Komodo Dragon Story

Ryves had been just twelve when her parents were eaten by a komodo dragon. It sounded so strange, as if it were some kind of story. But it wasn’t a story. It was real life. Her life.
It had been a holiday gone wrong.
“It’ll be fantastic – seeing how the dragons live in the wild,” Dad, a reptile fan, had told her.
It was a hot week in the Island of Komodo. Everything had gone according to plan. The family had visited the locals, viewed the customs, but Ryves and her family had been impatiently waiting for only one thing: seeing the komodo dragons.
The family had been given a chicken each, in case the plan backfired and the dragons decided they were hungry. It would be unfortunate for the chickens, but fortunate for the family. However, it turned out to be fortunate for the chickens and unfortunate for Ryves’ parents.
Ryves did not cry when she saw her parents bitten by the large, stubborn juvenile dragon. She did not break down when she was told her parents would not get to a hospital in time. She did not shed a tear when she was told her parents were dead. It was five years on and Ryves had still not cried for her lost parents. She did miss them, of course, but it hadn’t really hit her they were gone forever. She kept expecting that the knock on the door was her parents coming to fetch her, or the ringing phone was them wanting to ask how she was.
Ryves moved down the sandy road that lead to the cove, tying a green scarf into her dark red hair, seeing as she had no hat.
She reached the cove. The sun beat down on her back, while the smooth, damp pebbles shone like jewels in the sun’s cheerful rays. The bright blue sea thronged with people, the beach even more so. And all around her, Ryves saw families.
Ryves saw a father laughing with his son at a joke one had pulled, she saw a mother rubbing sun cream onto her daughter’s back, she saw a mother and father puzzling over some activity in the newspaper, and she saw two loving parents tenderly leading their small child into the sea. Everywhere she looked, Ryves saw families, all together, all happy.
Ryves wandered over to the part of the cove that was in shadow of the cliffs, where there weren’t so many people. Her aunt’s words echoed in her ears: “Go down to the cove; cheer yourself up,” as Ryves had, since the accident, gone to live with her aunt.
In a daze, Ryves changed, and then slipped into the sea. The water was deathly cold, but she felt numb, barely feeling the icy, salty liquid slide over her. Memories pressed upon her mind, bad memories, as if a large weight had been fixed in her skull. She felt no better: clearly, her aunt’s form of being cheered up did not have the same effect on Ryves.
Ryves left the water and dried herself, the hot sun baking her damp skin, when she spotted movement among her clothes. Suddenly, as quick as lightning, a large wall lizard came out and positioned herself beside her, just in the sun’s rays.
It had a pair of bright, black little eyes, through which it surveyed her carefully as it paused, in full view, right next to Ryves. Its colouring was yellow dappled with green and red, with a long little tail. Due to its sudden movement, its tiny little pulse was racing in its neck, beating life.
Ryves froze like setting cement as she lay in the pebbles, her dark eyes fixed on the lizard. Rough, dry skin. Knives as teeth. Enormous, powerful tail…
She grabbed her swimming costume and hurled it at the tiny reptile.
The lizard, naturally, was not amused. It scuttled away, so quick it blurred before her eyes, until the last thing she saw of it was the little creature’s face shooting a sceptical look from a hole in the cliffs, before vanishing completely.
Ryves continued watching the hole. She felt a small pang of guilt, but quickly pushed it away. The she picked up her clothes, shoved on a t-shirt and jeans, the moved away.
Further on, she settled down again onto her back and watched the perfect, peaceful blue sky. It gave her no pleasure.
Sleep overtook her. She dreamt of enormous komodo dragons with yellow scales dappled green and red. They brushed her arms, circling her. So many of them; they opened their mouths hungrily, and displayed their huge teeth and dripping their hot, poisonous saliva on her. The dream felt so real she could almost smell their foul breath, almost feel their ugly scales…
Because it was real.
Ryves snapped open her eyes. There it was, the wall lizard, perching on her arm, basking in the sun. It looked at her, smugly, almost mocking her. Ryves' whole body went stiff as a stone, frozen with the dark shadow of fear. She was out of reach of her bathing costume, so could not scare it away again. She could not move. In her mind's eye she saw the enormous black komodo dragon sniff the small yellow chicken; its tiny eyes wide and glazed with terror. Then the lizard turned and bit Ryves' mother. Her father dived forward, only to crash down clutching a mangled, bloody stump that was once his arm. The komodo dragon. Black. Deadly.
The lizard on her arm was not black. It was not deadly. It was not big and it did not have enormous teeth and claws and it didn't have a poisonous breath. It was just a normal little reptile, using her arm as a basking rock so it could soak up the sun's rays like a sponge absorbing water.
She was privileged.
A cool sense of calm washed over her, liked sun-baked rocks finally feeling the touch of the sea’s tide. She no longer felt fear. The lizard didn’t seem evil and vicious and deadly anymore.
It looked at her.
Ryves judged no real expression or emotion in the lizard’s eye, and certainly not a message. However, she was sure it wasn’t smug or mocking, but she didn’t know if it really had looked at her smugly before, or whether she had imagined it.
The creature, it small body shining in the sun like a bundle of jewels, scuttled away, leaving no trace of it except in her memory.
Ryves sat up. She remembered the wall lizard. She remembered the komodo dragons. And she remembered her parents; her family. Nothing but a memory, like the sea washing clean a dirty pebble.
A stone dropped in her stomach. It finally, after all that time, hit her.
They were gone.
And for the first time in five years, Ryves cried.