I love watching the sun rise. When the temperature is cool, but not cold; warm, but not hot, the air is crisp and clean, as if the blanket of night that came before, only moments ago, had cleansed it and made it pure. The air was the only thing in this world that I thought could even resemble pure; that is, before the surroundings taint it.
The light from the rising sun catches my attention again; the colors of red, blue, bronze, gold, and even indefinable colors meld together, slowly and gracefully changing into the next. Not-quite-faded stars dot that beautiful canvas, punching holes through the serene portrait painted right in front of me. Nothing is perfect, I suppose, though, I imagine that perfection would be quite ugly, boring, even.
I move from my position on my side onto my stomach; the leaves and straw that make up my roof tickle my bare abdomen, and I stretch. I was up late the previous night, feeling the light rain sprinkle on my flesh, watching the stars that twinkle and sparkle innocently. How I would love to fly and touch one of those stars; my wings twitch excitedly at the thought, but I would not, I would never. I think that I'm afraid; who wouldn't be afraid. Stars are so close to being perfect, as there's nothing to change them and nothing to taint them. Who am I to try to change that?
But still, my wings ache from not flying in so long, it must have been at least a couple of days. I could not resist now. I am a Sensory Demon. I love to feel and to touch, yet I am different from the others in my clan. I have wings, I am different. I've witnessed humans quite a few times, and they seem different yet so similar to the people that I live with.
They take everything that they can sense for granted.
Humans, it seems, take almost everything for granted. Every one of their senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, what they hear, what they feel…Everything. Because of that, their water tastes unpure, and their air is unnatural. It is obvious that they cannot tell, but we can. Yet we can live with it, we just have to get used to it. Not that some of us want to.
The people that I live with are different, yet the same. We don't take our surroundings for granted. We embrace all five of those normal senses, but after that, I am so different. I am different from every other Sensory Demon. Though sensory demons have a heightened sense of feeling; for example, happiness will feel like euphoria, they can block it out. When they don't want to be sad, they block out that misery. When they don't want to be angry, they block that out, too.
Humans try to block out feelings, and a large portion of the time, they can. They drown it out by doing other things…saying other things. So, in that way, humans are similar to Sensory Demons. That is where I am different from them all.
I cannot block out feelings, and, I'm not sure if I really want to. When I am sad, I can't just make it go away. And it's not just sadness anymore. It turns into depression. I don't know why, but I knew that one day, when all of the other sensory demons came of age with me and were given the choice to go live with the humans or stay, I knew that I wouldn't be given that choice. The mixture of feelings from every person that I would come in contact with would have killed me; Sensory Demons can sometimes pick up auras from other creatures, too. They can block it out, yet not me.
And I alone have wings.
I alone have wings, yet I don't know why. I don't remember. I cannot remember anything about my parents or my childhood. I ended up here when I was very small, but I don't know how. Maybe I lived here from the time I was born, I never asked. Two nice beings that I suppose I could call my parents, took me in. I never asked them why I was abandoned by my biological parents, and they never told me. They, my real parents, I mean, didn't matter to me, and the only people that did matter were those two nice beings. They accepted me as theirs. Even though I had those wings.
When I was growing up, I could not block out the mockery that I was sensing from so many others around me. The fear that I was different. I wanted my wings to be removed; I didn't like them, and because I couldn't block that out, that dislike turned to hate. I hated how they blocked my way. They were not yet strong enough to fly with.
I remember that once I asked those two nice beings if they could somehow remove them from me, but they said no. They said that the pain I felt from it would kill me; they said that once I learned to fly, I wouldn't ever want to lose them.
And they were right. One day, early in the morning, while they were both sleeping; I must have been only 12 or so, I went out to a cliff overlooking a beautiful summit, and jumped. I fell…I didn't know that it was possible to fall that fast, but at the last minute, the wind blew strongly and my fruitlessly flapping wings caught the current. I was tossed sideways, and even though it was only a very small portion of my own will keeping me up, I was flying. It felt so wonderful.
Every day after that,I went and flew. I had my good days, where I was able to fly a little without a current, and I had my bad days, in which the wind would stop and I crumpled to the ground. I always got back up, though. I just couldn't stop. I loved the wind flying through my hair, tossing my golden bangs to and fro. I loved it all.
A couple of years after that, though, those nice people that took me in died. With that, the misery that I just couldn't block out almost killed me, too. I thought that I was going to die, as I had no will to do anything anymore. I couldn't even fly. I didn't want to fly anymore. I couldn't feel anything other than the longing and the sadness for my lost parents, my lost friends. My only friends. I couldn't share my pain with anyone, because I had no one to share it with. And I didn't know where to go from there.
One day, I woke up to the sun shining through the windows, yet it wasn't day. It was a beautiful reddish color, so I went and peered outside of the glass. That, oddly enough, was the first sunrise that I could ever remember witnessing. It couldn't have actually been the first, but just as it was the awakening of another day, it was my awakening. It was then I realized that while I couldn't block out feelings like the people that I lived with, I could almost cover it up. Even if I couldn't live with humans, I could still almost be like them.
The beauty of it that sunrise somehow covered my sorrow; it gave me some type of strength to keep going. That day I went outside, and I flew again. I had forgotten how great it felt; I had forgotten how the rush of wind in my ears made my deaf to the whispers that I got; how I was some evil being because of my leathery black wings. It also covered the new rumors, the rumors about how I had somehow killed those two nice beings.
I didn't understand why they thought that. Didn't they see how upset I was? Or did they think that I was plotting for them next?
I sigh as I stand up on my roof and stretch again. My wings flap noisily, and I jump and let them catch a draft. It feels good to fly, and sometimes I wonder if those people that I live near are actually jealous of the beautiful appendages attached gracefully to my back. Could they just hate me for that? Or do they really fear me?
Maybe it's both.
I may live with other sensory demons, yet I know that I am not fully one of them, in mind or in blood. I know that I am not a human, either…at all. Maybe one day I'll know what I really am, or, at least, maybe one day someone will accept me for what I am and what I feel.
I don't really mind if I never find out why I am the way I am. I can't change it, and, anyway, it feels good to feel. When I'm sad, it's only because I'm missing the good times, and when I hurt I know that I'm alive. Otherwise, I'm not alive, I'm just there. I can't be the only person who thinks like that. There has to be some other person out there that thinks like this, maybe not in the small village where I live, but the world is huge.
Suddenly my crimson eyes brighten. One week, that is when the Summer Solstice will happen, and that is when the people that come of age, this time I am included in that, are given the choice to leave our little village somewhere on what is known as Mt. Fuji. I can't go and live with the humans, but I've observed them before.
Maybe I can keep doing that, somewhere else. Some other civilization, with other humans. I probably won't be able to pluck up the courage to talk to one of them, but just to know that I'm not truly alone; someone else that embraces the fact that they cry even when they are in so much emotional pain, someone else that just can't bury their feelings like everyone else
I want to meet someone that needs something as wonderful as the sunrise to bring their spirits up, and someone that wants to fly.
Could I find something like that?
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: This chapter was revised on 7-8-06.
Just to remind you, this story is my free write.
Thanks to all reviewers!
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