I know… I know… I am kinda late again. I swear life is kicking my tush lately – I guess I better start kicking back

Anyway… Lets get this party started..

All following is unedited and subject to change. All works copyright Rebecca Ethington and Imdalind Press – All right reserved.

Through Glass – Episode 4

March 21st 2014

I had already accepted Cohen as dead. I had already mourned and cried and held onto him, but for some reason—thinking of his eyes always full of so much expression, dimmed into that of a monster… a monster that Travis obviously had other plans for than what I had originally thought.
Pain seized through my chest as if I had been shot again. I might have been.
“But if we find him—” Travis began, his voice suddenly rising in an excitement that only cut through me, “if we know which one he is—if we find him, then maybe we can find out what Abran has done to those people. If they are monsters—”
“You mean you want to experiment on Cohen,” I finally interrupted him, my words clipped in shock and pain.
“No.”
“Just the way they wanted to experiment on me.” I could feel the panic, the temper coming back and it scared me.
“Not the same way—”
“Exactly the same way! You want to open him up and see how he ticks—”
“No, Alexis!” he interrupted me with a snap, the anger in his voice jolting through me. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he looked at me with the same hard look as before, the childish gleam that I had seen in him all but gone now, leaving only my older, powerful brother.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this for Cohen, for the image of what he was in my mind, in my heart. I wanted him, but he wasn’t there anymore.
“I will not do that to him,” Travis said, his voice almost a whisper as he tried to calm the angry panic I was sure he could see move through me.
“Then what, Travis? You want to manicure his talons… his…” My breath caught as I said it, an iron vice closing over my heart as I felt the burn behind my eyes, the burn I wanted so hard to ignore, the tears that I wanted to pretend I could no longer shed.
I knew it wasn’t that easy, though.
It couldn’t be.
Just saying the words had let a tiny part of me out; the part that still clung to that final image of Cohen, the part that still remembered his kiss, the warmth of his hands…
Without thinking about it, I lifted my arm, the sleeve of the over-large, leather jacket rolling back to reveal the ink pen drawing I had spent so many years tracing. The drawing that brought back so many memories of his smile.
I could still see him, but now I saw something more. I saw golden claws where charcoal-stained fingers used to be, and slick, black skin covered with razor sharp feathers instead of the scruff that had so taken my heart.
I didn’t see Cohen anymore.
I saw a monster.
“He’s gone,” I said, trying to keep the break out of my voice and failing.