Fingers digging into your aching back
Skin breaking and bleeding, stinging as the fingers trace the openings
Wings sprouting, pushing through and growing.
Feathers brushing against your skin, tickling and cold.
Fingers moving, rubbing the blood into your skin.
The weight on your shoulders making you want to lean forward.
Heat, searing as it washes down your back.
Hands digging in.
Fear, breathtaking and overwhelming, eating at your heart.
Gasps loud in the near silence.
Pain, still, as the wings flap and bend into themselves.
Hands grabbing and pulling.
White flashes behind your eyes, searing through your muscles.
Snapping, as the hands break your freshly formed bones.
Feathers flying as they're plucked, more rushing to fill in the gaps.
Tears weaving their way down your face as you try to process the loss.
Hands, plucking and snapping still, harsher with every tear.
Pulling as they rip the bones from where they grew on your shoulders.
There's nothing left now, your brain tells you.
Where'd your wings go again? It whispers.
The hands now returned to rubbing, soaked in blood, feathers stuck to them.
Your back must match the hands.
You can feel the process restarting.
Again.
And again.
And again.