fell in love with the bird (Miss Peregrine x fem!OC)

𝟎𝟏.

It was a usual spring morning in 2016 in Cairnholm, Wales. 6 a.m. Seemingly usual, at least.

The small town wasn't particularly the warmest; which is to be expected since we're talking about an island in the UK. That fact was one of the first things Kaylee noticed when she moved there from Los Angeles 4 years ago. But she quickly got accustomed to the change in temperature, which also meant getting used to wearing a few more layers when sleeping. So pretty quickly, her most worn pajamas became sweatpants and a t-shirt, sometimes even a sweater.

Keeping that in mind, you'd understand her worry when she woke up hours before her alarm went off because she was feeling too hot. Upon opening her eyes she noticed off thing number two of that morning: a weird smell. Like, a bonfire or something.

But why would her house smell like a bonfire? Just a few moments later she came to her senses and realized the answer to all the odd things happening this morning.

Fire. My house is on fire!

Suddenly she was wide awake and began to run down the stairs and out of the house. On the way she also finally saw the cause of her waking up; the fire that was quickly spreading through the rooms but had luckily not reached her bedroom or the hallway yet.

Once outside she saw most of the town standing in front of her house. Some with lit torches, some just simply watching. But no one really seemed to care that there was a burning house right in front of them. Some even seemed weirdly satisfied.

"There she is!" said one man at the front. He was one of the people holding torches.

"What's going on? My house is on fire and y'all are just standing here! Do something! I could have died in there." Kaylee yelled.

"That was our intention!" another exclaimed. He seemed angry, angry that she got out maybe.

"What? Why? What is going on?!" Is this some kind of sick joke? Am I just dreaming? Please say I'm just dreaming and that I'm going to wake up any moment now.

"You're a witch!" came a shout.

"Or a monster!"

"No, I'm not." Kaylee laughed.

"Well if you aren't then explain why I saw you bending that glass like it was nothing the other day!"

Oh shit. Oh fuck. I thought I was being discreet. This is it. This is how I die. Kaylee couldn't help but panic. She desperately tried to sort out her thoughts and felt that one of them stuck out in particular.

Run.

And with that, she pushed her way through the crowd and started running as fast as she could. People behind her started yelling, screaming, and running after her. A few people threw rocks and shot with their guns. Most of the bullets didn't even get close to reaching her, she felt it was her lucky day to not live in a place where people knew how to run and still aim their guns. Well technically, you couldn't really call this her lucky day, all things considered, but you know what I mean.

She gave her best to try and run faster. Easier said than done as she wasn't wearing any shoes and the gravel of the streets scratched against her feet.

A few rocks and one or two bullets surprisingly reached her body, causing the glass that she consisted of to crack a few times. Kaylee hoped she could get away fast enough so she wouldn't get any significant cracks or too many of them. She was somewhat happy that the rocks were not very big and that they were not thrown too hard. That way, the healing process would be faster; with some cracks healing on their own or only taking up minimal amounts of her power.

However, Kaylee could feel her strength slowly fading. She didn't know if it was just from all of the running or because the cracks were slowly reaching the point where she could actually shatter, but at that moment she didn't care. She just had to at least find someplace to hide.

After running for a while, the shouting behind her getting quieter (thank god most people on this island are quite old, she thought), she could spot some kind of rock formation in front of her. As she got closer, she noticed it was actually a cave. Bingo. She entered the cave, her left hand tracing the cave wall so she wouldn't fall. The cave was quite dark and given that it was so small that she had to crouch slightly, she felt this was the best to ensure she hadn't run all this way just to shatter inside a random cave because she tripped. As she went further into the cave, she finally noticed how quiet it was, and allowed herself to slow down a bit. At this point, she was pretty sure she had managed to outrun the angry townsfolk.

A few more meters forward and the cave was slowly filling with light again.

It was at that moment that Kaylee figured she should attempt to assess the damage and when she looked down, she saw that her right ankle definitely had the most cracks and that one more would surely cause it to shatter. She feared that by even putting too much pressure on it, it would be destroyed at any moment, which she desperately wanted to avoid.

She limped out of the cave and even tried to run a bit further. The word "run" is used loosely in this scenario, since her vision was already slowly darkening. She figured that was her body slowly shutting down from all the adrenaline leaving mixed with the exhaustion caused by all the cracks in her skin.

If she was any more conscious right now, she would've probably been more confused about the sudden change in temperature. Since her departure from the cave the air didn't quite feel like spring at 6 a.m. anymore, it was actually pretty warm. But in her current state, she was simply happy to at least not freeze to death. She even put off the warm feeling of being a natural reaction that happens when you're about to pass out.

She reached a beach and felt her sight darkening even further. Her ears even started to slightly ring as well, as her body was seemingly swaying in the wind. As her legs gave away and she collapsed onto the sand, her vision completely turned black and the ringing in her ears stopped. 

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞!

edited/reuploaded on September 16th, 2023