SHAMELESS PROMO: fadedflight. SPACE deviantart SPACE .com/art/Tiger-Collars-119080278 (but remove the ' SPACE 's first! ;3)
Tiger Collars
Prologue: Nightmares
"Manuel… "
Rolling over, Manny mumbled and drifted back to sleep.
"Manuel… "
Manny opened his eyes into the darkness of his room. A shiver of recognized danger roused him, rippling over the back of his neck. Someone was watching him.
Again, the ethereal voice snaked to him. "Manuel… "
Under a flash of green light, Many burst from the covers, sleep long forgotten. An enemy had approached him on his home grounds while he was asleep- a dirty fighter. He crouched on the bed, green eyes piercing the dark easily.
A shadow shifted at the window and Manny leapt, roaring, but it slipped out before he could grab it. It vanished against the night, seeming to join the shadows. Manny stood at the window and stared after it. His claws itched irritatingly to show it the treatment shifty intruders got.
"Manny? Are you all right? What happened?"
Manny turned around, his face still a mask of resentful disappointment at his own inability, and his father recoiled. At that, Manny instantly relaxed and he was flushed with shame.
"Uh, hey Dad. It was nothin', just some-"
"Manny, what is around your neck?" Rodolfo knelt and felt the object, his eyes going from round with shock to sharp with protective suspicion. Manny became aware of it then and realized the shadow must have put it there while he was sleeping. "Ah, turn the light on. I can not see… "
Manny flashed to his lamp, turned it on and came back in a split second, and Rodolfo's eyes widened. "What is this? A collar?"
"What?" Manny exclaimed, pulling at it. "Get it off."
Rodolfo brushed his son's hands away and rotated the brown leather length. It didn't have a clasp, yet it was fitted securely to Manny's skin. "That is not… possible," Rodolfo said to himself, pulling on it and finding absolutely no elasticity.
"What? What's not possible?" Manny said, alarmed. The fact that someone had slipped into his room and come in contact with him set off a certain instinctual fear, spurred by suddenly wondering if he was as capable as he thought.
"There is no clasp, yet it can not stretch." Rodolfo looked at the only outstanding feature of the collar- a gem set in a circle of weathered bronze. He frowned, his hand oddly cold as he felt its smooth surface. The aura from the stone was disturbing. "Come- we will cut it off."
Manny reverse spun his buckle and followed Rodolfo to the kitchen in his night clothes. His father was digging through the drawers in search of scissors. Manny leaned against the counter, staring into some invisible, distant disaster. How did he not sense someone in his house? His room? How did he not feel someone touch his own throat? Manny shuddered at the thought.
Maybe he wasn't cut out for this. Maybe he needed to give his belt back. Manny looked at it and tried to imagine not having it. In his mind, it defined him. He was El Tigre, he was the son in a line of super heroes and villains, and the buckle was his future. He had always embraced it. The gleam on the metal buckle now seemed cold and unfriendly.
Rodolfo turned around with the scissors in hand, relief spelled on his face. "Here, now we can-"
Manny gasped and fell to his knees, scrabbling at the collar. It was suddenly tight, choking him, and he rasped through black spots swimming in his vision, "Dad!"
Fury and fear seized Rodolfo and he dropped the scissors, grabbing Manny as the boy's limbs buckled, crying out, "I won't! I won't remove it! Stop, stop! Just let him breathe!" The collar held for a heartbeat longer, Manny's lips tingeing blue, then released, and he jackknifed, gasping in huge, sucking breaths. Tears escaped Rodolfo's eyes as his son lay over his lap, eyes closed, slowly recovering.
"Manny… " he said softly, utter grief in his voice. He couldn't do anything for his son and nothing could absolve this crime. He had to find the owner of this horrid device, and make him pay.
A black fog was dispersing in Manny's vision and a drop of water startled him awake. Who was this that held him? They felt familiar, but they were crying. Why was he crying? Was his dad crying?
"Dad?" Manny rasped and he felt the pressure of the collar against his throat change with ever the slightest fluctuations- like a living thing. A parasite. "Guess it's… not comin' off, eh?"