Masked

XV

I ended up in Sydney, Australia by the end of the day. Being too tired to go any further I settled for looking for a place to crash and landed on the outback to just lay down and catch my breath. Not caring at this point if anyone found me or not, I closed my eyes and fell asleep. It was dark anyways so I figured it was highly unlikely at the moment.

Lacie's face was in my mind the whole night as I would wake up to the memory of her laugh or of something else. Instead of going back to sleep again, i got up and went to find a cave to stay in. I was now on my own without a family, home or friend to talk too. It didn't bother me that I was too harsh on my parents when i accused them. It was truly their fault that Lacie had died, not mine.

Seeing a cave in the distance, I flew towards it and sniffed around making sure no one else was already in it. Once I realized it was vacant, i figured this would be my new home for now.

Lying down by the entrance, I let the hot air whip my face and tried to think of what my next plan of action was. It hurt too much to think I could move on and find another girl to fill this empty space, there would never be another girl who would ever come close to what Lacie was.

Morning arose quicker than I thought, most likely due to the uneventful night of sleep I had. It felt like my heart had been ripped out and could never be put back together.

"Well Michael, it looks like your parents were right about not getting too attached to a human," I said to myself.

"Who said that?" a girl's voice came from the entryway.

I froze and backed up into the wall where the darkness was.

"Please don't be afraid," the voice began again, "I won't hurt you. Besides, guys are a lot stronger than I am."

I tried to see what she looked like, but the spot I was in didn't give me enough light to examine her features. "My name is Michael. And yours?"

"Taran," the girl replied back, glad to hear my voice.

"Nice to meet you Taran. Let me ask you, are you human?"

"Of course I'm human, why would you ask that?"

I held my breath for a moment, "I'm not."

Taran said nothing for a moment then whispered, "then what are you Michael?"

I slowly stepped into the light and watched her reaction. It pained me to see how much she resembled Lacie; I shut my eyes and imagined not being there at that moment.

"You're a gargoyle," she breathed.

"Yep that's me. A freak of nature that hurts people."

Taran walked towards me and stared into my eyes. She had the lightest brown eyes in the universe and an unusual color of dirty blonde hair. I kept my mouth from dropping as I waited for her to reply.

"I don't believe you hurt people Michael."

"You won't have to know Taran. It was nice to meet you, I have to leave now," I began to walk out as Taran ran to the front and stuck her hands out to stop me.

I stopped and waited for her to say something that would keep me to stay.

"Please stay, I come here sometimes when I'm sick and tired of my boring life at home. I really need a loyal friend right now and I can't seem to rely on anyone at the moment."

She looked about ready to cry, "I'll be your friend Taran."

Her face shone with radiance, "thank you Michael."