12 June 2012
Ryan Mom got out of the car, looking at ease as usual. Her dark brown hair - so like my own - hung down to her shoulders, matching the colour of her eyes. Her tanned skin made her look as though she sunbathed or had a spray tan often, although neither of those were in fact true. It was her natural skin tone, after all. Her brown eyes sparkled when she saw me, and I smiled when I thought of all the similarities between me and her. I didn't know my dad, so I don't know how he looked, but I've received the obvious things - like hair and eye colour - from her. When mom walked up to me, I suddenly realised that I hadn't walked out of the house to greet her in a long time - would this come off as suspicious? Hopefully not, though. She smiled at me, and I shut the car door for her - which earned me a strange look, but she wasn't going to complain. As we went through the front door, me just behind her, she turned, shut the door, and looked me in the eye. "What do you want?" she asked. Not nastily, but suspiciously and slightly jokily. I shrugged, smiling. "What makes you think that I want anything?" She laughed, harshly. She pointed at my smile. "That! That smile! And the extra kindness, and the being really nice! You want...something." I just let my smile grow slightly, and followed her into the lounge where the girl was. She gasped. "Ryan...What on earth?!" She asked, her voice becoming higher at the end of the sentence. "Umm...I found her bleeding and trying to reach a house. She fell over and started saying 'help me'. I figured it was the right thing to do, because she said she didn't want to go to hospital." Mom nodded slightly, but I also heard her sigh quietly. It didn't surprise me - she came home to get away from work, not to do more work. But when she started to examine her, her expression changed; as opposed to looking a tad annoyed at having to work, she seemed more surprised and worried by the injuries. She looked up at me eventually, looking grim. "It looks like she's been attacked. There's this jagged wound in the shoulder, which looks as though something attached her - and, combined with the look of the other wound, I think it was probably a dog. The wound on her leg shows a dog mauled her, but it would've had to be a big dog. Maybe a Rottweiler." I paused, considering. "Could you help her?" Mom looked me in the eye, and I could practically see the cogs turning in her head as she considered whether the girl could live or not. "I'm pretty sure she'll be fine, but I'm not sure how her leg will fare - it might be infected, or too damaged to save. The bone wasn't broken, but the wound has gone through her muscle and nerves." she grimaced. "Take her into the table at the back - I'll help her there." I nodded. The 'table' referred to a small operating table at the back of the house, surrounded by various things to help mom in almost any emergency - with everything from aspirin to insulin. I picked the girl up again, and was glad to see that mom had already turned toward the medical room, so maybe she wouldn't notice the girls' wings.
As the girl lay on the table, I realised that her wings were spread out at her back, that you'd have to be blind not to see them, and they slightly hung over the edge of the table. Mom ignored them though, instead giving the girl oxygen, mixed with something else (I can never remember what) that caused the girl to remain unconscious, in the hope that she wouldn't feel the pain until she came around. Maybe not even then. I turned away, only turning back to hand mom the items she required to help the girl. After a while, I turned around to see the wounds stitched up, my makeshift tourniquet having been quickly discarded, and mom staring intently at the damaged wing. I went and stood beside her, and she whispered "Do you have any idea how this is supposed to look?" I almost laughed - why on earth would I know? She then paused, and pulled back to look at me. "Did you know she had wings?" I nodded, slowly. That was one thing I did know. She turned around, and walked to the small bookshelf filled with medical books and documents - but, thankfully, not just on humans. There was a row all about animals, should we need to know that. One of the books in this row was all about birds. It's a good thing that birds have wings. She studied this for a moment, and then briefly nodded, as though she was accepting or agreeing with something. She walked back to the girl, and began fixing her wing - but how, I have no idea. Whatever she did, the girl ended up with three sets of bandages - one on her left wing, the other on the shoulder (it seemed that the area where the wing was wounded was directly below where the shoulder was) and one on her left leg. "Well done on the tourniquet, by the way. Dangerous, but I think it might've saved her leg." Mom commented when she was done. I smiled. I knew there was very little I could say to her, so we simply stayed silent, waiting for the girl to wake up and hopefully explain some stuff for us. Like, how had she ended up in our attic (not that mom knew that was where I found her)? And why was she wounded? But more importantly, how did she have wings? But maybe these would be questions best left till when she felt much better.
When the girl finally came to, she seemed even more confused than the first two times. She screamed "Alec! Alec!!!" Both mom and I had moved to the lounge, but raced into the medical room as we heard her shrieks. As I entered the room, she fell quiet but started sobbing almost silently - and when she finally did fall completely silent, tears continued to run down her cheeks - as though she had realised where she was and that she was making a noise. I walked up to her, noticing that she was not as pale as she had been, her skin was now fair instead of pale, and she seemed to recognise me. The blood had been cleaned from her dress - mom had done that earlier for her -and she seemed to notice this as well. She then attempted to sit up, but mom gently pushed her back down again. "No. No moving. You shouldn't even have woken up yet. You were very badly wounded." Mom told her. But the girl laughed, shaking her head. "Thank you, but I will be fine now." She sat up, and this time mom let her. Mom gasped. "You shouldn't be able to move..." The girl stood, her wings stretching outwards. Then she curled them around her, and smiled slyly. "Who are you?" I whispered. She looked at me, her wings returning to her sides. "I..." She paused and thought for a moment. The silence stretched. Eventually she said "I don't know." with a small, sad shrug. Mom nodded sadly. "Amnesia." The girl shook her head. "I remember...my brother. That's it. Not...not my name. Or who I am. Why can't I remember?" she began to get frustrated. Mom paused. "You must've either had severe head trauma, or had an experience that forced your mind to forget." The girl sighed. "But...Why?" Mom shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I don't know." She checked her watch. "Got to go back to work - its a good thing I didn't have to go in too early today." She raced out the door, and I began to wonder what time it was. Checking the clock, I realised it said 9 am. We'd been up all night! The girl's eyes slowly became unfocused, and though she faced me her gaze made me think she couldn't see me. She whispered. "I meant it, you know." I looked at her, confused. "Meant what?" She moved towards me, and placed her small hand over my heart, which quickened slightly at her touch. "I'm sorry." I blinked, still not really understanding. She sighed, turning away, and I walked into the lounge, with her following after me. When I looked at her again, her eyes had focused, and she wore a look of confusion. Mom had sent me a text: 'Try and help her remember. Ask her questions. Love you, xx.' I thought about this, and replied: 'Okay. I'll try.' I'm not a physiologist, but I kind of knew what to do. Ask about her past, and how everything made her feel. Was that right? I thought so. Sitting on the chair as she sat on the sofa, wings wrapping around her again, she looked up at me, curiously. "What's the first thing you can remember?" I asked. "Flying. Taking off for the first time, my brother watching and cheering me on." She smiled happily at the memory. "You remember your family?" She shook her head before pausing. "Well, yes and no. I remember my twin brother was called Alec, and my younger sister is Lita. But beyond that, I don't remember." "Are they both..." I trailed off. "Winged?" she replied with a smile. "Yes, they are." "What did you mean when you said 'was called'?" She looked at the floor with a grimace. "My brother was killed recently." "I'm sorry." I whispered, worried I shouldn't have brought it up. We sat in an awkward silence for a moment as she stared at the floor briefly. She slowly looked up at me. "Thank you." she whispered. More silence, until I finally spoke again. "So how come you have wings?" I asked, glad to finally reach this question. She laughed lightly. "Easy. I'm an angel." Angel?
Crossfire.2. • Opuss № I