Ela
------------------------------------------------------------
The sky was a brilliant gradient of purple to yellow before me. The trees and hills along the far horizon had begun to become silhouetted in black, while the closer ones bathed in the warm, yellow light.
I was sitting upon my hideaway along the cliff near Akira’s mansion, watching the sunset. Dinner wasn’t for another hour or so, so I figured that I had some time to kill before returning to the club.
Since discovering this section of cliff on that first fateful day here, I had revisited it many times. It had become my thinking place. My escape from everyone else. Here, I looked down upon the rest of the idiotic world, none of it having any effect on me.
The slab of rock was perfect for me. It was on a mostly barren section of the cliff, and stuck out a few feet before dropping off sharply into the open air. The clearance between this ledge and the ones above and beside it were large enough for both me to stand and fully extend my wings. The wall of the cliff may have been rutted and overgrown with shrubbery, but the stone of the ledge itself was smooth enough for me to sit on. There were a few nests from large birds resting on the nearby outcroppings, and I was able to watch them gracefully fly around in the sky during the day.
A lone bat swooped around in front of me, flapping its wings as it searched for a meal. A large insect flew by it, and suddenly the bat put out a burst of speed, opening its jaws and swallowing the bug whole in the blink of an eye. I watched the scene intently, my head resting in my hands as I stooped over with my wings lightly brushing the rocky surface.
Or rather, it looked as though I was watching intently. In truth, I had spaced out, my mind darting off into fifty million different directions, and I was only processing the actions of the winged mammal, not the bigger picture.
I thought of the club. What was its purpose? Akira had mentioned something about uncovering some sort of secret, yet the werewolf didn’t seem to be in any rush to do so. More and more members were arriving, but no steps had been taken forward. If it was so important, shouldn’t we be working on solving the supposed mystery instead of going to cooking classes or shopping or other inane things?
The bat swooped down again, desiring seconds.
I thought of the members of the club. I admitted to myself that most of them seemed like decent people (creatures?). Some of them had even seemed to start opening up to me. But I still didn’t know if I was sure that I could trust them. Being able to carry on casual conversation was not the same as having my back in a life or death fight--something that I felt was approaching quickly.
A moth vanished into thin air as the bat reappeared once more. Dessert.
Sighing, I checked the sky and decided that I should head back to the mansion to see if any help was needed for preparing dinner. As I stood up to depart, however, a sharp pain entered my right temple and I collapsed back into the stone outcropping as the world around me grew dark.
----------
Stop it! Stop it!
Pain shot through my sides as my ‘father’ continued to kick me. Detached feathers from my wings floated throughout the room. I curled up into a ball to try to shield myself, but it was useless. The more I screamed, the harder the blows came. His foot eventually connected with my stomach, and my breath was knocked out of me, causing a lapse in my screams that was instead filled by coughing and spluttering.
How had it come to this? Weren’t we laughing and having a good time just a few hours ago?
I held my hands over my head as I trembled, tears stinging my eyes, waiting for the next round of abuse. He was calling me names, now. Saying that my brother and I had ruined his and Regina’s picture-perfect family. Calling us freaks. Mutants. Abnormalities. Abominations.
Tommy and I had been so close. Eric and Regina weren’t supposed to be home from the grocery store for at least another ten minutes. Because my brother was twelve (I was eight), they had allowed us to stay here by ourselves while they were gone. We had thought we had enough time to fly back to the house from the field without getting caught. Getting caught would be bad. Our foster parents had made it clear during their interview that they liked normal. Somehow, we figured that wings and being able to fly counted as not normal. When we walked back into the house with wings unfurled and saw the two standing in the doorway, mouths and eyes gaping, we knew we were in for it.
But we hadn’t expected them to go this far.
I looked up through bleary eyes and saw Tommy thrashing around and screaming in Regina’s grip, trying to break free as his green eyes burned with rage. The tears were rolling down my face now, and my body racked with pained sobs. It hurt to cry, but I couldn’t stop. Not only was I crying from the pain, I was crying because I knew our happy lives were over. If they didn’t kill us right here, we would probably get shipped off to some laboratory or circus. I saw Eric bring his foot back for another kick and whimpered, squeezing my eyes shut to brace myself.
“Leave her alone!” Tommy finally managed to break Regina’s grip and slammed into Eric, knocking him to the ground. The boy punched him forcefully in the jaw and the man staggered back a few feet. Regina gasped and ran to her husband’s side. In the midst of the chaos, my brother quickly knelt down and shook me by the shoulders. “Ela! Come on, Ela! Snap out of it!” he yelled.
I could only lay there, paralyzed by fear and pain. At my lack of response, he slapped me on the side of my face. I grunted from the sting, but otherwise made no attempt to move. Hadn’t I suffered enough today? Why was he doing this? My pain was slowly being replaced by numbness, and I could feel the world beginning to grow dark around me.
“Dammit…” the redhead cursed. I noticed a small trail of blood running from his nose.
Through my dazed state, I could see our foster parents standing back up from across the room. Left with no other choice, Tommy scooped my broken form up into his arms and took off running towards the front door.
The last thing I heard before blacking out was the sound of shattering glass less than a foot away from my head.
---
Everything hurt.
All I wanted to do was sleep, but my aching body forced my eyes to slowly flutter open.
Tommy sat across from me against a brick wall. I looked around. Buses and cars drove by slowly, and sirens wailed in the distance. Nighttime had fallen, yet the area was still bright from the streetlamps. How had we gotten to the city? How long had I been asleep?
“You’re finally awake.” my brother’s voice sounded relieved.
I tenderly touched my face and sides and was met with the thick texture of bandages covering the areas. I looked at Tommy and saw that he had taped a patch of cotton and gauze to his cheek, the faint dark shade of blood showing beneath. He gave me a small smile and thumbs up to show that he was okay. “How ya holding up, sis?” he asked concernedly.
I tried to return a smile, but I winced at a sudden surge of sharp pain in my back as I tried to adjust my position against the wall. Glancing over my shoulder, I checked the condition of my wings. Looking at them made the pain worsen. The normally gray and black plumes were stained with blood, which I assumed was a cut from whatever glass object had been thrown at us. Patches of feathers were missing and several were broken and clumped together. Even worse were a few of the bones, which had jutted out in awkward, unnatural angles. I looked back at Tommy with widened eyes. “Yeah… Those might take a while to heal.” he sighed.
I drew my legs up to my chest and just sat there sadly in acceptance.
The redhead wiggled over to me and then threw his arms around me. The contact was painful, but the gesture was comforting. “I can’t believe they did this to you. You’re just a kid!” He whispered incredulously as he pulled back. “I mean… We’re both just kids, but…” he grimaced and then sighed as he flopped against the side of the well next to me.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at him. “Tommy, what are we going to do? About school and beds and food and…” my voice trailed off as the tears began to fall.
School. Today was Sunday, right? Tomorrow my class was supposed to go on a field trip to the aquarium. My friends would be wondering where I was as they ooh’d and ahh’d over the dolphins and other animals. I had been looking forward to this trip for the past month…
Beds. Stuck out here, there was no way I would have a nice, soft bed to sleep on. No Little Miss Rosie to sleep with. No blankets to keep me warm.
Food. The last thing I had eaten was a bowl of cereal at breakfast. I could feel my stomach beginning to growl in hunger as I thought about my next meal. How it probably wouldn’t come soon.
“I don’t know,” he stated honestly. “But we’ll figure something out.” He reached over and brushed the hot tears from my face with his thumb. “Hey, don’t cry. We’re not gonna get through this if you keep crying.”
I sniffled and wiped at my face with my arm as I tried to stop my waterworks. First at my eyes, and then at my nose. The latter only allowed a trail of snot to make its way across my cheek. Yuck. Once I had calmed down a bit, I nodded once and then asked, “Promise we’ll be okay?”
Tommy paused for a moment, smiled, and held out his little finger. I looked at him for a few seconds before also smiling and holding out my own pinkie, wrapping it around his. After one shake, my brother dipped his head in assurance and said, “I promise.”
And you can’t break a pinkie promise.
-----------
My head pounded as the world refocused around me. A dull throbbing came from my wings. I shook my head, trying to avoid the looming dizziness. Why had this memory suddenly resurfaced? I thought I had shoved this one away long ago.
Biting sharply on the inside of my lip, I attempted to calm myself down from the sudden surge of emotion. There was no way I was going to let this get to me. It was a tactic that I had been using for a long time--Focus on the physical pain, and you forget the emotional.
I stopped pressing down with my teeth once I tasted the metallic flavor of blood. I hadn’t had to use this tactic for awhile, but now it seemed like I had no choice. I took in a deep breath and exhaled, the headache beginning to subside. Much better. After sucking on the tiny gash within my mouth for a second, I spat over the side of the cliff, the glob of spittle and bodily fluid dropping like a small stone.
Shakily, I stood up and steadied myself against the rocky wall. Lately, it seemed that a lot of unwanted memories were flooding back to me, and I couldn’t understand why. Wasn’t this why I had bottled everything up in the first place? To cast off anything that showed weakness? In these returning memories, I was a pathetic weakling, unable to take care of myself. I cried over petty things like not having my favorite doll, or not being able to go to school. It made the current me sick to my stomach.
Frowning, I extended my wings once more and leapt off the side of the cliff, flapping my wings in order to catch the current of air to take me back to the mansion.
But although the emotional flood had ceased, my head and wings were still pounding. It took a majority of my strength in order to make myself move. What was happening?
And then I realized that I was falling.
I thought that I had been flapping my wings, but upon trying to repeat the motion, the appendages were unresponsive. Down and down I plummeted for what seemed like an eternity. It was like in the movies, where when something falls, it happens in slow motion. I’m going to die, I thought miserably. Squeezing my eyes shut, I prepared to be ripped apart by tree limbs, but the contact never came.
Instead, I found myself bolting upright in my bed. The hell? I looked at the clock on my wall. It was the middle of the night.
My breaths came out raggedly as I tried to process what had just happened. I patted myself all over my body and checked myself over quickly. I was wearing pajamas--not what I had been wearing on my journey to the cliff. I gave a sigh of relief.
It had only been a nightmare.
… Right?
But when I checked under my fingernails, the dirt from my trip was still there. I always cleaned my fingernails after going to the cliff because all of the dirt that got caked under them was disgusting. The fact that they weren’t clean troubled me. Next, I ran my tongue over the inside of my lower lip and was met with the coarse texture of a forming sore.
This was too weird.
A knock at the door caused me to jump, startled. “Hey, Ela, you awake?” a familiar male voice sounded from the other side.
I quickly attempted to compose myself. “C-come in.” My voice came out shakier than I had wanted.
Sam appeared as the door swung open slowly. His dirty blonde hair was more disheveled than usual, and he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants.
I tried to act normal. “What the hell are you doing here?” I threw a pillow at him and crossed my arms, turning my head in the other direction. “It’s the middle of the night. If you’re trying to get freaky with a girl, you’ve come to the wrong place, you horny son of a bitch.” My voice had steadied a bit, thankfully.
The boy flinched as he tried to dodge the pillow. “Hey, chill out,” he defended. I could feel his gaze burning into my neck. “I couldn’t sleep so I was just walking around the mansion to wear myself out and… somehow ended up here.”
“Sure. I believe you.”
He groaned. “I swear, you--Whoa. Are you okay?” He suddenly rushed over to my side.
And then I realized that it wasn’t my voice that was shaking. It was me. “I-I’m fine. What are you t-talking about?” I answered defiantly, my head still turned away.
“Um, this.” Sam placed his hand on my shoulder, and I could feel it violently shaking along with my body. I stiffened at the contact and tried to pull away, but the boy grabbed my chin and turned my face towards his, looking concerned upon presumably noticing the terror in my eyes. I stared into the deep pools of blue for a few seconds before yanking my chin away and huffing.
“Oh, this? Maybe I’m just cold. Akira keeps the damn thermostat in this place way too low.” I pulled my blanket closer to me in order to make my point.
“Ela…” the blonde frowned deeply.
“What?” I demanded sharply, shoving the boy away from my personal bubble. “Just leave me alone, okay?” I added rather weakly.
Sam sighed and rubbed the back of his neck--a tic that I had noticed he performed often when unsure of what to do. After a pause, the boy looked me straight in the eyes, plopped down at the foot of my bed, and crossed his legs. “Alright. You wanna play stubborn?” he lifted his chin. “Fine, then. I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s up.”
I knew that he didn’t just mean my ongoing panic attack. He was referring to me in general. My coldness and my attempts to keep everyone at a distance even after months of being in this club.
I wasn’t sure what made me tell him. Maybe it was the lingering sense of trust that I had felt towards the boy ever since our fateful meeting in Atlanta. Maybe I needed to finally tell someone why I was like this. Maybe it was the fact that it was 3 AM and my judgement was impaired. Either way, I told him.
Sam sat there intently as I explained everything from my first memories of foster care, to my brother and I living homeless on the streets.
“And then, one day, after a few years of staying together, I woke up… And he was gone. I thought maybe he had gone to find breakfast or something. So, I waited for him, but he never came back. The realization took days to hit me. I felt so lost, so abandoned, and so helpless. After that, I swore to never attach myself to anyone ever again.” I paused and gave a slight smile to the boy. “And I guess you can see how well that’s worked out.”
He didn’t say anything, so I continued.
I told him about the things that happened after that, and how I became responsible for me and me only and how that still applied now. Eventually, I brought myself to the extremely lucid nightmare I had just experienced.
Once I finished, I sighed and folded my hands across my lap. Getting all of this off of my chest had caused my involuntary shaking to stop and I felt much calmer. The boy and I sat in silence for awhile as he, I assumed, processed everything I had told him. I checked the clock once more--It was almost 6 AM. When had that happened?
Eventually, Sam exhaled and scooted his way towards me. He leaned in close and put a hand on my cheek, brushing away a matted chunk of red bed-head. Soon, he had pulled me into an embrace.
And for once, I didn’t pull away. I was too tired to fight it. Too tired to fight anything. Instead, I let myself stay wrapped in the warmth of the blonde’s arms as if they could shield me from all harm. The two of us stayed like that for a long time, unmoving even as the day around us began to stir, in our own world.
But in the back of my mind, I still had a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------
I don’t even know what this is lulz
Character analysis/development? Backstory? Romance? Fail? ALL OF THE ABOVE?
Ela is such a tsundere.
Also I’ve actually technically been working on this post for weeks. Wut. Procrastination ftw!
