere, the constant flow of life through what only appeared as cold, dead, lifeless rock to the untrained eye.

Yes, the rock could be quite cold. But it lived. It shifted, it creaked. Thousands of years of rain and snow had worked their way into the cracks and crevices.

Patient, so patient, chipping away over time until a network of veins ran through the mountains and filled the tunnels long since carved with the echoes of dripping and trickling. In the winter, the water froze and swelled and strained, and the rock groaned in protest. There was never complete silence.

Even so, compared to what I and the rest of my family heard every minute of the day, the ambient noise was deafeningly quiet. There had never been a day of my life when I didn’t hear the heartbeat of my clan resonating from deep in the core of the planet.

It was the rhythm of my existence and had been for a millennium. Dragon heartbeats. But now, the sound was gone.

Not softer, not drowned out by some other noise.

Simply gone.

The dragon within me questioned this, instincts on full alert. I had learned to listen to those instincts.

Even so, my immediate assumption was that the problem was with me. That there was something “off” with my senses.

Granted, it would be the first time, but there wasn’t exactly a rulebook for our lives. There was no telling what might happen to someone like me. I told my inner dragon to listen for even the faintest trace of a beat before I climbed out of bed in search of answers.

At first glance, my suite of rooms could be mistaken for a luxury suite at any fine hotel—granted, I was only basing my assessment on what I’d seen on television and in movies, but I felt it was a fair one.

The major difference was the lack of windows, naturally, but the lighting both in my suite and throughout the maze of tunnels carved into the mountain were fitted with sensors which automatically brightened and dimmed the brightness according to the time of day.

It provided the illusion of living in the outside world, at least. Something I hadn’t done since we left the original clan. I wasn’t sure what existing in almost constant darkness would’ve done to my psyche over a century or two. And luckily, I didn’t have to.

Not that we never left the caves—in fact, I’d be leaving today. It was my turn to drive into town for supplies later that afternoon. Still, being able to open a window and get a feel for the day’s weather was a small luxury I’d taken for granted prior to moving to our subterranean home.

The touchscreen display screen installed inside the door to my bedroom told me what I needed to know, but there was nothing like finding out for myself.

It was a cool day, and rain was predicted. I would have to keep that in mind while dressing. Granted, even very cold weather had little effect on me. I was a walking furnace.

I used the touchscreen to access my music library and turned on a little old-school Metallica to get me started and drive away the anxiety which was slowly wrapping gripping me.

Still, no matter how loud or driving the song, I couldn’t shake the feeling of there being something wrong.

The lack of a steady beat in my head reminded me of the time the generator failed and plunged the caves into darkness for a short while.

The generator’s buzz was something I had grown just as accustomed to as I had the ever-present beating of the hearts of my dragon kin.

Hearing that beat was my connection to the rest of the clan, even though we were thousands of miles apart.

I showered quickly, in a hurry by then to check in with my family. It was Cash’s turn to guard the cave, which meant he had been up through the night. He’d be able to tell me when the beats ceased—if they had at all for anyone but me.

I dressed in a tee and jeans, my normal uniform, and slid into trainers before grabbing a zippered sweatshirt and leaving the suite.

It was early, barely dawn, but I liked getting an early start. I only felt accomplished when I did so, even though there wasn’t much to accomplish for any of us.

We had our particular jobs, but none of them took up much time. Mine was to be sure the generator was running smoothly, and the backup power was in place—we had learned that lesson the hard way back when the lights went out, and we were left with nothing to do but light candles and try to fix the problem.

My only other responsibility besides taking my turn at guarding the cave was keeping stock of our supplies and driving out to purchase them.

That wasn’t what was on my mind when I began the trek out to the mouth of the cave. It was a long walk through a maze of corridors I had committed to memory centuries earlier. Like a map inside my head.

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