Too Scared To Cry

A note: Yes, it's long. But it's not a chapter story. It's a long short story (It's an oxymoron!), but if you think it might be better in, say, two parts, then suggest it and I might set that up.

My friends call me Roc. I have special powers. I'm a special person. I'm one of the Guardians of the Crystal of Harest. Some people think me and my friends are freaks of nature. Some think its okay to treat me like an animal. That's all I know. I don't know much.

I don't know how old I am or when my birthday is. I don't know if I ever had a family- I don't even know if I'm really human or not. I don't know if I was born through flesh and blood, or if I was born in a test tube. It never really occurred to me before, but now that seems like a reasonable option, seeing as how they treat me like an 'it'.

My earliest memories are being locked in a cage, not knowing what they were doing to me. I didn't even know if I had a real, given name- I still don't. It was just me, in the cage, with long hours of silence. Nothing. Not even the ticking of a clock to show time passing. Now and again they would come in in their coats and their pads, and I didn't know what to do as they poked me and prodded me with needles and sticks. I suppose I was obedient back then- I didn't know how to struggle or resist. I didn't know there was a reason to. I don't know how long I was like that- if it was months or years. I had no way to keep track of the time; I didn't even have a window to look out. I never saw sunlight, only the harsh fake light, and the small flashlights they would bring in with them sometimes. But it went on like that. And on. And on.

The first memorable thing I know is when they moved me. They came in and just picked up my cage while I was sleeping, causing me to wake up. I don't remember how far it was or which ways they turned, but I remember being terrified the whole way. I didn't know where they were taking me, or why.

I remember the jolt as I was set down again. The room was filled with strange, new noises. People talking. The only things I had picked up where what They had said repeatedly, and that didn't mean I understood it. All I really knew was when they said 'UWC 4961', they meant me. And I still didn't know why. So when people talked around me, the noise was frightening and strange. I huddled in the back of my cage, not liking this new environment. I wrapped my wings around me as if they could somehow hide me from this strange place. But, it didn't last long.

There were a lot of other cages in the room, and a few were next to mine. The others started poking me. It was just like when They poked me with their sticks, but at least it was gentler. I didn't understand why they were poking me, I didn't understand that they wanted my attention or that I couldn't speak. Finally they stopped poking me, but I still had no where to go and no way to communicate. After I finally got used to the noise, I started looking around. All the people in the other cages were older than me, more mature, they knew how to talk. When they finally did get my attention and tried to strike up a conversation, I couldn't do anything other that stare at them blankly.

But there was one boy. He didn't give up. When he saw me looking around, he would poke me until he got my attention, and then try to talk to me again. I remember all of my confusion at this- up until he did something that I got. He finally guessed my illiteracy, and made it simple. He taught me his name by pointing at himself and saying it. Then he got me to point at him and said it again. So, Zach started to teach me how to talk.  I don't know how, but somehow he did it. He explained to me the concepts of time and age, of being an individual, and everything about English that he could think of. How to ask a question. How to give an answer. Who They were, and why They were bad people.

And then I was moved again. But I remembered everything that Zach had told me. I also remembered how he gave me a name.

When he had finally explained what names were, he asked me what mine was... But I didn't know. All I knew was UWC 4961, which he said wasn't my name, only what They called me. He asked me if he could give me a name, since I didn't have one. I loved the prospect, it was like my first present. I told him that I wanted it to be like his, because I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be smart and knowledgeable like him. So, he granted my request, and I became Zechariah. It was like his, Zachery, but different and unique at the same time. I did my best not to forget that name, even after I was moved again.

I don't know how long I stayed in my new room. I was placed on the floor, away from any of the walls. While I was sleeping they transferred me to a new cage, a bigger one, but I still don't know how long it was- or how much I had grown. They again would come in now and again and poke me with needles again. But, something changed. I don't know what it was- maybe I became old enough or big enough for them to try something else on me, I don't know. One day they came in with a machine. They opened the door of my cage and actually reached in to touch me. I freaked out- they had never opened my cage before. But it wasn't like I knew how to fight, or even squirm, so even though I tried to struggle as much as my reflexes knew, they got their way very easily. They slit my wrist and put a needle in. They connected a tube to it. They pumped their fluids into my bloodstream. My body didn't like it- turns out I'm allergic to whatever sedatives it is that they were using.

I pulled the needle out again and again because it hurt. But they would just grab me again and put it back in. After the floor of my cage was covered with the liquid, I finally gave up. I just curled up the back of my cage with one of my wings draped over my side to keep warm. I felt very sick- I got very sick. It wasn't long at all before I passed out- not just from the effects of the sedative, but from the pain and the terrible feeling, as well.

Now imagine how I felt when I woke up. I still felt overly sick, and my arm burned, but at least they didn't have the needle with the sedative in my wrist still. I couldn't move, either. I was still affected by the sedative, and with my allergic reaction to it, it seemed to affect me more than anyone else with the same dosage. Not only that, but I was bound to the table. I wasn't in my cage any more, I was on a table on my back. My wings were stretched out to their full length, and it hurt a bit, it pulled at my muscles because I'd never been able to fully extend them- I never had a cage big enough. It terrified me, all of this, and I was easily overwhelmed. I couldn't curl up or hide myself with my wings, I didn't have a corner I could press into, nothing. I think I screamed, because I remember hearing something strange, feeling something strange, and then They were all panicked, scattered and trying to do something. I remember the pain as they reopened the wound on my wrist and poked the needle in again. I went out before long, wishing they wouldn't put that thing in my arm because it made me feel like I was going to die.

When I woke at last, I felt even worse than I had on the table. They had tubes in both of my arms now, and another one coming from who knows where. I didn't bother to try and find out, I just saw it running out of my cage to that machine.

Everything else is fuzzy. I must have forgotten and lost track of a lot of things because of that sedative. Somehow they figured out a low enough dosage so that it kept me out and feeling crummy without killing me. I remember feeling more poking, prodding, and pain than before, but I don't remember what they did or even where it hurt. Somehow, I managed to remember Zachery, and Zechariah. I don't know how, but I remembered the basics of how to talk, too. But nothing else. There was nothing to know in that dayless, nightless place. Nothing to think about. No way to get answers. I faded in and out of consciousness a lot, but nothing really seemed to change. I still didn't know who I was. Still didn't know how I got there, or why I had wings, or why They treated me like they did. I still don't.

It must have been..... Years. Most of my life went on like that, up until, of course, something went wrong. I wake up, and there's fire, fire everywhere. people screaming, the smell of things burning was everywhere. My cage was open... I don't know how, but I managed to crawl out of it to get away from the fire that was on all sides of the cage. None of the tubes were in me... The fire still spread. I didn't walk, I didn't run, I didn't know how. Somehow I mixed crawling with flapping my wings and somehow managed to get away from the place before passing out again. When I woke up again, the place was a smoldering rubble heap, and the acrid stench still lingered in the air. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to go. I curled up in that alleyway alone. I would've died... I probably should've died. After all that, I don’t know why I'm alive. I don't know why the hobo who found me decided I was worth while- I couldn't speak, I couldn't read, I couldn't walk, I was a freak child with no motor skills, no balance, wings, and a serious allergy to sedatives. But he found me... and I think he was mute. So, when I couldn't talk, he found it as no hindrance. He showed me how to dumpster dive. He showed me what was food and what wasn't. He showed my how to walk and how to catch my balance. Thankfully, I was able to become a surviving homeless with his help. I never would have made it without the kind hobo.

He showed me the town. He got me a new shirt, one that didn’t strand my wings out behind me for all the world to see. He showed me how to climb trees in the park, and how to get back down. He showed me how to hide, and what to hide from.

My new friend, however, still couldn’t save me entirely. Neither could he teach me everything I needed to survive indefinitely. He brought me to a house one day, and a woman answered… I hid behind him as they made signs to each other. I saw the woman look at him unbelievingly, and he pulled me out from behind him. He held me still as she ran a hand over my back- I knew she could feel my wings, and I could also tell by the way her eyes widened. They signed back and forth to each other a little more as I stood there uneasily. Somehow my hobo friend had convinced her to take me in, even with my secret known. I didn’t understand then, why she took me in her house while the hobo stayed outside, but eventually I got that he had left…

And I never saw him again, either. At the beginning, she took the same approach as Zach had, and figured out what I knew. Starting from square one, she taught me how to speak, and how to read and write. She gave me an education all by herself. She also taught me how to behave, how to be polite, how to show emotion appropriately, she showed me and taught me everything that a home schooler’s parent would teach them, and more.

She also knew that if I didn’t exercise my wings, I wouldn’t be able to use them at all, just like any other muscle. So she took me out in the country for a while and helped me learn how to use them. In this, we learned together. We watched birds, and she was able to teach me how to tell time by the sun’s position. This was the first time seasons actually clicked with me, I actually got something remotely like a sense of time. The world actually changed around me, even when I couldn’t see it. Somehow… she managed to get me to accept my wings. They were part of me, I couldn’t ignore them, but I could use them how I wanted them to be used. Maybe they were what made me different, what made Them treat me as they did, but they were mine and mine to use.

I learned to glide. I learned how to soar. I learned how to fly, because it was what I wanted. The woman, who had me call her Amanda, took me back to the city to complete my home schooling. She showed me how much space there was above the city, she had me look at the world differently. In eight seasons, between the hobo and Amanda, my whole perspective was changed. Life was not just a cage in a gray room anymore. The world didn’t lay within four walls with an endless amount of repeated actions and deafening silence. The real world had colors that I had never seen before. People slept at night, and did things continuously while light poured from the sky. Some people actually cared how I acted or what I thought… As long as they didn’t know what I really was.  As long as I was like them, they cared.

It didn’t last. There was no way it could last. She told me one day that it was time for me to go. I didn’t want to, but she was very prominent about it. I had to leave, she said, I couldn’t stay here and longer, it was time to move on. So, I left…

I didn’t really leave. I kept hoping she’d change her mind. I stayed somewhere else at night, and returned and sat in the tree in her back yard all day. And that’s where I was when I found out why she had wanted me to leave. They came to her door, and I recognized them immediately. Maybe they weren’t in their long white coats with their needles and sticks, but I just knew it was Them. Amanda stepped out on the porch, and I watched them exchange some words from high in the tree. I didn’t hear very much of it, but I got enough to know what was going on. She was defending me. She told them I wasn’t there. She wanted them to just go away, I could tell easily by the way she held herself. They entered her house, and after a few minutes they came back out and gave something to the one of them that seemed to be their leader. It was one of my feathers.

They took Amanda and put her in their van. I watched her struggle and she yelled some angry words at them, but they didn’t care. The van drove off, and I never saw her again either. They had taken her away, because she had helped me… And now I was alone. Again.

I didn’t know where I could go- Amanda had never introduced me to anyone or given me any emergency contacts. I found myself back at the park. I sat under a tree, trying to think of what I could do. I was basically back on the streets again, like I had been with my hobo friend, but this time I knew a lot more, and maybe I could survive on my own. Then again, maybe not, I had never tried it before, and the thought of being alone, especially for so long… it terrified me.

I must have looked like some meek kid, sitting under a tree with my arms wrapped around my legs, staring at the ground like I was. I wasn’t left alone for long, I must have been seen as an opportunity to any bullies around… I guess I’m lucky that this one found me first.

I remember being jolted back to my surroundings as his shadow fell over me. He had three friends with him, all standing a bit back behind him. He asked who I was and what I was doing here, but I saw no reason to tell him anything. Then he started insulting me, which I really didn’t get, and his insults were quite bland and didn’t make much sense. Then he implied that he was going to hurt me, and I was backed up against a tree with his toadies on the other sides of me. So, I went the only way I could still think of- up.

I shot up as fast as I could and landed on a tree branch that was high enough that it would take some effort to reach it. I looked down at them as I sat on the branch, and I could see all of their eyes widen. I realized that I hadn’t pulled my wings back fast enough, and they had seen them, which scared me, and I hid up on my branch. It didn’t take long for them to run away… or so I thought.

The three toadies flew off like scared rabbits. The main one, though, looked up at me with curiosity and awe. I sat there uneasily watching him as he tried to glimpse my wings again by moving around the base of the tree, but I hid them back under my shirt, thanks to some slits that Amanda had put in the back just for this purpose. I think a few feathers still poked out of the bottom, though. I watched as he began to climb the tree, and then slid back down, as his tree climbing skills were inadequate for the high branches. He tried again, and again he failed. Finally he gave up trying to come after me and stood below me. He asked me about my wings. I didn’t answer him, as I thought maybe I could get him to believe that he was just seeing things. That was up until he said they were cool, and I had to ask. What could possibly be cool about the part of me that made me a freak?

It got complicated. He said it would be cool to fly, and that since I was able to do that, it made me cool. At which point he introduced himself as Seth and asked me to come down from the tree because he wanted to look at my wings more. I made him promise not to attack me, and made sure no one else was around. Amanda had never told me what to do in this situation, so it was really the first time I had to use my own judgment. Thankfully, it turned out okay. Though I certainly felt uneasy about letting him see and touch my wings, he was gentle enough, and more excited than anything. Any signs of him being a bully had basically gone, which made me suspect that it wasn’t his true nature, more of something he was trying his hand at, not his disposition. I told him I was Zechariah, but he just nodded and continued looking at my wings, commenting on how long they were or how all the feathers went the same direction. I thought I saw another person through the trees, so I snatched my wings back finally and told him I had to go. He watched me run off, calling a goodbye after me, but I turned and just kept running. Regular people made me uneasy…. Well, almost all of them.

It was a few days before anything interesting happened again. I flitted from alley to alley, digging up things from the dumpsters that I could eat. I slept in the park, high in the trees where no one could see me. It was pretty lonely… Okay, very lonely, but at least it wasn’t silent, with the crickets and frogs here and there to fill up the quiet night. I got a bit thinner than I had been kept under Amanda’s care, but I wasn’t intending on dying any time soon, so I tried not to worry about it and eat what I could.

I lasted a little while like this, but I eventually got hungry. I could tell winter was coming, the nights had started getting colder, and the leaves were falling off the trees, destroying my hiding places. That, and They got braver. I don’t know how they heard I was roosting in the park as I had been very careful with anyone seeing my wings, but it happened. And They came after me. It was late at night, I was looking at the stars in one of the few trees that still had most of its leaves. I heard a car pull up on a street nearby and stop. I looked over, and I recognized their van. And then another one pulled up behind it, and another one came in on another street. I freaked out, to put it simply, and shot out of my tree. I got far enough off the ground that I was out of their range as they reached my tree, but I still couldn’t fly as fast as their vans could travel, and I could only fly for so long. I flew over the city desperately, over blocks diagonally instead of along streets, to hopefully buy me more time. I hadn’t slept at all yet, so I could keep it up for even less time as I had hoped. I set down in an alleyway and ran, trying to find somewhere I might be able to hide, anywhere. I felt someone grab my shoulder as I ran, and I struggled to get out of it, their grip wasn’t very strong, and they seemed surprised enough by my reaction when I jolted forward. Then they called my name, which They had never done. I paused and glanced back- it was Seth, standing there and looking bewildered as he asked if I was okay and why I was running. I told him quickly that people were after me, people who wanted to do bad things to me because of my wings. He found this totally unacceptable, and was quick to lead me down another alley to a door with an unlit light. He turned the knob and it opened, and he told me to come inside. After a moment’s hesitation I heard the van turn onto the street and ducked inside. If these people were going to help me, then it was worth the chance. If they were going to turn me over, then I was going to be where I would have ended up anyways, so either way it was a better bet than nothing.

He closed and locked the door behind me. I heard voices, and I nearly jumped through the roof. I saw that they were coming from down a set of stairs, and I relaxed, but not much. Someone down the stairs called his name, and he told me to wait up here as he moved to answer the call, taking the steps two or three at a time. I looked around the hallway, wondering what Seth’s family was like.. I heard someone returning up the steps, then I realized it was multiple people. The thought of another person poking at my wings in the dark of the night where Their vans were driving by made me terribly nervous. So, of course, I hid. I darted into the next room I could find with silent footfalls and hid in a slightly ajar closet in the back corner, behind several brooms, a stack of books, and a few extra blankets.

Seth called my name. I didn’t respond, but watched shadows flicker over the tiny sliver of an opening. I heard someone clutch the doorknob as they said they found me. It didn’t sound like Seth, and I tried to make myself smaller hoping not to be noticed. The closet was flooded with light as they shined a flashlight in. It stopped on me, and no matter how much I acted like I wasn’t there, I knew they really had found me.

‘What are you doing in the broom closet?’ Seth asked, bewildered.

I slowly lifted my head above the level of the blankets and looked at them. Seth’s companion diverted the flashlight so it didn’t shine into my eyes and looked at me. They blinked, and I blinked back- their eyes had no irises or pupils. It was like a round, blue orb. After assuring me that they had no intention to hurt me, they both stepped back to let me make my way out of the closet. I did so carefully but slowly, I was still very nervous about the whole situation. I stood by the closet as the orb-eyed woman looked me over carefully. She moved forward a step and I darted back, knocking into the closet’s frame. It hurt, like backing into a corner, except with your whole back. She placed her hand on my shoulder to keep me from falling over into the closet, and she held me up straight. Suddenly the knot in my stomach disintegrated, and the new pain in my back eased away. It felt…. Good.

I watched her with wide eyes as she backed up a little more to give me room to move around. I looked between her and Seth, very confused. Seth was smiling at me, and I blinked at him awkwardly. The woman then elbowed him, and his smile vanished as he remembered something. He introduced the woman to me as Dryad, who was apparently one of his friends. Light flashed in the small window of the room, which was apparently a kitchen. I froze up as I recognized headlights, and Their van passed again in the window. Dryad seemed to sense my seize up, as she cocked her head at me and motioned to the doorway back to the hallway.  They led me back to the stairs, and Seth went down first. Dryad indicated for me to go down before her, and though I refused to for quite a while, she waited for me to go, and then Seth waited and looked up at me form the bottom of the stairs. Light flashed in a window down the hall again, and I uneasily started downwards, with Dryad only a few steps behind me. When I reached the bottom I darted behind Seth, seeing that there were now more people in the room. I’d never been in a room with so many people before, and I didn’t like it. Bewildered, he tried to step away from me, but Dryad told him to stay put, sensing my unease and fear.

One of the other people in the room walked over and peeked around Seth at me. She started talking, but I didn’t really catch what she said as she was talking so fast, but I did catch the sympathetic tone. She finally introduced herself as Cabalysis, and the other people in the room were Pillar, Sea Serpent, and Foxtail, and apparently I already knew Dryad and Griffon- Griffon being another name for Seth. Dryad finally let Seth step farther into the room and I looked around at all the people. Dryad told Pillar to go peek out the windows and make sure the people following me were gone. They got me to sit down in one of their beanbag chairs, and Dryad made sure that all the others didn’t flock me with questions or stare at me. I turned to stare at the wall, finally realizing how tired I was, and how comfortably warm it was in this basement. Sliding my wings carefully off of my back, I wrapped them around me and snuggled into the chair. Within moments I was asleep in the strange, new safe haven.

~

It was the most peaceful sleep I’d had in a long time. Unfortunately, the waking was not nearly as peaceful. If I had been poked any harder, I probably would have shot up against the wall. As it was I only squirmed and jolted away before snapping my head up to look at my assailant. The girl Cabalysis had called Foxtail was leaning on the edge of my chair, watching me with round, interested eyes. The way she looked at me so intently and fascinated made me feel awkward, and I inched away from her slightly.

She blinked as I moved, and Dryad came up behind her. After Dryad asked her if she had woken me up, she first denied it but then guiltily confessed. Foxtail was then promptly driven off by the older woman, who apologized and moved away again.

I debated trying to go back to sleep, but I could feel enough busyness around to know that I wasn’t going to be able to achieve that. I warily remained curled up in the chair as people moved around me, watching them as they passed, glancing at me every so often. Eventually, one stopped. I looked up and saw it was Cabalysis. She had a tiara across her forehead with a blue crystal shining on it- Now that I noticed it, I remembered one on Seth’s golden sash… and Dryad had had an amulet that looked the same. It only made me wonder who exactly these people were, to have matching items like this.

She sat beside me on the floor casually, saying that she had a few questions she wanted to ask me, but making it clear that I didn’t have to answer them if I didn’t want to. She just wanted to know my name, if I had a family, how I met Seth, small things. She didn’t even mention my wings. When I started to relax, she finally asked why those people had been after me.

I began to describe to her how they wanted to take me back to the dark, silent room and put me back in a cage and insert the tubes into my wrists and poke at my wings… She looked up and stopped me, saying that that was more than enough. I glanced where she had looked, and saw Dryad standing in the doorway, looking concerned. My heart rate had shot up without me realizing it, and my voice had gotten small. Memories still tried to invade my mind, and I hugged myself as I stared at the floor. Cabalysis stood and left me. I heard her exchange a few words with Dryad as she passed, and Dryad leaned over me. As she ran her hand over my shoulder my heart slowed down again, and my messed up feelings returned to the back of my mind. Her touch was firm but not hard, and it made my shoulder relax. Something told me that this group only wanted to help me, and it’s probably a very good thing I was right.

Turns out that They had been causing these people problems also. I remember them saying something about having been meaning to move their base for a while, and I apparently became the right incentive. It wasn’t a long process, for some reason they kept all their stuff packed up just in case something happened. They moved out within a few days, and took me with them. They were all nice enough people, and generally cheery. They called themselves the Guardians of the Crystal of Harest, which was a large, glowing, polished blue stone that apparently Cabalysis had been entrusted to protect, and the others helped her. They were like a family- a family that decided to adopt me in my time of need, and saw nothing strange about my wings.

In fact, none of them were really ‘normal people’, in the sense if the phrase. Perhaps they actually had families and didn’t live on the streets, but they were all special. This crystal had given them all powers to protect each other and it.  Cabalysis could create and command a durable substance she called cabalyst glass. Seth could control and create heat. Dryad apparently wasn’t actually a human and could do a lot of things- she could feel a person’s emotion, intention, and life beat. She could also summon up fires, plants, or other things by affecting some things she had in her pockets from her home world. Foxtail, who actually had fox ears and a bushy tail- this made me feel not so strange- could turn into a fox. Pillar could move and shape rock and stone. And Sea Serpent could change his body shape in small ways to be more like a dragon-like creature- grow claws and things, or breathe underwater if need be. I couldn’t have been found by a better group of misfits, as it is.

The Guardians managed to find a nice place to settle in the foothills of a mountain range a good ways away from that city. No one lived there, it was a wooded area that had a fine climate. Between Pillar’s powers and the good amount of work the others could do with their own powers, the Guardians hollowed out a hill, like making a base in the side of a mountain. It looked out over the forest, yet from the outside looked just like a rocky hillside.

Though they made enough rooms for all of us to have our own, they had figured out that I didn’t like to be alone for long periods of time- it was actually just that I couldn’t handle it, whenever I woke up I half expected to find myself in a cage. I don’t know how they figured it out, but they did, even though I never mentioned it, for fear that this attitude might be disliked. So, they had Seth share a room with me. He was the one I felt most comfortable around, so it worked. He also snored slightly when he slept, which kept me from accidentally freaking out over complete silence as well. So, for both of us it was a win-win situation- the best kind.

It was a homely place- maybe not the most clean or the most modern, but we kept it neat and organized. It was peaceful for quite a while. We explored the woods nearby and crafted a fire wood pile. They already knew how to survive in the wild, and easily filled in the holes in my knowledge. My worries were soon forgotten.

A few days after the Guardians were settled in, I found myself alone. I don’t remember why, I had been passing by and something shined at me or the like. It was Dryad’s amulet. She kept it polished and it glimmered like the surface of a lake. I slowly picked it up and turned it over in my hands, observing the carefully crafted talisman that held the crystal.

A hand squeezed my shoulder. I recognized the touch, and suddenly regretted ever coming in the room in the first place. I knew I shouldn’t have ever touched the amulet, but when she touched me, it was too late to act like I had never done such a thing. Carefully but quickly I replaced the crystal where it had been laying and darted away, hoping that she would let me leave with only my shame… Amanda had told me that I should never handle something that was not mine or had not been given permission to handle. But, as she called my name in a tone that made me flinch and stop moving, I knew that I would get no such luck.

I stared at the floor as she walked over in front of me. She had her amulet in her hand and glanced at it. She ran her hand over my shoulder and my apprehension and guilt melted away. ‘Do you like it?’ She asked.

I blinked, confused. How could I not like it, it was the thing that showed how much she devoted to the Guardians and their cause.

‘Do you want one,’ she continued, ‘a crystal of your own?’

I did, I admitted. I wanted to be seen as a full member of their ranks, I wanted to know I really belonged and could prove it. But I didn’t know if their crystal would accept me as one of its Guardians…. I didn’t even know who I really was…

Dryad shook her head. ‘Zechariah, the crystal does not care about your past. The crystal reads your heart. It is a crystal of compassion. And you have so much honesty and good intentions in you that I don’t think there could be much of anything wrong with your heart, no matter what happened in your history.’

I still could not hide the slight hesitation I felt. What I would I do if I really wasn’t good enough? Not good enough for this, my family… my friends? I don’t think I actually voiced that last thought, but Dryad could still feel my doubt. She responded by stepping forward… and hugging me. It wasn’t one of those friendly squeezes that the others attacked me with from time to time. No, it was a sincere, caring hug, like she never wanted me to even think about leaving. And to this day I have no doubt in my mind that if I ever even mentioned thinking about leaving, she would tie me to a bean bag chair or something until I took it back. And that was only Dryad- Dryad must be one of the mildest mannered and most evenly-tempered of all of us.

I was in the sitting room listening to people talk the next day when Cabalysis appeared in the door way and motioned for me to follow her. None of the others in the room seemed to have noticed, so I silently got up and made my way to where she was. When I was only a few feet away, she turned and moved down the hallway more. I continued to follow, wondering after a while why she was leading me so deep into the heart of the hill. She glanced over her shoulder from time to time to make sure I was still following, and finally stopped as the hallway ended at a door.

‘Dryad told me about your interest in the Crystal.’ She told me. ‘So I though I’d show you, and if you still want to join us…’ She shrugged, not finishing her sentence. I nodded, and she eased open the door and motioned me in. I slid through the doorway, and she stepped in and closed the door behind us.

It was hard to miss. There were no lights on in the room, but it cast a dim blue glow over the rock walls from the pedestal it sat on. The color seemed to flow over the walls, almost like an organism moved in water. It was truly beautiful.

‘Isn’t it magnificent?’ Cabalysis asked me, smiling. She cupped her hands around it, and the glow intensified, as if it was trying to reach out to touch her palms. ‘Come, go ahead and feel it.’

I came up to her side and slowly reached out my hand and touched it. Instead of being cool like most precious stones in a cool room, it was pleasantly warm. A small wave of calm peace ran up my arm, making it tingle.

‘It likes you,’ Cabalysis told me, almost purring. ‘It wants to be able to help you, and it wants you to help it.’

I still don’t know how she could tell these things. Perhaps since it was her crystal, she has a closer connection to it than any of the others. My heart leaped. I wanted to help it, and now it wanted the same. It wanted me to become a Guardian just as much as I did.

I small ribbon of blue energy seemed to seep from it and wrap around my hand, then my wrist. It felt good over my scar. It gathered into one point on the back of my wrist and seemed to condense before spreading out again. When the blue faded, what was left was a brown leather wrist band with a small blue crystal inset on it, identical to the ones the others wore proudly. Brown really seems to be my color, now that I think about it- my hair is brown, my feathers are brown, and now the thing that marked me as a Guardian was brown. Or maybe it was all just a coincidence- even if it is, I really don’t care.

I walked back to the sitting room observing in awe the preciseness of the band. It was just the right size to fit my wrist, and only my wrist. It covered my scar perfectly. And it had a laced area in the back of it that I could loosen so I could theoretically take it off, if I ever wanted to.

‘So?’ Dryad’s voice greeted me as I stepped back into the room. ‘What happened?’

I calmly held my arm out to her, and watched her smile grow. Of course, then Foxtail jumped on me, which totally ruined the moment, but hey. She was talking too fast for me to catch anything she said, but I could tell that she was happy. I noticed all the others were standing in the room, watching me. Most of them were smiling. I’m pretty sure Seth was waiting in line to jump on me, because he eventually pushed Foxtail off and hugged me. There was a lot more hugging before anyone asked me to talk about anything, and then they ended up answering their own questions and breaking off into other conversations. Every one but me knew that they were going to do this today. At least it turned out good, and everyone celebrated all day with cheerful dispositions and random sugary sweets. Nothing could take me away from them, nothing could change this now… It must have been a new record, then, when only two days later, my bubble was burst.

The rest of that day and the next, though, I spent being fully integrated into their inner circle. I wasn’t just someone they were protecting, I was one of them. I also discovered something that the crystal had given me to help protect myself and others- power and control over ice. I was shocked when I discovered this, but the others seem to have aquired their powers in a much similar way. After they saw this, they decided that now I needed an alias- because there were many people out there that you just didn’t want to know your real name. After a few attempts, they came up with Roc- a winter/snow/ice bird from mythology, which was every so often depicted as a large, brown bird. I liked this- not only did it match well, but it was short, simple, and easy to remember. So they started calling me Roc, and I finally started calling Seth by his alias, Griffon, but lots of times I ended up shortening it to just Grif, because it felt closer to Seth. Then that name just stuck. Whoops.

Two days after I joined the Guardians, and the day after I was titled Roc, I got… caught in the crossfire again. Even though this is the event that I would like to forget the most, I still remember it as clearly as pure water.

I was sitting on the counter in the kitchen watching Seth make a sandwich. There was a cry and several outbursts that came from the sitting room, and we both froze. We saw Cabalysis run by and ducked out into the hall to follow her. Part of the way down the hall Dryad joined up with us, and then Pillar encountered us coming from the other direction. He was panicked, which was never good, especially since you couldn’t understand his jumbled words. Calmer footsteps started down the hall towards us, but from the silence that now came from the sitting room, we guessed it wasn’t good. But when several of Them came towards us with guns out, I seriously freaked out. They finally stopped, because Cabalysis hadn’t moved an inch. Dryad stood beside her with her hood now up, to hide her eyes. Pillar stood behind them in the narrow hallway, and Grif and I stood behind him. I wished I could just melt into the background, or have stayed in the kitchen. But it was too late now.

The leader of this patrol looked at Cabalysis and Dryad with scorning eyes. “We know that you have an experiment of ours. We have come to reclaim it before it causes any trouble.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cabalysis frowned, crossing her arms. “The only trouble here is you bursting into our home.”

“We have a warrant to take him back at all costs.” The man said, flipping out a folded piece of paper and waving it around all important-like.

“That warrant is a fake.” Dryad said simply.

He stopped waving it and his eyes widened a bit. There hadn’t even been a smudge of hesitation in that response. She knew. Frowning, he stuffed it back in his pocket. “Fine then, perhaps we can settle this with a more direct approach.” He said, waving his hand. After a few moments more of Them with guns came into the hallway. Two of them were holding Foxtail and Serpent, with their hands held behind their backs. Foxtail was trying to stomp on her captor’s foot. “As you can see, we seem to have stumbled across a few of your friends. You know that there are plenty of reasons we could legally take them with us…” He said casually as one of his lackeys poked Foxtail’s bushy tail with his gun tip.  She promptly tried to bite him. “…But they’re not what we came here for. We came here for that.” He said, pointing directly at me. The other guardians bristled protectively around me.

“So,” the man continued, absentmindedly padding his gun. “I figure we can reach some sort of agreement. Namely, our experiment returns with us and we give you your little friends back.”

Dryad frowned.

“Both of them.” He clarified.

Dryad crossed her arms.

He sighed. “Fine! Fine. You let UWC 4961 come with us peacefully, and we’ll return both of your friends, alive and unharmed- one in exchange for the experiment and the other after he’s properly restrained. Happy?” He growled crossly.

I looked at my two friends held hostage. Foxtail was giving me a look that said that if I did anything stupid, she was going to kill me. Of course, she was the one with the gun currently stuck in her side for her unruly behavior. Serpent watched me with a grim expression. Even though Brett- Sea Serpent- may not be totally sane, he’s smart. I’m pretty sure he knew what was going to happen, and he didn’t like it.

I didn’t want to go back to Their place. I didn’t want to live in that silent, dark room again. I wanted to be able to tell day from night. I wanted to stay with the guardians until the end.

Cabalysis seemed to take my hesitation and reluctance as a no way. She looked at the man with a glare that simply said ‘Not on your life.’

The man scowled. “Perhaps I can make the argument more interesting.” He gave a glance at his troop, and a few of them near their captives took their guns and dug them into the undersides of my friends’ chins. One shot, and they would most certainly die.

The people around me seized up. I could see Seth’s eyes widen beside me. Pillar glanced back at me. I could tell that Dryad and Cabalysis had reached indecision. They were their friends even more than they were mine. I remembered the hobo disappearing, and watching Amanda get taken away. Everyone who had helped me had suffered and been prosecuted for it. I knew that if they got hurt because of me, I would never forgive myself. I was not worth their lives. I was only a freak, I didn’t have a live that was worth giving theirs for. Above all, I didn’t want them to get hurt or disappear. They were the ones that had really given me a life and family… I didn’t want that to be taken away from them.

I moved forward between Pillar and Cabalysis. I could tell they wanted to stop me and drag me back but they didn’t. Satisfaction crossed the man’s face as I stepped up, and he waved forward the goon holding Brett. I stared at the floor as I slowly stepped across the gap between the Guardians and Them. The released Brett and he walked back to his team, watching me the whole way, with a look of grief to mirror my own. When I was finally only a few feet away from Them, some of them stepped out and grabbed me, pulling my arms behind my back and binding my wrists together. I was tempted to struggle, I almost did, but something kept me from it. Foxtail was still on the line, and I’d never actually resisted Them before. I’m sure that if I could have before I would have, but something about being under their control again just killed my will to fight. As long as the Guardians didn’t get hurt, I didn’t want to do anything. One of them put me in an arm lock and pulled my arms up, off of my back. I cringed slightly as pain stabbed my shoulders and felt them put some kind of harness or restraint around my torso, pinning my wings to my back in several places.

Foxtail was not happy with my decision. While they were in the middle of securing me, She spontaneously morphed into her fox form and darted across the floor. The disgruntled guard shot at her, and in response Cabalysis summoned up some of her glass to protect Foxtail as she ran. Seeing this as a sign of defiance, the others came to attention, and another one took a shot. The bullet sunk into Cabalysis’ shoulder, and she cried out in pain. They had done it. They had hurt one of the Guardians.

The others did in no way take kindly to this. I saw some of them move tensely, ready to retaliate. I think something of Grif’s burst into flames. The man and his men saw this, and a few put up their guns, about to fire and keep the Guardians backed off. Or maybe they aimed to kill them. I couldn’t let that happen.

I screamed. I screamed at them to stop and to not touch the Guardians, but my words became unintelligible and all that came out was a long, strained, tortured scream. My friends have often described my scream as more of a shriek, like the sound of a suffering, dying bird. Apparently it also relays more pain and stress than anything should.

Many of the people in the hallway cringed or covered their ears in pain, guard and Guardian alike. There’s a reason I don’t scream. The guard holding me jostled me painfully to make me stop. But, no one was threatening to attack each other any longer, so I just bit my tongue from the pain. I turned my face away but still didn’t struggle when they gagged me. A few of the guards still had their guns pointed at the Guardians as they began half-dragging me away, to ensure that they weren’t going to try some crazy sneak attack to get me back. With how many people there were with guns, I was glad that they didn’t. I was being dragged towards the door by my escort when they stepped out of the hallway. But still, all they could do was watch as They dragged me outside. I’m pretty sure I heard a few of them whisper my name before I was shoved through the door way and the door was closed behind.

Now totally out of sight of the people who could save me, they held me tighter and roughly forced me a ways into the woods to where they had hidden their van. Pushing me into the back, they tied my legs and threw me into a waiting cage.  The one in charge of the successful raid produced a syringe. Fear shot through me as I scooted to the far side of my cage. But, of course, they had expected this behavior and had placed the cage away from the wall. So, he simply moved around the other side, held my arm, and injected it into my side with a sadistic smile. The rest of his party piled in and I heard a noise as the engine started. I pulled my legs up and shuddered as the old, familiar, terrible feeling set in. The sedative worked its way through my bloodstream and the world swam around me. If I could have moved any more, I would have liked to throw up. I remember hoping that Dryad could heal Cabalysis’s gun shot wound, and I blacked out.

~

It was dark. My insides burned like acid, and I still couldn’t move. The cold floor of the cage made my arms numb, and my wrists stung from the pain of being slit open again. They had already exchanged my shirt for one of their torn up tank tops that kept me from pulling my wings in, and my crystal was gone from my wrist. It was like all of my life with the Guardians had never happened.

Life was nothing again. Meaningless hours of fading in and out of consciousness. There was no one in the room. I was alone in the silence. It hurt in a way I had never felt, I’m pretty sure it’s the closest I’ve gotten to feeling my heart torn. I still couldn’t move when my first tear fell. I let them go, as none of Them were around to see me cry. I cried, though my tears were not enough to break the oppressive silence. It was a new feeling, crying alone. After years of this treatment, I had never known there was a reason to cry, I had not known what they would do to me if I did. I suppose after all this time, I’d just been too scared to cry. I passed into unconsciousness again, tears still streaming down my cheeks from my overflowing sadness.

I lost count of the number of times I woke up very quickly. They were constantly putting those tubes in my arms and taking them back out- but how I felt never changed. They talked of blood pressure, heartrate, genetics, things that I now understood what they meant. But they never talked about what it was that they did or why they did it to me. All I know was that I could tell when they had done something, because I woke up in pain and found it very hard to breathe. It happened a few times, far too much.

It was after one of these times when I woke up. My lungs burned and struggled, my nerves felt like they had had knives driven into them. I heard a metallic noise as they opened my cage to reinsert the needles.  My vision was blurry, but I could still see what happened. What was different about this time? Why did I snap? No answers have I found, but the bile of endless frustration rose in my throat. I kicked my leg out- I really didn’t mean to make contact. I just wanted to do something to prove to them- and myself- that I was still alive. It must have been a lucky shot- my foot connected with his face and he recoiled with a groan of discomfort. The other scientists saw this and reacted quickly.

One circled around the back of my cage and grabbed my legs as I pulled them back. I pulled my arms in defensively as the one entered my cage again. But I still couldn’t coordinate myself, and merely the movement had made my head spin and made me want to throw up. He grabbed my arms and forcefully inserted the needles with pinpoint accuracy. A rope tightened around my ankles and they chained them to the bars of the cage.  In the moments before I passed out, I could hear them say…

“…After they’ve gotten one taste of freedom, they’re never quite the same…”

~

A week of darkness. I later found it was exactly a week later that the explosion happened. In that time, not only had they changed to keeping the fluids in my system full time, but I think they moved me. It all looked strange that one time I woke up. The room was smaller, not quite the same size, and had a different kind of light- not that they used it. It took me forever to find out why I had been moved.

When it happened… I was stirred by the loud noise that shook even the foundations of the building, but the sedatives that circulated my body kept me half asleep. Chaos broke out in the hallway. People shouted and I heard something like thunder… gunfire. It was hectic simply to listen to. I tried to keep awake as long as possible, but still, that wasn’t long enough. I was in the middle of drifting off when the door opened. I could no longer see anything, my vision was so blurred, but I heard the cage door open and my name was whispered. I recognized the voice- Dryad.

I felt the needles pulled out of my wrists, and the third out of my side, where I had never noticed it had been. She hooked her hands up under my arms and pulled me out of the cage after she had released my legs. She folded up my wings neatly and picked my limp form up. She was warm, and her touch was calming and soothing. The noise level rose as she carried me out of the room, but it all seemed muffled and far away as I faded out again.

After a week in the dark, sunlight is very bright. Especially when it shines on your face. But at least it was sunlight I woke up to instead of darkness. I was back at the Guardians’ base, alone in my room. I was still in the rags from the cage room, but my clothes were sitting on a chair near me. My body ached but at least I could move. I sat up slowly and shook my wings out, getting circulation back into them to counter the funny feeling from sleeping on top of them.

Eventually I got up and dressed in my clothes. It felt surprisingly good to put on the crystal again. I still didn’t feel the best, at all, but I wanted to make sure the others were okay. They must have rescued me… I had to express my gratitude.

I had only a few seconds to take everything in as I entered the sitting room before I was basically run over. Within moments I was flat on my back trying to keep from drowning under what I assume must have been a dogpile of hugs.

It took a while, but they finally got off of me. Grif helped me up, and I saw Foxtail and Serpent watching me expectantly.

I blinked. Grif had a scabbed scratch on his cheek, and Serpent had a small matted spot of dried blood in his hair. Other than that I couldn’t see anything troubling about them… But that was enough.

“Did you get hurt?” I asked them, slightly shakily.

Grif frowned. “No pain, no gain. Our gain was much greater than our pain, Roc. The appropriate question here is are YOU hurt?”

My eyes fell to the floor. “I… I’m much better than I was, but…”

“What?” Dryad stepped forward. “You’re sick, aren’t you?” She asked, her orb-like eyes scanning me.

“I think so… Something that they use on me makes me like this.” I told her uncomfortably. “Something that they put in my bloodstream.”

Dryad finally shooed the others away and took me back to my room. The wounds on my wrists she hadn’t been able to look at yet, so she checked them over and put some bandaged around them to help them heal. She checked my side, which was already bandaged. The longer I stood up, the more I felt queasy, and I finally had to sit on my bed to keep from falling onto it. She laid me on my stomache and ran her hands over my back, mentioning things about how my body was acting that I really didn’t understand as my head was hurting again.

“Their substances are still in your body.” She told me. “Now, I’m going to try something. Don’t move.” She rubbed her hands together to warm them up as she spoke, and covered them in a blue liquid.

Was this going to hurt? I tried to keep from squirming as she laid her hands on me again. It felt weird- a bit tingly at first, and then it stopped.

“Do you feel any different?” She asked.

“Not really….” I told her quietly.

Out of nowhere, everything lessened. The aches backed off, the feeling of sickness in my stomach settled down, my breathing got easier. “How about now?”

My eyes widened. “Yes.”

“I see….” She took her hands off of me, and I let go of a disappointed sigh as the feelings returned. “Now, they had three needles- they put three things into your body. One was a nutrient supplement- it kept you alive and made it so that they didn’t have to feed you. The second was… I’m not sure what you would call it. I believe it forced your body to keep working and kept you from building up a tolerance to the third substance- which was a sedative. Now,  the sedative seems to be the thing affecting you the most- looking at your sickness and the rest of the signs, I’d say you’re allergic to it. Very badly, as well.”

Oh great. Yes, I’m allergic to sedatives. It stinks.

“It should wear off soon enough… The sedative, that is. I don’t know how long your illness will keep for, but I don’t think that it’s fatal at this point.” She assured me.

Well, at least there was a little hope now. I was back where I wanted to be, all of my friends seemed…. Well enough… and I was going to get better. The only question I had now was how long it was going to last this time.

~ 

A week went by- nothing happened. A month marched on; nothing happened. I slowly began to relax as the season changed. The other Guardians assured me that they had covered their tracks well enough to make Them think that there was no way anyone was out here any more. I didn’t know what to think, but as I started thinking less and less about them, I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Eventually I recovered. Being surrounded by these people who cared about nothing but each others’ safety, it was almost hard not to. Dryad ended up filling in the holes in my education left by Amanda’s disappearance, but Dryad showed me a much different view on all of it… She was just as much, if not more, non-human as I was, so she knew how to blend in with society and how to deal with your own oddities. She also taught me about other worlds and realities- how they related this one, and how the two really weren’t meant to be related.

I finally began to develop as a person. I picked up bits and pieces of the others’ personalities that I liked and respected. I suppose I was only really able to develop one after all of that because it was then that I truly had a choice… I thought I was free of Them, and I’d never have to think about them or obey them again. I had a choice! I took that choice and ran with it, I suppose.  My friends started calling me things every once in a while- things like ‘stubborn’ and ‘light-hearted’.  Though I have yet to see a dictionary definition for these things, I took them as good because they were in no way bad things… They were me.

One day Grif caught me preening my wings. He asked what I was doing, but I couldn’t answer with anything but bewilderment because I really didn’t know what I was doing, just that it kept my wings clean, neat, and feeling good. Since then I’ve found preening to be somewhat therapeutic… You can do it for hours on end and it will block out any thoughts you don’t want to deal with. That, and keeping your wings clean is important.

I have to say I have both Grif and Sea Serpent to thank, or rather blame, for the development of the control over my ice powers. Grif thought it was important and would drag me off to train with him. Serp was the one who was sometimes a little too quick to point out the lackings of my knowledge- this led to him feeling slightly superior to me, and me feeling a moment of negative emotions towards him, in which I would frost his backside as he turned to walk away. Grif thought it was hilarious- Serp not so much. But that’s just another one of those things that gave me stronger bonds with my friends.

It was an amazing time of peace… We got bolder little by little and went into the town nearby here and there, Grif and I. Cabalysis went there regularly, but we barely visited it at all. It was usually just for entertainment, to keep us from going stir crazy when we had nothing to do. That was, of course, before I started molting. Let me tell you, it becomes really awkward when you turn around and look back the hallway- and you can see your own feathers strewn everywhere, where they had just fallen off of your wings. And they fall out when you run. Or when you jump. Or when someone pats you on the back. It got really awkward.

Like for other birds, it eventually passed… I was still picking small bits of down out of my clothes for months after because of it, though… It was soon after I ceased molting that Black Swan joined us. Actually, we kind of saved her life. Let me explain: Black Swan is- no, was- a yellow crystal bearer. Don’t ask me how it works, I really am not sure, but apparently there are multiple crystals of each color with different names and there’s something like eight colors. I don’t know. But we had been investigating a small disturbance a little ways from our base that might pose a threat, and BOOM- part of the meadow nearby is blasted to smithereens. We of course ran in and found shards of yellow crystal everywhere… She was the only one still alive, and she was dying because the crystal she had bonded to was shattered… Cabalysis produced the Crystal of Harest in a moment and… I don’t know, she rebounded or something, but it saved her life. She was very distraught about the loss of her team and everyone she knew, but we took her back to our base and helped her to recover. She soon joined fully and pledged to help us as we had helped her. Her powers are really neat though… She can confuse people on all sorts of strange levels.

Thinking about this… Tantalla’s story was much similar, and yet much different. Tantalla, or Tabitha as she was at first, is a country tomboy as Synthia-Black Swan- is a city slicker in her skirt and her long, black hair. Both of Tabitha’s parents were killed by a supervillain in one of the towns near us, and we happened to be nearby, so of course we saved her. She grieved the loss of her parents and swore to make the villain pay. She followed us more than anything as we tracked him down and dealt justice. We then let her join us because she didn’t have anywhere to go… And she already had powers. As far as I know she’s the only one of us who had their powers before we joined the Guardians, but she could make good use of them- and did. No one else has joined us since then, but I don’t know… Something tells me that’s bound to change since then.

As usual around here all good things must come to an end, just at the moment you’re least expecting it. It was about a year and a half, maybe almost two years since I had been recaptured by Them, and they had been all but completely forgotten… That didn’t stop them. Not. One. Bit. Oh no, nothing stopped them from barging in again…

I was walking down the hall… I hit the floor but only registered it after the immeasurable agony that coursed through my veins and made me unable to move. I remember my vision swimming and I looked into the sunlight streaming in from the window… To see outside on a hill nearby almost hidden by the cover of the trees, one of Them. Holding a remote. With the button pressed.

“Roc?” Dryad had turned into the hallway and ran over to kneel beside me. I remember being terribly frustrated with not being able to see her, then almost passing out on the spot as she sent her healing pulse through me. The excruciating pain arched, and I cried out. She must have looked out the window, because I heard something. “…Oh good guile…”

I blacked out for maybe thirty seconds, and next thing she had picked me up and was running, mumbling under her breath about my allergies and a strange substance in my blood she’d been a fool not to look into before. Then I blacked out again, and right before I did I was filled with the horrifying thought that I might not wake up again.

~

The next day I found out what had happened. Dryad took me back to my room and was barely able to keep me from dying as Black Swan and Pillar went out and captured the guy. They questioned him and found out that there was something they had put into my blood the last time they had dealt with me that they had activated… Apparently it was a super sedative or something, and they wanted to see how it would affect me- if it would actually kill me or just put me in a coma… Talk about an enemy with a sick sense of humor. Dryad was able to pull the stuff out of my system and dispose of it, but I was still on the brink of death for an hour and didn’t want up for another half a day… I suppose it was a lot less bad than it could have been, but… It really makes me wonder what other junk They have mucked up my systems with. All I can say is I hope I never find out…

I didn’t leave my room for three days, too utterly seized by the horrific thought that if I went out, They would try to reclaim me again. Dryad finally coaxed my out and gave me a massage in the sunshine. Seriously, when she offers to give you a massage in the sunshine, it’s impossible to refuse.

A few weeks after that, Grif was concerned about how jumpy I remained and how easily I slipped back into a state of semi depression and fear… So he and a few other of the Guardians got together and bought a small, blank book… Then they gave it to me and told me that I should write my life’s story from beginning to now. I’ve found that writing these random thoughts have been a lot like preening- they consume me for hours and take my mind off of other things, no matter how I feel about the stuff I write or freak out about the thought that someone might, heaven forbid, READ it. As you may have guessed by now, this actually brings us up to now… I keep this book under my pillow so that I know where it is… But sometime soon I’ll have to find a new spot for it- I think Grif’s been sneaking peeks at it at night.

I think my fears are finally starting to wear themselves out again… Of course, if I go and believe it’s over, I’ll just land in that cage again, I know… I suppose paranoia isn’t totally a bad thing, if it keeps you alive and all…. But Dryad says that in too large of quantities it will drive you insane. I agree with her… and I’m also being called to go out and help Foxtail and Pillar collect firewood. Ah well… I guess this is where my story ends; for now. And I hope I never have anything dealing with Them to ever write again. I mean, I can dream, can’t I?

~Roc- Zechariah. Now and always.