Double Dragon Read online

  During the remainder of the flight, I kept mostly to myself. Thomas and William were deep in discussion, but always kept their distance so that none of us could overhear them. There were a few occasions when I tried to inch closer to them, but when I did, they noticed and stopped talking or changed the subject. Vincent and Duncan were sharing old war stories, and since they were much better company I spent most of my time with them. They were comparing scars and seemed to take delight in boasting about the times they had been wounded.

  I listened intently and wished that I had more of a career so that I could engage with them. I could only offer small scars that had been gained by scraping against tight spaces, not from being chased by wild animals or being held at knifepoint by wild-eyed natives.

  “You’ll get there,” Duncan said. “I can tell that you’ve got your parents’ spirit,” he said. Duncan had known my parents briefly. He’d never worked with them, but he’d met them at various functions. “They were two of the best. They were born in the wrong era, I think. They should have been living when the world was new, when there was still most of it to explore. I can imagine that part of the appeal for Dragon Island was for them to be the first.”

  “Did they ever tell you how they heard about it?” I asked.

  “Oh no, we were never that close, and if they didn’t tell you then I can’t imagine they’d have told anyone else. There were always rumors though…people always spoke of some mythical island from Earth’s past, not that that’s anything new. People always like a good mystery. Everyone was surprised when your parents found it though. I’m just surprised it’s taken this long for anyone to mount an expedition.”

  “I’ve always wondered that myself,” I said.

  “There was one man who tried to get one going,” Vincent said, “Have you heard of Antoine Pedretti?”

  Duncan and I nodded, recognizing one of the most notable names in the modern archaeological world.

  “Well,” Vincent continued, shifting his position, “he was trying to get one going, this was about ten years ago. He had put out feelers for people to join him. I was one of the first he asked, and it’s why I was so quick to accept your invitation, since I missed out on it all those years ago.”

  “What happened?” I asked. Duncan and I leaned in a little closer, drawn in to the hushed mystery of his tale, a conspiracy lurked behind every word.

  “He got blocked at every turn. He couldn’t get the right permits, couldn’t secure funding. He managed to put together a team, but that was about all he could get. He couldn’t even charter a plane. It was like someone was blocking him at every turn, as though they didn’t want him to fly to the Dragon Island. I’m glad to be here, but part of me was worried that you wouldn’t make it either. I hope there isn’t a reason why your parents were the only ones to make it close to that place.”

  “But why would anyone want to stop him from going there?” I asked, perplexed. Vincent shrugged. “Maybe there is a bigger secret to all this or maybe it was just a coincidence. Either way, we’re going to find out ourselves.”

  The thought that there was a larger web being woven made my throat run dry, but I tried to put it out of my mind.

  I thought about the conspiracy for a while longer until I eventually dismissed it. It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to keep Dragon Island a secret, and if they did, then surely they’d have discovered my expedition and prevented that from happening too. And if they were that worried then they would have stopped my parents from going there in the first place. The most likely explanation was that Pedretti hadn’t been able to get everything together so he concocted this conspiracy to try and save face. Although I was a professional and would never have wished any ill-luck on anyone else, I was glad that he had failed. This place felt as though it was waiting for me and me alone.

  5

  Across shimmering seas and rocky lands, we flew. I looked down and saw the spider-web of human advancement sprawl across green and brown land, the blinking electric lights twinkling like stars, a reflection of the night sky. I saw the foamy trail left in the wake of boats and it reminded me how the human presence on the world was like an infestation. We wriggled and wormed our way into every part of the world, leaving our mark on the unblemished world. Would the earth have been better off without us? I wasn’t philosophically-minded enough to give a definitive answer, but it definitely made me think about all the civilizations that had gone before us, all the ones that had left tombs and graves and memories.

  “Why did you become an archeologist?” Thomas asked. His presence startled me. I looked around and he was standing there. I had been so lost in thought, and I wondered for how long he had been lurking in my presence.

  “Who wants to know?” I immediately frowned and focused my gaze outside, not wanting to give him any attention. He was the more good-natured of the pair, but it didn’t mean I wanted to spend any more time with him than I had to.

  Thomas sank into the chair beside me.

  “If I’m going into a dangerous situation, I like to know who’s leading me. I get the stuff about your parents, but that can’t be the only reason. There must be some other driving force that keeps you going, that’s made you stick at it through all the studying and training. Call it idle curiosity if you will.”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me first,” I said, hoping to trap him and play him at his own game.

  Thomas considered the question for a moment and seemed to deem it acceptable. “All my life, our lives really,” he glanced back towards his brother, “we’ve been living in the shadow of greatness. One of our father’s favorite pastimes was to teach us about all the accomplishments of our ancestors and how we had so much to fill, but of course it’s a lot harder to do that when so many things have been accomplished already. We try to excel in different areas but it was hard to test ourselves. We pushed ourselves to our limits, but going where nobody has gone before? That’s the stuff legends are made of. It’s as simple as that.”

  He flashed his charming smile again. I don’t know why, but I had the feeling he wasn’t telling me the whole truth. I decided to let him have his secrets, figuring that eventually they’d come out one way or another while we were on our expedition. It hadn’t escaped my attention that only Thomas had made the effort of speaking to me. William likely had his own agenda, but as long as they didn’t get in my way, I didn’t much care.

  “I believe the bargain was that now you’d tell me about your motivation,” he said, looking far happier than I felt. One thing I noticed about his reason for coming on this expedition was that it was a very selfish reason. They wanted glory, and they were willing to pay a big price. It was clear that they didn’t much care about the wider archeological world. To them, this was just another mountain to climb, another mountain to hike, another achievement to add to their list of accomplishments. For me, it was something far greater.

  “Archeology is a search for the truth. Through it, we can learn about other cultures and see how they lived their lives, and through that we can learn about ourselves too. There’s so much about the world and about ourselves that we think we understand, when really we’re just making assumptions. It’s easy for us to get lost in our way of thinking, and it’s sometimes difficult to grasp the idea that billions of other people have walked the same path before us. I’m an archaeologist because I search for truth, because I hope to learn more about where we’re going from where we’ve been.”

  “That sounds good. Have you been practicing that for a speech?”

  Glaring at him again, I turned my back away from him. The thought had occurred to me that I might be invited to speak at public events after I returned from Dragon Island, but I hated that it was so transparent. “I just want to make a difference in the world,” I said, scowling, “isn’t that what we all want when it comes down to it? If you want me to sum it up in one sentence then I guess it’s because this is the only thing these
people have left behind. There’s nothing else left of them. The only way they’re not forgotten is if we learn about them; how they lived, what they believed. I think the worst thing that can happen to a person is to be forgotten. I’d hate that to happen to me…”

  “That’s more than one sentence,” Thomas said. He was about to say something else when suddenly the plane jerked with turbulence.

  “Watch out!” Daniel said. I tried not to hear the panic in the pilot’s voice. I looked out of the window and gripped my chair tightly, so tightly that my knuckles turned white, as I saw the horror before us. Dark, malevolent clouds awaited us. The sky turned from ice blue to a grim black, carved apart by forks of lightning, the storm hanging over Dragon Island.

  I imagined this must have been what my parents saw all those years ago.

  “Do we turn back?” Daniel asked.

  “We keep going! We can’t afford to turn back. We can brave the storm. Get us to that island!” I yelled. Duncan and Vincent glanced at each other. Duncan made his way over to me, being careful to keep his balance as the plane shifted and rolled as the harsh air currents battered its hull.

  “Amber, are you sure about this? You don’t have anything to prove. We can wait out the storm. There’s no shame in that,” he said.

  “It was hard enough to get this project off the ground. Do you really think I’m going to risk it now? History won’t repeat itself. This plane is stronger than the one they flew. We’re more prepared. I will tame Dragon Island,” I growled. Duncan knew there was nothing he could say that would change my mind.

  “Daniel, take us in!” I yelled.

  “Aye Captain,” he said, and the engines hummed as the plane moved forward, into the roiling storm.

  There were few times in my life where I had been truly scared for my life. One of them was when I had learned that my parents had died. Up until that point, I never truly grasped the concept of anything bad happening to me or my family. I had heard about other tragedies, I saw other children at school suffering from broken bones, but all of these events were abstract concepts, happening to other people, not to me. When my parents died it felt as though the tragic world had pulled me into it, as though it was making up for all the years where I had remained untouched by misery. Suddenly my parents were dead, I was alone, and faced with the stark reality that my family wasn’t invincible.

  I often wondered what it had been like for them in that storm as the weather beat their plane and they struggled to maintain balance. At what point did they realize they were going to die? Did they get to say goodbye to each other? Did they get to share their vows of love one final time before they plunged into their watery graves?

  While the feeling of invincibility hadn’t returned during my life, I always had a sense that there would be more time. More time to accomplish everything I wanted, more time to fall in love and have a family. Just more time, but as the plane went headlong into the storm, I was suddenly filled with the grim realization that maybe there wasn’t more time. Maybe this was the end of my life. It didn’t seem right. The narrative of my story wasn’t supposed to end the same way as my parents. I was supposed to finish what they’d started, and the worst part of it all was that I had no child to carry on. I was the last of my family, and I never really knew how much that affected me until that moment.

  Lightning slashed the sky and rain poured down upon us like machine gun fire. The plane lurched from side to side, and my stomach lurched with it. The storm had come out of nowhere, and I was hit with irrational thoughts as the gloom descended on us. Perhaps Dragon Island wasn’t meant to be explored. Perhaps it had a natural defense to people who tried to breach its barriers. I thought about turning back then, returning to the surface in shame, but I couldn’t, not when I was so close. I didn’t want to risk missing out on this great adventure. It felt as though I had to beat this storm for the sake of my parents, as though it was the only way to avenge them.

  “Keep going Daniel, and don’t stop until you hit land!” I said. As it happened, that proved to be a poor choice of words as the plane got caught in a rise of air and rolled over. Everything that wasn’t strapped in crashed around and flung through the air, battering the inside of the plane, hitting the windows. Glass splintered and my eyes widened in horror at the thought of being sucked out into this hellish storm. The thunder rolled on and the rain was a bleak sheet of water. I was unable to tell the sky from the sea; it was one blurred, melting mess of watery death. The clouds were illuminated by the lightning and through the hazy mist, I could see the outline of land. The sharp rocks jutted out, the Dragon’s spine. We were so close, but was I seeing the same thing my parents had seen before they had plunged to their deaths? Was I thinking about them just as they thought about me?

  I blinked. There was a loud crash, and then everything went black.

  6

  I awoke with sand between my fingers. Water lapped against the shore. The air was sweet and fresh. I heaved in a breath and checked to make sure that I had no broken bones. Miraculously, I was unharmed. I looked up at the sky and it was as though I was in another world. I saw the storm in the distance in all its ferocious glory, but Dragon Island seemed untouched; a paradise, with golden sun and golden sand. At first, I thought I must have been somewhere else, but I looked up and saw the towering mountains that made up the spine of the Dragon, and knew I was where I had intended to be.

  The accident was a blur, but vague images rushed back. I remembered thinking about my parents, and then I felt some…some sort of presence around me. A sound like the flapping of wings and then falling through the air…it didn’t make any sense, but somehow I had escaped the plane and found myself on this beach.

  Hopefully the others had too. I dusted off the sand and trudged along the shore, and as I looked out to the sea, I saw a sight that made my face pale. The plane had been caught on a thick, jagged spike and was breaking in two. The metal had been torn apart as though it was flesh, and the two sides of the plane were helpless as they fell to either side. The plane seemed as though it was struggling to hold onto itself, but it was fighting a losing battle. I screamed as loud as I could and ran into the water, but I was too far away. The plane split in two and the water swallowed them up, including all the crates that had been securely strapped down. It had meant to be a safety procedure to have them so secure, and instead it meant that all the equipment and all the food was lost.

  What’s more, Daniel was lost as well. As the nose of the plane dipped down, I saw the outline of his still body in the cockpit, showing through the broken glass. I could only hope that he was already dead. I shook, and my mind flitted between the present and the past. A sudden surge of helplessness consumed me, a feeling I was very familiar with. Somehow, I felt I should have done more, I should have been able to save them. I should have stopped us from going into the storm. It was all my fault. They were all here because of me.

  I sank down into the beach, the horror of the situation giving me a feeling of dread. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I beat my fist against the warm sand and cried out for mercy, but my words met empty air. The water seemed so calm before me, the surroundings so peaceful. There was no soft hum of an engine, no beeping of an electric device. There was nothing other than the crashing waves and the beating of my heart. I looked up at the storm again and wondered how such a thing was possible! There seemed to be more of a mystery to Dragon Island than even I had suspected, and now I was paying the price.

  But I couldn’t let grief consume me. The others might have escaped. I had to try and search for them at least, although when I looked around me I saw no sign of anyone else. The only footprints in the sand were mine.

  The beach stretched around the island and my eyes met the curve. I started walking adjacent to where the plane had fallen, hoping that the tide would have washed anyone up on shore. Behind me were high thick rocks and a lush forest. I peered into the darkness, but decided I wouldn’t go and explore yet. My firs
t priority was to find what happened to the others, my second was to find a source of food, my third was to build a fire, and my fourth was to figure out what the hell to do next.

  My feet trudged against the sand and I had to mop sweat off my brow. I unbuttoned my beige shirt to allow my skin to breathe and looked longingly at the water. My throat was parched, and it seemed cruel that saltwater would only do me harm. Hopefully there would be a freshwater stream nearby that I could use to refresh myself, or perhaps even a creek in one of the coves. The mountains surely had caverns in which I could rest and use as shelter. I would have to keep a close eye out for any predators, and fashioning a weapon would have to be high on my list of priorities as well. I had survived a plane crash, I wasn’t about to die during my first night on the island.

  It was ironic how things turned out sometimes, how dreams of youth became nightmares of adulthood. When I was younger, I was enthralled by stories like Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. I loved the romanticism of being alone on a deserted island with nothing but your own wits to help you survive, to live without rules and without burdens, to be free to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Of course, as a child I was more attracted to the romantic ideal of the situation and as I grew older, I became more aware of the practical reality. There were many flaws with modern society but it had its perks too, like healthcare, education, and the wealth of knowledge the internet provided. I was alone, and that meant I only had my own skills. Fortunately, I had been taught by my parents, so I was better equipped than most to thrive in this situation, but it didn’t give me much hope for my long term prospects. I didn’t like the thought of living my entire life on Dragon Island. What about Bobby?