Blinding snow and burning ice

The truth is often difficult

------------------------------------------------
When there's nowhere left to fall
Nowhere to hide
The silence is 'hurting'
Inside it's cold

------------------------------------------------

Flynn had little idea how much, or how little time passed. Only the aching cold forced him to move, making his head lift and survey his location.
It was impossibly flat and vast, and the snow blinded him with the suns reflection. Only a wagon’s trail scarred the rivers frozen surface, and the shivering blonde in the centre.
“Hello?” Flynn called out, only to be answered by a ghostly echo. He called again, and once more, each time taking a tentative step away from the wagon’s tracks.
He couldn’t go back now. He wanted to, so much that it ached, but he couldn’t. He’d seen other children with his... condition return, and every one of them had been stoned until they fled. His heart held not the energy, the vigour, to be rejected and abandoned again.
“Abandon...” He choked aloud, and once again it returned to him in the form of echo. The new relevance of the word made his throat close up, causing a stumble then a trip. Wings unfurled and hands flew forward as Flynn slipped on the ice beneath his feet, yet still he landed hard.
The renewed cold forced him to gasp, arms clamping around his torso to suppress his trembling. Numb fingers brushed the soft, downy fluff that lined under his shoulder blades, right where the tears in his clothes exposed the two extra limbs.
It was this unusual, but not unique trait that left Flynn in the middle of a frozen lake.
Pale and shaking fingers curled around unused feathers, and abruptly they were pulled from his body. He grasped another handful, and then more, violently tearing out feathers wherever he could reach them.
“I don’t... I don’t want them...” He gasped with each pull, once again on the verge of tears. It was because of the wings, because of the feathers he was throwing to the ground, he was never allowed to go back.
“Hey... What are you doing that for? You’re hurting yourself,” a voice said from behind, causing him to violently jump.
A gentle hand enclosed itself around one of Flynn’s wrists, the other prying his fingers from another handful of bloody feathers.
“You’re completely frozen... Let us get you home before you die of hypothermia, okay?” the voice said again, this time causing Flynn to turn and look.
A man, or maybe he was a boy too – Flynn couldn’t tell – was staring down at him with a sad smile on his lips. He was holding his wrist firm yet softly, preventing the blonde from further self mutilation.
“Y-you’re taking me h-home? To Gelfarth and M-mother..?” He barely asked through shattering teeth. The stranger’s expression shifted to something Flynn was too tired to interpret, and he shook his head.
“I’m so sorry. We can’t take you home to your family. We’re taking you to my family... Our family,” the sad smile returned as a silent tear ran down Flynn’s face, stinging the skin. “I only hope you can call it home one day, too.”
And as true realisation dawned, accompanied by loss and grief, Flynn slipped into blackness whilst his mind protected itself from the truth.

 

------------------------------------------------

Sleep or die
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to hide
------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

-tbc-

By J.M Selleck

Author's Note

Please Review - It gives me the vigour to continue with my stories.

In the next chapter;
Flynn discovers that a family is more than flesh and blood, and must make a decision to determine where his loyalties lie.

Reviews

[Ibex]

I really like the lesson of the story that is showing up right now (family is more than flesh and blood), and I really liked the chapter. You do a really good job making the reader feel sympathy and you're really descriptive as I said before, but not so descriptive that you take forever to describe a location and the reader gets pissed off. Awesome story JM, can't wait for the next chapter!

[One Last Drop...]

You absolutely HAVE to keep writing this one!!!!!! I will threaten you with dire punishments if you don't.... *rubs hands together, cackling evilly*