A dream grown from my memories, but still just a dream. The three–inch claws scraped bone and it crunched inside me like a snapped chopstick. I clenched up, curling my ten–year–old self into a ball.
The bouda grinned at me, her malformed mouth full of fangs. Bones grew, muscles wound around them like cotton candy over a stick, hair sprouted, sheathing the new body, half human, half animal, in a coat of pale sandy fur dappled with telltale hyena spots. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah take a running start like a kicker before a field goal. Things become distilled to simple concepts: I was small, they were big I was weak, they were strong. The fear was still there, that sharp, hot terror, mixed with helpless rage, the kind of fear that turns you from a human being into an animal. I knew it was a dream, because it didn’t hurt. “Hit her again!” Michelle squeaked, her teenage voice shrill. Candy jerked me up by my hair and slammed my face into the asphalt.
0 kommentar(er)
