Tiger, Tiger

Tiger, Tiger: Chapter 23

Hello there :)

Guess what. I got a new Mac! :O And you know what that means? I can spend even more my life on Wattpad entertaining you all! ;D 

I hope you enjoy this, if I do say so myself, epically proportioned chapter. I've worked hard on it :) xxx

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For days upon end we flew and flew. Not once did I allow us to stop in the fear that our aching bodies would never return to the sky. The growing weakness of the pack was like a lead weight around my heart, pulling me down with every wing beat. The pack had put their trust in me to guide them safely home, and if a single one of them didn’t make it I would never forgive myself.

Several times on the long journey a starling would swoop down to grab a falling pack member who had drifted into a daze. Everyone had each other’s backs, our bond only made stronger by the atrocities at the labs. I, too, was lagging without food or rest or water, but the desperate pull from home kept my wings beating endlessly - each one ten times heavier than the last.

The wind slowly became bitter as we travelled and every morning the copper leaves were coated in glimmering frost. Winter was quickly closing in around us, its icy fingers pushing aside the last warmth of autumn, and I prayed to our Mother that we would reach home before any snow fell.

* * *

My sharp eyes scanned over the seemingly never ending city that shone like a fallen constellation of stars just to our right. Lights of every imaginable colour twinkled in the darkness: windows lit with bright white lights, flickering blue and yellow, red beacons flashing on the tops of the tallest towers, warm orange street lights bathing the lower buildings in a soft glow. The whole place was alight with colour. It was beautiful.

And that thought suddenly sickened me. Disgust at myself twisted in my stomach. How could I think that such barbarian creatures could create something beautiful? How could I appreciate the work of my captors, my punishers? I tried to push the feeling away on principle - my aching for something so wrong - but it would not be hidden. My insides were stained with the dirtiness of my appreciation of the creatures I had been so long told to and been given good reason to fear.

I pushed myself higher into the air to try and clear my head, but was successfully jolted from my thoughts by a change in the air around my wings. Although the shift was subtle, I instantly knew who it would be.

‘Are you ok?’ Alexander’s voice asked. Glancing quickly to the side, I spotted the tiniest shimmer of sapphire blue around the black of an eye. This little bird was mine.

I tried to shake away my anger so that he didn’t think it was targeted at him. ‘I’m fine. Just thinking,’ I responded noncommittally, dropping walls down around my mind to hide my emotions and my shame.

‘Please don’t think that an ‘I’m fine’ will fool me,’ he replied, his movements looking laboured beside me; ‘You look distant. Something’s wrong.’

My walls had not hidden my worry then. But if there was one person with whom I should share my feelings, it would have to be Alexander. Maybe hiding things from him would only hurt him. I needed to learn to open myself up fully to someone in a way that I had never been able to before, not even with Mum. I internally sighed. ‘Do you ever see good in humans?’

He paused for only the briefest of seconds and then replied, ‘Yes, all the time.’

His quick response shocked me. Then again, maybe if he felt that way my feelings could be justified. ‘Even after what they’ve done to us?’ I asked.