The shaking was getting worse, the darkness more oppressive. The ground beneath Kumatora's feet began to churn and buckle.
"We gotta move!" she yelled to the others.
No one answered, but she could see the resolve on all of their faces. Boney would stay with his family to the end; Flint refused to abandon his sons; and Duster knew that there was no outrunning this. Lucas stood alone, staring up as the cave crumbled around him. Whatever happened from here on was out of his hands. He could only hope that his heart had been good enough.
"Damn it," Kumatora hissed. She stood her ground, seething at the thought of going down without a fight.
Duster turned to make eye contact with her and gave her a reassuring nod.
Flint knelt down next to Claus with Boney by his side. He took hold of his son, cradling the boy to his chest. There was still so much he wanted to say, so many apologies to make, but it was too late. He looked up again and found that Lucas was looking back. His son smiled, a tired smile with red, puffy eyes, but one that told Flint all he needed to know. Lucas forgave him. Humbled, Flint turned his gaze back down to Claus once more and he prayed for the strength to forgive himself.
Sparing one final moment for his family, Lucas closed his eyes right before the ground gave out beneath him. He was falling, or at least he thought he was. The light, the ground, his loved ones: they were all gone. He was rudderless and adrift in a vast black sea. And yet he knew that this blackness was not empty. On the contrary, there was something all around him, something impossibly big.
Then came the noise: like distant thunder, but quick and steady.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
A heartbeat. The sheer scale of it left him dumbstruck. Could this be the Dragon? If so, it was nothing like the monsters his mom had told him bedtime stories about – fearsome beasts for knights in shining armor to slay. No mere human could hope to fathom the size of this Dragon, much less fight it.
And yet, there was something . . . familiar. It was warm; almost comforting. The heart, as big to him as a mountain to a mole cricket, kept beating. Lucas had no way of knowing if the Dragon could think or speak. It wasn't like he could get its attention. But the heartbeat? That he could be certain of. For good or for ill, the Dragon had a heart.
Lucas's thoughts drifted back to his home and the way it used to be. All the fighting had been for that: not to stop Porky and his Pig Masks, not to restore Leder's "world" or to stop the end of his own, but for the sake of a place that no longer existed, and for people who were lost. He couldn't be too mad, though, because the fighting led him to Claus in the end. Even though his mom and brother were gone now, Lucas still loved them all the same. That much would never change.
As for what would come next, that was up to the Dragon. Lucas was happy to wait and see what this "something big" Ionia had promised would be.
What kind of new world would a Dragon dream up? What stories would it tell?
As long as there was still love, Lucas could learn to live with it.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.