there are wars raging out there but i

i count everything.

even numbers, odd numbers, multiples of 10. i count the ticks of the clock i count the tocks of the clock i count the lines between the lines on a sheet of paper. i count the broken beats of my heart i count my pulse and my blinks and the number of tries it takes to inhale enough oxygen for my lungs. i stay like this i stand like this i count like this until the feeling stops. until the tears stop spilling, until my fists stop shaking, until my heart stops aching.

there are never enough numbers.

i took what i wanted. i knew better and i took it anyway.

it keeps hitting me, over and over and over again, this complete and utter loneliness. this absence of him in my life, this realization that i will never know the warmth of his body, the tenderness of his touch ever again. this reminder of who i am and what i’ve done and where i belong.

i always dared to identify with the princess, the one who runs away and finds a fairy godmother to transform her into a beautiful girl with a bright future. i clung to something like hope, to a thread of maybes and possiblys and perhapses. but i should’ve listened when my parents told me that things like me aren’t allowed to have dreams. things like me are better off destroyed, is what my mother said to me.

and i’m beginning to think they were right. i’m beginning to wonder if i should just bury myself in the ground before i remember that technically, i already am. i never even needed a shovel.

it’s strange, how hollow i feel.

like there might be echoes inside of me. like i’m one of those chocolate rabbits they used to sell around easter, the ones that were nothing more than a sweet shell encapsulating a world of nothing. i’m like that.

i encapsulate a world of nothing.

i find myself thinking about warner too much.

i remember his eyes and his odd kindness and his cruel, calculating demeanor. i remember the way he looked at me when i first jumped out the window to escape and i remember the horror on his face when i pointed his own gun at his heart and then i wonder at my preoccupation with this person who is nothing like me and still so similar.

i wonder if i will have to face him again, sometime soon, and i wonder how he will greet me. i have no idea if he wants to keep me alive anymore, especially not after i tried to kill him, and i have no idea what could propel a 19-year-old man, boy person into such a miserable, murderous lifestyle and then i realize i’m lying to myself. because i do know. because i might be the only person who could ever understand him.

and this is what i’ve learned:

i know that he is a tortured soul who, like me, never grew up with the warmth of friendship or love or peaceful coexistence. i know that his father is the leader of the reestablishment and applauds his son’s murders instead of condemning them and i know that warner has no idea what it’s like to be normal.

i have to keep remembering that warner and i are two different words.

we are synonyms but not the same.

synonyms know each other like old colleagues, like a set of friends who’ve seen the world together. they swap stories, reminisce about their origins and forget that though they are similar, they are entirely different, and though they share a certain set of attributes, one can never be the other. because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one because the way they wedge themselves into a sentence changes everything.

they are not the same.

 i look at my own 2 hands and i remember exactly what i’m capable of. i remember exactly what i’ve done and i’m too aware of what i might do. because it’s so difficult to fight what you cannot control and right now i can’t even control my own imagination as it grips my hair and drags me into the dark.

---


it took effort to remind myself to breathe. in, out, in, out. there were 2 pairs of lungs in my chest, 1 heart to pump blood and thoughts and shadows into my system, 1 rib cage to encircle all of that and make sure it's protected. protected. that was a word i had never associated with, had never sat down and had a conversation with to get to know it.

it took effort to get myself going each morning, to drag my paws - i keep forgetting that there are paws attached to my long long long legs that seem to go on for miles - further and further until it was once more time to rest. until it was time to again give in to the tug of sleep lapping at the shores of my mind and soul. sleep was a balm for the soul, i had always thought.

it wasn't an effort to find the boundary that i assumed was the border of a group. this place was nothing like sector 45, nothing like what i had when i was with warner. oh how i had grown since then. i loved aaron anderson warner when i was so forcibly removed from his arms and his view and his careful tending. i was 1 howling hurricane of fury and my touch was lethal but it did nothing to help as i was taken away into a different world.

that world is where i am now, surrounded by light and magic and songs that i never knew existed. birds can actually fly here and the air isn't polluted and there's grass, trees, clean water. these were things i'd only heard about in the tales of the oldest people around, and those were scare to come across.

i had thought long and hard about a very important decision while on my travels: the choice for a name. many different thoughts tugged my brain this way and that, but i eventually settled on one: vintagespin. it seemed fitting enough, seeing as i looked quite vintage with the color scheme of my fur. it was all black and grey. grey paws, grey ears, grey eyes, and everywhere else was black.

so here i was, 1 serval with tremulous lips fighting not to break into a frown, one note pressed right against that same mouth that was fighting not to betray me, and words tumbling around my head and gathering on my tongue. why has it always been so hard to do this?


“Is anyone here? I’m looking for somewhere to be…… a home.” once the words had fallen out of my mouth, there was no taking them back.

The massive tigress halted in her steps, not because she had no path to go off of, but the scent of stranger filtered into the air. Then their voice, and then, as she continued forward, their small, white outline. Blind eyes looked ahead, unable to see the stranger's fur or eyes or even the grass they walked on. Only their white outline.

"Hello. You've come across Tanglewood's lands. I'm Seven, this group's Medical Reaper. I'm sure this could be your home." Light filtered through the foliage and lit up her blue fur in patches, with whatever was in shadow being illuminated by her white tiger stripes.

there are wars raging out there but i

One. Two.

Two beings had joined me, one a tiger who’s eyes were glassy, reflective. Maybe she had something going on with them? I would peer at the girl in curiosity, my paw carefully setting down the note that I had been holding up and then placing it carefully under my hind paw. I couldn’t let any harm come to that note.

The second one who had also come up appeared to be a smaller feline, a domestic cat. He reminded me of the cat I had once had at the compounds, it had been a sleek black and white tom cat, very playful and spry. This one didn’t seem to be as much. He looked as if he were in pain, if I told the truth. You never lie, what are you saying? my monochrome eyes would take in the flowers growing from his form and then the glow that was coming from the tigress’ pelt and I’d take a moment to stare. Never in all my life….

The woman spoke and then the male was writing something, showing me. A flash of teeth would appear, something akin to a smile, on my features as my brain tried to formulate a response in my shock at the unnatural mutations I was seeing. A paw came up to nervously rub at my neck and I would speak, my voice falling out of my chest and into the air like the wind.


“I - ah, yes! Sorry, yes, home! My home is…. No longer reachable. So you see, I’ve been quite lonely. So…. Yeah. It wouldn’t be a problem for me to stay? I’d help contribute and everything. Uhm, is that type of thing normal around here?” I would ask, pointing at the glowing of the woman’s pelt and the foliage growing from the male’s. I would then start, hastily rising to my paws in a panic, blurting out more words that lashed at my throat. ”name! My name is juli— vintagespin. But you can call me vin if you want.”

All this would end up with an awkward chuckle, ears pressing back against my head in slight embarrassment. Don’t mess this up!

Seven grinned at Vintagespin's words, knowing for sure that she was motioning to what made Aesior and her... Aesior and her. "I'm sure there's a lot of others who are far stranger than Aesior and I. But there are others that are surely more baseline." More.. normal. Yeah. "A pleasure to meet you, Vintagespin." She didn't bother with introducing herself, considering how Aesior seemed to be scribbling something on something.

Despite the faint sadness that swam in her eyes for a second, she shook her head and shifted her body. "You can come along with us, if you'd like. I'm finding herbs for my stock."