Product Description
Date (relative):
Sometime in the before-school summers. The air still held the smell of fresh rain and moss, and the hush of the world after a thunderclap that hadn’t quite landed yet.
Location:
The woods just beyond our burrow-house, where the meadow faded into soft creek banks and moonlit fireflies blinked slow enough you could almost believe they were waiting to be caught. That forest felt like mine. Like it knew I was magic, even when I wasn’t supposed to be.
Current Body Snapshot:
I was all wire and wind—slender limbs, paw pads green from clover, claws chewed short because my mouth always needed something to do when the storm inside got too big. My one tail was a deep plum, barely thicker than a paintbrush, with a darker tuft at the tip. There was energy in me I didn’t know where to put, only that it surged up when I was alone and vanished when I wasn’t.
Memory Flashback
I remember chasing a firefly—the one that blinked a little bluer than the others. I told myself it knew me. That it glowed that way for a reason. I whispered to it like it could hear: just let me catch you, so I know I’m real.
That morning I’d run in the town’s little fun-run—barefoot through moss, the wind pouring through my ribs like I’d been hollowed out just to carry it. I tore the finish line ribbon clean. The applause came fast. Then it stopped. Too fast.
I was tugging my hoodie down to hide my tail when I saw them—an adult on the porch, human, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Not angry. Maybe disgusted. A look like you’ve spilled something and they’re trying not to touch it. The sparks on my paw hadn’t finished crackling before they blinked out. I hadn’t gotten the chance to feel proud.
I’d won the fun-run a year earlier, too—but that was the summer I stopped running with the other boys.
One of them—I think his name was Chase—tried to tag me during a game. I shoved him off without thinking. Assumed he’d shove back, eyes on fire, laughing. But he didn’t.
He hit the grass and curled up, quiet. One hand over his ribs.
And all at once I wasn’t running anymore. I was just standing there, looking down at him, and something inside me split.
He looked so small.
I wanted to pick him up. Brush him off. I think I even took a step. But my paws just hovered there.
Because I’d done it.
I’d hurt him.
The part of me that moved to shield, to carry, to hold—
that part broke first.
The coach came. Stepped between us. Checked on Chase without looking at me.
And that’s when I saw the eyes. The other boys. Watching me.
Not scared, not exactly. Just sure.
Like they’d already decided who I was.
I looked away.
That was the first time I realized: I wasn’t just fast.
I was too strong.
Strong enough to hurt the ones I was supposed to protect.
After that, I still ran.
Just never toward anyone.
That night, I dreamed I found myself in the lap of an older boy from two houses down. He didn’t speak. He just held me—arms warm and sure around my back, my face tucked into the crook of his neck, where his breath moved slow and deep like we were already asleep. Nothing rushed. Nothing wrong.
I woke up buzzing low in my belly, heart thudding like I’d been caught. Shame clung to me like sweat—thick, unearned, and already drying into something brittle.
I rolled out of bed, dropped to the floor, and started push-ups until my arms shook. Until the warmth drained out through the boards and left something tighter, sharper, more acceptable behind.
My wrists gave out before the guilt did.
Emotional Reflections
Wonder didn’t vanish—it turned on me.
It came with the wind through my fur, with the sprint, the spark, the peel of a laugh I couldn’t stuff down fast enough. But it always ended the same way: a quiet room, a face gone flat, and the sting that maybe I’d shown too much.
That’s how I learned praise had rules. It didn’t come for being real. It came for being useful, or quiet, or entertaining at the right volume. For shrinking myself into something they could smile at without flinching.
The crowd loved the performance, not the performer.
And I started chasing their claps like oxygen—knowing it would run out, hating that I needed it to breathe.
Physical Sensations
- The clap of my paws against moss—sharp, spontaneous, louder than my voice ever dared to be.
- That electric twitch in my tail before I smothered it beneath the hoodie—like it knew I was about to disappear.
- A burn in my throat from holding back the words, the sparks, the warmth I wasn’t sure anyone wanted.
- That dream-buzz low in my belly—alive and reaching—followed by the full-body flinch of waking up with it still there.
- My shoulders pulled in like a habit, even in empty rooms. Like the judgment might echo in later.
Self-Talk & Lessons
Be strong, but gentle.
Fast, but forgettable.
Visible, but never unsettling.
They clap when you win.
They flinch when you stay.
I still move like they’re watching.
Foreshadowing
- Coach Ryker spotted me sprinting across the creek bed that summer, boots crunching on dry root and stone. He shook his head, half-laughing, like he’d just seen something wild enough to worry him.
- “Come find me when your tail catches up to your legs,” he said, ruffling my hair with one hand.
- My chest flooded with pride—and something warmer when his fingers lingered in my hair. I didn’t know what to call it then. I just stood there, trying not to lean in.
- Later, a cat-shaped shimmer crouched in the trees above. No sound, no shift—just green eyes watching, tail ticking steady. I felt seen in a way that didn’t ask anything from me.
- And then—just before I went inside—the blue firefly came back. It landed soft on my tail-tip, pulsed once, and vanished. My fur glowed faintly where it touched, like someone had marked me for something I wasn’t ready to understand.
- I told no one. Not about the light. Not about the way my breath caught when Coach touched me. Not about how I stood there afterward, unsure if I’d just been invited or warned.
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