Phases

7|

☽ Family-Lines ☽

I DON'T QUITE RECALL WHAT HAPPENED. THE ONLY THINGS THAT COULD come to mind were prepacked cookies, the ones with the cream in the middle and Petal having fallen. The distant sound of my name being called by Quinton also broke through the surface.

When I came to it everything felt different starting with the wet liquid on my face and a weird feeling all on my body.

Then I saw the body underneath me. Cordelia.

She was underneath me struggling her red eyes terrified as cracks spread up her face. They glowed a deep red before covering her and she crumbled. Like stone. Just everything crumbled until her rumpled clothes were beneath me.

I saw paws. Literal paws underneath me as I went to push myself up. Instead, I stumbled back as pure panic seized over me.

"Makya calm down!" I saw Quinton coming over to me as I stumbled back. The world wasn't even in the right colors. They were much brighter and lacking in reds and oranges. Everything looked to blue, yellow, with grey and some hints of purple. A bit of red as if I half developed the sight of color.

It all felt wrong. Everything was in much brighter clarity as well. And Quinton's raising of his voice sounded as if he was screaming in my ear. I hated it. 

Quinton appeared in front of me. "Makya, you need to calm down, you're not going to be able to shift back until you calm down." I backed up once more. Was I on all fours? That was the only explanation I could produce for how fucked I felt.

But Quinton's words made sense. To a degree but calming down isn't an easy feat. Back in middle school I used to have constant anxiety attacks. I typically did countdowns and sensory identification things to calm myself down.

Sensory identification worsened this, so I opted for the counting down. I pushed the countdown from ten to twenty before the world stopped spinning. I counted the countdown as Quinton stood in front of me before a weird feeling overcame me.

And then I was on my ass.

Quinton looked over at me. "I'll get you some clothes." Quinton told me and I nodded as I looked over where Cordelia had once laid.

Nothing but ash and her clothes were there now as I took in a deep breath. Quinton appeared back outside and handed me a pair of sweatpants along with a t-shirt. 

I put them on. "Where's Petal?" I asked.

"She's inside. And she's fine, a bit shaken, but fine. You should go inside; I'll take care of this. Mom should be on her way home and we can all talk." Quinton told me and I nodded.

With that I went inside.

Inside I found Petal on the couch sitting quietly on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looked up when I came in. I gave her a smile as I came over and sat down next to her.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Petal nodded. "Are you okay?" Petal asked.

"As okay as I can be." I told her and Petal nodded. Before we could talk anymore Quinton came inside and looked over at us two.

"Mom is on her way home." Quinton told us.

Petal nodded as she lowered her legs down and looked over at him. "You're not injured right?" Quinton asked.

"I'm fine." Petal murmured rubbing her arm.

"Okay, I'm going to take the cookies out the oven. You two just stay there and I'll come talk to you two after." Quinton told us and we nodded before the wait began.