The Lost

16- Give Up

Azure

The park was wordless and vacant now, the dusty pathways and concrete slabs turned cold and silent from the arrival of darkness. The city was awake even in the presence of the deepening twilight, filling my ears with a strange mix of sounds— whooshing wind, rumbling cars, the low hum of a human voice or perhaps the distant pang of footsteps. The sun had long faded behind the silver horizon of the towers that stretched to the sky.

I sat atop one of the few birch trees, cross legged and shivering in the centre of a single leaf. Red and yellow lights flickering in the distance. The shine of huge panels of glass and the smell of something smokey was ever present... my senses drank in all that was going on around me with a thrilling feel of innocence simmering in my chest. Everything was so... different here. There were smells- pungent and sharp, sounds that blared and hummed, and the dull rainbow of lights that seemed to be forever switching from on to off.

The city was in fact alive, even if not in the same way as my forest was. It was true that there were no trees, no lakes, no leaves or fern to crinkle under your feet as you walked, and that thought still managed to disturb me... yet there was something alive amidst the chaos of the human world. These monumental beings continued on with their lives, busying themselves with their cars and phones even into the late hours of the night. Together they worked and existed, and even when they fell into sleep the strange contraptions that they had crafted continued to spark and sputter.

I took in a breath of the chilled air, eyes glossed with the illumination of the city. Perhaps, if I didn't think of all humans as a threat, I might have been in awe of their colossal buildings and winding streets— their great machines and communication devises. Maybe, in another time, another life, I might have longed to live in such an amazingly complex world.

Another cool breeze washed over my face, making eyes sting with the cold. But... no. They were not creatures to be admired. They had built their world on the ruins of forests that they sawed down, and metal that they ripped from the earth. Their 'great machines' spat a terrible smog that polluted the air with a stinking fumes, fumes that would surely kill any living thing should it be exposed for long enough.
I allowed myself to slide down the leaf until I had reached the very tip and my legs were hanging over the edge. Humans were destroyers, takers, and nothing more. And I hate them. Smile gone, my face had hardened into a deep glare that bore into the world around me. Every single one. I hate them.

Wordless, I slipped off the leaf and plummeted to the floor like a rock. A tensing of my back threw my wings to my side and gathered some air up into them, slowing my fall to a glide. They tingled in the cold, fluttering against the harsh wind and throwing an updraft up into my face. A small smile crept up onto my face as my feet brushed the dewy floor. At last. They were finally becoming stronger again. A week ago and I wouldn't have been able to do that.

I crept barefoot along the thin blades grass that tickled my toes and dampened the bottom of my trousers. I missed my boots. Gods knew where, or even when I had lost them. It could have been any time between being captured to yesterday's escape...
Where I was set on going now, walking with my cold feet all covered in dew, I wasn't sure until I had arrived. My legs had moved by their own accord.
Soon, I had crept so close that I could feel the warmth radiating from the young boy's body. I could feel the power in his chest with each breath he took. I could sense his effortless strength simply by glancing at the size of him. The sheer enormity...

I blinked and stared at his unmoving figure. Why I had come towards the boy she called 'Lucius', I didn't know. I peered up at him, my eyes running over his closed eyelids with a... mistrust, I suppose. Suspicion. It was hard to grasp that he was just a child. All I could imagine was another Sam, or another Mike. Another human to be feared. Even if the time had not yet come, one day he would be fully grown. Maybe then he would be a real human; cruel and heartless and so, so big.