A Caged Harpy, With A Cold Egg.
Inspiration, Can't I Even Dream? Covered by JoyDreamer.
Cold.
It's cold.
Why is it cold?
It was... hot earlier.
It was burning hot earlier.
What was it burning hot earlier?
A campfire? No, it was hotter than that... a bonfire?
No, a bigger fire... the village was on fire, houses on fire, and trees on fire.
The sky was on fire.
But why is it cold now?
Wait... I can't move.
I'm not chained, I'm not stuck, and I know I'm not dead. For I can hear my heart.
Open eyes! Please open!
They're open... It's... white...
White?
It was autumn...
Is this snow? Maybe that's why it's cold...
But it's not winter...
What happened?
HELP ME!
Wh-what? A woman's voice?
GO, RUN AWAY BROTHER!
THE VILLAGE IS BURNING! GRAB THE HATCHLINGS!
What? Hatchlings? Voices of men, women, and children?
'PLEASE, SPARE THE HATCHLINGS!'
A familiar voice... a female...
No. Every last harpy must die! Your kind is too dangerous to be alive!
That voice... Why do I hate it? And why do I fear it?
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
Another familiar voice... a male...
YOUR KIND, MUST BE ERASED! YOU ARE MONSTERS!
YOU HUMANS ARE THE MONSTERS! WE HAVE DONE NOTHING!
DIE, ABOMINATIONS!
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
The fear is painful... It stabs me everywhere at every scream.
Screams.
Screams, screams, screams of every age and gender.
Screams of pain. Screams of fear. Screams of hate.
It's haunting... It makes me tremble violently.
It chills my blood. It chills it to ice. Ice of fear, ice of pain, ice of...
Loneliness.
But at the same time, it sets my heart on fire.
Fire of want, fire of longing, fire of...
Belonging.
In the white, white area, I saw the night sky high above me. I was on my back, seeing my breath as I watched the sky, trying to move. I finally raised an arm, trying to reach the bright full moon above me.
My arm was heavy, but not because it was hard to move...
I saw feathers, beautiful white feathers tipped black. I try moving my arm again, and I saw the feathers, no, wing moving along with movements I tried to do. It was sloppy and sluggish, but the wing moved.
It was a part of me. It was my arm. I slowly, but surely, sat up, slouched forward, and stopped trembling along with the screams.
I was in a forest, not to thick, but not thin at all. Pine trees covered with snow was the forest, painting green to a soft white. No other trees can be seen, along with no animals.
As I gazed into the moon again, whispers instead of screams filled my head. The whispers makes my heart ache, it feels like it's breaking.
Come on little one, fly on, I'll catch up. I promise to teach you a new song when we meet up.
A woman's voice...
Mother.
Fly! Fly like you never flown before! Mom and I will meet you there! We'll have an adventure later, just the two of us!
Father.
I'm sorry, but I have to leave you alone for a while... I'll catch up, and tell you more adventure stories about marines and pirates. Your favorites!
Sister.
Hold on to our sibling -, I'll go and find everyone else. When we return, we'll figure out what to do. Remember, 'if your dreams are strong, you'll fly on.' Our quote we made ourselves, right?
Brother.
'Hold on to my necklace, as a promise.'
My family.
A sibling?
Colors fly behind my eyes as I tried to remember something I shouldn't have forgotten. And one color stayed.
White.
An oval shape that's white.
An egg! My head flew around, trying to find an egg that plagued my worried mind. Ignoring how my head throbbed in dull pain.
But why an egg?
Before I can ponder this, I spot a different color of white in the snow not too far away from me. I tried to stand up, but I stumble and face plat into the snow. My legs are throbbing in ache and won't respond, but I ignore this. I start to crawl to the small color in the snow, dragging my useless legs behind me. I notice that there is something on my wings, using it to grip the ground.
It's a claw like hand, covered in fluffy white feathers with five black talons sticking out of a joint. There is also something else that is wrapped around the wrist of the hand. It's a bracelet, made of a duller white than my feathers fangs, obviously taken from a creature. It was slightly loose on my wrist, even if it was wrapped around at least three times.
I crawled forward with new energy when I remembered the whispers.
'Hold onto my necklace, as a promise.'
It must be a necklace.
I finally reached the odd color after what seems like forever. The egg is small, smaller then a new born baby. But none the less, it was still a big egg. I quickly reached out and carefully pulled the egg close to my heart with both wings, feeling the need to protect this egg.
I nearly cried out in relief. It was still warm, meaning it's still alive. I noticed that there was another necklace on my other arm. I sat on my butt and looked at my feet, wiggling them all the while, trying to get feeling in them. There was feathers from my waist down to my feet, which was also covered in fluffy white feathers. My 'feet' was talons as well, but with five talons instead of a usually four, like normal birds. I looked and saw the same things that were on my wrist, also on my ankles still loose. Over the feathers, I was wearing something that must have been jeans, but ripped at the knees. It was a dark grey shorts, along with some jean like legwarmers that was the exact same color as the shorts. I looked around after some staring at my feet.
I remember wearing these.
I remember many things, but they're so jumbled, I can't tell from one thing to another. It makes my eyes mist up in feelings that I can't explain.
I shake my head to be rid of all these thoughts. I'll figure them out later. I slowly stood up, nearly falling down many times, but I stayed standing. Something white lands on my nose, my eyes cross trying to look at it.
A snowflake. It's snowing.
I know in other times I would be happy about snow, playing around in the fluffy white. But now is not the time for playing. The snow could change into a blizzard soon. As I think this, I slowly took a step. The step was uneven, making me stumble a little.
'No, don't stumble!' I yell in my mind. Huh.
I forgot what I sound like.
I forgot my name.
'NOT NOW!' I shake my head in anger. I have to run away from the blizzard that might come.
A cave is what I must think about. A cave is what I must find. I look around the area, trying to find shelter. I spotted a mountain not too far away, and where there is a mountain, there must be some shelter. I took another step. I didn't stumble, but I wobbled.
If you stumble, you'll never find your way. You'll become lost because you would lose the road to your way to live.
Another whisper, and its good advice. Mother's advice. And Mom is always right.
I started walking, taking slow but long steps. It seems like I have long legs, hehe. It's not too cold, even if I'm bare... clawed, my feathers keep me warm. My steps became faster as I became used to my own legs. I keep my eyes on the large mountain in front of me, looking at the odd shape.
It was a regular looking mountain, just a spike. But if I looked closer, I could see more spikes poking out of the mountain, like needles, like a cactus.
It seems like a good place to rest. I was now sprinting toward the mountain cactus, the trees becoming blurs of green and white, the snow not bothering my steps at all as I run. I skid to a stop as I reached the base of the mountain, the egg still clutched loosely but securely to my chest with my... hands. I looked around the base a little, trying to find a cave or some kind of shelter. I found none.
I looked up instead, mostly to sigh in anger but stopped as I sucked in breath.
I could see an opening in the mountain, close to the top but not at the tip. I was surprise to see it clearly and sharply in the middle of night, and it was snowing heavily now. I must have great eyesight!
But... how am I going to reach up there?
Wait... I have wings... I could try to fly...
Or jump.
The spikes I've seen on the mountain were big, and made of smooth rock. They were about fifteen to twenty feet away from each other. The spikes themselves were about teen feet long and eight feet wide that shrunk to a dull spike.
But I need my wings free to fly, and I'm holding my sibling with those wings. I groaned in annoyance and threw my head now, eyes closed.
The wind blew my hair into my face, I noticed that it tickled a lot. So I opened my eyes.
It was long pearly white, just like the snow. It reached out far, so it must have reached my waist, maybe longer if it was on my back and not flying around. Then I noticed something else that flew along with my hair.
It was a black scarf.
It was tied around my waist, I wonder how I didn't notice it earlier when I was checking my legs.
My face must have been beaming when I realized what I could do with it.
I quickly untied the long scarf around my waist, ignoring the tattered white shirt I was wear as well, but didn't care. I tied the scarf around my body like a child carrier, over both shoulders and made an 'x' shape. I carefully put the egg inside and tied the scarf securely with a finally tug.
And I slowly opened my arms, the farthest I could.
I looked at my wings, surprised at my wingspan. My hands disappeared naturally into the joint, muscle memory, making it look like I only had wings. My wingspan was about double, maybe triple my height of four foot seven (4'7"), making it fifteen to seventeen at least. Then I tried to fold the feathers, trying to see if I can have just 'arms'. To my surprise, I could. My feathers naturally folded slowly, leaving only my feathers that covered my skin. My 'arm' looked like a normal arm, just covered with fluffy and full feathers and a talon hand.
My thoughts and experimenting was cut short when a sharp blast of wind slapped my face, making it sting in pain. There was a blizzard coming, and it was coming fast.
I quickly unfolded my feathers so fast, I thought I might receive whiplash. I took a deep breath, and gave a hard thrust of my wings.
I easily flew up to the fourth spike in a second. I screeched in alarm when I nearly hit it, but I quickly leveled out and landed like an owl on the spike.
'Let's not put so much force behind those wings, that kind of hurt.' I told myself as I shook my wings. I did another thrust, but not as hard. I flew above the second spike that was after the fourth, slightly too high. I gently hovered and landed again.
I'm getting the hang of it. I repeated this process, two spikes at a time. By the time I reached the cave, it has been about twenty minutes and the blizzard was picking up.
I hopped like a bird into the cave, exhausted by the flying I was doing and the freezing temperature. I was tired when I woke up, so this took a lot out of me.
I wonder what made me so tired before I came here.
When I wondered this, I looked around the cave. The cave was very large, it could fit a sea-king and I could still fly around! But I also noticed something in the very back of the cave. As I moved away from the mouth of the cave, I could see some light shining from the top of the cave.
After a while, I realized that the thing I noticed was a tree, and the light was coming from outside. The tree was huge, along with huge pieces of different kinds of fruit! I could see apples, mangos, oranges, pears, etc. etc.! I could also see grapes growing on the pale tan trunk of the tree. I reached out to the tree to see if it was real and not my imagination.
It took a while to pull my jaw off the floor.
It was real, for I could feel it, and I could feel a soft warmth from the tree. I suddenly beamed like a child with a new toy. I carefully undid the scarf and the egg. I kneeled next to the base of the tree and roots, and I patted my scarf down in a crook of the tree. I then gently placed my sibling in the makeshift nest and leaned him/her against the tree for warmth. I then looked around me.
There was grass growing on the floor, flowers here and there of every color I could imagine. When I looked up to find the light, I could see a small hole in the wall, showing the blizzard outside. But no snow came in.
I noticed a large sparkling lake not too far away from the tree and a stream that leads to who knows where. And that's when my thirst and hunger hit me full force.
GROOOOOWL
The force of the growl made me fall on my butt, seeing I was just on my knees.
I shook my head in mirth and stood up, before something else hit me full force.
I forgotten what I looked like.
I looked towards the lake, hunger and thirst no longer on my mind. I slowly walk towards, noticing brown field mice scurry out of my way, but didn't hide. In fact, they seemed to follow me. I looked behind me and saw that there was other animals as well.
Snakes of every color patterns, foxes of white, grey, and red, brown field mice, black and a few white rats, birds of every color, and I could see some black hairy spiders riding on snakes' heads. They followed but held their distance, like they were curious of new neighbor that just moved in but scared if I wasn't friendly.
I turned my head back to the lake and saw some white tailed deer standing nearby. Bucks stood in front of does and fawns protectively, but made no threatening moves. They watched me with interest I didn't know animals could hold in their eyes.
I slowly kneeled at the edge of the clear blue water with reeds growing around, but made no move to peer in, I just stared at the flat water. I looked around once more after a while.
I was surprised to see all the animals sit nearby, like waiting to see if I would look into the water and see something amazing or something like that. As I was about to turn back to the water, a fawn carefully walked closer. A buck snorted in warning at the fawn, but it ignored the buck continued walking towards me.
When it was about a foot away, it leaned its head towards me and tilted its head. Like asking what I was doing. I smiled weakly to the fawn, tired about all this... insanity.
I decided to talk.
"I... for-forgotten w-what... I lo-looked li-like." My voice was croaky and shaking, most likely from being unused. I nearly jumped at my voice. I couldn't tell if it was mine, I couldn't tell what gender I was either.
My eyes started to water.
I couldn't tell if I was me.
I wanted to scream, to wail, to pound the ground, or do something!
But all I did was sniff and cry behind my wings.
As I cried, I could hear chirps and growls, squeaks and snorts. Even hissing. The animals must be talking, and I didn't care about any of it. I felt something nudge me on my wing but I ignored it. I felt so weak and helpless. My heart was aching.
It nudged again but harder, and more nudging appeared from all around. I ruffled my wings a little to make them go away, my tail feathers I knew I had fluffed out a little. They didn't stop.
I finally look up, pulling my wings down to hide just my nose and mouth. I saw the same fawn from earlier, its snout in my face. I looked around with my eyes only, and I saw all the animals nearby. It looks like at least most of them was poking me to stop my crying. The fawn poke its nose on my forehead and rubbed its muzzle on the side of my head, trying to comfort me.
I sniffed again before lowering my wings, giving a weak smile and a nod as thanks. The fawn's eyes smiled as it snorted in happiness. I gently pushed the fawn away, showing I was ready to look in the lake. The fawn backed up in understanding.
I took a deep breath as I leaned forward, mentally preparing myself, half hoping I didn't look hideous.
Instead, I think my brain skid to a halt.
What I saw was a young pale, pale boy of eleven staring back at me. The boy's face was tinted red from crying, along with his eyes. His face had smudges of dirt and something else all over. Pearl white hair fell in his eyes, and across his back, all wild and slightly spiky as it made a curtain from the outside world. Chapped pink lips, and a faint scar on the boy's neck, like a collar. But that wasn't made my brain stop.
The boy had red eyes.
Red like blood.
And then something else clicked while I looked at the boy's – no, my eyes.
The screams started to play again, but this time with images.
Red fire, red skies, and bodies painted red.
Along with a man covered with red blood, laughing in the middle of the red village.
I slowly looked up, trying to pull my eyes away from the vision. My tears came back, but I didn't sniff nor wail. I just looked at the moon that was shining through a hole in the cave.
Then I screamed.
I screamed and screamed, unable to stop. I clawed at my throat, wanting the pain to stop. I screamed, not caring if no one I cared if they didn't reach anyone, and if the animals ran away. I was screaming for the people I saw that day. My friends I saw that day. My home I saw that day.
But the reason why I screamed till I lost my voice?
My family broke their promise, and that man was the reason why.
As I crawled slowly back to the tree and next to my unknown sibling, I started to faint from exhaustion. I gave one last choked sob as I slowly slipped into the darkness, I gave one last tired thought.
'I still can't remember my name...'
END