She walked, dazed, with pebbles digging into the soles of her feet. To where, one may ask? She did not know. The rain, slowly decreasing in temperature, turned into hail. The little diamonds of ice, bounced off of her body, creating light, stinging sensations. Weather wouldn't stop the girl, though. She was quite a sight. Her choppy, self-cut, black hair stuck to her arms and stomach. Two large slits, side by side, cut into the back of her sweat shirt. The shorts she wore that day? Just barely managing to stay together.

Her eyes suddenly came into focus when she realized her feet had come to a stop. She saw the uneven ground cut off, moved her body forward, and saw a vast ocean far below her. She stared at the beautiful picture of the waves crashing against the side of the cliff and smiled a little. She stood there and just... Listened. To the waves. To the hail. And to her memories.

15 years earlier...

"Isn't she just the most adorable little girl you're ever seen?" the woman with dark, red-streaked, auburn hair, asked.
"That's irrelevant. Where did she come from?" her husband said, standing with his black hair and large frame.
"Well. You saw me pick up the basket from the doorstep," She stated, rolling her eyes.
Her husband grunted, stared at the wriggling creature in the basket, then sighed, admitting defeat. "Might as well get her a blanket until we can buy a fresh set of clothes for the thing." With that, he turned on his heel, he walked back inside the house. The woman rolled her eyes again and smiled. "He'll warm up to you. Don't worry, little one." She paused for a moment, then skipped after her husband shouting, "What'll we name her!?"

2 years earlier...

"Ah!" Moraine cried out for the third time that night as her back caused her to go into another round of pain. She'd successfully kept her cries silent, but the latest spasm was too much for her to be conscious of her volume. The door to her room opened and light from the hallway spilled into the room. Her mother came running in, "What is it, baby?"
"It's my back again. I c-can't se-seem to get-get it to stop hurt-hurting," Moraine sputtered out through her tears. Moraine's arm reached behind her and rubbed a spot in the upper part of her back. Moraine's mother had tried to find out what had caused her back pains. She was either too young, or didn't show enough symptoms for any of them. Her mother rubbed forehead and said, tiredly, "I know you don't like going to hospitals," She paused, seeing her daughter's eyes widen, "But I have to take you to the doctor. It'll last about an hour or so." Moraine groaned, her suffering only half forgotten.

"What's going on?" the deep voice of her father penetrated Moraine's room. "Oh, Alex! Moraine's back seems to have not stopped hurting," her mother said, distress evident in her voice. Alex frowned, the spoke to his wife, "Well. It better fix itself soon, Laira. I can't get any sleep." He yawned then walked out of Moraine's doorway, his heavy footsteps receding. Laira made a noise of disbelief and shook her head. Moraine noticed her pain was decreasing and told her mother so. "You still have to go to the doctor, Mo," Laira said, using her daughter's nickname. She tucked Moraine in and left her room, closing the door behind her. Moraine tried unsuccessfully to go to sleep that night.

The next morning, Moraine was very, very silent, wincing from time to time. Her back had not stopped it's torture throughout the night, and it showed through the black circles underneath her eyes. Laira worried for her daughter, but understood that she became like this every time she had to go to the hospital for check ups. She glared at her husband as he drove, seemingly uncaring of their daughter.

Upon their arrival at the hospital, the signed in and waited for the doctor to come out and take Moraine to see if there was anything wrong with her. "Will you be okay?" Laira asked. Moraine nodded. "Do you want me to be with you?" Her mother asked Moraine nodded again. "Do you want Daddy to be with us?" They entered an uncomfortable silence.

"Hello, you must be the Slate family," A female doctor came out, smiling warmly. Moraine studied her and determined her age to be around 30 years old. "I'm Doctor Arabella, but call me Ara. Will your parents be joining you... Moraine, is it?" Moraine blinked, and looked towards her mother, her eyes expressing her thoughts. Laira cleared her throat and replied, "I will be coming with her... Ara." Ara nodded, looking over the fact that Morraine had not answered her. "Follow me this way please." Moraine silently sighed while staring at her father, his nose already buried in a magazine, and went after the doctor and her mother.

"Alright. So, from the summary I see here, you've been experiencing back pains?" Ara inquired. Moraine nodded and then, asked, her voice cracking, "Are you going to look at my back?" Ara's forehead wrinkled with worry lines, "Yes, but not after you've had a glass of water." The doctor grabbed a glass from beside the sink, turned on the faucet and began filling it up with water. She handed the glass to Moraine, "Here. Drink." Moraine did as she requested and smiled, handing the glass back to her. After setting aside the glass, Ara said, "Alright, let's begin. Show me your back please?" Moraine lifted up her shirt and turned around. She heard a gasp, both from her mother and the doctor. All was silent for a few minutes.

"Is something wrong?" Moraine asked with an unsteady voice. She felt a cold hand on her back and jumped, but calmed down as it warmed up. "There's... There's something growing here... I've never seen anything... Like it," Ara's voice spoke with wonder. Laira continued staring at her daughter's back. Then she giggled and said, "You know? These... These kind of looks like... Wings. You know? With the placement and everything." The doctor's hand stopped above the two identical bumps. "Miss Slate. Is it alright if you bring your daughter in tomorrow for an X-ray?" Moraine's mother nodded. "Sure."

After both Laira and Moraine saw the X-rays the next day, Moraine suddenly wished she had done a better job of keeping her sounds of pain inside.

1 year earlier...

Moraine had kept her secret for 1 year from her father. 1 year of no tank tops or tight shirts. Laira had also not told her husband about that day in the X-ray room, covering up the truth with a obvious lie. "She just needs to drink more milk," she'd said. Alex, sensed her lie, frowned, but didn't care enough to ask for the real truth. A year later, what they had seen in the X-ray had finally showed it's "true colors" so to speak. Moraine stood in front of her wall mirror and stared at her back. Ha, how ironic. Mother's joke turned into reality. The feather filled limbs hung limply. "Why wings?" She tried to move them, but they just ruffled a little bit, then fell still. Moraine sighed and spent the rest of her night testing out her fully grown limbs. After a long night of no sleep and cold night air, she'd begun to understand what it meant to fly.

A few hours earlier...

"What is that!?" Her father's voice boomed. Mo quickly dove for her sweatshirt and slipped it on, but it was too late. Her father had seen what she and her mother had hidden for so long. " Mo froze as her father looked at her with, not surprise, oddly, but anger. Her mother came in and stopped in the doorway. She said nothing, the emotions on her two family member’s face’s was enough to tell what had just happened.

“Alex…”
“Don’t. Just… Don’t.”

Moraine’s father stood in her room for one more minute, then calmly walked out the door, past his wife, and to their room. Laira followed him soon after. Alex pulled down his suitcase and began opening all of the wardrobes. Whilst he was folding the clothes and putting them into his suitcase, his wife asked, “What are you doing?” He didn’t stop. He didn’t answer. He kept on packing. “Stop. You don’t know what you’re doing, Alex. You’re just confu-“ Laira tried to explain what she thought he was going through. Alex slammed his hand down on the bed, making the suitcase, and his wife, jump.

“That thing. I refuse to be it’s father,” her husband said, his voice full of hate. Laira’s thought his choice of words were strange. She said, slowly, “Not by blood… But… We are her parents.” Alex laughed, “By blood? She is not of your blood. But mine?... She is.” Laira gasped and she allowed her eyes to widen. She began to think back and try to track down when she or her husband had been gone for long periods of time. Then she remembered. “You… She…” She tried to speak, but lost her voice. “So you’ve found that piece of memory, have you? It was bound to come back to you sometime,” he sighed.

“Yes, it was unavoidable. Her body was just too beautiful to resist.” Laira’s eyes became watery and she felt weak. “If I had known that she was a creature, and not human, I would have never done what I did. But, 9 months later, the damage came to the doorstep. Karma certainly has a way of showing itself, doesn’t it?” His wife let go of her held back tears and leaned against the doorway. Her husband was not as sane as she thought he'd been. "I let that thing live in my house, eat my food, and breathe my air. And now this. To have her be part of that... monster."

Alex sighed and came up to Laira. “You know… Maybe if you’d found out earlier. We could have prevented this.” That snapped a chord within her. “I would rather die than have never known Moraine.”

“Is that so, Laira?” He looked into her bloodshot eyes, hardening his face when he realized she’d told the truth. “So be it.”

A loud gunshot resounded in the room.

The present...

She touched her cheeks and felt warm water on top of them. With each tear, Moraine let go of one memory. The water never stopped flowing. Letting her mother’s voice enter her brain, Moraine nudged her wings through the slits in her shirt.


"It's okay that you're different. I still love you for who you are..."

Spreading them, she walked backwards a few paces.

"He may never understand, but we'll be okay.

She ran forward, tucking the extra limbs into her back...

"...I'll protect you."

And jumped.

__________________________________________________ ___________________________________

The edited story Coming Soon.

Spoiler / Explanation for those of you who didn't understand this story.

Well, since no new posts have been posted. I figure people are confused, ha. So here it is... I'll try to make as much sense as possible.

Alex, Laira's husband and Moraine's father, cheated on his wife. At the time, he thought she was a normal, living, breathing, human being who just happened to be insanely beautiful. So, he bedded her. After a while, he noticed something... off... about her. She was too beautiful. And then she found out she was not a woman, but a creature. The affair ended.

Lo and behold, 9 months later the baby girl of the woman appears on their doorstep. Alex didn't need to be told, he knew that the child was from the woman. Which explains his hatred towards her. Now, Alex really did love his wife, Laira, but the seducing of this woman was just too much to resist. So, when he found out that this "Woman" was a creature, he began to regain his senses and realized what he had done. His sanity level started to rock.

During the end of the story, you, the reader, have probably thought of it as a strange and ridiculous action. Let me explain. So, Alex reveals that he cheated on his wife and the child is the daughter of the creature. As I said before, he loved his wife. His sanity degraded and each year with the child was like a cheese grater against his mind. When he found out she actually had more than just the creature's facial features, he snapped. He hadn't expected her to be part creature, though it would have been logically possible, had he been in his right mind. Laira, though hearing this, protected Moraine and refused to hate her. So, Alex pulled the trigger. He couldn't believe that his wife would still love that thing. He felt betrayed.

Moraine, if you don't know, is basically a bunch of glacial debris. From what I've gathered anyways. So, do you see how the meaning of her name ties in with the story? No? Well, father bedded mistress, mistress bore a child, wife "found" child, took care of child, died for child, and child died to stay with her mother. At the end of the story, I feel that Moraine, as a word, describes it perfectly.

I would really love some feedback by the way. Please, post and critique!

It's a really beautiful concept that you have. Dark and kind of twisted? Yes. But beautiful because of it.

My first interpretation had actually been that the mistress had been an angel, that, for some reason, was rendered helpless in an earthly form when Moriane's father found her. I thought him a rather sick man, as I read through. Then, his insanity came with the guilt of having turned a clean creature impure. Moriane was kind of like a test in that way.

You're an extremely talented storyteller, much better than I can ever be. But, as a reader, I still get to have opinions. I wasn't sure how I felt about the time jumps at first. In many stories, they're abused as an easy way out, but this really isn't the case with your little story. Rather than being used as a shortcut, you harnessed the strategy as a tool to make the story even more interesting in its briefness. This was one of the few times short stints of a person's life worked for me and I applaud you. Darn, I want your skills. I think this was backed further by the adorable little concept.

You took a simple little idea like "child loves mother" and made it complex, yet it held its simplicity in the style of writing and such. In the end, I liked that I was confused before reading the author's note because the confusion wasn't caused by bad writing but because the story was open to many interpretations and left several questions that reader's don't think about until they're pointed out. I didn't know that I wasn't sure what Moriane was until just now.

Awesome story. Awesome characters. I hope to see more.

Yeah, he was supposed to be sick, and... unbalanced.
I'm so glad you liked it!! You don't know how happy you've just made me. It's a good thing that you found the time jumps appropriate. I was a bit hesitant at first in using them, ha.
And, thank you for that! I like reading stories that constantly have my mind in action. It's actually quite a miracle I was able to apply that to this story.

Wow. It kind of stuns me, reading this again. I hadn't realized what a piece of work this was... Feel free, anyone, to post comments on this. I plan on revising it so the time jumps are nearly nonexistent.