Doctor I'm telling you, to cut me open plea-hease.

[momebie]

TITLE: Opalescent Dinge
AUTHOR: momebie
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 661
FEEDBACK: On || FEEDBACK TYPE: Any
WARNING: None.
SUMMARY: Just because you can fly doesn't mean you can get away.
PROMPTS: Shattered glass.
A/N: A bit literal, but that will happen. The more I think about Burst the more I think I might make it YA. It's not my general inclination, but it just feels right for some reason. I don't know. I should probably come up with an actual story first.


“We’ve lost them,” Cody said.

“We haven’t.” Her voice scratched its way up her throat and sounded battered when it finally escaped.

The train shuddered to life around them and started to pull away from the station. Outside the window Taylor could see a brightly lit atrium and then more windows. It mustn’t have been later than noon--too late for the going to work traffic and too early for the coming home traffic--but there were a lot of people milling about and waiting for trains. Every one of their stray glances hit her and felt accusatory. They knew. They knew that it was her being hunted. There was a man in a black suit at the back of a group of old ladies. They wore bright colored scarves and talked animatedly with their hands, which made him stick out even more.

‘We haven’t,” she said again, and pulled her feet onto the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees and burying her face between them.

“They’re not on the train. They won’t catch us.”

“It’s not hard to find out where trains go. They’ll beat us. They’ll catch me. I can only...”

“No,” Cody said. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed them between his own. “No, don’t you leave me, not now.”

“I--”

And then there was nothing to say and no voice to speak it. Her thoughts shattered with the pieces of her and every single one of the birds just wanted up and out. There was an open window three seats up. Each of the birds fought against the other to escape it and stream into the open empty spaces of the train station.

A shot echoed around her and she heard it bounce through fifty sets of tiny ears. There was another and some part of a wing twinged as the pain spread through every one of the birds. Up, she thought, out. There has to be a way out.

The flock swooped down toward the open doors, but more shots were fired. The people waiting below her started screaming and running for the exits themselves as she flitted and dodged them at shoulder level. Not there. Up, out. So the flock turned up to meet the fast approaching glass ceiling, blinded by the sunlight.

Hitting the glass hurt. It hurt more than the bullet-shorn wing. It hurt over and over and over again as she tried to apply enough pressure to just crack it. It hurt so much that soon she couldn’t think about anything else but the pain and the glare of the sun and how she needed to escape. Another bullet hit the ceiling near the edge of the flock and broke through the glass, leaving tiny bits of it to fall back down to the platform.

She refocused her efforts on the pane with the hole in it and soon the bits of her were streaming through the broken ceiling pane. She left feathers and bits of skin behind as she got caught on the sharp edges and tangled in the metal supports, but it didn’t matter as long as most of all of her escaped the station.

Once free the flock dove towards the street and then steadied out at the second floor level as it frantically beat its tattered wings towards a copse of trees peaking out from around the buildings in the distance. When she made it the flock landed at the base of a scrawny birch tree and coalesced.

Taylor’s jeans were torn and she was missing a shoe. There were scrapes all down her neck and arms and a wide gash on her left calf. Every part of her felt bruised and sore. Breathing hard she looked about, trying to see if anyone had noticed her. There was no one around. No one. Not even Cody.

She pulled her knees to her chest again, dropped her face into her hands, and sobbed.

Comments

[yachiru]

I envy the way you create relationships with such a small amount of text. I liked the visual of the birds and the glass. Very dramatic.

[seratonation.livejournal.com]

I really love this series, I could totally see it as YA book too. I don't think itll matter too much if it's not who you're aiming it at, I think once you get the story out you can edit to make it fit one side or the other.

As for this part \o/ I would love to know more! Who are they running away from? Who is Cody and how did he get involved with this girl who turns into birds? Also oh man I love how the transition from human to birds to human again is so smooth, like one wing got shot so there's a gash in her leg and everything

[sopdetly.livejournal.com]

I approve highly of Doing Things with this whole world. I'm jealous of your brain for thinking up the basic concept, and I know you've got the skill to turn it into something great. :D

[darkmachines.livejournal.com]

my fave aspect was the transition, it made me stop and say WAIT WAIT, BIRD TIME? and reread and be like FUCK I THINK IT IS BIRD TIME.

incredibly beautiful and vivid.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The birds against the glass we can all thank Hitchcock for, since I'm certain I wouldn't think that birds would do that to themselves on their own. Of course, her circumstance is a bit different, and people totally do stupid things when they're scared.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Oh totally. I might write the story a little differently if I decide to make it YA from the start, but it probably wouldn't be a different story, it would just have a different focus.

Cody is actually her brother. He ran away to New York after his parents kicked him out for being gay and she in turn ran away to find him after the bird thing started happening.

But thank you. My favorite thing about the whole scenario is that what happens to the birds is reflected on her. I can see it so well visually. I hope I can write it as well as I see it when the time comes.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you! I almost wish I could write it as a comic, so I could get the visuals in. Alas! Still can't draw! But it's a nice world to live in from time to time.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

BIRD TIME. The transition is my favorite aspect as well. I wish I could just write 5,000 words of her going from birds to person to birds and then discuss the effect it has on her, but ALAS. ME LIKING THINGS DOES NOT A STORY MAKE.

Thank you, hon.