Page 44 - Solstice Art & Literary Magazine 2021

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down one of the towers and bury it in rubble; except that would only get him in trouble, so that was out. Making a monster was probably his best bet.
He held his hands out and be- gan crafting. He might as well make it humanoid, it didn’t have to be intri- cate to get the job done. It would need strong armor, like the flying serpent’s scales. Using fire as a weapon wasn’t an option, but maybe it if had claws—
A shriek sounded right above his position. Ozzy looked up.
The serpent hovered just over his head.
It plunged. Ozzy dove forward just as the stone wall he’d been sitting against was demolished. He scram- bled to his feet, his partially formed monster disintegrating. The serpent wasn’t down for long, soon hovering directly in front of Ozzy, its teeth bared. Ozzy glanced behind him. There was the window wall, his class- mates pressing their faces against the glass. For a split second, his eyes found Borum. The other boy sneered and drew a finger across his throat.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
But he was right. Oh, he was right. Ozzy was mere feet from an enormous monster who could turn
his attacks against him. He didn’t have time to think of a clever way to fight back without making the serpent stronger, and even if he could, his mind was stuck. He’d failed. His life had been an endless line of people telling him what he couldn’t do, and they were right.
He wanted to find a quiet corner in the library and turn that feeling over in his mind, wallowing in melancholy, giving himself time to come to terms with the fact that he simply wasn’t good enough to protect anyone from the monsters that plagued their world.
Except by the time he turned back to the serpent, rearing back to strike, he wasn’t filled with dread or disappointment.
He was just really annoyed.
The serpent roared. At this rate, Ozzy would be deaf in no time.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs until it hurt. Just as the ser- pent lunged, he screamed at it.
The serpent drew up short. It turned his head back and forth, its eyes never losing sight of him, as if exam- ining its tiny opponent from different angles would somehow make it clear why the human was trying to roar.
The serpent coiled back, then sprang forward, bellowing. The gust of air from its battle cry blew Ozzy’s hair out of his face. It was way too close for comfort.
Ozzy took a deeper breath
than before and screamed again, wav- ing his arms up and down like he was trying to fly. He was certain he looked ridiculous. He was too angry to care.
The serpent blinked at him. “I’m not afraid of you!” he
shouted. “You’re not that scary!”
It recoiled. He could almost hear it thinking, how dare he? And really, how
scandalous must it seem for the tiny de- fenseless one to be shouting back like it was the predator and not the prey?
He wasn’t sure the serpent un- derstood. In case the message hadn’t sunk in the first time, he repeated it, but quieter. “I’m not afraid of you.
And you don’t have to be afraid of me.” And then he realized it was true. The serpent stretched its head
out and placed it on the ground in front of Ozzy, taking its time. Ozzy walked towards it and placed a hand on the side of its face, just above its lip, stroking the scales. He could see the fangs peeking out. They weren’t all that sharp.
The serpent hummed.
Ozzy smiled. He closed his eyes, his fingers still brushing against the scales.
He picked his hand up and moved it back, not wanting to brush the scales the wrong way. But when he went to stroke the scales again, his hand only met open air.
He opened his eyes. The serpent was gone. It just... wasn’t
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ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD • SNAPPY SHIEVITZ
Pen • 7”x10”