Blood and Feathers

By Addien of Camelot

I was never one for picket fences… or any type of fence really. Growing up in a dog crate tends to do that to a person. A few years ago, I left behind my family, so that I could save their lives. Why? Because a mind reading 7 year old told me I was going to die first and soon. Don't think that made leaving them behind easy. Saying goodbye is never easy, especially when it's someone that you love. I hated myself for what I did that day, I mean I hated everything. I had been such a coward, to afraid to say goodbye to their face. Too weak to risk them asking me to stay, because let's face it, I would have. And then they would still be in danger.

She wasn't part of me leaving; she was just another casualty in a long line of people that would get hurt no matter what choice I'd made. She would have died without me. I know it. But at the same time, I can't help but feeling that I just killed her. That by leaving Max and the Flock, I killed this poor girl; that I'm the one who's responsible for the fact that she's lying in a crumpled broken heap of blood and feathers… more so than the Erasers who's bite marks and scratches so obviously adorn her body.

I was trying so hard to protect my family that I put the one person that didn't hate me in harm's way. Want to know the worst part? I can still hear her laughter, and see her sweet violet eyes, I can still picture the way her ash brown hair fraimed her face. While I stand here, looming over her body, knowing that there is nothing I can do to save her; knowing I caused this…I can still see the way she was when she was alive.

No, I hadn't been in love with her, she had never taken Max's place in my heart…honestly, I don't think any one ever could… but she had been their for me in ways that most people couldn't. In ways that even I wasn't aware of at the time. She had loved me, I suppose, in some way. Just like I had loved her in a sense…not the way I loved Max, mind you; but what I had felt for her had definitely been love.

It had been the kind that you don't really notice until it's too late to do something about it. That was the story of my life it seemed. Running for my life, and just when I start to feel as though I could take a breath, the things I love most are taken right out from under me…

What does this have to do with picket fences? Fences remind me of cages, cages remind me of the School, the School reminds me of the escaping, escaping reminds me of the Flock, the Flock remind me of flying, flying reminds me of Erasers, Erasers remind me of leaving, leaving reminds me of that night, that night reminds me of the past couple of years, the past couple of years remind me of her, and she reminds me of how all of this is my fault. So why am I going on about picket fences? Oh yeah, that's why…

Look. I know there's nothing I can do to change the past… okay? I just really need to get this out in the open. I feel like if I explained why if feel the way I do it would help to get rid of this massive swirling vortex of pain were my heart used to be. Then again, maybe this is just a sign that I've gone off the deep end…

The point is, there is some stuff in my past I would love to forget, but since I seem both physically and mentally incapable of getting passed it I might as well share it with the world in hopes of getting it off my chest so I can function like a fairly normal human being… aside from the whole genetic experiment that's 2 percent bird thing of course…