The Last Liäl

The wind wipped across my face. It cleared my mind of all those cluttered, confused thoughts swirling around my brain. I saw the sharp mountains in the distance, the  dark, musty treeline closing in on me, the shaking of my outstretched hands, but most inmportantly I saw her. I saw her for what she was now. She wasn't like me, she wasn't like anyone. Her small, pale, elegant foot barely skimmed the ground as she stepped closer to me. I was trapped against the tree now, the rough bark biting into my skin through my sweatshirt. I had no place to run. I could not run again, she was too swift. She wouldn't want me to escape to sound the alarm about her. Her golden eyes pleaded with me, asking me not to attempt to leave, begging me to stay for my own good. I felt torn, ripped in half, chewed up and spit out. I felt used. Her full lips moved silently. I couldn't be seen with her, her kind was banished to the Shay. She didn't want to go there, nobody could live there, not even her. An icy hand caressed my cheek, her face inches from mine. I blinked in surprise, not knowing what to do. Her short silver hair shimmered, glowing with her inner light. Her long lashes brushed her pale cheeks, her glowing breath began crystalizing into unseen images in the air. Her cut and bruised body oozed her glittering blood. She was so badly abused by her captors, the fear they might find her was displayed for the whole world to see on her face. She was the image of an angel, but I knew she was not. She was a Liäl, she couldn't be trusted, she couldn't be here. She entwined her other slender hand in my shaggy hair, her eyes searching my face.

"You must help me," she  wispered. 

I blinked myself out of the stupor of her unnatural beauty. I shook my head while mouthing 'I can't'. She seemed to understand, but still pleaded with me. Her glow intensified as her warmth seeped out of gashes down her back. My sweatshirt seemed to be glued to the tree, no matter what I did. A drop of that glistening blood landed on my sweatshirt, a bubble of moonlight on a grassy plain, before sinking in to the fabric, a stain I would never be able to remove.

"Please-" She began quietly, knowing it was only a matter of time, but stopped as her shimmering eyes focused on something beyond the tree.

She flowed swiftly away from me in the way that only a Liäl can, her unfolding wings creating a swirling pattern in the air. I turned my stiff head to see what had frightened her, and I stopped short. It was a group of Keapers, the genetically-altered humans created to exterminate creatures like the Liäl. They were dressed in their cleanly cut white suits, those utility belts full of tranquilizers and poison dart guns, not only meant for the Liäl but the traitor housing her. I was at that moment afraid, for her and I. Then I realized how this looked to them. I seemed to be the one in captivity, in danger, not her. I was her captive in their eyes. Maybe they were right. Their clawed hands twitched slightly. They advanced so quickly,even  a Liäl would barely be able to see them coming. Deftly, they seized her slim arms, their hairless, emotionless, expressionless faces making the whole scene even more disturbing. I was petrefied, stuck to that tree, my brain on overdrive. Somehow, I now knew I was looking at the last Liäl in the world. Her silvery wings fluttered weakly in their overpowering grip, her slim yet steely legs straining against them. Her graceful arms were being rubbed raw under their gaint claws, causing more of her life to ooze out of her fragile skin. The Keapers dragged her unfeelingly away, and as she dissappeared behind the treeline, I caught my last glimps of her golden eyes. In time I may forget the silk of her hands, the melody of her voice, and the ice of her breath, but I know I will never forget the burning betrayal in her eyes.

• 
• 1490 of 33599
•