The antitheticals

Excerpt Prologue

Cynthia. You have to actually try.” My sister groaned, rolling her eyes.

“God damnit. I know. I am trying, just, give me a second.” I groaned, getting annoyed by her pestering.

“Cyn, you know mom is going to hurt you for speaking like that. Your only eight.”

“Shut up, Jordyn. I’m still older than you.

I focused on my mind and body while I imagined my body shifting to the wolf of my being. I tried pushing my thoughts into that of the loyalty a wolf has… nothing worked… I tried for about three hours before my sister finally gave up.

“Cyn, try something else. Like, I don’t know, just… do something. Whatever feels right to you.”

“Stop pestering me. Just go away. Go do your chores, mom wanted you to clean your room. Go.” I hissed in frustration.

Jordyn walked away and I felt a tinge of guilt…

Brushing it off, I started to think about what she had said. ‘Whatever feels right to you.’

“Whatever feels right to me.” I mumbled.

I felt a sudden need to escape. To feel what I am supposed to be.

Instead of doing what my sister told me I decided to let loose and let my mind drift instead of focusing.

Almost immediately I felt a searing pain in the pit of my stomach I cried out as my skin ignited and my whole being ripped from my physical body.

I felt my consciousness slip and I somehow managed to look down through the pain. I gasped from my pain as I fully noticed what had happened. Thunder crashed loudly and my pale youthful body lay dormant on the ground.

My hair was strewn across the forest floor, dust was slightly billowing around me.

Before I could do anything, my body slowly started to crumble, turning into dust as the wind of the nearby storm blew it away. The pain was excruciating, it felt like I was thrown into a meat grinder and my remains were then put into smaller grinders, and so on and so on until all that was left was dust.
I could dimly make out the fact that my dust was forming a small whirlwind and then siphoning into the storm clouds. As I began to grow used to the pain, my senses began opening up. I noticed that I was in the clouds.

The longer I was in the clouds, the more I realized that I was the cloud.

I tried mentally pushing my body towards my home and the clouds rushed slowly in that direction. “Yes!” I screamed which came out as a low rumble.

I thought about a strip of lightning striking a nearby tree and it happened, the beautiful light exploded in the sky as the electricity struck. Immediately I felt the fear that the forest that I love would catch fire so I tried pushing my body to contort into rain and wash the fire away.

‘If I can do this… then that means… I’m no shapeshifter.’ I thought sullenly. I gasped, which turned to thunder. ‘I’m a soulshifter….’

As realization struck I felt a new found fear ripping into me again. People would come after me, they will try to use me to their advantage.

My mind began to race with worrisome thoughts, the storm I had become became frantic, wind picked up and rain rushed out of my cloudy fingertips.

“Cynthia!” I heard my sister scream, I saw her rushing through the forest to the clearing we had practiced in.