Chapter 1
Wayward Son
You never get used to the taste of blood. If I had to describe it, I’d say it tastes like someone else’s tongue in your mouth, except much warmer and more metallic. Whenever I have this taste in my mouth, I make sure to take my time opening my eyes.
After a few minutes I smack my lips and sit up. The muscles in my back are sore enough to make me groan quietly and my neck isn’t feeling much better. As my eyes open I become aware of a dry wind blowing softly through my hair. It’s just a little too warm for my tastes, but not terribly uncomfortable.
My eyes take their sweet time focusing on this big yellow blur in front of me, revealing… absolutely nothing. I’m in some kind of desert, surrounded by nothing but dry dirt and the clearest sky I’ve ever seen. The sun is beating down and I’m starving. Looking down, my jeans are caked in more of this damn dirt and splotched with dry blood. My boots are unsurprisingly dusty and my once white tanktop has turned into a mixture of brown and yellowed fabric with tears all over.
I fish out a wallet from my back pocket and give it a quick inspection. One I.D. of some Hispanic man with a shaved head and face tattoo, three twenty dollar bills accompanied some petty change. I stuff the money in my pocket and throw the rest aside.
I stand up slowly and stretch my back and arms real quick. A courtesy look around reveals my surroundings are densely populated with emptiness and a single highway a few hundred yards to my left. A small pool of dried blood marks where I had woken up and my whole torso was covered in small cuts and big bruises. Last night may be a bit of a mystery for now, but all things considered, this wasn’t my worst morning so far.
I set off down the highway, right down the median, hoping someone might eventually come down this godforsaken road and feel generous enough to help me out. I make sure to hop over every crack in the oily black pavement, just to distract myself from my empty stomach and quickly drying throat. Eventually a small town appears in the distance, and as if on cue, a convertible passes by. Too bad the only help that gave was a gentle breeze.
Forty minutes later, I’m sitting at a table by myself in the most average McDonalds I’ve ever seen, caressing a Quarter-Pounder while the other patrons toss me disdainful looks. Time for a bath and maybe some new clothes. After a quick scrubbing in the McBathroom, I head out back and have a short chat with the local homeless man. He’s all too willing to trade his relatively clean shirt for mine and a twenty dollar bill. It’s not the worst shirt either, long sleeve, blue plaid, wool.
After the walk here, I realize the town isn’t as small as I initially thought; it even had a few buildings tall enough for me to use. The safest bet would be the thirty two story office building 5 blocks down the street, the second tallest building in town according to some nice lady across the walkway at the McDonalds. I roll up my newfound sleeves and stick my hands in my pockets, setting a casual pace for my trip.
The interior was nice enough, most likely some kind of law firm. I ignore the secretary’s pleas for my attention and slip into a departing elevator, sending her a quick wink and a smile before the doors shut in her face. I reach for the top floor button, but I notice that someone had already pressed a button that would let me off right at the roof. The elevator features some very unmemorable music and one business man too busy preoccupying himself with some game on his phone to notice me. The ding of the elevator releases me and phone business man onto the roof. It seems to be a popular break spot for smokers and workaholics trying to finish something last minute. I walk over to one of the more vacant corners and sit on the concrete railing, about four feet from some stressed looking young woman rifling through some papers. She’s fairly pretty, probably about a year older than me, making her twenty three or so. Her blonde ponytail is frayed and her cloudy grey eyes are bloodshot, likely from a bad mixture of caffeine and sleep deprivation. Perfect for a quick prank.
She must have noticed me staring, because she looked up and shot me with one of those “what do you want” looks. I give her my best arrogant smile and ask “How about a kiss for good luck?”
She rolls her eyes and scoffs at me before returning to her manila folder. “You need new clothes, not luck” she mumbles under her breath.
“Okay then,” I reply with a small chuckle before standing up on the railing and turning to face the drop. “I guess I’ll be going if you don’t want to talk.” She started to say something, but I jumped before it became any word I could recognize. She probably started screaming while I fell, but my ears filled with wind too quickly for me to hear anything.
People usually get an adrenaline rush from falling, or they black out from fear, but I find it relaxing in a strange sort of way, almost the same feeling as slowly slipping into a good night’s sleep after a long day. But there isn’t much time to hold onto the feeling. I snap back to reality, it’s time to save myself. The familiar chill travels from the base of my skull, down my spinal cord, exploding into a jolt of icy pain throughout both of my shoulder blades. Then the really painful stuff starts, thin shards of a glass like substance pulsating red splits the soft scars on my back, ripping apart my newfound shirt in the back, the same place most of my shirts have tears and patches. The glass “tubes” start to spread out into a full set of ten foot wings, my head lightens for just a split second while blood rushes through the new formed “bones”. Then the feathers start to pop out, small and pale at first, then long and a sleek looking black color once the “bones” harden into a pale red paper like substance.
The wind quickly catches me, filling my wings and lifting me away from the car I was about to crush. The wind was still good, dry enough so that no moisture would slow me down. Should be a relatively short trip to New Mexico, once I figured out where I was, I had a Doctor’s appointment to keep after all.
