~The Search for Peace~ // Chapters 1 and 2 up

Chapter 1



Bullets showered from below with the angry cries of people as she soared, trying her best to weave in the sky and avoid the projectiles. Her heart raced, pumping blood and adrenaline through every vein in her body. She knew why they were all so angry. She knew this would happen. She was certain she would die, hit and thrown out of the sky like a game bird in the country. Finally, it happened. A sharp pain, noticeable even through the rush of adrenaline, came shooting through her side, and she fell.


Her body landed with a hard thud on a rocky cliff standing high, just outside the white, Utopian city from which he emerged. She rolled a few times before skidding a short distance to a stop. Everything hurt now from the messy landing, but her side still radiated with the most pain.


She wondered vaguely in her mind if she had broken any bones upon falling to the cliff, but that wasn't her main concern. She glanced down at her side, the source of her immediate pain, and saw blood beginning to soak her navy blue shirt. "Crud," she muttered under her breath then laid her head to rest on the hard ground again. "At least those people can't shoot me from up here..."


The sound of pebbles being kicked only minutes later alerted her, her strange ears perking up at the noise. She lifted her head again to see a tall man, probably in his mid 20's, approaching her. He had black hair which fell in almost greasy strands down to his neck and slightly in his face. Thick stubble adorned his chin and upper lip, and his eyes were a stunning light blue. He walked to the abnormal girl with a slight urgency but also caution.


The young girl, already in pain and adrenaline making a small comeback, pushed herself up into a position where she was sitting but still leaning on her hands. Her ears, an odd shape that looked as if they were a mix between a rabbit's and cat's, a bit longer and more near the top of her head but thicker almost as if they were completely round and pointed at the tops, fell back against her head as flat she could make them go. She bared her teeth which looked like a cat's fangs, and her nails, her dragon-like claws, scraped the stone. Behind her, her thick, lizard tail, orange in color, lashed with frightened fury, and her orange and teal, dragon-like wings spread wide with a span twice the length of her skinny arms. Her fiery blue eyes looked with fear as the man approached, and she hissed at him, warning him to stay away or she'd do away with his life, but he did not back down.


The man took slow steps towards the strange girl, a girl who would look so normal, just like everybody else, if it were not for her beastly additions to her body. "I'm not going to hurt you. You need help or you'll right here on this cliff. Do you want that?" the man asked in a surprisingly soothing voice, still taking slow steps closer.


She continued to growl and his at him, but she knew she couldn't run anymore. There was nowhere to go, and with her injury, she was growing weaker. She could still fight in that spot until she died, but a thought came across her mind. There was nothing worse that this man could do to her before she died. And so, she collapsed, still conscience but giving in to her defeat. The pain was too great anyway.


The man used hurried steps to close the distance between them when she went limp. he knew he had to act fast if he was to really help her. He examined her side in seconds, lifting her shirt just enough to see the wound. "You've lost so much blood..." His voice sounded as if hope of her surviving was already fading.


"It's not all mine," she replied with a ragged breath and gently closed her fists, which were covered in red.


Rather than fear, hope came into the man's blue eyes. He nodded and carefully slipped his arms under her body to lift her up, but something jabbed him in the right arm, and then the left. He winced at the needle-like sting. "What is that?" he asked but piked her up anyway.


"My spines," she answered quietly, getting weaker by the minute. She slumped in his arms but laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes.


"Oh," was all the man said before carrying her into his mobile home, a ship of sorts, shiny and silver and futuristic in look, but so many things looked like that these days. It was more or less a camper from the future which moved by flying, big enough for two people, but upon entering and seeing the mostly tidy inside with a clean floor but a few shirts or empty food cans strew about on the table and counter, it was clear that this man lived there alone. It looked like he was poor.


The girl's wings and tail dragged along the dusty ground and upon being carried into the mobile home, they tracked a light trail of tan dust in their wake across his dark red carpeted floor.


He took her into the one of the two rooms with doors in the camper, his bedroom. Gingerly, he stepped in, being mindful of her long wings and tail and being sure to get them in the room safely as well. Once this task was complete, and they took up a good deal of space in the small room, she was laid on the bed in the carefullest of ways. "Alright, now let's see if I can fix up your side of you," he said and grabbed a first aid kit from a cabinet along the wall.




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Chapter 2



"So your name is Leaha. It's pretty. I'm Daryl." He sat on a wooden stool by the bed, a cup of tea with steam radiating from the surface in his hands. "You're pretty luck, Leaha. It missed your vital organs. You should be all healed up in no time really."


The girl, Leaha, sat up on the bed now, two pillows against her back and the wall, propping her up so she did not have to strain muscles to sit. A cup of tea also resided in her hands, and she sipped from it then smiled a small smile at the man who had saved her. "Yeah, maybe," she said. "Thanks for helping me, but why did you do it? I'm a freak, and I clearly did some bad things..."


Daryl shook his head, his black locks swishing in his face with the motion. "Nah, I don't think you did. You're a 17 year old girl. I don't think there's much you could have done. You're not a freak either. You're just unique, and there's nothing wrong with that." His response came out so sure, like she really was an innocent young girl who could have done nothing wrong even if she wanted to.


Leaha looked down at the tea in her cup, the steam floating softly into her face before dissipating into the air around her. "You're wrong. I've done a lot of bad things, even if I didn't want to do them. And I am definitely a freak. No one else has these ghastly, beastly additions to their body. No one else was an experiment..."


"You've got a lot of hate from people, haven't you?" Daryl asked and leaned forward a bit in his seat, setting the tea on the dresser beside him to rest his arms on his knees. "Well, I'm not going to be the same way. Besides, you look perfectly normal right now, besides your ears."


He was right, and she knew he was. With the fear gone, she was able to retract her wings, tail, and spines, her claws and fangs into her body once again. Now, she looked like a normal girl, all but her dark yellowish ears which always remained protruding from her long, black hair. "I can control everything a lot better when I'm not in danger," she told him in a quiet voice, her blue-gray eyes still gazing into her cup.


"So you can just retract everything into your body like that and show whatever you want, whenever you want so long as you're not in danger?" he asked, sounding quite intrigued by it all. She nodded slowly with a distant look and small frown, and he smiled at her. "That's pretty cool."


Leaha's head jerked up at his last comment, shock emanating from her expression. "You think that's cool?"


"Well, sure. You're incredibly unique, and you have your own weapons right inside your body. Granted it's a tad absurd to think giant wings and a tail can just sprout from your back anytime you please, and your regular human nails and teeth can turn into fangs and claws at your will, and that you can even grow needle-like spines in two rows down your back, along your actual spine, but it's cool. I mean, what other human can do that?"


"But I'm not human anymore," she protested, her frown growing. How could this man not only save her life, but now think that her curse which had caused her so much pain was cool?


"Yes you are, don't be stupid," Daryl replied, that smile still plastered on his stubbly face. "Your heart is human, isn't it? You still have thoughts and feelings. You still fear fear, but I know you can feel happiness and gratitude, too. I thin you only bring yourself down and make the illusion that you're not human because that's what people have told you for too long. I know you're human inside. Your features and the words of others don't define who you are." With those words, he stood up from the stool and continued talking before she could protest again. "Now, I think I'll fix us up something to eat. You're way too skinny, so I expect you to eat whatever I make. I won't take no for an answer." He then walked out of the small bedroom, shutting the thin, wooden door behind him.


Leaha stayed sitting on the bed and held out a hand close to her, looking at her palm. It was now clean, all the red and dirt washed away. The hand went to her side and traveled slowly up and down, feeling the bandages underneath the over-sized, gray shirt she was given to wear instead of her ruined, blue one. Her finger tips lightly ran over the patched wound, and she sighed, Daryl's words echoing in her head. She could not believe him about all the thins he said, but he was half-right when he said she had a heart. She did feel such things as fear and happiness, though happiness didn't come around much anymore. However, she felt great gratitude for Daryl's help. She did not want to stay long and be a burden, or a danger to his safety. With those people still out there and hunting her down, she could very well get Daryl killed. She would simply have to plan to sneak out while he was asleep.

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