Status: For NaNo and for honor.
Spill
One
Sometimes I feel a bit feral. I sit in the woods, my back to a tree and my bottom on the cold earth, and I feel like a wild thing. Like there's a thrashing inside me, a great restlessness I'm always fighting.
The club is at it again. I can hear their whooping and hollering. Their celebration. Their noise. From this distance, the clinking of glass bottles can almost be misheard for wind-chimes, but it's too often disrupted by smashing and laughter and the constant thrum of music.
The twinkle of streetlights are peppered between the trees that separate me from them. They almost look like stars, this way. Fitting, since I often feel like there's light-years between us.
In a way, it's strange, that I find myself surrounded by the forest underneath the open sky, while the wolves beat their feet against the pavement to dance beneath a tin roof. Sometimes I wonder when they became so content to contain their nature. I wonder why they don't feel suffocated with their better selves trapped inside their human form. Why aren't they tearing at their skins for relief? Sometimes I'm plagued with this vibrating energy I can't shed, I feel like I'm bursting at the seams, and it's just me inside here. I wonder how they can stand it.
"Hadley!"
In the distance, the gravel of Easton's voice wraps around my name and I hear the rustling and crunch of the forest as he searches for me. From the uneven pattern of his footsteps, it's obvious he's been celebrating plenty. I stand and make my way towards him before he accidentally trips over a branch and brains himself against a rock.
"Coming!" I yell, hoping it'll make him stop his approach. He shouts my name again. "I'm coming! Keep where you are!"
I run the rest of the distance, slowing when I'm close enough to hear the roar of voices seeping out of the club's backyard more distinctly. As I get closer, I see that Easton isn't the only one wandering into the woods. The gate that separates the club's backyard from the woods is open and several people are making their way through it. There's already ten, maybe fifteen, men scattered on this side of the fence and others are trailing in. They're faces are half-lit by the moon, half-lit by the bright fluorescent lights that illuminate the parking lot. They look giddy and flushed, stumbling into the forest in clusters, leaning on each other for support. Their eyes gleam and their smiles and laughter are tinged with mania. There's anticipation of violence.
"Hadley!" Easton spots me, lumbering forward to sling his heavy arm across my shoulders and turn me around. There's a woman at his side; someone I've seen at the club a few times. She's hanging back now but the color of her rouge is haloed around her lips and there's a red stain at the side of Easton's neck. I give her a small nod and try to wiggle out from under my uncle's grasp.
He practically pushes me forward, further back into the woods. I can see now that we're all headed towards the clearing.
"What's going on?"
Easton's response is a toothy smile I can barely make out in the moonlight, but the woman he's not-with pipes up.
"Someone's made a claim."
The club is at it again. I can hear their whooping and hollering. Their celebration. Their noise. From this distance, the clinking of glass bottles can almost be misheard for wind-chimes, but it's too often disrupted by smashing and laughter and the constant thrum of music.
The twinkle of streetlights are peppered between the trees that separate me from them. They almost look like stars, this way. Fitting, since I often feel like there's light-years between us.
In a way, it's strange, that I find myself surrounded by the forest underneath the open sky, while the wolves beat their feet against the pavement to dance beneath a tin roof. Sometimes I wonder when they became so content to contain their nature. I wonder why they don't feel suffocated with their better selves trapped inside their human form. Why aren't they tearing at their skins for relief? Sometimes I'm plagued with this vibrating energy I can't shed, I feel like I'm bursting at the seams, and it's just me inside here. I wonder how they can stand it.
"Hadley!"
In the distance, the gravel of Easton's voice wraps around my name and I hear the rustling and crunch of the forest as he searches for me. From the uneven pattern of his footsteps, it's obvious he's been celebrating plenty. I stand and make my way towards him before he accidentally trips over a branch and brains himself against a rock.
"Coming!" I yell, hoping it'll make him stop his approach. He shouts my name again. "I'm coming! Keep where you are!"
I run the rest of the distance, slowing when I'm close enough to hear the roar of voices seeping out of the club's backyard more distinctly. As I get closer, I see that Easton isn't the only one wandering into the woods. The gate that separates the club's backyard from the woods is open and several people are making their way through it. There's already ten, maybe fifteen, men scattered on this side of the fence and others are trailing in. They're faces are half-lit by the moon, half-lit by the bright fluorescent lights that illuminate the parking lot. They look giddy and flushed, stumbling into the forest in clusters, leaning on each other for support. Their eyes gleam and their smiles and laughter are tinged with mania. There's anticipation of violence.
"Hadley!" Easton spots me, lumbering forward to sling his heavy arm across my shoulders and turn me around. There's a woman at his side; someone I've seen at the club a few times. She's hanging back now but the color of her rouge is haloed around her lips and there's a red stain at the side of Easton's neck. I give her a small nod and try to wiggle out from under my uncle's grasp.
He practically pushes me forward, further back into the woods. I can see now that we're all headed towards the clearing.
"What's going on?"
Easton's response is a toothy smile I can barely make out in the moonlight, but the woman he's not-with pipes up.
"Someone's made a claim."