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Zita tucked her knees into her chest and slowed her breathing, straining her ears to hear outside the solid wooden doors of the closet she had hidden herself away in. She heard the giggling of her siblings as they searched for her and the thumping of her own heart. She resisted the urge to shush the beating in her chest and pulled herself into a tighter ball, attempting to bury herself in the piles of coats behind her without making a sound.
The giggling got nearer and her breath hitched. She froze and listened, eyes widened in fear as she stared at the sliver of yellow light under the door. The giggles stopped and a voice replaced them, “I wonder where the chicken girl went!” Foy proclaimed in an exaggerated drawl, followed by the giggling of the other kids. Zita heard his footsteps approach the door and saw his shadow block out part of the sliver of light. She was trembling now, burying her head in her arms and trying to block everything out except the steady beating of her own heart.
“I guess we should get out coats!” Foy continued, followed by more giggles, “So we can check in the coop!” Zita winced, her entire body was shaking at this point and she was struggling to keep her breathing steady.
The door burst open and Zita spilled out, ending up sprawled out on the hardwood floors of the hall, “What’s this!” Foy exclaimed, that exaggerated tone stilled heavy in his voice, “One of the chickens got in the house!” There was laughter from the kids, who had formed a circle around her. Zita looked up to see a triumphant gleam in Foy’s eye as he twisted his face into a cartoonish expression of surprise.
“Let’s take her back out to the coop!” He exclaimed, getting cheers from the others, who scrambled to get their coats. Zita struggled to fold in her wings so they wouldn't get trampled but failed, only managing to get a considerable number of her feathers yanked out by the dozen feet that pinned them to the ground.
Foy grabbed her under the arm and hauled her to her feet. She yelped in pain as another of her feathers was pulled from her body and fought against his grip but another of her siblings grabbed her other arm and held her steady. She looked to her second captor and her gut sank, Titin, the oldest of the kids, and the strongest, with a hulking figure that towered above even Foy, who was a head taller than Zita himself.
She tried to wrench her arms from their grips and tried to kick their legs from under them to no avail. She received only laughs for her efforts from the other kids, who had secured hats and scarves on their heads and necks and were eagerly awaiting another game of ‘torcher Zita’. The boys hauled her outside despite her shouts of protest and brought her to the back, where a sad little chicken coop in the shape of a miniature barn with multi-colored horned chickens clucking around outside.
The boys forced her forward, chanting out taunts that made her blood boil, “Bock, bock, bock little chicky!” One of the kids chanted, followed by a chorus of “bock, bock! Bock, bock” she struggled and shouted, knowing full well that no one would hear her through the dense forest surrounding the house, or the miles of fields beyond that.
“Come on little goth chicken, why don’t you go join your brothers and sisters!” another voice called. She resisted the urge to growl. Titin and Foy forced her through the too small opening in the coop, the sharp edges of the wood and straw digging into her arms and ripping out even more of her feathers. A chorus of laughter erupted from the bystanders at the sight of her slight form crammed into the tiny little coop, one wing sticking awkwardly out the opening.
Zita struggled to force her way back out but she was stuck, her right wing had gotten stuck in the feeding room and her left arm was pinned to her side at an awkward angle. Once the others had had their fun they left her, going back into the house out of the chilly late-autumn air to were supper was being served by Jincol. She struggled, shouting out for help as her left wing flapped uselessly outside and scared away the chickens and her right wing pushed against the solid wooden back wall of the coop.
As the sun disappeared over the treetops and the air became fidged with the promise of the nightly frost she managed to free her left arm and stick it out the opening. She used her new vantage to forced her head out next, some of her hair snagging in the cracks between the wood and ripping painfully from her scalp. She hissed in pain and forced the rest of her body out of the tiny opening, her breath fogging in front of her as she did.
Zita finally managed to free her other wing and collapsed, exhausted, onto the prickly grass, all her limbs spread out like a starfish. Starfish don’t have big ugly bird wings on their backs, a voice sneered in the back of her mind, starfish aren't chicken people. She told the voice to hush up and stared up at the stars, ignoring the biting cold and instead focusing on the sounds of the night. She heard fairy wasps jingling like tiny bells, small animals moving about in the underbrush, crickets, and frogs creaking and croaking. She closed her eyes and let the sounds surround her, wiping away the reality of her world.
She didn’t bother trying to get in the house, it was little Dron’s job to lock up all the doors every night, a task he took great pride in completing, whether everyone was inside when he did it or not. Zita sighed and sat up, scanning the windows of the house to find all the lights extinguished, perfect. She got to her feet and folded her wings behind her, trying to ignore the painful tingling where her feathers used to be.
She went barefoot into the woods, avoiding the sharp rocks and prickly plants with practiced ease and making it the creek. Her eyes darted around her, scanning for any of her siblings who might have been locked out as well and gone to the woods for shelter, not an uncommon occurrence, as she searched for a particularly large, flat stone. She found it and lifted it from it’s resting place on the river bank, revealing the hollowed dirt beneath it. She set the stone aside and grabbed the bundle of black cloth that lay in the hollowed area and quickly replaced the stone.
The bundle of cloth was, in fact, a messenger bag, filled with several days of food and a change of clothes, along with the bare minimum hygiene products, such as a hairbrush and a few bars of soap so she didn’t draw to much attention when entering big cities. Along with the bag was another piece of black cloth with a set of little silver fastens attached.
She grabbed the second piece of cloth and draped it over her wings, completely covering them, and fastened the hooks, one under the wings and one around her chest. Once the wing covering was secure she draped the bag over her shoulder and followed the creek, leaving the big white house with the black roof behind her.
Maybe she could be sweating, eyes filling with tears, chin trembling, thinking "please go away", etc. Or maybe the kids' laughter could be described as more sinister and cruel?
Feel free to take or leave any of these revisions; they're just suggestions, and you know your story better than I do.
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