"Fuck, it's so damn cold," I mutter to no one but myself. I shiver, making my dark blue feathers puff out. It snowed this morning, as my foster parents were kicking me out, and now it covers the city like a crisp white blanket. I grit my teeth to stop the chattering. The clouds continue to twist over each other in the sky, pulsing in preparation for their next snowfall. I stuff my trembling hands into my pockets.
I walk along the sidewalk with my back to the rising sun. The snow is so white it's making me squint. Even at night, downtown is bright from the hundreds of Aves plastered on every glowing sign, billboard, and advertisement. The male models arch their wings and pose with grace, their feathers gleaming every colour of the rainbow. I'm lucky if I see a woman—there's maybe one per major road—and she's lucky if her billboard is taller than my leg.
"Cyrrus! Look at my new ride!" a high-pitched voice calls.
I look up. It's one of my classmates from last year. She's a loon, literally, with speckled brown wings thrust out at her sides. I forget her name. I look at her "ride", which is a beefy, high-current volare. At the back, three tall chutes cough tendrils of grey smoke. At its underbelly, four black fans whirl like tornados inside their metal safety cage. There are a dozen more volares on this block. They're zipping from building to building, parking in lots at the tops of them. My classmate's volare is a bit bigger, I guess.
"Mhm, that's cool." I shrug.
"Get in!" She leans over and pushes the passenger door open.
"Yeah, I'm good." I keep on walking in my random direction. I'm just walking to stay warm, where the hell am I going to spend the night?
I smell the polluted wind of her volare as I pass by. I can still smell it at the opposite end of the block. I realize it's following me, and the volare fan's thup-thup-thup-thup-thup's grow louder and louder. The volare pulls up beside me again, hovering an inch above the ground.
"Get in, Cyrrus! You have nowhere better to be," she says while gesturing to the static wings on my back.
My eyebrows sink and my frown deepens. Several other volares pass by and the force of their super-powered fans rattle my body like a buoy lost in a sea of crashing waves. Heat rises from my chest like lava despite the biting winter chill. It's 7am, 7 hours after I got the boot, and 7 hours after I turned eighteen. It's too damn early for this. I bite my lip and clench my fists, but the waft of gasoline permeates all sense. I glare up at my former classmate. "Fuck no, there's no way you're a good driver."
"Why not..?"
"Didn't your dad crash the school volare last year?" I raise my eyebrow.
"W—what? Don't bring that up, it was an accident—" her voice cracks and tears make her eyes glossy.
"Like, how do you crash a school volare into the school? Was he trying to kill 'em all?" The long highschool volares take a fee per Ave, a price none of my foster parents were willing to pay, so I always flew myself to school. I'm not too upset, considering the collision that happened my graduating year. Well, I didn't graduate, but you know what I mean.
The loon tries to reply but she chokes on her trembling tone and her eyes become two cascading waterfalls. I sigh.
"Just, leave me alone, okay?"
I turn the corner and keep walking. I hear my old classmate's volare shut off and go silent. I continue to shiver.
I get shadowed by the building to my right.—some brand of high-end retail. Beside me, there is a window display featuring winter jackets on sale. My jacket is built for mid-fall at best, so my eyes linger on the different designs. I keep walking and the insurmountable prices only increase.
At the very end of the display, I can't see any price tags. Beyond the tinted glass, the last mannequin has fallen. Its stiff arm popped off at the elbow, and its head hangs on by a thread. The mannequin beside it has tipped back from the impact of the other, lost in the corner. There's a dark blue puffer jacket discarded on the floor that would match my wings. I uselessly check my wallet, which is made of worn fabric and fraying thread—about four dollars in coins.
I keep walking. Walking to? I have no damn clue. Now that I'm also homeless, walking through downtown looks different. I see more Aves tucked under dumpsters and between narrow alleys. I see them perched on billboards, and resting in big glowing letters high above. I can't lie, the inside of the "O" in "hospital" looks damn cozy. Oh, wait. I watch as an Ave shoves another Ave out of the "O". The one that was there first squawks and spirals down. They flick their wings open to catch the air. It breaks their fall, but they stumble a landing and fall on their ass. The second Ave curls up in the "O" with their blanket.
I keep walking, but the fallen Ave stands up and locks eyes with me, and then they shuffle in front of me. I try to walk around them, but they stutter their wings open and block my path.
"Th—they stole my spot!" they shriek. They push themselves into my bubble and I step back, raising my hands.
"I don't give a damn, get away from me," I say, and my nose scrunches. A certain smell is wafting off of them, like black licorice dipped in thick pee. I raise my own wings.
"You need to help me get it back! Help me!" Their wings spasm when they yell, and I watch several stiff, dirty grey feathers fall from them. They push closer, chest to chest, while curling their wings around me. "Please—!" Their eyelids twitch over foggy eyes. Some of their spit flies and hits me on the cheek.
"Fuck off!" I shove them. I'm not strong but their frail frame easily slips off balance and trips, landing in a cluster of limbs and feathers.
They wheeze, "I need help, please, I just need help!"
I run away from their slurred speech, and I huff out cold, sporadic clouds of adrenaline. What do you want me to do?—I can barely save myself.
At the next intersection I jump and make a break for the sky, and my blurry wings beat to the pace of my racing heart.
After five minutes of flying, I find a fallen feather on my chest, pure white except for the stiff grey dirt around its edges.
I flick it away.
I notice my pocket is strangely concave. I feel it. My wallet is gone. I fly higher, above the dominating apartment buildings and blocky corporations. When I reach the clouds I scream louder than the howling wind.