Polaris Skies

Chapter 12

Trigger Warning: Rape, Miscarriage

You wanted to know what happened to make Michael hate you so much? You're not going to like it, Shaman, Sven whispered maliciously as his host rode the black waves of unconsciousness.

He stood in the field again. The guy with the red wings was to his left as the sun set in front of him. The woman with the raven black wings swooped gracefully through the clouds accumulating around the sun. The man motioned to her, and she swung down from one of her curves and glided down to meet him. Twilight shifted the scene, dropping it away into a shadow puppet world of flickering candlelight and red.

A woman with waist-length hair and massive wings flew into the field. As tall as the man, she brushed back her hair, and a fire pit lit, flashing and jumping behind the shadow curtain. She danced around it; a beautiful voice sliced through the quiet field. Nat lulled to the tune, the flicking of the light mesmerizing.

The first woman flew off after bidding the second woman goodbye. The man searched around the screen as if looking for the lost birdwoman. In frustration, he threw something across the screen before flying off.

The tone shifted. The head of a beast grew behind the woman ominously before disappearing. A lean man emerged behind the screen. He approached the woman slowly, quietly, as she danced around her fire. The man's nails grew, and his hair shortened, thickened. His limbs warped, and his face extended until he dropped to all fours. The woman danced with the wolf; they swayed and pranced, seeming for an eternity. Eventually, she knelt in front of the wolf, holding his muzzle in her hands. The wolf changed back to the man.

They were gentle, tender. The music shifted once more. A ticking permeated Nat's senses, offbeat to the soft melody.

The man satisfied, and the woman asleep, drifted in the impending sunrise. He rose from the woman and looked around quickly. Slinking away, he disappeared into the woods as the wolf. The woman woke to find herself deserted. She cried bitterly and turned towards the fire.

Nat walked toward the screen that never came closer. Every step he took, the shadow woman's stomach grew with pregnancy. On his ninth step, she had come to her third trimester.

An image flashed onto the shadow screen before him, like the poorly tuned projector from his college biology class. A cell, hazy around the edges of the slide, came into focus. Something removed the cellephane sheet, replacing it with the nucleus and the inner lying DNA. He watched slide after slide as it unwound and the prongs of the DNA exploded in the nucleus. The nucleus burst into the cell, and the cell erupted several other cells as a chain reaction. The image on the hellish screen continued to zoom out to broaden the vision. He watched the heart burst. His gut twisted. The image zoomed out to the inside of a womb. A cold shock ran up his spine as his brain fought the image. He looked at the body of a baby for a second, trying to understand what was wrong with it. The jaws were lengthened horrendously, disproportionately. The limbs bent at strange angles that Nat couldn't recognise as human. Its hands were pulled towards it, but the nails on its fingers were so long that they reached past its small shoulders. The child was not going to make it.

The screen dropped to reveal the red-haired man, his wings cocooned around the woman. Her head lay on his lap, her hair spilling around her, white wings splayed. In her arms lay a swaddled ball. The hair on Nat's arms stood on end. He knew, looking at her, that she was no longer in this world.

The man's cold red eyes filled Nat's vision until only one bright red iris and pitch-black pupil stared back at him.

Nat woke with a start, his stomach screaming at him. "Oh gods." He rolled to his side and puked.

Now you know, čovjek, more than your winged friend, what happened to Raphael. Sven whispered, brushing at the hollow in the man's chest.

How the hell did you come up with this, you sick bastard? Nat spat back.

Oh, the brain is a marvellous device when you throw the right switches. You've got a bit of Shaman blood in here. That's useful. Did you know you can tap into Michael's brain from here? For that matter, let me roam around a bit more, you know, get cosy, and who knows, maybe you'll learn a few more things interesting. Sven growled, his anger seeping into Nat's.

The hell with you! I thought you were supposed to be helping. A chill ran down Nat's spine as another wave of nausea emptied his guts.

Deck woke to Nat gagging. "Nat, Nat, are you okay?"

Yeller placed a hand to Nat's forehead, clicking his tongue at the frost cold beneath. "Nothing left in your stomach; you're gonna go into hypothermia at this rate." He pulled Nat to him, careful of the shirt now torn to pieces being used as bandaging.

"I know why Michael hates us." Nat rested into Yeller's warmth as he explained the nightmare.

"Damn," Deck whistled.

"Sven?" Benj asked.

Nat nodded, replying, "Sven. I think I have turned into a Schitzo." His cheeks blotched red, tears threatening at the edges of his eyes. "Yeller said he hasn't heard his wolf talk. None of you have."

"Not funny, Nat. I had an aunt who was diagnosed with it. It's not something to joke about," Zola barked at him.

"I'm not joking, Zola," he pleaded, losing control of the river running behind his eyes. He knew he was going off the deep end. He had to be making this Sven up.

"He's not making it up," Deck defended Nat.

"Sven or the Schizophrenia?" Yeller asked.

"Sven. Nat doesn't lie about things. You know that. He might be a dick and a hormonal asshole over this little birdie friend, but what would he gain from telling us this? Maybe this is another issue with this RWE junk," Deck defended.

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