Collision

Omna

🔹🔷🔹

My breath comes out in small laboured huffs.
This new life has not been kind to my body.
What was once athletic and scrawny has become matured and curvaceous.
I look like a woman, and on the streets, that's not always the best thing.

I quickly slide into an alleyway, pressing my back against the wall and trying to calm my breathing.
Gruff voices and the sound of paws thumping on soil rush past my small hideaway. I don't move until the danger has passed.

After a few more minutes, I cautiously slink to the back of the alleyway and inspect a wooden fence gate there. It's soaked through and muddy, the moisture has caused the wood to rot and wither away in some places. I manage to squeeze my body through a hole at the bottom, my hips and chest getting momentarily stuck, something that would not have happened to me three years ago.
Once I release myself from the grip of the fence I begin to run once more.

I don't stop running until I find myself in a small cavern with a lake. Stalactites drip water into the crater below, giving the cavern a very serene ambience. The glow of neon blue and green algae illuminates the cave.

Leaning forward, I scoop numerous handfuls of water to cool my skin and then quench my thirst. In doing so, I can't help but catch sight of my reflection in the water.

I have a small round face. This, unfortunately, makes me look very soft and unthreatening, which is not good for the streets.
My skin is a bluer shade, hinting at a purer heritage than some of those with peach tones.
Being a pure blood is a blessing, it's one less reason to get bullied, whilst I pity the halfies I would not wish to trade places with them.

Like all of my kind, I cannot see very well due to living in constant darkness. Our eyes are pale in color, mine being a soft green-gold.

My thick, coiled hair is another deformity I'm loathed to own. It's red. Not as in a ginger, coppery color. It is a bright red, like a fresh drop of blood.

God's, but I hate my cherubic face. My hair, my eyes.
They are not good for the streets.

I jump up, disgusted by my soft features, making me look vulnerable.

Why must my lips pout in that way? Why must my chest puff out? Why must I have the wide birthing hips of a woman?

Being a woman on the streets makes you vulnerable.
I am not vulnerable.

With one last pained look at the water, I splash my hands across the clear surface, blurring the image that greets me. I then rub my soaked hands on the muddy ground and smear the dirt on my face.
This will obscure my feminine feautures. Women of my kind don't care for dirt.

I start running again, leaping onto another fence and using my long tail to keep me balanced as I head towards a little village in the neighbouring cavern.

I find myself grinning as I perfectly balance on the thin fences. I jump, spinning in the air before landing on the roof of the adjacent building.
Keeping my form I continue running. The resisting wind whistling as it passes through the thick coils of my hair and plasters the thin, light fabric of the mens shirt I'm wearing to my soft, moonlight skin. My tail whipping around behind me as if I were flying a dirty kite.

Suddenly I skid to a halt.
There's a gap in between the roofs.
The only way to get across is to jump, so I pull my left foot back and then spring forward in an attempt to make it across.

The wind rushes out of me as my midriff catches the roof.

I didn't make it.

I wheeze slightly and scramble as I attempt to pull myself up the wall before losing my grip and falling backwards onto the muddy earth.