Zosk POV

I woke a few hours later. My back was no longer just itching, it was burning, in pain. I nearly screamed as I turned over to let the weight off my back. I have no idea what was going on. It just felt like something was splitting through my back. I panted and cringed till the pain stopped, almost as abruptly as it started. I flopped right back into slumber again, pretty well much in shock.

I awoke a few hours later, to the sound of my alarm clock blaring in my ear. I groaned, stirred and reached to turn it off. That's where I first noticed a strange funny feeling. My back wasn't hurting anymore, nor was it itchy. I switched off the alarm clock as I had started to wonder if maybe the whole thing was just a bad dream.

There was a new feeling though, a new sensation that moved when I moved. This new feeling felt like something that was a part of me, like an arm. Though I could see both arms before me when I looked at them. I shook my head some, to try to clear some of the fog I felt in it before pinching myself to see if I was awake. Yup, I was awake but only just.

I would figure out this new feeling later I thought, as I had turned then to slip out of bed. I knew my mom would likely be yelling for me soon enough to get up and get moving. It was a school day after all, the day after my birthday. I was feeling a little woozy though as I got up.

The feeling moved with me again. It had a strange softness to it while also having a sort of rough fluffy feeling to it as well. It clung to my back as I stirred. For a moment there, I thought it was one of my pillows. But that wouldn't make much since given I had moved away from them. Then there was the fact that I could see them both. Yeah, I had two pillows on my bed. The softness wasn't also a sheet or one of my blankets, all those were accounted for as well.

So I did whatever any other sane person would do in this situation I guess. I got up the rest of the way in a panicked fear filled rush. In my rush, I ended up whacking that odd feeling I had into the wall. It felt like I had just whacked an arm or a leg into the wall in a way but at the same time, it wasn't either of those. It was like I had whacked an extra limb onto the wall. This brought me straight awake quickly, least about as awake as I could be. Still was feeling a little woozy yet.

That's when I noticed a little bit of small brown, almost tan colored tuffed, fuzball like things on my bed. They were on the towel that I had laid on the night before. I nearly fainted in shock as well. Wasn't so much that small collection of fuzzies on the towel that caused that. It was the sight of all the blood that was on the towel. The blood was dried up but could see two pretty good sized 'puddles' of it on the towel. Both puddles had the little brown fuzzies in them.

I closed my eyes and shook my head some to try to get it all together as things made less and less since by the moment. I wondered if I had started to go crazy or something like that.

I heard my mom yelling then, just like I half expected her to do so. I was moving pretty slowly and I would need to get on the bus to go to school soon enough.

I sighed as I shook my head once more. I hoped I would have more time to figure out this sensation and craziness I had felt. I figured I would maybe attempt to figure it all out after school. Though all this shaking of my head has made me feel dizzy. I really didn't know at the time that that was caused from the blood loss. Even if it was half a pint or a full pint, for a kid, that was quite a lot of blood.

I also confirmed what I saw as I opened my eyes again. Plain as day itself was the towel laying on the bed with the brown fuzzies. I reached down to pick up one of the little fuzballs and look at it more closely. As I looked at it, I couldn't make much sense of it as it didn't match up with anything else I had on my bed. The sheets I had were blue in color, same with pillow cases. The two blankets I had were one green, the other red. Yeah, I know. The colors clash. I didn't care much as it kept me warm when I slept.

Keeping on topic though, I didn't think at that point that what I had just picked up off my bed was a small downy feather. The kind that most birds would have when they are young. I wouldn't make this connection till much later anyway.

I let the fuzzy thing go as I reached to grab a shirt, decided to try to get back into focusing on get moving and getting ready for school. I would flub off the dizzy woozy feeling I had as just having been up a little too late with celebrating my birthday. That and I didn't want my mother come yelling again for me to get moving. I was still slow though. I would likely miss my bus at the rate I was going at.

Just getting to the washroom was a little bit of a pain. I had to walk funny just to get out the door to my room. At least without whacking and causing more pain to my body. I had to have something on either side of me like a couple of extra arms coming from my shoulders near my back. I kept knocking them around as I moved. How I didn't encounter my mom though in all this, I'll never know. I was kind of thanking myself for this much. I was pretty self sufficient though there were times she would come look in on me if I was being too slow. And right now, I was moving about as slow as dirt as I had to try to bring my whole body under control. Being woozy and dizzy yet also didn't help any.

Though how I didn't feint at this next part, I'll never know.

So I reached the washroom, where right away I could tell something was off just by the reflection in the mirror I had in there. I nearly gasped as I came closer to the mirror to look at my reflection.

There I stood, plain as day, bare chested and all, in the reflection, with what looked like two of the ugliest looking wings I could have ever seen upon my back. They flipped and flopped about as I moved. They were also covered in brownish, tanish down feathers. I had never seen a newborn bird before. But what I was looking at is pretty well much the same result of the look of my wings in the mirror. They were also tiny though big enough to stick out like sore thumbs. They were both kind of folded there like a bird's as well.

So I tried to touch one with a hand. Pretty well much I would move the hand on say my left side to try to touch the right wing. Or visa versa at least.

Getting the coordination down of having a hand touch the wing was difficult at best. As I had to try to bring the hand to the wing then control the wing to come closer to the hand. I was still trying to mentally put all this together yet.

This also did cause my mother to start coming down the hall, calling for me to see what the hold up was. I had to get to school and she would go off to work a little later.

Shoot I thought to myself, things are moving too fast and I could barely stand. I would need to figure out these wings more later. For now though, I figured as much as not let my mom see them. I was scared of what might happen if it was found out that I had sprouted wings upon my back overnight.

So in a haste, I turned and fled the washroom. Causing a few things to crash in my rush. I would hurry over to my room, flop into bed and try to cover myself up as much as I could. I would play at being sick.... Which I was given I was feeling woozy and dizzy still. I could maybe use it to some advantage while I shuffled down into bed. I threw my covers over myself in a quick haste to hide myself and more importantly, hide my wings. This caused me to feel even more dizzy than before though.

Less than a moment later, my mom came into my room to check in on me. I was groaning some, both faking it and from the real sensation of disorientation in my head. I would do as much as I could, hide as much as I could, from her.

My mom felt my forehead and face, would take my temperature, which was normal and few other things I can't think of right now. Checking to see how sick I really was. I told her about how I tried to goto the washroom to clean up, the dizzy feeling I had and everything else besides the blood on the towel under me nor would I mention a thing about the wings.

It wasn't like me to miss school due to being sick. But it was the time of the year for being sick if any. My mom told me to just rest, which I would and maybe get myself some soup or something later. I nodded my head and thanked her as she would go to call the school to let them know I'm not coming in today. It did take some convincing though to get her to not take the day off from work, that I would be fine without her. This was a time when you could leave your children at home, unattended. Even one as young as myself, though it rarely would happen. Besides, I was tired enough to doze back off anyway.

My mom did call the school, would leave me enough supplies to make myself something later before she left for work herself. I was thanking my stars later for sure but for now, I was dozing while my body recovered from the shock and the discovery.