Bird Girls Backstory

My day started normal, as would anyone else. I got up, ate breakfast, packed lunch, got dressed, brushed my teeth, brushed my annoyingly thick and curly, dark brown hair, and left for the bus stop.

 As I was walking to the stop sign, then my whole world went black. It’s like in the movies when you have a vision, only it wasn’t that. My back started to ache which made my arms start to shake. I think I was out for an hour because when I woke up all the kids waiting for the bus were surrounding me, including my mom and the police. They looked tired and relieved that I was awake but also… scared?

“Wha-what’s happening?” I go to feel my no longer aching back and it takes me a minute to register that something feels different. I felt like I knew what they were but I didn’t want it to be true. “Mom?!” I quickly stood up realizing that that wasn’t the best idea and falling back onto the ground. I feel my face, at least that’s still the same. I looked down at my hands, other than a few scratches they were fine. 

The police started escorting the students away and they seemed to forget as soon as they turned around. My mom, however, helped me up and we walked home. She lay me down in my bed and left to go get me water, but I don’t remember what happened after that because I fell asleep soon after she left. 

I woke up again the next day hoping it was all a dream, I felt my back which revealed that my wings were still there. I sighed then got up feeling a little wobbly because of the new weight that I had to carry on my back. Surprisingly the wings weren’t as heavy as you would’ve thought but they did need a little adjusting. “Oh look, the sleepy-head is finally up!” I mumbled a jumble of words in return and sat on the couch. 

“Mom, can I stay home today?” She smiled and nodded. I reached back, yet again, to feel my wings. They were soft but hard, feeling like silk and rock mixed. I sat there feeling them and being mesmerized I took my hand off and looked at it to see how the scratches were doing, nothing. I guess my mom put some special ointment on them to make the scratches disappear or maybe, I made the illusion happen in my head, but it all seemed too real. I end up dozing off again for about an hour or two.

****

I woke up feeling someone shaking my shoulder, I look up thinking it’s my mom but I don’t see her. I see no-one. I shake my head and blink, thinking that I’m imagining things but when I open my eyes I see someone staring back at me. It looks like a fish and a bird had a baby, but mostly like a bird. It had yellow-y orange scale-feathers and a fish head but it had a feather tail and wings along with normal bird legs and feet. “Look, It's finally up, now we can leave.” It said angrily. 

  “What do you mean, ´It's time to leave?´“ I ask then they grab me by the arms and take me away. We got onto what looked like a space-ship and they injected something into me with a needle. I have no idea what it was because before I could protest, it made me fall asleep.

6 hours later I woke up with a scar on my back almost half the size of my wings, luckily they cut around my newest body part, but they did what I think was surgery around them. I sat up looking around for the bird-things, but they were nowhere to be seen. I looked around and saw the sink, it had bloody handprints on the handles to turn the sink on. I somehow let my mind slip away from the fact that they were handprints, not wing-prints. As I was realizing this, my mind went through several theories of who those handprints were made by.

A human?

Another alien?

A monster?

As I was thinking of more and more possibilities as what I thought was one of the bird-things walked in. I immediately lay down as still as possible as it walked over to me. “You know, I know that you´re awake. You can stop pretending now.“ I opened my eyes to see a person like me, including the wings! How can this be possible? Did the bird things do the same thing they did to me... To her?! “It says here that your name is Adalynn Foster?“ I nodded and she smiled. “You know, the ’Bird-things’ are called Pez pájaro’s. They’re nice once you get to know them, which you´ll have to do since you´ll be here for the rest of your life.“

“FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?“ I yelled. “Why? What did you guys do to me that would make me stay here for the rest of my life?“ She looked at me and frowned. I didn’t know what I said that upset her but suddenly she stopped frowning and put her wing around me. 

“We didn’t do anything to you, you were born with a sickness that no-one can treat. It can’t do any harm unless you use it the wrong way but you’ve not been affected by it until now.“

“And I’m guessing that you got  it too?“ 

“Bingo.” She laughed, “If you want to leave go ahead, they are done with you. It’s not like they’ll go looking for you once they notice you’re gone.“ 

“If you want to come with me you can, I’m not sure the Pez pájaro’s would care. “I didn’t know this person very well, heck, I didn’t even know her name, but she seemed a lot like me. From her curly, dark brown hair to her darker skin, she pretty much resembled an older version of me. 

“You mean it? Oh! I’d love too, when do we leave?“ She looked as excited as a dog that got a dew toy, her wings flapping and bouncing up in the air. ’’Sorry, I haven’t gotten out of this place since I was 13. Since I’ll be going with you I should probably tell you my name, huh?’’ I nodded and she continued. ’’My name’s Nala Blake, I’ve had wings since I was 10, but I was taken by the Pez pájaro’s when I was 13.’’ She then got into her backstory, but I wasn’t listening, I was trying to think of a way to escape.

***

After we made our plan to escape, we went to our rooms to pack our things. Since I didn’t have anything to pack, I waited in my room for around 30 minutes then went to see how Nala was doing with her packing. As I was walking up to her room I heard her on the phone. Weird, I thought we wouldn’t have service up here. I shrugged backing away so I wouldn’t eavesdrop but I couldn’t help it. 

“Yeah…… Leaving……. Tonight….. 6:30….. Her house…….. See…. There…..” 

I backed up, running to my room, and locking the door. I have a feeling that I shouldn’t have heard that phone conversation. I look at my window seeing the darkness that is space, then I got an Idea. I ran to the window and kicked it, shattering it into millions of tiny pieces. I opened my eyes and looked around. Not space. I saw a bunch of trees and a house that looked like mine… So I wasn’t in space after all. good thing I figured that out before I left with Nala If that Is her real name. I went to my house, quickly tucking my wings into my shirt, and knocked at the door. 

My mom opened the door and gave me a puzzled look. Hadn’t she noticed I was gone? “Your home from your camp early,” She said. “Was it that bad, learning how to control your wings?” I looked at her, giving her the same look she gave me earlier when she first saw me.

“What do you mean Camp?” I ask

“This person, who kinda looked like you, said that you were chosen to go to a camp for people with wings.” Mom looked puzzled.  “Did something happen?”

I nodded quickly giving my mom a hug and explaining everything. 

“So that person wasn’t taking you to a wings camp?” My mom asked, looking about as shocked as I felt when I discovered it. “I’m calling the police.” she got up and grabbed the phone, but I stopped her.

“Mom, I know that this is the police that you’re calling, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re tracking our phone calls. Also, I doubt that they would believe us.” 

“Well, then what are we gonna do?” My mom asked, she was very worried and kept biting her lip.

“I-I’m gonna go look for them. I know I don’t know how to use my wings yet, buts it’ll be the best we’ve got.” Mom’s eye started to get watery, so I felt before she would start crying on me.

“Ok, let’s see. Maybe I just have to believe I can fly. Ok, ok, I’m ready, let’s go.” I took a deep breath and felt my wings spread out. I closed my eyes and felt the wind blow on me. I then opened my eyes to see the millions of houses below me. Even though I’m afraid of heights this didn’t scare me, I felt safe knowing that if I started to fall my wings would catch me. 

“Adalynn! Why’d you leave without me?” Said a voice behind me, I looked behind me seeing Nala.

“Sorry, I couldn’t wait.”

“So, how’d you get back to earth, It was a rough journey for me.”

“It’s... A secret.” If she was allowed to lie to me, then I have no problem lying to her. “So, who were you talking to in your room, I was coming to check on you before we left but you were busy with someone.”

Nala’s face went pale, there was no way she could lie this time. “I- uhh, I was…”

“Not that easy to cover up, is it?” 

Nala looked angry and started to fly faster, catching up with me. Once she got next to me, she took out a knife and clipped my wings. I started falling, it all happened fast but I must’ve passed out because before I hit the ground, everything went black.

When I woke up a couple of hours later I was in a different place, it was very cavelike but looked like an underground civilization. There were people with wings everywhere and some were looking at me like I was an unknown species. I sat up and scurried away and hid behind some trees and stared at me. I got up and looked around a little bit, then a man walked over to me. “How are you feeling? I fixed your wings for you so you should be able to fly a little bit better.” 

“I’m ok. Uh, can I ask you a question?” I paused to wait for his permission to proceed. “Where am I?”

“We’re in Cueva, It’s a civilization for those and their families who’ve been attacked by the Pez pájaro’s and their allies.” He answered. “We’ve been building an army to stop them for years, and today we luckily had someone scoping out the area when they found you.” He paused, taking a breath. “Now here’s my question for you. Why were you out flying in the open? Someone could’ve spotted you.” 

“I was trying to find the Pez pájaro’s so I could stop them, I had no idea that there were more people like me trying to stop them.”

***

It’s my second day in the Cueva and we’re all getting outside the cave to fly to the Pez pájaro’s headquarters. I, along with some others, was in the lead because I knew where it was. We got there and into position, and everyone hid underneath bushes so the Pez pájaro’s wouldn’t see them. Nala walked out of one of something invisible and the battle began. 

It went rather quickly because none of the Pez pájaro’s were ready for us, but once it was over Nala was the only none standing on their side. 

The man that talked to me got up and walked toward her. “Nala? What are you doing here? I thought the Pez pájaro’s killed you.”

Nala looked ashamed of herself and replied, “I-I was scared I didn’t know how to escape, and so I joined them so they wouldn’t kill me.” Even though some believed her I couldn’t shake the feeling she was lying again. And I was right. She pulled out her knife again and stabbed the man. Then I looked up. “Anyone else what this? I’ve done it twice and I can do it again!” She was yelling by the end of it and gliding around everyone that came to fight. 

By this point, I had enough and flew up into the air directly toward her. “Well, if it isn’t Adalynn. Did you come to say goodbye to me for real this time?”

“I don’t want to fight you, I just wanted to talk.”

“Aw, look at the baby, trying to look brave. It won’t work, I’m too smart for your dumb childish games.” As she was talking someone was sneaking up behind her and grabbed her knife out of her back pocket. Nala turned around and the person threw the knife to me. I caught it and sliced off her wings, making Nala fall to the ground. 

“What. Have. You. Done to me?!” Nala screamed. Her body began to fade leaving only her cut off wings to remain.