Zosk POV

It’s been a while now since I grew my wings and learned to fly. Been a couple of months roughly since school has been out. Rather strange that I’ve been able to hide my wings for this long. It’s also gotten to be rather difficult to even impossible to hide them under my shirt now whenever I could.

I somehow managed to keep myself and my wings hidden. From both my parents and from other people in life in general. I would just ‘go outside to play’ as I would say to my parents, not telling them that I was in fact teaching myself to fly more and more. I think with most everyone coming and going that a boy with wings was not noticed.

Least not for a while. In this time, I started to get bolder and go higher. I even learned how to glide some and even soar a little on wind currents. More and more, my flight was becoming that of like the golden eagle that I thought my wings represented. My wing color hues have changed much to that coloring as well. They’ve also gotten much larger and longer. The area along my back I thought covered the distance from my shoulder down to around my hip though the feather structure itself on the wings, when extended, what I could see of them anyway, had more surface area then that. Dropping down to about half the length of my upper leg. The wingspan itself must be close to 12 feet across from tip to tip. I had no way to measure it other than a pure guess. My wings had to be bigger than the bird’s to make up for my larger size to get into flight.

I also in this time developed the necessary chest muscle that was needed to support myself in flight. I guess I was already developing this before I even grew the wings though this area was getting much more pronounced.

Landings and takeoffs gave my legs a workout as well, given they had to take the brunt of both aspects. Plus just walking around while on the ground also helped with this.

I also started to widen my range of movement in the air from the small section of my neighborhood to that of the town itself. Keeping as much as I could to the more hidden areas along the town to be less noticed. And if I was noticed, I hoped I could just be mistaken for a very large bird. Unless one of those bird watchers noticed me through their binoculars on their bird watching hunts. Then I would be in trouble….

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I did catch a problem a bit later. Something that would change the way I would live, forever. Or at least, for as long as I would live for. They do say that all good things come to an end. My happy hidden life had finally come to its end.

It came by way of Sophius, that rich kid I mentioned before. He watched me fly on a few occasions already, having not realized I had come so close to where he and his folks lived. It was a rich place, kind of alone on a hill. Set apart from the rest of town kind of though very close to my neighborhood. So we all knew him.

He watched me and learned that I was doing everything I could to hide myself from the world. He wanted to make sure that could never happen. Rich kids, if they don’t get what they want or just want to ruin someone else’s lives, they always find a way to do so.

He wouldn’t do it right away though. He wanted to be kind of sneaky about it. That and more than likely, wanted to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things. That would get you into the mental ward pretty quick. I’d likely laugh at him if he did end up in there cause he never really treated any of us kindly.

So one day he arranged to be in the park, to wait for me to arrive. I did so, a little naively, in my usual ridiculous get up I wore to keep myself hidden. I at this point had started to use the park rather than my backyard for take off and landing in. It was more open, even though I ran a higher risk of being noticed. It was a pretty good sized park so I had some advantage.

But no longer. Sophius had caught up to me pretty quickly. I tried to ignore him and just be on my way. But, he quickly grabbed at me and we started to scuffle. Anyone looking our way would just likely see two boys having a little fight. We wouldn’t be interrupted though unless his folks or mine came up to us to stop the fighting. I’d be in a heap more trouble if his folks were there. Cause even though Sophius started the scuffle, I would be to blame...and his folks would pay off all the witnesses as well.

Thankfully, Sophius’ folks weren’t there. But that blessing also turned into a curse quickly. Basically, he was trying to rip my shirt off of me and I was trying to retain it. We were also arguing back and forth quite a bit. Which if we had onlookers would just add to the mess.

I knew I had to do one thing and one thing only. I had to get away from Sophius…

My wings shifted and strained in the shirt while we struggled about till the shirt finally ripped open. I heard some gasps at this as my wings came out. I wasn’t sure if these gasps were from people seeing my wings for the first time or just the fact that Sophius had ripped my shirt off. If I didn’t have the wings, Sophius would be in trouble for sure, as no one would be bought out at that point. You never rip another person’s shirt off, ever.

But cause I had my wings, the crowd would turn their attentions upon me pretty quickly. So I did the only thing I thought I could do.

I snapped my wings to their full extent, sure to whack Sophius with one of them, just enough to get the rich kid away from me far enough, and leap into the air on those wings.

I don’t think I flew any harder or faster than I did at that time. I needed to get away, fast. I would go as far as my energy would last for the air…. Then I would run and hide somewhere. Anywhere…..

I was in tears too this whole time as the dawn of the realization hit me. And they hit me like a brick wall. I fought them back for as long as I could, concentrating more on the flight part of ‘flight or fight’ adridallin rush.

Once I had landed and ran on my feet as far as I could, in an open field a few miles away. I pretty well much slumped down and cried hard for a while. I pretty well much bawled until I had a horse throat. I stayed there for a while longer, still grasping at pretty well much everything that had transpired to this point. So I just started to count my lucky stars that it just didn’t happen sooner.

I don’t know what became of Sophius back at my hometown or even more so what would become of me. Would I make the headlines or would I be safe for a while.

Really both things weren’t much of a worry as well, a new worry hit me quickly like a runaway truck on the freeway. I was hungry and thirsty…. I only had enough to eat before I left home earlier and it was now much later in the day. How would I get food and drink?

I used what energy I had left to get to my feet and started looking around. I found a pond with some not so clear water but at this point, I had no other choice. I would cup the water with my hands and drink. This took a while but it would suffice. I would have to learn for sure other ways to do things like this simple task of drinking water.

At least that quelled my thirst for the time being. Getting water was going to be pretty easy. Getting food on the other hand was going to be the hard part. Being in a field like I was now did help a little with that as there were a few wild plants. I picked some berries and ranged around for a while, picking more and munching as I went. Again, I would have to learn, fast, how to fend for myself.

As for sleeping arrangements. Well, there was a barn not too far away that I could use, if it was open. One thing we had plenty of around my town was abandoned farm buildings and this seemed like one of them.

I made my way over to the barn, then attempted to open it. I didn’t see any lock on the latch or anything that would keep it closed. Other than the building looking a bit old but not run down like I have seen with other.

After some effort, the door finally gave and slid open along the slide. One thing I noticed right away was how musty it was inside of it. I slid the door open further and stepped back to let some fresh air in.

I scrounged around some more while waiting for the barn to air out. I needed to collect what I could that I could feed myself with when I woke the next morning. I wondered if I should stick around here for a while or be off again. I’m pretty sure Sophius might be attempting to look for me. Heck, the whole town would be looking for me before too long once my parents found out I was gone.

This made me cry again for a while and this time I couldn’t stop. I just let myself weep out for as long as I needed to. I was going to miss my family for sure and all my friends. At least with what I had now, I could just simply let myself cry. I even gave up on collecting berries…

After a while, I shifted myself into a standing position and made my way into the barn. Still with a heavy heart, I didn’t even so much as care as to what I flopped down on, I just did. I would whimper and weep pretty well much the rest of that evening and the night away. Somehow I was lucky enough to have flopped onto a pile of hay. It wasn’t as comfortable as my bed at home but was better than the ground.

I had to thank the stars again for the warm weather, even the warm night air. I wouldn’t need much for covering.

This made me wonder, when I woke up the next morning pretty early anyway, what I would do for clothing. My pants were enough for my legs, for now…. But what about a top? I guess I would have to find out in due time.

I decided that I had to leave again, leave this barn and the farm I was on, to find somewhere else I could go…. Somewhere that I could maybe gather more supplies. I also decided that as long as I had my wings, I would use them to my advantage to their maximum reach.

So began my life on the run.