Disclaimer: I actually do own, but the original idea belongs to BBSK 2G4E.
You know those dreams when you're falling, and, just when you're bracing yourself to hit the ground, you wake up? Well, this is a little like that. But this isn't a dream.
No, I'm not sky diving. I wish I was. Then I'd at least have a parachute to save me. But no. my twin sister, Amber, and I are free falling from the top of an unusually tall rock wall. Our camp counselor cut our ropes. He is trying to kill us, and we don't know why.
I looked at Amber. She looked terrified, and I realized that my expression must mirror hers. I tried to look nonchalant, like falling out of the sky was a normal, everyday activity, but, as you can imagine, I failed the ground wasn't very far away now, only about ten or twenty feet between me and possibly death. Squeezing my eyes shut, I hoped for the best.
Whoosh! Something popped out of my back, painfully yanking me upwards. Were there built-in parachutes in these harnesses? I doubted it. I cried out in surprise and pain, momentarily forgetting I was free falling. There was a similar squeak from Amber. A feather drifted lazily past my face.
I suddenly, strangely, had a sensation of having other limbs. I couldn't bring myself to look up, though. I was too afraid I'd see two more arms of something. That's when I heard it: a horrible snarl from ground level (still about ten feet away). And, suddenly, the camp counselor from h-e-double-hockey-sticks was gone, replaced by a wolfish creature on hind legs. And he unfurled his wings.
Yep. Wings. Huge, leathery, black ones. Arnold (that's the evil camp counselor) jumped into the air with a snarl, evil, black eyes filled with hatred and hunger for human flesh, wolfish claws ready to tear me to pieces, sharp teeth glinting.
This is it, I thought. I'm only fourteen, but I'm going to die.
But Amber was saying something very different. "Fly, Ami! Fly!"
Fly? I couldn't fly! What did she expect me to do, turn into a bird? Terror was making her go crazy. She just wanted to feel like we could escape, no matter how crazy that method of escape was. That's what I told myself, at least.
I looked over my shoulder, ready to tell her she was crazy, that this is the end (and I'm usually the optimistic one!), to just give up. But then I saw something that made me think differently.
What had stopped my free fall? Not a parachute. And the extra limbs? Definitely not two more arms. Or legs. Or any combination thereof. When I saw it, I realized my life was changed forever. And it has never been normal since.
We had wings!
They were huge, about fourteen feet across. Amber's were yellow and red, like a female cardinal's, and mine… my wings were beautiful. The feathers along the outside of the wings were light brown, which faded to white as they got closer to the center. All of it was speckled with dark brown.
But I knew I couldn't just hover there all day, admiring my wings. I had to move, and fast. I flapped a couple of times experimentally, and was surprised to see how easy it was. With a couple of stronger flaps, I rose to the height Amber had stopped at, leaving Arnold, with his huge, clumsy wings, far behind. He roared in frustration.
"Let's go!" I said, and, not waiting for Amber's reply, took off, flying as fast as I could. A glance over my shoulder showed me Amber skimming over the tree tops not far behind me, and Arnold just rising to our height.
"He'll tire out faster," said Amber, out of the blue.
"Huh?" I asked, not really paying attention.
"Arnold. He'll tire out faster than us. Plus, he's so clumsy that he might just fall into the trees before he has a chance to try and catch us," Amber repeated.
And that's exactly what happened. There was a loud crash, and we turned to see one black wing thrashing above the trees before disappearing among the foliage.
"Now we just have to land and get back to the others," I pointed out. Oh yeah, it's not just me and Amber here. There's also our little sister, Ashley, our neighbor, Daniel, his little brother, Alex, and his twin sister, Alexa.
"Hmmm… How are we supposed to do that?" Amber wondered aloud. "And when we land, we can't just walk around camp with wings folded up at our sides. People will think we're freaks! Oh, wait, we kinda are. But still. And I don't want Daniel to know, either."
Bringing Daniel along was not something Amber and I had wanted to do, but when he sets his mind on something, he doesn't give up. He mostly came just to annoy us (we suspect). Either that, or (god forbid) he has a crush on one of us (shudder).
"Let's just find somewhere to land for now, alright? We can think about that once we've landed," I put in.
We soon found a clearing in the woods where we could land. I dropped down (it was actually pretty easy) and Amber followed. Looking around, I saw that we were in the clearing behind the archery shed. We had found this clearing one day while we were exploring the camp. I actually got lost in the woods and Amber followed, then we found this clearing. There was an overgrown, well-hidden path that led to it already. We just cleared away some of the brambles and thorns so we could get to it, but the path was still hard to see unless you were looking for it. It was a wonder no one had found it yet, though, with the six of us coming and going so often. It was our favorite hideout.
"Now what?" Amber asked.
"I don't know. Let me try," I said. Instead of my wings wrapping around my body like I'd expected, they folded up neatly against my back and I had a weird sensation of them… I don't know… Melting into my back? "Okay, they fold up pretty easily," I told Amber, stepping behind her. "I just wanna see where they go."
She folded her's up, and I noticed that they bent sideways and slipped into two little slits on her back. When I examined the slits, I noticed that they had closed up. The only evidence of them being there were the two lines both Amber and I had had since we were babies.
"Did they-" Amber started, but I shushed her. There was a faint crunching noise.
"Shh, someone's coming," I whispered.
"I knew you guys would be back here!" came Daniel's voice a couple seconds later. We both let out pent-up breaths. "So, you hiding from Arnold again?" he teased, a glint in his brown eyes. I rolled mine. He pushed a piece of messy, overlong brown hair (not in the cute way; I hate him too much to actually call him cute) out of his face and gave us and expectant, impatient look.
" No, we just-" Amber started to say we just landed, but I smacked her so she would shut up.
"Uh, yeah. He was following us again. I swear he signed up to be a camp counselor just so he could stalk the girls or something. It's really creepy," I covered.
"Let's get back to the cabin," Amber said, sounding like she wanted to get out of there fast. I agreed. Arnold could spot us easily by flying over the woods, and, anyway, counselors couldn't go in the cabins. It was the one place the campers got complete privacy.
"So, should we tell the others?" Amber asked me when we were alone in the cabin. Daniel had gone to archery so he could practice and maybe beat us next time (in your dreams, buddy!) and the other kids were at some activity or another. I gaped at her and shook my head. What was she thinking?
The next day was Saturday, and weekends are usually free days, which meant we didn't have to show up at any of the activities at all. On weekdays, you had to show up to activities so that they know if you left or something, but lots of kids went home on the weekends, so it was no use. Most kids who stayed at camp used it just to sleep all day, but Amber and I wanted to fly above the camp.
"I've never seen it from an aerial view," chattered Amber.
"Yeah, and Arnold might not find us, unless he's scouting out above the camp, searching for us," I added.
At that point, we were at the hidden entrance to the clearing. We checked if anyone was coming, and I went in first. Amber soon followed. We shook out our wings and took off.
"I hope no one followed us," I fretted, looking down at the clearing.
"We have bigger problems than that," Amber said, sounding freaked out. I followed her glance.
"Not good!" I yelled thoughtlessly, then immediately kicked myself. Arnold heard me, and was now looking straight at us. Crap.
A murderous snarl ripped through the air. He was chasing us! Again! I didn't think we'd get away this time.
I turned around and flew at him, ignoring Amber's cry of, "Don't be stupid! You can't fight him! Get back here! STOP!"
I flew on, shrieking like a banshee, and kicked him. I had been aiming for his stomach, but had hit somewhere lower. He doubled over in pain, and I used that as a chance to start pummeling him. I saw Amber join me and sighed in relief, then climbed on Arnold's back and motioned for Amber to do the same. She joined me, and Arnold went down. Fast. Amber and I jumped off just as he hit the tree line. We flapped our wings and gained altitude. He wasn't so lucky.
Then I felt claws in my left leg.
I screamed. Amber spun around and attacked viscously. She stopped him, but not before he created a huge, very deep gash in my leg from my knee to my ankle.
It wasn't deep, but it was long and wide and I was losing a lot of blood, fast. "Amber!" I yelled. "I don't think I can fly much longer!"
"Hold on," she called. She then smacked him with her wing, clawed his face, and yanked his wings upward. I heard a loud crack, and Arnold cringed, falling fast. At the same time, I started to lose consciousness. I cried out in pain and fear, losing altitude. Amber grabbed me, and flew back to the clearing. I must have fainted, because I don't remember most of the flight, but I woke up to see the clearing… and what was there waiting for us.
"Amber! Get back! Daniel's there!" I cried.
"I cant. You've lost too much blood. He could help me carry you," she said. She had a point there. "but first I have to explain the whole wings thing and hope he doesn't faint," she added, rolling her eyes. I laughed.
She landed right in front of Daniel, wings outstretched. Obvious much?
"What? You have… wings? Why didn't you tell me this? Wait, is Ami hurt? Oh my god, I'll take her!" he blurted out, astonishment and fear in his face.
I was passed over to Daniel, both of them ignoring my weak, barely audible protests. "I'll come with you," Amber said. "I think I have some explaining to do."
I'd be scarred for life. That's all they'd tell me. That and that I would have counselors checking on me every hour, around the clock. Living nightmare. What if one of them was Arnold?
"Ami?" Amber asked me one night, sounding scared. I had only gotten an hour of sleep so far, and it was two o'clock in the morning. I opened my eyes to find her standing above me, fear in her eyes, with a counselor looking over her shoulder, wearing the same expression.
"Whas goin' on?" I slurred.
"Your wound. It's, well, umm, it's gone," amber said.
I sat bolt upright, instinctively bracing myself for a burst of pain in my leg, but feeling nothing. I yanked the bandages off my wound and saw, I kid you not, a long pink scar. It looked old. Like, a couple years old. I had wanted it gone, but this was crazy.
"Whoa," I whispered.
"What?" Amber asked, and even though she looked like she could have gone her entire life without knowing, she bent over my leg, looking wary. I showed her, and she screamed. I covered her mouth so that she didn't wake anyone up.
"We need to tell the others," she told me after she had recovered.
"No! That's the last thing we'd want to do right now; it would only scare them. We don't want to do that," I said
"Ami, c'mon. Don't be stupid. You know we have to tell them. It would be awful to not tell them. And anyway, how are we supposed to explain we need to escape?" she pointed out.
"Fine, whatever, tell them, mentally scar them for the rest of their lives if you like, their best friends are freaks, oh, no that's a normal thing to tell someone. It's normal to tell your ten-year-old sister and two seven-year-old next-door neighbors that you have wings and you heal superhumanly fast. Yep, everyone's had to-" I was enraged.
"Ami, would you just shut up? You know we have to tell them. It would be cruel to just be like, 'oh, yeah, we have to leave here now' and just whip out wings right on the spot. We can't do that to them," she said, cutting me off. She did have a point there, though.
"OK, OK. We'll tell them," I reluctantly agreed.
"Don't- wait, you said yes?" Amber said.
"No! Don't push me! I'm too young to die!" Ashley muttered in her sleep from the bunk next to mine. Amber and I panicked, throwing the covers over ourselves. Ashley sat up with a piercing scream.
I got up and trotted over to her bunk, back to the door, meaning to console her, but ending up doing something very different. She gave me a confused look.
"Ami? What happened? Your leg… It was hurt… Was that a dream?" she asked, confused.
"No, that wasn't a dream. I, um, have something to show you," I said.
I started to let my wings out.
As the tips of my feathers became visible, Ashley squeaked and dropped in a dead faint. At the same moment, a boy's voice sounded from the doorway, yelling, "oh, shit!"
Oh, crap, I thought. I recognized that voice. It belonged to the hottest boy in the entire eighth grade, Aaron Cole. I spun around, wings still partially exended. He was staring at me with a mixture of fear and awe.
He started for the door, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Amber started towards the door, too, looking mad. I turned away, unable to look at him.
The door opened and slammed shut.
The only sounds in the room were our breathing… and footsteps. I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Leave me alone, Amber," I whispered, not looking up.
"What? I'm not Amber," a much deeper voice said.
"Oh!" I squeaked, spinning around.
"Amber left, muttering something about not posting a lookout," Aaron informed me. "I, for one, think that was pretty cool."
I gaped at him, knowing I looked like an idiot, but momentarily unable to do anything about it. It felt as if the muscles in my face had frozen. And whatever muscles you used to speak. I couldn't say a word.
"What happened to her?" Aaron ventured, jabbing his thumb at Ashley.
I finally found my voice. "You don't think I'm a freak?" I asked, incredulous. I felt like mentioning the fact that I had almost died two days ago from a giant claw mark in my leg and was completely fine now, but it was probably a good idea to stop while I was ahead. I didn't want to scare him off.
"No. I don't. In fact, I think you're amazing. You have wings!" he said. I stared into his dark, mysterious eyes, trying to see if he was lying. I didn't think so.
A snore came from behind the thin dividing wall, where Alex and Daniel slept. Aaron and I jumped apart. We had been so close…
The door banged open, and Amber stormed in, slamming the door shut in the face of a very angry counselor. "Apparently you're not allowed to go for a walk at three o'clock in the morning around here," she spluttered. She looked at us, standing in the middle of the cabin, and headed for her bed. Then she stopped, turned around, and looked closer. I stepped farther away for Aaron, until I was standing at the foot of Ashley's bed.
"Ami, what are you doing?" Amber asked, giving me a funny look.
"Oh, nothing. Aaron wanted to know what happened to Ashley," I said. It wasn't a lie.
"Right! I'm gonna get water from the pump," she said. Was it just me, or was she smirking as she turned for the door? I was going to kill her later.
"So how did you find out we were here? I asked Aaron.
"I heard one of the counselors talking about you being hurt. I thought I should come see if you were alright, so I followed your sister to your cabin. Apparently, your fine, though," he told me, stepping closer. I held my breath. What was he doing?
"Yeah, I wasn't two days ago," I said after a pause. Ugh! That's not what I wanted to say, I wanted to scream. What I meant to say was, Yeah, I'm fine. Just scratched myself on a thorn. Just a minor cut. No biggie. I just needed a Band-Aid. I can't believe the counselors were talking about that, but I had completely lost control of my mouth. It was like it was on extremely truthful autopilot or something.
He looked at me, confused. I had never been this close to him before. Now I saw what made every girl swoon. I mean, I had a crush on him too, but only because every girl I knew did. He had overlong, black hair that kept falling in his black, thoughtful, deep, mysterious eyes, and tan skin. He spoke with a slight Australian accent. So hot! I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I was wearing my favorite worn-out grey pajamas. I hadn't brushed my shoulder length caramel-and-brown hair since the morning of the attack, and it was probably a mess.
"What do you mean?" Aaron asked snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Umm… Nevermind," I said. At least that came out right!
"Whatever. You're not alone you know, that right?" he asked, out of the blue.
"I know. I have Amber and Ashley" I said, trying to sound like I knew what he was talking about, but the confusion was most likely showing in my blue eyes, giving me away.
"Amber and Ashley have wings, too?" Aaron asked, catching me off guard.
"Huh? Oh, no. Amber does, but Ashley does not, not that we know of at least. Wait," I said, finally figuring out where he was going with this. "You have- oh, god."
"Yeah" Aaron answered. He stripped off his shirt, making me stare, and turned around. "These look familiar?" he asked, motioning to two lines down him back. I recognized them instantly as the slits Amber and I had on our backs from our wings.
"Oh. God. Wow," I said, speechless. I recovered quickly, though "Can I … see?" I asked, unsure. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything… but you've seen mine…" I let my voice trail off.
"Umm, yeah, I guess" he said, checking how big the cabin was. He stepped back and unfurled his wings. All 15 feet of 'em. They were a continuous, glossy black. I felt myself falling and everything went black.
"Ami? Ami! Wake up!" I heard Amber's voice saying, and opened my eyes to see 6 worried faces starring back at me. It was bright out, so I knew I had been out for over an hour.
"Washapnin?" I slurred, barely awake.
"You fainted at the sight of my, uh…" Aaron gestured to his back. I nodded.
"So, we made you faint anyway?" Amber asked. I looked at Aaron and made a universal should I tell them? gesture. He nodded.
"What I am about to say will sound impossible to two of you, but to the other five of us, it is completely believable. Amber and I have wings…" gasps from Alex and Alexa, but they recovered quickly and shared a knowing look that made me kind of uneasy. "-and so does Aaron." Collective gasp. Aaron nodded. There were odd expressions on the faces of Daniel, Alex, Alexa, and Ashley. Hmm, I thought. I wonder what's up with them.
Suddenly Alex and Alexa spoke up. "We do, too!" They yelled, and proceeded to stand up and unfurl their wings. Alexa's were pure white, but Alex's had streaks of brown. That's just what we need. The two seven-year-olds were hard enough to control, but now them plus wings? None of us are gonna get any rest. Oh, joy, I thought.
"I do, too" Daniel asked. His were black and brown with small white spots.
There was silence. We all looked at Ashley. She stood up and opened her's up, too, after some thought. They were a beautiful shade of light grey, like mist.
I motioned to Amber to come into a corner with me. She came.
"We can escape! We can fly out of here!" I told her. She agreed, and we left, promising to explain on our way,
Halfway out of Camp, though, a horrible snarl ripped through the air. Arnold was trying to capture us! I flew at him, flanked by Ami and Aaron, and followed closely by Daniel. We attacked, but Arnold was ready. He clawed me, aiming for my heart, but getting my side. It was very deep. Aaron, driven by rage was twice as tough. Soon, Arnold was retreating. I fainted again, from loss of too much blood.
"Amber! Bring that canteen over! I saw her eyelids flutter!" Was the next thing I heard. It was Aaron. I opened my eyes and looked around. We were flying over new, unknown forests. We were free. And safe. Aaron saw that I was awake and shouted "Ami, I thought you were dead!" Then he kissed me.