What's the Worst that Could Happen?

“No.”

“Oh come on, please? I’ve never done it before!”

“Oh you haven’t?”

“No, never! This’ll be my first time!”

“Then change that to hell no.”

“Abel!”

The brothers stood together at the entrance to a small cave neither of them had ever stepped foot inside. In fact, they hadn’t known it was there at all until Nathaniel, the younger and smaller of the two, had nearly fallen into a hole that opened in the ground around fifty feet to the north of the entrance.

“I’ve never been caving before, you always say it’s too dangerous,” Nathaniel protested, stamping his paw on the ground and lashing his short tail in frustration.

Abel turned his head to glare at Nathaniel, though there was no malice in his blue eyes. “You know damn well how much dumb shit I do, if I say something’s too dangerous, what’s that tell ya?”

He watched the gears turn in Nathaniel’s head, and Abel knew his baby brother had come to the same conclusion as him, but the younger drak was at that age where they started becoming stubborn and obstinate. Abel had been the same way—well, he still was the same way, but that was beside the point.

“You say everything’s too dangerous,” Nathaniel challenged him. “You didn’t even want to bring me hunting with you!”

“Yeah, and look what happened! You fell through a hole in the ground and almost died,” Abel countered. “If I hadn’t heard the ground breaking you’d’ve fallen who knows how far.”

“It wasn’t even that deep,” Nathaniel said, scuffing the ground with his paw as he laid his ears back in irritation.

“And how do you know that?” Abel growled. “Are you a rock scientist?”

“Geologist,” Nathaniel muttered mutinously. His copper colored eyes snapped up and he fixed Abel with a hard stare as he said, “I heard when the rocks fell down, it didn’t sound like they fell too long. I woulda been okay.”

“You’d be okay with a broken leg or two,” Abel snorted. “Sure, kid. C’mon, we’re not gonna catch anything standing around here chattering like a couple birds.”

He turned and stalked away from the cave, long tail curling to the left as if to drape over Nathaniel’s back or touch his side like they usually walked. When he didn’t find his brother there, he paused and turned, looking over his shoulder. His brother was nowhere to be seen.

Alarmed, Abel trotted back to the entrance of the cave, sniffing around the stone. Both of their scents clung there, so that didn’t help. But when he shifted to the right, his shadow moved enough to reveal a single small paw print in the dirt at the mouth of the cave where it was still wet from that morning’s misting rain.

“Nathaniel!” he snarled into the darkness. “You’re gonna get lost!”

He strained to hear any response, weaving back and forth at the entrance of the cave as he lashed his tail in agitation. All he heard was the sound of small stones skittering around and knocking into one another.

“Fine!” he snapped, turning and stomping a few steps away from the cave entrance. “See if I care if you can’t find your way out.”

He stood there in the mid-afternoon sunlight, belly rumbling and flicking his ears as flies hovered around them. Breakfast seemed a long way off and he knew that Nathaniel was probably even more hungry, growing as he was.

Abel turned to look over his shoulder, expecting to see Nathaniel climbing out of the cave, but saw nothing.

“God dammit,” he muttered before he turned and began digging ferociously at the edges of the cave. His shoulders were too broad to fit through until he had scraped away a good amount of the stone and earth, leaving his claws aching and his chest heaving. Finally, he squeezed through, grunting as his mane was caught beneath his chest as he felt earth and stone press against his shoulders and back. He cursed and snarled as he drove his hind claws into the cave floor, pushing himself forward until the tunnel widened and he staggered out into a space shaped like a jagged and uneven egg.

Abel looked around, squinting to see anything in the darkness. The light from the tunnel entrance quickly dissipated, showing dust floating in the air but not providing much help in lighting the space.

“Nathaniel!” he called, wincing as his own voice echoed back at him loudly, as if admonishing him for shouting. He growled low in his chest and walked forward, looking down when he felt the smooth cave floor become bumpy and uneven. Several stones had been uprooted from the ground and Abel had to peer closely to see the small claw marks on the grey stone. Nathaniel was exploring alright…

Groaning, Abel trotted toward the back of the cave, shouldering a rock out of his way so he could reach the pitch-black tunnel behind it.

The hair along Abel’s spine stood on end as he ventured farther into the cave, cold air blowing into his face from somewhere deep in the earth. It smelled of stone and water, and for the first time Abel worried that the cave could flood if it began to rain.

“Nate,” he hissed, slinking along and grimacing as he felt the fur hanging from his chest drag through silt that had collected on the floor of the tunnel. “Nate we have to leave! Come on, stop playing around!”

His heart skipped a beat and he froze, ears straining to listen to the low, rattling hiss that echoed toward him from farther ahead. Was it an underground river? Had it begun to rain outside? What if it started to flood before he could find Nate?

“Abel?” he heard, and the older brother’s worry began to melt away. Finally, he’d found his brother. Now they could turn around and get the hell out of here.

“Nate!” he called, kneeling a little farther as he felt the ceiling of the tunnel press harder against his spine. The tunnel began to lighten as he reached the end of the tunnel and he saw a hole in the ceiling several hundred feet above them—the hole his brother had nearly fallen into? Would’ve been okay his ass. He couldn’t wait for the sweet, sweet I told you so he could hit Nate with later. But for now, he just wanted to get them both out of there.

“Abel!” Nathaniel called, leaping on top of a boulder. “Come look at this! It’s a whole lake!”

Stressed and annoyed at how grimy he felt, Abel shook his head and said, “Come on Nate, we need to go! It’s not safe in here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere,” Nathaniel said, rolling his eyes as he turned his back to his brother. “Come on! It’s really cool, I think I see something in the water at the bottom, I wanna check it out!”

“You can’t even swim!” Abel protested. “Get back here.”

He leaped forward, scrabbling to grab at his brother but the smaller drak had hopped down off the boulder and hared away toward what looked like a sliver of white light in the ground.

“Slippery little worm,” he muttered before he followed Nathaniel.

The closer he walked, the smaller the source of light in the water became, until Abel stood at the water’s edge and realized it was a light source from within the water. He tilted his head to the side as he looked through the black water and he felt an uneasy shudder pass through him. “C’mon Nate, I don’t like this, let’s go.”

“It’s just a cave lake,” Nathaniel said, sidling up beside his brother. His tail was held higher than his chin, and he looked mightily proud of himself. “I found it all on my own!”

Abel rolled his eyes and gave himself a hard shake, dislodging some of the much that clung to his chest and belly fur.

“Yuck!” Nathaniel protested when some of it landed on him. He shook himself too, but it wouldn’t slide off so easily.

“Yeah, you can help me clean my mane when we get outta here too,” Abel said grumpily. “We need to go. I got a bad feeling about this cave.”

Nathaniel eyed him and a coy smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I wanna see what that light is. It doesn’t look super deep, you could probably swim for it. Are you scared?”

“Fat chance of that kiddo,” Abel said with a snort, finally not rising to the bait that would have had him dive head-first into that lake any other day. “I don’t know how to swim either.”

Nathaniel’s jaw dropped in astonishment, though that quickly turned to outrage. “You said you wouldn’t teach me because you didn’t want to get wet! You don’t know how?”

Flustered, Abel lashed his tail and turned so Nathaniel and he were nose to nose. “If you wanna learn how to swim so bad, now’s your chance. Go get the light.”

His stomach churned as he saw Nathaniel’s expression twist in defiance and he lunged forward to grab his brother a fraction of a second before the younger drak would have leapt into the lake.

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” Abel admonished him. “If you wanna learn how to swim so bad we can learn together. In some place that isn’t probably disgusting with cave filth and riddled with fleas.”

“Fleas don’t live in water,” Nathaniel said, wriggling out of Abel’s grasp and falling back with an oof of expelled air.

“What’re those nasty things then, the slug lookin’ things that suck blood,” Abel asked.

“Leeches,” Nathaniel sighed. “I doubt there are any in there either.”

“You also doubted how high the drop was from where you almost fell in to the floor of the cave,” Abel said, raising a brow skeptically. “C’mon kiddo, we’ll get out of this cave and find something to eat. Next time we come across a good size pond we’ll figure out how this swimming thing works, okay?”

Nathaniel eyed him suspiciously and asked, “You won’t just say they’re all not safe so you don’t have to go through with it?”

“Promise,” he said, holding his paw out with his pinky finger lifted.

His brother stared skeptically at the paw before he reached out and hooked their claws together, pulling away until they made a clicking noise.

“Pinky promise,” Nathaniel said, smiling now.

“No one breaks a pinky promise,” Abel said, his voice sober now to emphasize how very important a pinky promise was. “Now let’s find something to eat before I eat you.”

“You always said I was too small to make for good eatin’,” Nathaniel laughed, trotting ahead of Abel toward the tunnel that would lead them out of the cave.

“I’m awful hungry now,” Abel said thoughtfully, sliding his paws across the cave floor so pebbles skidded toward Nathaniel. “You look just tasty enough for a snack!”

“No!” Nathaniel squealed, his tail high as he scampered away, paws slipping on the silt so when he scrambled around a boulder.

Abel smiled and padded after his brother slowly, giving him time to put distance between them so he could chase after Nate. It was good to hear his brother laugh, they’d argued more often than not the last few days and he didn’t like being at odds with the only drak he felt close to.

Nathaniel let out another oof, but this one was followed by a gasp, and Abel frowned, thinking his brother must have stepped on a sharp stone or knocked his ankle against a rock.

“You okay?” he asked, pausing and listening for a response. When he didn’t hear one, he walked around the boulder asking, “Did you get hurt--?”

His voice cut off and his eyes widened as he looked down at Nathaniel. He could hardly see the gleam of his brother’s pale gold scales against the black hide of the creature wrapped around him like a thick rope.

“No!” he snarled, leaping forward and digging his claws against the black scales. His claws skidded along the tightly-weaved edges of the scales, glancing off harmlessly as he tried to pry the coils apart. Was this a snake? If so, it was the biggest snake Abel had ever seen, and it had his brother.

He leaned down and wrapped his jaws around the snake’s body, biting down so hard the muscles in his jaws trembled. The scales resisted his bite, but he felt them begin to give, and as he bit harder, he looked to the right and realized he could see his brother’s face from this angle. Nathaniel’s eyes bulged, his mouth wide open as he struggled to breathe in.

Abel snarled and bore down harder still, roaring with the effort. The creature writhed as his teeth finally broke past the scales and pierced flesh. Foul-tasting blood flooded his mouth and as the creature thrashed and finally uncoiled. It wrenched itself free of Abel’s jaws and as Abel spat the blood to the side and reached for Nathaniel a black smudge streaked toward his throat.

Snake-like jaws latched onto the fur around Abel’s throat and he reeled back, springing away as the creature flopped to the ground. It coiled and lunged again, aiming this time for his chest. Its teeth dug uselessly into his mane before it fell to the ground again.

Thinking faster than he ever had in his life, Abel moved away from Nathaniel, leaping back each time the snake struck at him, twisting away if it got too close to his shoulders or his arms.

It took five more strikes before they reached the lake. He looked over his shoulder for a split second to make sure he wasn’t too close, and the snake struck. Its teeth hooked into the flesh of his shoulder, forcing him back into the water. His hind paws struggled to find purchase on the silty shore of the lake and he roared in anger and fear as the snake’s body thrashed, trying to coil around him. There was no end to it!

He reared onto his hind legs and twisted his body to the right, flinging the snake’s body farther into the water, hoping to take away its ability to use the ground for grip. He felt its jaws working on his shoulder, but it didn’t hurt. Adrenaline and panic forced anything out of his mind except action.

Abel lifted his hand to his chest as the snake’s body thrashed in the water and he dug his claws into its eye. It hissed, but did not release him even as he raked his claws across its head and nose.

It had only just managed to coil its body over his shoulders and begin to tighten when the cave began to brighten rapidly. Abel froze and looked across the water to the light in the middle of the lake, and he scrambled backward spluttering, “Shit shit shit shit shit!”

The water, which had been still and calm just moments before, erupted as the lumpy, pale body of some enormous fish with a mouth that could have swallowed Abel whole gaped open. Said mouth absolutely bristled with jagged teeth like swords, with a tantalizing light source dangling right in front of its mouth.

The snake released Abel as the fish lunged toward them, but Abel grabbed it by the head and flung it at the fish as hard as he could, watching as its body was impaled on several of those gnarly teeth. At the last moment, Abel leaped to the side, springing away as the mouth closed right where he was a heartbeat before.

The fish slid back into the water, dragging with it the writhing body of the snake-like creature, its bulging blind eyes staring out from its bulbous skull as it sank beneath the surface once more.

Abel stood there breathing hard, and felt a shudder ripple up over his back. “I’m never learning how to swim,” he breathed, his voice trembling.

He shook himself hard and darted back to Nathaniel’s side. Blood trickled from the younger drak’s shoulder and just under his mane where the snake must have latched on. His mane wasn’t as thick as Abel’s, as he was still young, so it didn’t provide as much protection.

“I got you,” he breathed, cradling Nathaniel’s cheek with his paw. He leaned down and closed his eyes as he pressed their cheeks together, breathing a sigh of relief. Nathaniel would probably wake in shock, he needed warmth and rest. “Big brother’s got you now.”

He picked Nathaniel up carefully, holding him by his neck the way his mother would have, and carried him out of that dreadful cave into the sunlight once more.