Synopsis: Upriver

2007: Child of the Gallows: 22k : Gave up.
2008: Upriver & Into Eden: 6k: Health problems.

The night was razor-sharp and embittered; its heartless gale-like wind beating my white breath back at me like a whip to a slave’s face. Despite this, I found my surroundings comforting. There was something about it, an air of urgency like the slash of a knife being unsheathed in the darkness, or the feel of a hand sliding up my thigh for the first time. Although the ground stretched away like an endless sea of dust, scythed up only by the frosted river that snuck away like a sly serpent, I felt at one with it, with myself. I was powerless to the horrors I’d heard about outside The Underbelly, the place I’d lived in all my life, but that was fine with me at moments like this.
A huge, obsidian dragon loomed over the surface in the far distance, jagged wings flashing bony spikes as it landed with an ascending crash that sent vibrations through the ground all the way over to where I crouched. It shook its long neck and blew a gush of crimson fire into the air, horns sticking out of its thin scalp like the beautiful devil it was. It let out a shrill, unforgiving scream and sniffed the ground. I had heard tales of dragon riders from the more open people within his city. It seemed wondrous that such striking, vicious creatures could be tamed and used to fly from one place to another, twirling out of the sky like some falling star cast out from heaven.