The Lost

13- Birds and Butterflies

Lucius

Somebody was screaming and it wasn't Lyn. My whole body went frozen for a second when I heard the noise— I thought it was another person. I mean, yeah, it was another person because crows didn't scream, but there were no adults around me screaming at seeing me hidden in the out-of-bounds bushes like I had feared there would be. A frantic look all around me showed that I was still alone, for now. Good. I released my held breath with no small amount of relief.
The sudden screaming had stopped now, but I knew where it had come from; somewhere off to the right, past the leaves and-
I cried out as a maddened crow came bursting from the bush beside me. I'm swear, I'm gonna kill one of these things in a minute.

Maybe that thing had made the screaming sound. The stupid thing was half mad, peddling all around my feet, releasing hellish shrieks that hurt my ears. Black feathers came flying off its frantically flapping wings. That's when I noticed how it was snapping furiously against the ground. There was an bright insect caught between the creature's talons, jerking in any and every direction, just narrowly avoiding being devoured by the relentlessly nipping beak.
So yeah, these things were going crazy in an attempt to get some food. Birds were apparently stupider than a brick wall.
I finally lost my temper and gave the bird a sharp kick. Add animal-cruelty to my list of crimes. Was running away a crime? I wasn't sure. Anyway, the bug that it was trying to eat was instantly forgotten when I booted creature. It gave a birdish squeak before dragging itself into the air and making a hasty escape.

My head hurt now. It hadn't quiet forgotten the impact of Edward's boot and had started throbbing not too long ago, and that ruckus had just made it worse. Flipping birds. With a glare, I looked down at what had caused all the hubbub. That didn't help my mood at all. At my feet was just a tiny bug, probably like a thousand other in the park. Why the hell this particular thing had caused so much trouble was beyond me. Cause it's pink, that's the only explanation. Birds like bright things. Even that sounded ridiculous.

Though, after a second of thought, I gave the tiny creature another look. I really hadn't ever seen crows act like that before. The bloody things had been running around my feet! And thinking about it, I had never seen a pink bug before either. This thing was like, bright pink, like a sweet wrapper.
Lyn leant over my fingers as I knelt down to it, "What's goin..." her small voice became even smaller, then stopped. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. I felt like doing the same.
"Lucius?" The girl breathed, not looking up at me. She was leant far over the edge of my fingers now, fixated on the pink thing... and so was I. The two of us stared agog at the bug. The bug that wasn't actually a bug at all.

There were rounded eyes staring at me, eyes set in deep, hazel skin. It wasn't brown fur that covered the creature... no, not fur, not scales, not feathers... skin. Flesh. Brown skin. The bug wasn't pink; it was the clothes of it that were bright and coloured, but its skin was as dark as the dirt in the park. Clothes? I tried to make some sense of what I was looking at. There was no other explanation for the sleeves and folds going around the small body. It had clothes. And skin.
The bug wasn't a bug, and it wasn't an it.

It's a person.

I blinked. No... no it's not... you're going nuts. And as I reached slowly down to touch my fingers against the impossible apparition, there was a scream. And this time it actually was Lyn's scream.
I looked to my hand and found that she was gone. Gone? My stomach lurched. A whoosh of air was all that remained in the place where she had been.
"Lyn!?" I cried out, the pink person totally forgotten.