CALLIBRA: THE CURSED EYE OF ARAK

CHAPTER FIVE

It was indeed a long night, but they were no longer humans. They no longer needed to light torches to go to a place as dark as this. Even though the moon was no longer visible in the sky, their eyes were now like natural torches that never burn out. They emitted green light, just like the gem Isaias held between his hind claws. The gem that the witches called "CALLIBRA".

They could see the caves ahead of them. They were close and knew they would soon reach it. The closer they got to the cave, the more echoes they created with their wing beats. 

In the middle of the caves they descended and the sand under their wings pulled apart as the winds caught under their descending wings pushed them away. 

"Behold, the caves of Eflie," Dalmatius said, and silence flooded their midst as they tried to explore the caves and see if they were indeed safe.

"We should go see them! We can not swear they have been empty all these years, because no one's been here in decades," Atticus suggested.

There were so many caves scattered across the wilderness.

"I am going to go! I'll check out the caves," said Isaias.

"Boy! You do not know what's in there," Amyas protested.

"What are you suggesting? Someone has to go, and it can not be your son? I am going in, father," objected Isaias as he threw himself into the air and flew to the cave opposite. He landed on the rock just outside the entrance, turned and looked at the others behind him. Amyas nodded and approved of the step Isaias took, offering to go inside. 

He turned back to the cave and he lit his eyes by tightening his heavy eyelid muscles. Now his eyes burned with hard green flames that helped him see as he took a step into the first cave.

Isaias entered it and his feet made hard rocks crumble beneath his feet. "It's safe!" shouted Isaias to them, his voice echoing.

“It looks safe to me,” he mumbled to himself as he continued to sniff the air. He turned towards the entrance and saw an eccrifyte. The most dangerous creature of the wild. It was the apex predator in the far north region beyond the grasslands. Who would have thought the witches had one of them guarding the caves?

It was like a giant goblin, but with black scaly skin, claws which were as sharp as a dragon's, fangs that could go even through the back of a crocodile.

 They could move through air without being seen between any distance and they were highly territorial creatures. They hated to share spaces. There were only like a dozen of them in the whole world, and they could not reproduce, but could live thousands of years. 

They could not speak, they could only growl. 

He growled and came up to Isaias. Isaias tried to protect himself by covering his front part, which was the most vulnerable part of his body, so to speak, with his wings. Isaias waited for a blow, but felt nothing. He uncovered himself and saw the eccrifyte staring at the gemstone he held between the claws of his left  hind limbs. 

He growled as his eyes eagerly examined the gem. It lunged for Isaias' feet and Isaias threw himself off the ground to prevent it from getting its hands on the gem. 

It could not fly, but Isaias seemed to have forgotten what it could do. It disappeared before his eyes and he felt his wings clip behind him, causing him to lose his balance in the air. He looked back and saw the Eccrifyte on his back. It tried to pull Isaias down. He turned to it and breathed fire on its face and it disappeared again.

"Iasias! Is everything all right in there?" called Amyas to him as they heard the noise and were not sure what was going on. 

"An eccrifyte!" shouted back Isaias. -Amyas flew into the cave and Elvio followed him in.

"It wants the gem!" yelled Isaias as Elvio and Amyas joined him in the cave. 

"Where is it, where is it?" shouted Elvio to Isaias, and Isaias did not know where it was either, because it had simply disappeared.

 "It's disappeared!" shouted back Isaias. Elvio and Isaias looked toward the entrance when they heard its growl, and realised that it was sitting on Amyas' back, clenching its wings and guarding his neck with its teeth. 

"Father!" cried Isaias, "Amyas!" cried Elvio. 

They both see the eccrifyte take total control of Amyas. It growled as it stared at the gem. 

"You want the gem! I'll give it to you, just let it go," Isaias said to the eccryfite and the eccrifyte shook its head with a groan, refusing to grant Isaias his wish.

“Don’t do it! It's our only chance of getting back our humanity, as the witches said. If you lose it, we lose our humanity forever!” Amyas said to Isaias.

Isaias could not bear to see his father in that position. He cast the gem into the air for the eccrifyte to have it and it growled as its eyes followed it up. It bit deeply into Amyas’ neck and Isaias cried out.

“No! Father!”

Elvio breathed out fire toward the eccrifyte which was still bitting on Amyas’ neck, and it disappeared to escape the fire. It appeared in the air to grab the gem before it could hit the ground.  

Elvio turned to it and breathed out fire again, and it consumed. The gem fell into the ashes and Elvio went to pick it up. 

They looked at Amyas, and he was lying on his side.

“Don’t lose it!” He said, and he breathed his last.

“Father!” Isaias screamed as he saw his father die before his eyes. 

He felt a transformation in his body as he walked closer to his father in tears. He saw the others walking towards the cave as they heard him scream. 

There was something different. He felt like human again. 

“Isaias! Your wings, there are pulling themselves in! What is happening to you?” Dalmatius shouted to Isaias as he stood over his father's body. He looked back at the entrance and saw Dalmatius.

“What are you talking about?” Isaias yelled at him as he became so furious over his father's death. He wanted to blame someone for it, but there was no one to take the blame.

“Your skin, the scales are falling!” Elvio said to Isaias also, and he stepped away from his father's body. He took a moment to look at his own body, only to see what they were all talking about.

He saw the scales which where covering his body fall off, falling to the ground to expose his human skin. The horns on his head pulled back inside his head and hair sprouted from his bald head and developed into his glossy long hair, exactly as it was before the transformation. 

His chest returned to normal and his segmented anterior faded and returned to normal. The tail pulled itself into his posterior, the exact time his claws pulled themselves in, giving him back his nails as they were before the transformation.

The hairs on his body were back and he could feel the human in him taking full dominance over the dragon in him. 

“Isaias! You are human again. How did this happen?” Elvio yelled as he and everyone there were all bewildered by the transformation he had just undergone. He had no clothes on as they were torn away during the transformation in the field.

He walked to his father and knelt before his body as he cried over him. 

Amyas' body also transformed from his dragon form to his human self, and they all wondered what was happening. They all including Isaias, were shocked, as they never imagined they could ever go back to their human forms, but even at this, no one spoke just to honour Amyas who had just been killed.

“I’m sorry, I did try my best to save Amyas,” Elvio said as he walked towards Isaias. 

Isaias became so tiny amongst them. They all were of different heights and sizes, depending on their actual sizes.

“Let’s find you something to put on. It is too cold out here. You won't survive here as a human without clothes,” Dalmatius said, and Isaias nodded. 

“Here are some clothes! I found them outside the cave,” Dominick said, throwing Isaias some clothes.

“Thank you!” Isaias said, and he nodded. They walked out of the cave, leaving him alone with his father in the cave. 

“Don’t lose it,” Isaias said to himself, recalling what his father said before taking his last breath. 

Isaias put on the clothes Dominick gave to him and walked out of the cave with his father's body in his hands. He walked to the tree in the midst of the caves and lay him beside the tree. 

“Let me do it!” Elvio flew to meet him. 

“I'm still stuck in this creature, so we can use it to our advantage. I still have my claws and it will do it a lot faster, and you are a human now which means it will take you longer time,” Elvio said and Isaias nodded—stepping away from his father's body, and standing behind Elvio who took it upon himself to dig.

Elvio threw himself into the air and landed forcefully before the tree. The tree shook, and the ground trembled as he landed, causing the ground before the tree to break and open up to form a deep hole in the ground. . .

Few moments after, Isaias sat in one of the caves. With the gem in his hand, he sat on the ground and rested his back on the wall. He kept staring at it, looking for an answer, the answer he knew everyone out there was seeking. They knew he was grieving, so they didn't want to ask questions about how he turned back to human. Isaias wanted the same answers, too.

“How did I turn back to human, and how did father also undergo the same transformation? Others are still caged in that creature, that beast, and they don't have any hope of getting out. Should I be happy about returning to being human or should I be afraid?” He thought to himself.