Written By Aarav Mehta (Grade 8)
THUD! The stalactite shattered in front of me. A colony of disgruntled bats swarmed into eternal darkness. Scores of rocks cracked apart. I scraped my hands on the rugged walls of the labyrinth. My knees turned to jelly. I trudged with weary legs and a scrawny face, slower than a sloth. The air was thick and salty, concentrated with ashes. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, a silhouette moved. My hair stood up like lamp-posts on a street. Peril was approaching. I crawled into a crevice at the cutting wind speed. I halted exhausted leaning on the wall. The ominous silence lurked around. From the corner of my eye, the blinding light unveiled a sepulchral wide opening. Out emerged a mythical-winged creature. High – pitched cries wobbled the Earth beneath. The cave gasped and belched the dangled rocks.
All of a sudden, a coruscating refracted light illuminated the room. A colossal gleaming diamond lay embedded upon the floor. The gargantuan dragon circumnavigated thrice before lurching upon it. I prowled as a bullet-train to seize the diamond, but a futile effort. The slumbered dragon exerted an impenetrable force onto it. I pulled the tip of the diamond. The diamond was out of the clutches, but a whack knocked me down. My extrasensory perception signalled that I am being spied. Grunt! He leapt into the air, spread his wings, and seized me with its claws. I stood like a feeble puppet and wiggled like a worm gasping for breath. balancing the rope of life and death. The dragon opened his mouth wide threatening with hundreds of serrated blades etched into it. I sniffed the effluvium fire brewing in its chest.
I jabbed the dragon hard on his eye. It released from its grasp. I fled sprinting and staggering my way out. My knee throbbed aggressively. Upon his tail, a frenzy inferno demolished all that crossed its path. I slid into the crevice and scurried past several corridors sometimes veering right, sometimes left. The incessant rumbling and the collapsing boulder deafened my ears. I sprinted nonchalantly ramming my head into a rock. It was a dead end. I turned around to hear a final rumble before its intimidating face peaked up from the crack and gawked at me. Crossed my fingers, as ‘dragons have brawn but not the brain’. I sprinted towards it, and it opened its mouth. I jumped over its head and leapt into the abyss. I plummeted 30 feet into a pool of water. My excruciating pain submerged and I sprinted past a few corridors, the dragon was out of sight. A gleaming white light illuminated my eyes as I leapt out of the perilous cave, blinking intermittently. I heard a loud growl and the thud of crashing rocks. Alas! The gleaming diamond, a swashbuckler and entombed silence lingered in the air.
Originally published in Robinage
Featured Image Courtesy – Microsoft
Great fun reading
Very well written !! Keep writing
Mesmerised by the storytelling and the imaginary world that is creatively crafted in this short story.. Hard to believe that it written by an 8th Grader… Great writing Aarav, will surely check your future work.
A must read, for a quick getaway into a short, yet captivating imaginary world…