THINGS WITH WINGS (FOR TANYA ONLY!!)

Alternate Beginning
One: The End of the Beginning
I sat there in, well; I didn’t really quite understand what I was feeling. It wasn’t shock, I was sure of that. I had seen this coming for a while now. I guess I was in a more, unbelieving state as I sat there on my bed.
I attempted to avert my gaze, get my mind off the subject. My eyes followed the golden vines on my bright pink/orange wallpaper. When that failed, I began to trace the cracks in the ceiling.
“I guess I just can’t believe you put up with my crap for this long Nik, you’re better than that, better than me.” He stated simply. It had been one hell of an eight months—my longest relationship—and on the day of the anniversary, this is where I sat, allowing my heart be shattered into pieces. I stared, astonished at him.
“I never noticed how hard you were trying, how badly you wanted this to work, and so this is my fault, because I just went along with it. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just didn’t see it going anywhere.” He attempted to clarify his rationing. I was still trying to block him out. Today of all days my selective hearing failed me. And so I nodded back to him, speechless; fearing if I opened my mouth, it would also open my blockade of tear flow.
“I guess I just wish you wouldn’t hate me,” He continued. Oh how I wished he would shut up and disappear.
I almost regretted my threat from the last fight we had. I thought back to it. We had gotten in a fight because he took my best friend shopping, and I didn’t trust him. When it was all done and said, I warned him that if he ever tried to break up with me again, that would be the last time because I didn’t want to try anymore. He had tried to break things off a time or two before, but somehow (most likely my tears), I got to him and he’d take it back. I’m sure this is the reason for my tear blockade this time, when I said ‘last time’, I meant it, not even my tears were going to try and talk him out of it this time.
“I don’t hate you.” I whispered truthfully. I could feel it coming; if he didn’t leave now my tears would fail me.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around then.” He finalized quietly as he got up off my bed.
I watched him go, from my second story window. His head ducked as he slowly made his way to the car. Stupid car; I would never be able to look at an ’89 Camero the same, or any Camero for that matter.
It rumbled away and I felt the wave of pain I’d held back escape; it sent me sprawling across the floor of my room like a dead person. That’s what I felt like; a dead person. I couldn’t believe only months ago he had asked me to marry him when I was finished with college. Although, the thought of college made me chuckle, Maybe I should focus on graduating high school first…
















Two: Wasting Time
The pain of losing Cody was starting to dwindle within a matter of weeks. Though I still thought of him frequently, the pain didn’t bother me so much. Of coarse I still loved him with my whole heart, but the fact I tried to etch into my mind was that I didn’t want somebody who didn’t want me.
I dwelled on this topic daily, mostly in the morning while I readied myself for school alone.
My mother worked a first shift factory job in the neighboring town of Medford, and my dad owned a trucking company; he left early and came home late.
I found myself heading to school early, attempting to clear my mind. It didn’t really help though. This car alone was enough to spark my memories of him. We took my little blue cavalier everywhere.
To put it shortly, his car was a pile. A tiny green Saturn that could pass for my car’s grandfather; it was exactly 10 years older.
I made it to school in 7 minutes; record timing in my book. The lot was still empty, and I had nearly an hour before school started, the doors weren’t even unlocked yet, so I ventured back to my car. Well this sucks. I put my seat back and turned my car on enough to hear the radio before digging through my bag. My sketchbook, obviously worn, was smashed between my History and my Botany books.
I began analyzing a sketch I had been working on lately, scrutinizing everything about it. I was nearly temped to just rip it out and throw it out the window. I fought against it and threw the book back in my bag before resting my head against the head rest. Glancing at the clock, I realized only two minutes had passed and I needed something a little more constructive to do. My unfinished history homework would have been a go, and my grade was in the lower 70’s for that class, but history bored me more than sitting here, so I decided against that.
I glanced at the clock again; this really wasn’t helping considering it still read the same time as before.
Aggravated, I dug out my cell. Hopefully Tess would be up, which was doubtful.
Tess had been my friend since I transferred here in the sixth grade. I lived in Stetsonville, I tiny tiny town with a population that was so small it should have been listed as unincorporated. In fact it was so small that the school there only went to fifth grade. My class there consisted of maybe 20 kids, where as my class now held over 200 people; quite a jump. In Stetsonville, I think I was friends with just about everyone in my class. In Medford, I couldn’t even remember all of their names, and I’d been with them for five years.
Once I hit sixth grade, we no longer had the same teacher all day long, we began switching teachers for each class, which was a scary transition for me, especially since the kids I had known for the first 6 years of my schooling weren’t in any of my classes; Tess was in every single one. She was also the first to talk to me. I remember that day like it happened last week.

I walked into my first class of the day, shaking at the knees because I was a very shy, and socially challenged person; making new friends was difficult for me.
What made things worse was that in this class I wasn’t allowed to go un-noticed in the back of the class, no of coarse not. Teacher had put us in (and our desks) in clusters of 4 around the class room; two desks sitting side by side, facing two identical desks. Tess sat next to me and our desks were paired with a set of twin boys, even scarier, for me. Along with my social disorder, boys frightened me in a fashion so horrid that the first week there I ran to the bathroom, nauseated, right after class. Tess was very easy going though and never really judged me, but she was very pretty and always surrounded by boys. Even at the early age of 11 she was smokin’ to all the little 11 year old boys. She had beautiful, silky blonde hair and I remember in the eighth grade I made my aunt bleach my hair to match it. The bleach only fried my hair and I was nicknamed frizzy for the rest of the year. She was short though, only about 5’1, but she made up for it with her outgoing and boisterous personality.
“Don’t you ever talk?” were the first words out her mouth. I had nodded and smiled shyly, and the boys across from us gave each other a devious smirk.
That first very long semester was a rough one, but our seats were permanently set and we hadn’t moved, which led to me eventually having to speak to her; leading me to like her. I even began sitting with her at lunch (I won’t go into the excruciating details of where I sat before, but in short; she saved me). I even began to talk to the ridiculously irritating twins that sat with us, though that was somewhat forced on my by Mrs. Henkel.

I finally gave my reminiscing a rest as I pulled into her driveway. The clock had barely moved and I was beginning to wonder if it was broken. Surprisingly, she was awake, sitting in her usual chair on the front porch with her steaming cup of coffee and a cigarette. Yes, the damned sixteen year old smoked, like a chimney.
I have to admit she was a very bad influence, as I had begun to smoke in times of panic. She looked like an irritable bull at the moment so I kept the conversation quiet until she spoke first.
To her, it wasn’t odd to see me ready at 7 in the morning, I usually woke fairly early, where as she was the type to roll out of bed somewhere around 8, sometimes later.
“My mom is making me take Tommy to school.” She finally spoke in a dark voice, as if she was telling me a plot to kill somebody. Tommy was her very irritating, very needy, but generally tolerable little brother. He was 4 years younger than us but always wanted to ‘hang out’ with us; which usually consisted of play halo 2 on Xbox.
I nodded in understanding as I let the conversation die back to silence to avoid an angry Tess for the remainder of the day. If it was one thing she needed was her wake up time. She was easy to deal with when it wasn’t anytime before 10 a.m. though she could be very intimidating when she was in a bad mood, hence the avoidance.
Time passed even slower while I was in this silent state, so I told her I would see her at school and headed back to the school, praying the doors would be unlocked.

















Chapter
The school day passed just as slowly as the morning had. By the time it had ended I had developed a headache and went straight home, promising myself that I would begin the job search the following day.
My head ache seemed to spread during the afternoon, and by the time evening had come around, my body was throbbing, not so much my body, mostly my spine and shoulders. I tried concentrating on my school work, though there wasn’t much to do. It was finished in an hour and I decided to turn in for the night.

Original
Chapter One
I could hear my mother’s foot steps climbing the stairs that night as I lay in bed; the aches had seemed to worsen. She knocked quietly at my door before entering with a steaming cup of tea and a small platter of saltines.
“Are you sure it’s not just cramps?” She asked me. I was sure. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this, if that is what it really was anyway.
I nodded my head because talking seemed like too much of a hassle at the moment. My spine felt like it was on fire and every bone in my body felt like brittle twigs ready to snap in half if I even dared moving.
“Are you planning on staying home tomorrow?” She asked disapprovingly, as if she already knew the answer, and I’m sure she did. I nodded again. “Fine, I’ll take you to the doctor in the morning. If you’re faking this-”
“Mom I’m not faking this time, I really am sick, or at least I feel like crap.”
She sighed and gave an exhausted smile as she bent down and kissed me on the forehead.
“Good night mom, I love you.”
“I love you too Nik, now get some rest.” She patted my feet softly and smiled back at me before she closed the door. For once in the last three days I dozed quickly and fell into a deep sleep.




Chapter Two
I woke the next day to a warm tingly feeling; my body was almost numb, like I was floating just off of my bed. I eventually rolled my head to the side to glance at the clock. The red glowing numbers were flashing 3:06, which was odd, it was sunny out. Sighing I flipped onto my stomach and reached an arm down to the floor. Blindly I fished a small square object from my purse, my cell phone, which also read the same time. If I had to guess I would say it was about nine. I could hear my mom faintly talking downstairs.
I crept down the stairs and glanced around. I could hear her but I couldn’t see her. I shrugged and went straight for a mug from the cupboard. With a steaming mug of coffee in hand I began to retreat back to my room.
“Yes, yes, excuse me for a moment, sweetie you really shouldn’t be drinking coffee.” I froze at the foot of the stairs and turned.
“It’s only one cup mom, please?” she rolled her eyes and sighed before she walked away, continuing the conversation in another room. With a satisfied grin on my face I sat down in front of the computer to work on my homework.
It was only about 5 minutes later when she came up and informed me of my doctor’s appointment at noon.
“Mom?” I asked as she turned to go, “do you know what time it is? My clock in my room is off.” She looked down at her watch.
“It’s almost 10.” I turned back towards the screen, stupid clock. I finished most of my homework before she called up to me again.
“Hunny!? Its 11:30!” she was stressed. The crackle in her voice gave it away. She hated going to the doctor. She was raised in a home that didn’t believe in doctors; a home where she was lead to believe that all things go away on their own.
It only took 15 minutes to get to the clinic, and the whole ride there was mostly silence. There were few words exchanged of my status; I still felt achy, and my bones felt more brittle than before. I had begun to feel a little nauseous, but I’m sure that was only because of motion sickness; my mother was the worst driver in the history of the world, well besides me anyway. I had managed to total out two vehicles within a month of receiving my probationary license; one included the vehicle we were in now, that was 5,ooo dollars in damage, and my parents didn’t waste their money on the other one. It was now permanently parked back in the woods behind our house.
Once we entered the doctor’s office, we filled out the papers and I was lead into a small room by a nurse.
“Ok, Ahnika, how have you been feeling?” she asked in a cheerful voice. She flashed a small kind smile at me, revealing a pearly white smile. She seemed pretty young, mid-twenties maybe. She also had a ring on that very important finger; not a very big one, but it was simple and cute. It was very out of place though on the finger of a lady in teal-blue scrubs and dishwater blond hair. She wasn’t ugly by any means, it just, didn’t quite fit. Her brown eyes revealed a little more than I bet she meant to give away. She had creases in her forehead and her eyes had a tint of blackness around them. She looked tired and about ready to give up on life. I never want to be like her. Pretending to be someone I’m not.
“Well, I’ve been kind of achy, not all over but mostly along my spine and my shoulder blades.”
“Have you been doing any heavy lifting?”
“No, not really. I mean my backpack can get pretty heavy at times, but it’s nothing I haven’t had before.”
“Alright, well, I’m going to take your blood pressure now.” She said as she rolled her chair towards the wall and grabbed the device. As she wrapped the arm piece around me she asked a few more personal questions.
“When is the last time you menstruated?” she asked as if she was asking about the weather.
“I haven’t got my period yet.” I said awkwardly. She faltered slightly with the arm piece, not enough for me to have noticed if I wasn’t paying attention.
“Wow! And you had a birthday a few months ago didn’t you? So you are sixteen?” She asked more curiously than I’m sure she meant to. I nodded.
“You’re lucky.” Lucky?
“That’s what everyone tells me.” I stated.
“Well your blood pressure looks good, how’s your temp?” she asked while she grabbed a thermometer. She more asked herself than me.
After checking my ears and my weight and height and all the other good stuff, I sat back in the chair as she confirmed my information.
“Address is still 159 west cherry street? Home phone is 111-378-9078? Birthday is February 17th?” I nodded after each question or answered with a simple ‘mmhmm’.
“You lost a little weight since November, about 10 pounds actually. Are you on a diet?”
“No, I actually thought I was gaining weight.”
“Try to get your weight back up there, you’re a little underweight. 106 lbs.” She went on and on but I was still stuck on the weight thing. I’d been eating a lot more than usual. Two sometimes three extra helpings from dinner; last week I ate two whole bags of Doritos on my own within a matter of two hours while I was working on homework. How can I be loosing weight?
Finally the Dr. came in and asked me similar questions as he read through the notes the nurse had taken.
When it was finally all said and done, he pinned it on growing pains and possibly my woman hood; I became furious.
“How is that even possible?! It doesn’t even hurt down there! It’s my shoulders and my back!” I nearly yelled. The doctor had called my mom in so he could let us both know what was going on. She gave me a look that told me to knock it off.
“Well dear, sometimes when you get cramps, it will cause your lower back to become sore.” The dr. went on. It wasn’t even my lower back; I had specifically told them that.
“Whatever.” I said in calm and irritated voice as I got up to leave.
The whole ride home every time my mom opened her mouth to speak I reminded her I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew there was something more to this; I wasn’t just becoming a woman, this was something big, I could feel it.











Chapter 3
I decided on my own to go to school the next day. With a week left of classes, I would have to be there to take finals; without them I’d fail.
School came to a close on a Tuesday and for several weeks after my condition seemed to worsen. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed because of the aching. It had spread to every bone in my body; it wasn’t just my spine anymore, or my shoulders it was literally every bone.
One day, around the end of June, Tess came to see me. We had been scheduled to have a girl’s night, but today was one of those days; when it was all I could bear to stay still and enclose myself in a dark room with the radio on.
She sat herself on my bed. The movement awakened me with a wince.
“Maybe you have cancer.” She offered in a depressed voice while munching on Bugles.
“Ouch…” was all I said to that as I burrowed further into my nest of blankets and pillows. After a few minutes of silence I finally peeked out at her. She glanced sideways at me and held up a tiny grey teddy bear. It sported a black bow around its neck and held a tiny card that read ‘feel gooder soonish’. I lifted an eyebrow to that one.
“Did you make this or something?” I asked confused by the spelling in the message.
“I made the card.”
“Aw, that’s so special.” I said sarcastically. She always said things like that. I think it was to give sad people something to laugh at because it was only a matter of seconds before a grin slowly spread across my face, and hers.
“I figured you wouldn’t be up for anything too spontaneous so I stopped at Family Video and rented dorky girly movies, I brought you a smoothie too.” I smiled to that also. She always knew how to cheer me up.
So the rest of the evening consisted of us picking on the stupid movies she brought along and finally going down to join my parents for a lovely home cooked meal.
“Mmmm, pepperoni. Did you know pepperoni is the most fattening topping you can get on a pizza?” Austin commented before stuffing a piece in her mouth.
“That’s alright, that quack of a doctor told me to get my weight up anyway.” I replied, mimicking her disgusting eating habit.
We retreated back to my room to finish the movies and I was on my way up the stairs with two cans of Dr. Pepper in one hand, and gripping two classes with straws and ice in the other, when the house phone rang. I paid no attention to it and expected my parents to grab it, but when it went on, and on, and on I set down the objects in my hand and raced to grab it.
“Hello?” is asked slightly irritated.
“Hello is this Ms. Scott?” the tired voice of a woman on the other end replied.
“You mean Mrs. Scott?”
“No, I mean her daughter, Ms. Scott, is this her?” the voice demanded, aggravated.
“Uh, I guess, who is this?”
“Ms. Scott, Ahnika is it? I am calling on the behalf of Professor Jaymes A. Carmichael.”
“Ok…” where is this going? I thought as Austin sat up and looked at me through the doorway of my room. I cradled the phone in between my shoulder and ear as I held up my hands in an ‘I don’t know’ gesture.
“I want to congratulate you on your acceptance into our academy for the-“ the conversation was ended with a click of a button as I rolled my eyes and flopped down on the bed next to Austin.
“Telemarketer.” I stated in a bored tone.
“Mmmm, what were they selling this time?”
“I’m not sure, something about being accepted into some academy or whatever, I didn’t hear the rest.” I replied with a grin. We laughed together about it and pressed play on the DVD player.
We fell asleep awkwardly laying the wrong way on the bed, finishing up the last of five cheesy movies. My vision blurred from Carrie at the prom with pigs blood all over her to that of a completely foreign place.
I was running through a forest of towering blue spruce trees. I originally thought I was hearing the thumping of bass. I was angry in the dream; or maybe more ashamed, a mixture of both? I soon found that the sound I was hearing was not music, but my own pounding heart. I felt weak and exhausted, as if I had been running for a long time.
Out of nowhere the forest lifted away from me, or rather, I was falling away from it. I didn’t feel scared though. It was more of a relieved feeling, safe. Like it was something I had been waiting for. I should have been screaming for my life because the ground was coming ever closer, and I just watched it. It just got bigger and bigger and I did nothing to stop it.
I remember smiling to myself and waiting. My shoulders felt slightly weighed down, like something had been pinned, or tied to the back of my shirt. I flexed my shoulders and I was suddenly ripped upward. My shoulders felt like they had been crushed, maybe I did hit the ground; I wasn’t sure because my eyes suddenly flew open.
I was completely unaware of my surroundings, and it frightened me, the vision laid out before me. I was standing on the roof outside my room. I glanced back to find the window was wide open. The wind was blowing my curtains into the room. I thought for a moment I might have been crying again. I finally looked up and felt the cold drops of water hitting my face. It was raining.























Chapter 4
After crawling back through the window, soaked from the rain, I changed into dry clothes. I lay on the bed next to Austin for nearly an hour staring at the ceiling with a blank mind. The incident had already been forgotten.





























Chapter

When I opened my eyes, I still felt trapped in a dream. A small opening in a doorway was the only source for light in this room. From what I could tell, this room consisted of a dirt floor and concrete walls. There were no windows and the damp darkness reminded me of a cellar. My back was pressed up against the grimy stone of the walls and my bottom felt cold and wet.
I realized now that my hands were bound above my head with shackles. My legs throbbed and ached. The pain was as bad as my wings, ten times over. My wings; I tried to lift them or unfurl them, any kind of movement from behind me would have been greatly appreciated, but I felt nothing. I let my muscles relax and my head hang. I had been crying, and didn’t notice till now.
I heard a faint crash from outside my dungeon. Lifting my head would have been a waste of energy, I wouldn’t see anything anyway. A small draft lifted my bangs and the door creaked open a little further. A small shimmer, just inches from my feet, caught the light and my attention. I lifted my head a little. My necklace was lying just beyond my feet, just inches out of reach. The newfound light showed the blood on my jeans. The simple movement of stretching my body out made me wince in pain, trying to hold back a scream. Breathing heavily I tried again. The bones below my knees crackled and moved beneath the skin of my shins. My legs were broken, they had to be. Nothing else could possibly cause this kind of pain.
There was a loud boom from up above and more crashing sounds. Knowing where I was encased would have helped me to know what was going on. The door creaked a little more with each sound. Whatever was happening had to have been pretty powerful for it to cause an underground door to sway. I glanced back towards the floor and what caught the edge of the light this time did make me scream. There were rats, tons of them, hundreds. They were feasting on a body against the opposite wall. The commotion upstairs had suddenly ceased. I scrambled for my feet to catch the necklace. Finally my bare heel caught the string of it and with great difficulty I bent my knees and dragged the tiny charm towards me. I pulled on the chains above my head harder, twisting and revolving my wrists. Tiny shards of rust floated down around me and atop my head. The chain links clinked together created an eerie scraping sound. Chunks of stone fell around me as the rusted bolt connecting my inanimate captor to the wall began to give way.
The movement from upstairs had started up again and worse. The fragile door swung completely open and allowed light to fill the entire room. I felt like everything suddenly slowed and came to a halt. The rats scurried from the body as the light hit them and the draft began to pick up. The body was that of a girl, or rather a woman. A woman of white golden hair and fair skin lay lifeless on the dirt floor with her pale blue eyes wide open in fear.
“Avery?” I whispered weakly. The sight brought more tears to my eyes and suddenly everything sped back up. I began to thrash madly in the dirt. I beat my shackled wrists against the damp stone, bringing more debris down upon me. The fragile rusted bolt flew from the wall and I fell forward onto my stomach. With wrists still held together by the remains of the chains, I undid the ropes around my ankles. The crashes from above grew ever louder while I worked to grip the green stone between my hands.
“Liberate!” I nearly screamed in a harsh whisper. The stone felt warm to the touch and began to glow like a black flame. I let my tears cascade down onto the chains. My tears acting as acid, quickly ate away at the chains.
“Rapier!” I whispered once more. The stone grew colder and began to shimmer like silver. It slowly grew to sword length with an edge sharper than razors. The sound of a door bashing into a wall lead me only to assume that someone, or something was coming for me. I raced to the door and slowly moved it back to its original state. I hid just behind it, pressing myself as tight as I could against the cool stone wall.
It only took seconds for the intruder to get to it and push it wide open. I heard heavy breathing coming from the other side of the door.
Adrian Carmichael stepped further into the room, into my line of vision. He had been so nice to me, how could he possibly be the bad guy here? I then realized I had a choice; trust no one and live, or spare his life and possibly lose my wings, or my life. Great options Nik. It took seconds for me to make the decision from my tiny dark corner. I kicked the door shut and before it even slammed into the door frame; my sword was lodged into his back.
The nauseating sound of a limp body hitting the ground was enough for me and I ran. I threw the door open and intended to slice open anyone who got in my way. I was a blood thirsty demon that had risen from years of dormant existence. Anger had come out of nowhere; my self pity simply disintegrated.