Flesh and Feathers by Danielle Hylton, April Fifer Page B

focus, but when I did, I saw Tannah and Jen hovering over me. My vision was still fuzzy, and I couldn’t see much detail in their faces.
    “Az,” Jen said my name, and I could hear the hint of a smile in it.
    At first when I tried speaking, nothing came out. It took a couple of attempts to find my voice. “Where am I?”
    Tannah took over from there–like the mother she should have been. “You’re in the hospital. Everything is going to be fine.” I could hear her, but she was starting to grow faint.
    I closed my eyes–they were too heavy to keep them open any longer. “I hate hospitals,” was all I could get out before I felt the shadows pulling me back in.  
    Then I saw my dream I had lost; it was coming back. I let it lead me, pulling me away from Tannah and Jen.
    The next time I woke, I was in my room. I couldn’t remember how I got there. A thousand strange imagines paraded through my mind. I remembered walking home from work and seeing a pink and blue neon sign. I remembered being intrigued by it and wanting to go in, then the blaring of a car horn, and then… silence.
    When I tried to move, a sharp pain shot through my head. I felt around, finding a small knot on my forehead and one in the back of my head that must have been worse, because it had been stitched up. My body was covered in scrapes and cuts that were well on their way to disappearing.
    A sound coming from the kitchen took my attention off of my ailing body. As I listened, I heard bacon sizzling in a frying pan. I put on my bathrobe and went to investigate. The sweet smell of pancakes and smoked sausage filled the hallway. It was just like the diner, only better.
    “Good morning Az. How are you feeling?” Tannah was standing over the stove.
    “I’m not sure.” I was still unclear of what was going on. “Tannah… what happened?”
    Tannah put on her serious face, which was even more serious than normal. “Well, apparently you decided to walk out in front of a moving vehicle. It was like you never saw the cab at all.”
    “A cab?” But even as I asked, it started coming back to me. I remembered stepping out in the street.
    Tannah went on to answer the question. “Yes. But I’m not sure where you were going.” Then, she went on to fuss at herself. “I should have offered to take you home.”
    “It’s fine, Tannah. Besides, I’m alright.”
    She looked at me in a way that made me uneasy. However, she wouldn’t say anything.
    “I am alright, right?”
    Her tone was extremely soft and didn’t fit the woman whom I knew so well. “You are now. Az, you lost a lot of blood. And you were banged up pretty bad.” She paused and took a deep breath, as if she needed to choose her words carefully. “You’ve been out for six weeks.”
    “What do you mean, out? You make it sound like I went to the store. Are you telling me that I’ve been unconscious for six weeks?”
    I sat down at the kitchen table trying to comb through my memory. She couldn’t be serious. I pushed my mind back as far as it would go, but I came up empty. Tannah sat down next to me and put her hand on mine. I closed my eyes not wanting her to see how upset I was.
    “Az, it’s going to be okay. It’s just time, and you have plenty of it left.” Somehow her words didn’t comfort me. I felt something missing… something taken from me, but I didn’t know what.

Chapter 6
    Replacement

    K ano walked through the doors of the cathedral, swinging them open with such a force that they rattled on their hinges. He moved down the aisle in a swift gait that would lead him to where Tobias sat. The sound of the metal sword shifting at his side echoed through the room as he walked. His white cloak had been torn across the front, exposing a wound that was quickly mending.
    Tobias sat in a large lustrous chair on a platform at the end of the pathway, his appearance equaling arrogance. He modeled this by wearing pants that hung loosely around his waist and a golden amulet that