You.
Title: You.
Author: Muninn
Story: Chicago Snow
Flavors:
Word Count: 950
Rating: PG
Summary: Chicago responds to their presence.
Notes: A personal challenge to write in the second person, present tense. Also, hi, I'm back!
You are a young slip of a girl, or at least that's what you read in the pages of your fantasy novels, but not what you imagine to yourself at night when you act out grandiose battles and warrior queen romances like the stories you invent and read. You are sitting on the porch of your grandmother's house, reading again, fair, impossibly thin hair forever seeking to wind its way out of your carefully constructed braid. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, you look up. Take a glance around the neighborhood. Your eyes suddenly fix on a single feature that you have never seen in the neighborhood before. A wolf, snow white and as big as a car, with blue eyes that glow and leave light trails as it looks around, is stalking around on the far side of your little cul-de-sac. You aren't frightened by it, far from it. You are intrigued, hungry to know more. You set your book down (spreading it open across its pages, as you would never do unless there was an emergency) and stand, begin to run down the four steps from your little blue porch, but before you touch the grass of your grandmother's lawn, you see the creature dart off, jumping over the neighbor's fence and then another, running off into the evening on some hunt. You resolve then and there to stop pretending at being one of the compassionate warrior queens you see in your novels, who are always befriended by good and just creatures, and to actually be one. This involves rather a lot of planning, and you are afraid of what it may take to see that creature again. But you know you will, and you will be its caretaker.
You are a boy, or at least certainly not a man yet. You wish you could be, but you never seem to find the time. Between classes and work and taking care of your younger brother, you've never found time for much of a social life. It isn't easy growing up here in Chicago, faking your way through childhood, pretending that your parents are always out of town and not drunk and drugged in one of the bedrooms in the house you now pay for. You're working hard, loading a supply truck in the waning hours of the day, well after school has let out and closer to when curfew is dismissed as a mere suggestion. You stop, box in hand, and look out into the growing darkness. Here and there you see a flicker of red light, deeper than a cop car and bright as an ember in an ashtray. Your coworker shouts at you, but you ignore him. Something's out there. It's not frightening, it's more...familiar. Close. A drum pounds in your chest and you feel connected to this thing - and then you see it. An enormous black...wolf? It looks somewhat like a wolf but different, more sleek and slender, kind of like those Egyptian dog statues you've seen about in your history books. It stops, sniffing the air and shifting its weight from one foot to the other, then paces around in a circle before darting off and away from you. You're sure you've felt this kind of pounding before, this raw, rhythmic beat, but where? You're also confused as to why none of your coworkers saw the beast. After a while, you keep your mouth shut about it. No sense in dwelling on it, after all. Just a trick of the light. But secretly, when you're on your way home from work in the following weeks, you look for that ebony jackal, hoping to catch a glimpse of those staccato drumbeats again.
You're a writer, or at least a reader. You're sitting at your computer right now, reading this missive from an unknown source. Or maybe it is known. Maybe you know exactly who wrote it and what your feelings toward that person are. Maybe you're reading this on the subway, or in the library, or in the car with your little sister kicking the back of your seat. But you all have one dirty little secret. You all have a secret box somewhere, located deep within your childhood home, or maybe in your current one, or maybe somewhere in the back of your head. And in that hidden, magical box is your key, your secret, your pelt. You may have never seen it on you, only touched it and caressed it like a long-forgotten dream. You may have worn it once or twice in your youth when you were so much angrier about everything. But it is precious to you. This pelt is all you need when you walk the streets at night. This skin is what you've been waiting for, that little bit to push you over the edge and into the unknown. These feathers will let you fly in the face of every doubt you have ever had. Your glowing eyes will light up the night sky like jewels cast upon the firmament. Your claws, your jaws, your beaks will rend the hearts and minds and throats of every creature bent by evil means. In this skin, your words, your actions, your deeds are immortal. You are all skinwalkers, shifting from human to primal - it is a question as to whether you allow yourself this honor, to feel the drums beat in your chest, to hear the cries of the weak, to see that which is veiled and unseen.
Walk in the skin and know the first heartbeat.
Author: Muninn
Story: Chicago Snow
Flavors:
- Blueberry Cheesecake #3 (let your mind wander)
Word Count: 950
Rating: PG
Summary: Chicago responds to their presence.
Notes: A personal challenge to write in the second person, present tense. Also, hi, I'm back!
You are a young slip of a girl, or at least that's what you read in the pages of your fantasy novels, but not what you imagine to yourself at night when you act out grandiose battles and warrior queen romances like the stories you invent and read. You are sitting on the porch of your grandmother's house, reading again, fair, impossibly thin hair forever seeking to wind its way out of your carefully constructed braid. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, you look up. Take a glance around the neighborhood. Your eyes suddenly fix on a single feature that you have never seen in the neighborhood before. A wolf, snow white and as big as a car, with blue eyes that glow and leave light trails as it looks around, is stalking around on the far side of your little cul-de-sac. You aren't frightened by it, far from it. You are intrigued, hungry to know more. You set your book down (spreading it open across its pages, as you would never do unless there was an emergency) and stand, begin to run down the four steps from your little blue porch, but before you touch the grass of your grandmother's lawn, you see the creature dart off, jumping over the neighbor's fence and then another, running off into the evening on some hunt. You resolve then and there to stop pretending at being one of the compassionate warrior queens you see in your novels, who are always befriended by good and just creatures, and to actually be one. This involves rather a lot of planning, and you are afraid of what it may take to see that creature again. But you know you will, and you will be its caretaker.
You are a boy, or at least certainly not a man yet. You wish you could be, but you never seem to find the time. Between classes and work and taking care of your younger brother, you've never found time for much of a social life. It isn't easy growing up here in Chicago, faking your way through childhood, pretending that your parents are always out of town and not drunk and drugged in one of the bedrooms in the house you now pay for. You're working hard, loading a supply truck in the waning hours of the day, well after school has let out and closer to when curfew is dismissed as a mere suggestion. You stop, box in hand, and look out into the growing darkness. Here and there you see a flicker of red light, deeper than a cop car and bright as an ember in an ashtray. Your coworker shouts at you, but you ignore him. Something's out there. It's not frightening, it's more...familiar. Close. A drum pounds in your chest and you feel connected to this thing - and then you see it. An enormous black...wolf? It looks somewhat like a wolf but different, more sleek and slender, kind of like those Egyptian dog statues you've seen about in your history books. It stops, sniffing the air and shifting its weight from one foot to the other, then paces around in a circle before darting off and away from you. You're sure you've felt this kind of pounding before, this raw, rhythmic beat, but where? You're also confused as to why none of your coworkers saw the beast. After a while, you keep your mouth shut about it. No sense in dwelling on it, after all. Just a trick of the light. But secretly, when you're on your way home from work in the following weeks, you look for that ebony jackal, hoping to catch a glimpse of those staccato drumbeats again.
You're a writer, or at least a reader. You're sitting at your computer right now, reading this missive from an unknown source. Or maybe it is known. Maybe you know exactly who wrote it and what your feelings toward that person are. Maybe you're reading this on the subway, or in the library, or in the car with your little sister kicking the back of your seat. But you all have one dirty little secret. You all have a secret box somewhere, located deep within your childhood home, or maybe in your current one, or maybe somewhere in the back of your head. And in that hidden, magical box is your key, your secret, your pelt. You may have never seen it on you, only touched it and caressed it like a long-forgotten dream. You may have worn it once or twice in your youth when you were so much angrier about everything. But it is precious to you. This pelt is all you need when you walk the streets at night. This skin is what you've been waiting for, that little bit to push you over the edge and into the unknown. These feathers will let you fly in the face of every doubt you have ever had. Your glowing eyes will light up the night sky like jewels cast upon the firmament. Your claws, your jaws, your beaks will rend the hearts and minds and throats of every creature bent by evil means. In this skin, your words, your actions, your deeds are immortal. You are all skinwalkers, shifting from human to primal - it is a question as to whether you allow yourself this honor, to feel the drums beat in your chest, to hear the cries of the weak, to see that which is veiled and unseen.
Walk in the skin and know the first heartbeat.