Dragonfly

Chapter Ten

As I left the woodlands, I paused as I closed my eyes and locked away the pain once again before I continued onwards. It felt good to have released the pain for the first time in my life, it had been a relief to be free. But now, I had to hide it all away once again as I worried what would be said or done to me.

    I appreciated being able to walk into a shop freely. It was good having the freedom to do so and I didn’t want that to be taken away from me. It seemed as though no matter what I did, I would have been trapped in some way or another.

    If I were to embrace what I was, I would be unable to go to most places. I would have been banned from many of the shops I often shopped at. Whilst if I were to remain hidden, I would be unable to release the internal pain that desperately scratched at the walls of the box, I had locked it in.

    As I walked, I shoved my hands into my coat pocket, still unable to feel the cold as I lowered my head and stared at the floor. I couldn’t help but feel as though I were trapped with only two options, either way I would get hurt or so it seemed. It was as though I had been trapped on a path where I would either be shot or blown up by a landmine and I was attempting to find the least painful demise.

    Silently, I feared the thought of Lewis discovering the same truth I had discovered. Would he judge me as other humans seemed to be judging my race? I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t really want to find out the answer to that.

    I arrived outside my home and unlocked the door. An empty house… something I couldn’t have appreciated more than I did at that moment. Thunder welcomed me, his usual boisterous self which brought me even more comfort.

    Normality and an empty home; both were things that I needed at that moment. My body entered autopilot as I locked the door behind me and left my keys hanging from the lock before I picked up Thunder’s ball and opened the kitchen door, only to throw it into the front room. Thunder bounded after it with a grin on his face and his tongue hanging to one side of his mouth, causing him to appear dopier than usual.

    I giggled as I looked to him and smiled. The ball in his mouth, he ran to his bed and began to tear it apart.

    “You know Thunder, you're not supposed to catch the ball and then spend ten minutes devouring it. You’re supposed to play fetch with it,” I said. He looked up at me and tilted his head as I spoke so that it appeared as though he was listening to me and understood what I had said, before returning to his toy. “Suit yourself,”

    I stepped into the front room and turned on the TV before collapsing on the sofa, only for it to have been left on the news channel and what I saw, appalled me. Upon the screen were videos that had been caught on phone cameras and without thinking, I sat forward, my mind barely registering the words spoken by the presenter.

    Upon the bottom of the screen, words scrolled across, repeating themselves every few moments. The writing was upon a blood red border and written in white.

    “Graphic imagery, viewer discretion is advised,” read the words as the footage played. One of the many videos shown was that of a house being petrol bombed. A home that belonged to a Fae being set ablaze by humans in their early twenties. My eyes widened in both shock and disgust. What was the world coming too?

    Swiftly, I glanced over my shoulder and to Thunder as he lay in his bed, ripping his ball to shreds as a thought occurred to me,

    I can’t put him and Lewis in danger because of what I am. I must hide it or run. I can’t risk them getting hurt because of me.

    Why had the world suddenly changed? One would have thought that in a world so scientifically and technologically advanced such as this one, that we wouldn’t have had such discrimination any longer. Over the years, people had grown more accepting towards others who had different coloured skin or were homosexual, why were these people now discriminating against a different race. Had history taught them nothing?

    Finally, the presenter appeared on screen once again, saving my eyes from witnessing anymore of the chaos as she spoke with a smile on her porcelain face,

    “Since the reveal of the Fae, there has been a dramatic increase in crime and many unfortunate losses,” said the presenter, “such as young Declan Graves, whom was merely attempting to protect his younger sister from the attack of a Fae. He unfortunately lost his life due to such an act. We all shall grieve with his family,”

    “What?” I blurted without thinking, “You just showed footage of what humans are doing to the Fae and then, you talk about how a human boy lost his life? I’ll bet the Fae was just defending themselves!” I blurted before I thought about my words.

    With those words, I had just done what they were doing. I had separated our races and sided with my own. For all I knew, what the presenter had said, could have been the truth however, it appeared unlikely.

    Though the news was supposed to be impartial, to me at that moment, it didn’t seem to be. I sighed and changed the channel, wanting to forget about it all but no matter what I put on the TV, I couldn’t forget it all. I couldn’t push it to the back of my mind.

    After what felt like an eternity of my mind haunting me with the images I had seen, I decided to go and lay in bed. The night drew to a close and finally, I managed to fall into a deep slumber only to be awoken by something I hadn’t been expecting.

    I screamed at the very tops of my lungs as I felt the razor sharp pain stab through my shoulder blades and the cold trickle of blood running down my skin. I arched my back as I attempted to free myself from the agony when an unusual voice seemed to whisper in my mind,

    “A frosted heart, to blanket it and contain its warmth. A free spirit that shall not rest, until it gains the freedom is deserves,” whispered the young, child-like voice.

    My body slumped back onto the bed for a brief moment, only for it to cause me even further pain. I thrashed as I lost all control over the muscles of my body and felt the ice release from within me. Again, I screamed as my veins felt as though the blood had started to boil within them and the agonising sharp pain grew worse with every passing second. I tried to reach for my phone but it was helpless, my body seemed to have a mind of its own.

    For a brief moment, I glanced out of the window as the frost covered it on the inside and on the outside.

    Suddenly, I felt as though my body were being crushed under an invisible weight and it became impossible to move. I lay there in silence, unable to scream to verbalise the agony that spread throughout my body with every passing second. Instead, I stared out of the window, watching as the frost crawled across it, making it so that I was unable to see the stars twinkle or the moon light up the night sky.

    Minutes seemed to become hours and those hours felt like days, until finally the pain passed and I was able to move once again. I turned on the light and saw my silk night gown had been soaked in blood and two rips had occurred above my shoulder blades. Without thinking, I removed it and saw two thorns sticking outside of my back but they were larger than thorns usually are.

    Immediately, I remembered my dream. How I felt as though I had experienced this before only in lesser terms.

    “What you have witnessed are mere glimpses of what shall come to pass,” Azazel’s words whispered in my mind as I stared at the unusual black pointed thorns that appeared to have grown out of my back.

    “What is happening to me? Is this a part of what I am? Of being a Fae?” I muttered quietly.

    This isn’t another dream, is it? I wondered as I reached over my shoulder and carefully touched the unusual thorns before I flinched away and keeled over a little as an agonised but muffled scream attempted to escape my lips; if I hadn’t have clamped my mouth shut, it would have done.