Chapter 1
Chapter 1:
My best friend was another winged human type creature like me but he was older than me and had a broken wing, he never talked. He just showed me how to survive by acting it out as best he could. He was like a father to me, we never missed a day of practice, we would swim, run through the woods, practice dodging and a lot more fun stuff through the years. I assumed he had taken care of me since birth or he had found me somewhere. At one point he agreed on making a name for each of us, I would be Nozaki and his name would be Soiki. We live in a world where humans rule over the creatures of the earth, the animals and the original creatures. The humans refer to us, the original creatures, as monsters but for some reason when they see me lingering at the edge of the woods they go speechless, not in a bad way but like they are looking at something amazing. Unfortunately one day when I found out their true nature when I was fifteen still very young for our species I heard something coming from a nearby village the humans had built not long ago. I decided to go towards the strange noises but came to realize the noises were going to come to me, before I could reach the forest edge Soiki came running at me from behind and grabbed my hips thrusting me in the air about twenty feet. I instinctively started flapping and saw him from below, at that point he was screaming at me to fly away and forget about him and this place. It was the first time I had heard his voice but also the last, he used a deadly hissing voice that was like nothing I had ever heard before. I did as he commanded and started to fly away but I could never follow his words completely, I would never forget about him or my home. Not long after I started to fly I turned north and looked back to see flames shooting out of the trees below, my home and everything I had ever loved was being destroyed and sent up into flames by the creatures known as humans. I would never forget what they had done, most importantly I would never forgive them. At that moment I decided I would get my revenge on the humans but I knew I couldn’t do that with my weak child body, I would have to get stronger and survive until the day I could pay them back. After the longest flight of my life I decided to take a break and land near a ravine, there had to be water at the bottom and maybe some small animals I could snack on if I made a weapon. I landed near the edge of the ravine and gathered some branches from the nearby forest, as I was walking around gathering wood I heard a strange voice. It was a soft woman’s voice but it wasn’t quite a woman, when I looked around I found a large panther and two small cubs but before I knew it the adult panther had spotted me and hissed “Leave us be human!” strangely enough I understood what she said and slowly spread out my wings from behind while speaking in a small voice,
“Ma’am I don’t mean you any harm, let alone could I” she softened her expression and slowly approached me. I quickly took a few steps back for safety but she was too quick and surrounded me with her long beautiful body
“Little one where are you from?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that so I just pointed in the direction I came from and she seemed to understand. Not long after she cradled me she got up to comfort her two cubs,
“Lea, Pron, this is not a human. This is something special, you will only meet it once in a lifetime so be respectful” then the two little cubs calmed down and came up to me. They sniffed my feathers then rubbed up against me,
“Hey hey! That tickles!” I shouted out, they quickly went back to their mother with sad expressions and whispered “mama what about Leo?” the mother gave them a cold stare and said,
“Forget about him, he isn’t family” with those words I couldn’t hold back my anger, just like the sun coming up from the horizon my face grew red with anger and I couldn’t help but scream
“What the hell? You would just leave one of your own to die! What kind of mother are you?!” she started to walk off without answering me. She kept walking for a minute then stopped and looked back for a split second and whispered,
“If you want to save him so badly look on the ledge, then you’ll understand” then disappeared into the jungle with her two cubs. As soon as they were out of sight I darted for the ravine dropping all the wood in my hands, once I reached the edge I heard a small cry and this time I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I looked over the edge and saw a small lion cub about ten feet down, it looked like it’s shaking and was scared so I reached my hand down to try and reach it but it didn’t notice me, instead it covered it’s head with its paws. He gave me no choice so I extended my wings and glided down to the ledge and tapped the cub on the shoulder, it immediately swung at me claws extended I shouted “woah!” and jumped off the ledge losing my balance. I fell about five feet before being able to hover again. When I looked up I saw the little lion looking down with a relieved face and I said,
“Were you worried?” and giggled a little. As I made my way up to the ledge once again I hover near the lion,
“Hey, what do you say we work together to survive? I need a friend and you want back up there right?” the little lion gives me a small meow “I’ll take that as a yes!” so I reach towards the lion and grab him by the arms. Before we lift off the ledge I speak to him “You’re going to have to get used to this, okay?” he just nods and up we go. Once we reach the top I set him down as we land but he doesn’t leave my side, instead he curls up by my feet “Hey, we have to keep a move on; the day just started” so I continue to walk at the edge of the ravine and he follows. After walking for the whole day we find ourselves surrounded by thick shrubs but just then Leo points his nose in a direction in the shrubs and at the same time we gasp in sync. We found ourselves looking at a giant flower that was glowing blue, when we got to it me and Leo looked at each other and I said “It’s not just me who wants to drink it right?” he shook his head like he was saying we shouldn’t “Oh what do you know” I say sarcastically and head for the giant flower. When I peered inside there was a water like substance so I reached both hands in not thinking about the consequences. I immediately regret doing that because my hands turned into talons like a hawk. I screamed and took my hands out of it, spilling the liquid all over Leo, to my surprise my hands were normal again but my feet looked like a hawks! Before I knew what was happening I had turned into a giant brown hawk and as soon as I looked over to Leo and heard a blood curdling scream and I saw Leo turning into a human… with a tail! I quickly grab a large tropical leaf with my beak and throw it at him urging him to cover up. Leo graciously takes the leaf and covers himself, at this point all the liquid has seeped into the ground. Once the glow disappeared into the ground I was transformed into my human state and Leo was a small cub again I quickly grabbed my clothes off the ground and put them back on. As soon as I was dressed I looked over to Leo with a look of confusion and he looked the same, I finally worked up the courage to speak “Not a word” we both just nodded in silence. Once we both calmed down and headed away from the plant with caution, after all that I weirdly enough felt refreshed like I could walk a whole day’s worth again and Leo looked the same “Okay well now that that’s over wanna take a walk?” Just as he was about to speak he turned human again we both screamed “Oh god!” I rushed over and plucked a bunch of huge tropical leaves and a couple vines hanging down, I somehow made a kind of tunic out of it all and threw it at him.
