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katsudon for Christmas, a Michael short. Here's praying I didn't utterly bludgeon his characterization. XD Dies Irae
He has no name, at first.
They give him numbers and pain and a feeling he would later know as loneliness instead. He fights, when he can, and finds them fragile. They break and spill bright red against the stark non-color of the walls and floor. There is screaming and harsh words and he is left in his tube. The faintly metallic taste stays in his mouth.
Human blood, he learns, dries tacky and irritating on the skin.
He is not stupid. He watches, and he understands. Listening with more than just his ears, he strings things together, twists and pokes until they fall into a semblance of place. They teach him hate, and anger, and mistrust. He is not human, not animal, not…
He does not know what he is, but it is more than what they think.
After escaping, he learns more. He learns pack, from half-remembered instinct and from the desire to be no longer alone. He learns that his touch can sooth as well as break. He learns words, and that they have power, like hands and can reach or hurt.
He is still different, but perhaps not so much.
He knows that sometimes he frightens them. He is not human, underneath the thin layer of attempted mimicry. Like the wolf wearing sheepskin in the storybook, he can only pretend. His teeth are too sharp, his coloring wrong. He is faster, stronger, and heals more quickly. But he is there, and he keeps them together, and safe, and so they stay. For the time being, that is enough.
Eventually, the pack names him.
He allows it, with the slight amusement he reserves for humans and their oddities. Michael, they say, pointing to one of the murals on the wall of the church-run soup kitchen that is providing something that might be dinner if you tilt your head to the left and squint. The newly named Michael is not partaking. He has already caught his own dinner earlier. Unlike the humans, Michael has no problem eating cooked rat. He studies the winged figure in the mural. It holds a sword aloft, standing between a dark figure and a multitude of cowering humans. Protector and warrior, they say, a little reverent. Michael shrugs, losing interest in the painting.
They call him Michael, but in his heart his name is Wrath.
December 27 2006, 16:48:07 UTC 5 years ago