001 ✝ first step [action]
[Going to sleep in her bed and then waking up on a bench was disorienting, but not as disorienting as the place she woke up in.
Nill had grown used to, perhaps even comfortable in, the dirty, crowded, and dangerous city she lived in. Granted, she lived in one of the more quiet places left in the town God forgot, but it was nothing like what she had awoken to find. Clean-looking buildings without bullet holes in them. Glass that wasn't broken or taped over. Streets without cars or garbage piling up in the gutters. Streets that seemed home to people who were smiling, or at least didn't look like they were doomed to live each day exactly as the last one.
But perhaps the most unnerving part of it was the inhabitants. All of them, walking around and going about their business--but they had wings. Well, some of them were hiding them under their clothes, but having done the same herself sometimes she knew what to look for. The sign was that slight crease in the center of the back, where the bone wasn't jointed so as to allow the wings to lie completely flat against a human back.
Why, though? Why was everyone suddenly just like her? Had they all been born as she had? And if so, why could some of them talk and laugh? Why were everyone's wings a different color? And why did some people cover their wings while others didn't?
Nill looks back at her own wings (still white), then out at the square. Her jaw clenches and she feels tears welling up as she looks for something familiar that would tell her where she was. But everything is just perfect enough to scare her, or far too familiar to be a comfort.]
Nill had grown used to, perhaps even comfortable in, the dirty, crowded, and dangerous city she lived in. Granted, she lived in one of the more quiet places left in the town God forgot, but it was nothing like what she had awoken to find. Clean-looking buildings without bullet holes in them. Glass that wasn't broken or taped over. Streets without cars or garbage piling up in the gutters. Streets that seemed home to people who were smiling, or at least didn't look like they were doomed to live each day exactly as the last one.
But perhaps the most unnerving part of it was the inhabitants. All of them, walking around and going about their business--but they had wings. Well, some of them were hiding them under their clothes, but having done the same herself sometimes she knew what to look for. The sign was that slight crease in the center of the back, where the bone wasn't jointed so as to allow the wings to lie completely flat against a human back.
Why, though? Why was everyone suddenly just like her? Had they all been born as she had? And if so, why could some of them talk and laugh? Why were everyone's wings a different color? And why did some people cover their wings while others didn't?
Nill looks back at her own wings (still white), then out at the square. Her jaw clenches and she feels tears welling up as she looks for something familiar that would tell her where she was. But everything is just perfect enough to scare her, or far too familiar to be a comfort.]