Pocket Stories: Flight

Prompt: You wake up with an irresistible drive to roam the woods in search of … something. You run out in your pajamas but soon you no longer need them. Taking to the sky with blue-black feathers, you soar overhead until you see one like you. He’s waiting.

Crick threw off her covers, stifled in the oppressive heat of her bedroom. Her skin was sweat soaked, her shorts clung to her legs and her wet pajama shirt stuck to her chest. The air felt dead and heavy. She needed to move. Her windows were rusted shut with no hope of cracking them open to let in the cool night air. Instead she rushed out of her room, her baggy pajama shirt catching on the doorknob.

“Really, door? Let me go.” She untangled her shirt, acquiring another hole in the already tattered shirt.

Her parents’ room was at the end of the hallway. To get to the front door she’d have to sneak past their open door. They weren’t light sleepers by any means, but the floor in front of their room creaked. She suspected they did it on purpose as an alarm for when she or her brother tried to sneak out. 

Tiptoeing ever so slowly on the very edge of the floor, nearly climbing the walls, she made it past their room without a single board creaking. Mentally she did a victory fist pump. 

The front door was silent as it swung open on greased hinges. With how often that door got used, if it were to squeak, it would have driven her mother insane years ago. No, it was a weekly chore to make sure the hinges were greased, one she and her brother traded to reduce the unpleasantness of it. 

Blessed cool air caressed her skin where the shirt and shorts didn’t cover her. She closed her eyes and let the breeze say hello. It had missed her, she could tell. She felt the air push her from behind, it wanted her to join it.

She laughed softly and jumped, shifting in mid-air. Her blue-black wings unfurled, and her bones became lighter. The wind caught her outstretched wings, and bore her raven’s body high up, past the roof of her house, past the tops of the nearby pines, and up into the glorious night air. She barely had to flap, the wind was so excited. She let it carry her this way and that, its gentle rocking soothing after her frantic dreams. 

A raucous caw behind her made her turn. Another raven, larger than she was, sped to catch up.

“You couldn’t have waited?” her brother Jake asked as he flicked a wing-tip in her direction.

“Would you have waited for me?” she shot back. 

He only laughed and they flew together into the night.