Chapter 1:
Injections
The memories float in the back of my subconscious, containing images of X-rays, needles, and other infernal medical equipment. While in my long slumber, the most confusing memory I remember is of a doctor’s pale gloved hands prodding needles and scalpels repetitively at eagles, hawks and other birds of prey, lying there motionless in endless sleep. Of the dreams that happened to torment me, they always seemed to end with a pale white man with pointed features, hiding half of his face behind a medical mask. He leaches forward towards me like a snake attacking his prey and whispers in a harsh icy tone, “You will never be the same.” Suddenly, the burning pain of a needle floods through my veins and my dreams stop cold.
I awaken finally in a white room to the sounds of steady beeps and a dim light shining through a glass window. Beyond the glass, the scenery of Skyscrapers and swirling car lights dot the horizon. When I return my gaze to the bed, in which I lay, I notice that my sheets were kicked to the end of the mattress, while I was sleeping. What caught my off guard though were the splatters of red that covered most of the bed and silver feathers scattered across the tiled floor. Referring back to my dreams, I begin to panic.
Turning my head towards my shoulder, my eyes took in the monstrosity that was entwined into my bones. Wings the color of sterling silver spread out from my shoulder blades in an array of crystal sunlight. They seemed to dance as if synchronized to my ragging heartbeat. The heart monitor started to scream at me, so I tore out the bloody IV’s to try and silence the machine. Sadly, I was unsuccessful, and what followed was a long steady moan and nurses with sharp needles.
There were about a dozen of them that filled into the hospital room, with filed long nails that accented the sharpness of the anesthesia that they desperately wanted to stab into my flesh. Just the sight of the women caused a flood of adrenaline to course through my veins.
Arm’s reached and tore at my flesh as I started to make a mad dash towards the glass wall. No thanks to my wings, I felt like a chicken that was trying to escape its own slaughter. Without any holding back, my body propelled itself against the glass wall, shattering into tiny fragments of light.
1


What I was expecting myself to do was to soar across Fort Worth like an eagle. Instead, what happened was like that of a baby bird. I had been thrown out of my nest into the open sky, for the first time. For most birds, this is how they learn to fly; it’s also how many learn the sensation of falling.