Skintight (Completed)

Chapter 4

I'm so sorry I'm late!! I was away for the weekend but I'm back now and uploading as regular. 

I hope you guys are enjoying Skintight so far! Please vote and share with your friends! You know I love reading all your comments ❤️

Love,

frangipanii 

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Violet

My mother always loved the sound of birds in the morning. She loved hearing them chirp and sing — performing a ceremony to welcome her to a brand new day. That's what she'd claim they were doing. We used to go out to feed them together. We'd watch them peck away at their seeds as long as the weather would allow it. I liked seeing them play in the bird bath — dipping their heads into the water, spreading their wings to dry off their feathers. It was a strange idea to me — that these creatures that could soar and fly as high and far as they'd like would still come down to the ground to play in a puddle of water. I couldn't understand it. Did they enjoy it, or was it pure necessity?

I've killed a bird once. It wasn't on purpose, but it was my fault. I hit it with my car. Its poor body smacked against my windshield with its wings still open wide, a worm stuck in its beak. It didn't make a sound when it died. Its silence was deafening.

My father's death wasn't anything like that. It can't have been silent. It would have been loud and demanding. His wasn't an instant death. The windshield wasn't strong enough to stop him from flying through it. He stayed alive for hours after he hit it, spread out on the road like the bird on my car, except my dad was still breathing. He kept breathing long after that. He kept breathing as they scraped him off the road, and as they drove him to hospital. He didn't make it out, though. Not alive.

How could a bird willingly come down to this earth? There is no way they'd do it for their own enjoyment. It has to be out of necessity. They wouldn't risk if otherwise — the chance of violent death. They come down because they have to — purely for hydration. They need to. They can't live without it, just like my father couldn't live without the thrill of a rising speedometer. Or with it, apparently.

My mother was wrong. Birds are not joyous creatures. Their chirps are not pleasant. They are not a greeting. They're warnings.

The things we need — the things we would die without are also the ones that lead us to our death.

"You should stop that," Isaiah's voice interrupts my thoughts. "You're gonna draw blood."

"Hmm?" I turn towards him, leaving the birds in the back of my mind. Isaiah leans over the kitchen counter. He's eating what I assume to be his first of eleven meals of the day — a bowl of granola the size of our bathroom sink. It's already past midday, but I'm sure he'll manage to fit them all in.

"Is it another mosquito bite?" he shifts his eyes down to my arm. I suddenly become aware of my fingernails scratching at my skin, a burning sensation spreading into my flesh. I've scraped my upper arm raw. Any more and I'd be leaking onto the floor.

"Probably," I say. It must be. This area is full of bugs. They've been bothering me ever since we moved to this damn place. I don't know why. At first, I thought it was all the waterways, but there aren't any more here than there are back home. And yet, I've been stung more times in the past few months than I have in my entire lifetime. The climate must be different — more accommodating or appealing in some way. I don't see how. It doesn't feel any different. It just feels... full; full and heavy — suffocating. Even more so than it does back home.