Sunday Story By Jhilam Adhikary

White in the World of Humans

“Humans right…?”, a pale and confused voice roamed around the void. Scattered benches. Their stale wood. It’s smell. Bits of paper lying on the ground. Half of the floor stained yellow. The smell of dust. Spiders. Lizards. A gloomy classroom. Walls stained. Red flares entering through the windows. The crescent moon itself appeared strawberry flavoured. Inside were a group of students in uniform, beating someone for fun. A girl… with white wings… “Wings”? Her skin was as white as magnesium flames. Blood, red blood was gushing out, flowing out, like a stream. They were kicking her. They were kicking her stomach and blood is gushing out. Her eyes were wide open. She was scared. She wanted to scream but could not. One grabbed her jaw. One trampled her wrist. One pulled her hair, held it high and played with it. She was thin like a set of bones. Her uniform was dirty with stamps. They twisted her hand, her shoulders jerked. They broke her leg with one hit of a hockey stick. Next, they grabbed her neck and squished her face on the floor. They kicked her eye, it bled. Desperate, she flung her arms. They held her down. Then the women with tainted uniforms came in. They grabbed her white wing and pulled it. Her eyes rolled back as she screamed. Her own voice chocked her with the sound of her wing being slowly ripped out of her back. Her movements stopped. She fainted. Without a second thought, they unhitched the wing. Her flesh came out with it. Plump flesh with blood. And a fountain of blood sprayed their cream shirts and brown skirts. One last kick and they left.
The sun came out. A little light peeped In. The room was still dark. She was sleeping. Still bleeding. Her back against the wall. She heard footsteps and woke up. In front of her was a lady. A faint image. A vague image. Behind her were demons. A group of demons with happy faces and black slender wings. The demons looked curious. Their wings were fluttering. They offered their hand. The lady smiled. Trembling, she smiled back. A nervous smile. Her teeth were broken, her jaw was hurt. Her face was a mess. Her hair covered it up. The lady asked her name. “White” she said. White was a fairy. The lady smiled again. White tried to stand; she fell in the lady’s arms. She closed her eyes and was asleep again. The lady stroked her head. The demons watched amazed. Then she woke up again, all alone. Bandages everywhere. She was covered in them. The rest of her body was naked, and her uniform was gone. The room was filled with the smell of medicines and magic potions. She was not bleeding anymore. She opened her bandages and saw no marks. Her body was fixed, she could stand up and walk. She sat up straight, she touched her back. A new wing was there. She felt it with her fingers. It was all black with no feathers. She looked straight, she looked around. Shards of glass on the floor. She picked one up, she saw. Her eye was not bleeding anymore. It was yellow and huge like the morning sun. And one half of her body felt like a shadow, like a smooth piece of cardboard. The demons had saved her with their magic. They replaced her destroyed parts with their own flesh and blood. She was half a demon now, was it bad?
She did not react. She was calm. She accepted her new body and moved on. Outside the class, sitting alone in the corridor, was a goat, a white satanic one with curled horns. She looked at it, but it ignored her presence. It was trying to eat her dead wing. But it was too tough for it to chew. The texture was like rubber or elastic covered with silk feathers. She knew it and the goat knew it too. She patted the goat’s head and left. The goat kept on chewing it with the same, blank, emotionless expression. White looked around to find her bag. It was not there. She kept walking, searching for it. She ran down the stairs. Anxious. She could hear voices. Loud, cheerful voices of her classmates. There were classes up there, crowded classrooms. Outside, there were bags, lying on the floor, next to the wall. Dusty and messed up like her. She searched in them, but her bag was not there. She ran. The corridor had a broken floor. She couldn’t cross it. She turned right and entered the old sliding iron gate. Then she turned left and there was a washroom. A huge one with many rooms. Yellow walls. Well lit up with sunlight. But there were wicked voices inside and White was scared. She walked, hiding behind those yellow walls, hearing voices of humans, talking about how they killed her. Was she dead? She touched her new wing again. It was like the wing of a bat. But she was alive. And in front of her was a window with a ladder. Down the ladder were walls. She did not climb down. She was scared. She turned around again and ran. Once again, she got lost in that maize of yellow walls. Somehow, she found herself in front of a dark room. She went in. There was a huge wooden table. With candles and feathers and some other stuff, including books. She touched them once and moved forward. The room ended with another room.
A clean, white room. All dim and peaceful. Blood and guts on the floor. “That yellow eye looks beautiful on you… and that wing suits you too”, a voice spoke. There were demons inside, eating humans. White stared at them. She was not scared. She looked relieved. “Are they tasty?” White asked. “No” answered a red-haired demon boy sitting on the floor. “Then why don’t you cook them?” White asked in a cold, indifferent voice. “We can’t…”, the demon lad replied with his mouth full of blood. Hearing her question, three other red-haired demons lazily came forward and sang merrily to her,
“They taste worse if not fresh.
And the meat smells worse than a bear’s flesh.
And the blood clots really fast.
I once tried pouring it in a glass…
But I couldn’t drink a drop.
And alas! It all went to waste. ”
The song made her laugh after a long time. She laughed and relaxed herself a bit. White walked forward. Her feet squished random guts on the floor. She looked down at the boy and asked, “Why do you eat them?”. It was just a question. The answer did not matter. But the boy looked up and said, “Because they kill us… and they will kill you too… probably… if you don’t eat them”. White remained silent. The boy continued, “They torture us to death… enjoy it… gossip about it… we complained to the principal… but he said it’s fine… they are just kids after all and it’s just harmless bullying. But we don’t want to die so we eat them”. He ripped off an arm from the body he was eating and offered it to her. She humbly refused. Another demon came to her and looked into her eyes. “A fairy… a demon… I never knew there was a half breed in this school… You are from which class?”. “8B madam, have you seen my bag?” “Tell me, have you ever eaten humans?” “No madam, I eat junk food… they keep me happy… but I do think that by God’s mercy, I now have enough strength to kill and eat humans to protect myself whenever needed”. “Are you sure? Your voice doesn’t sound very confident”. White did not answer. She was still in pain. Her knee was still trembling… she was hardly able to stop her hands from shaking. Yet she was calm. She knew that she was not in a position to beg for sympathy and mercy. Her only choice was to fight and kill. “No matter how smelly and bitter their flesh is, I would definitely devour them someday”, she convinced herself. The demon took her hand and gave her a knife. Until now, for her, it was a confusion between the struggle to live and the wish to die. But now she had met more pitiful beings like her, and she had a knife in her hand. For the first time, White decided to fight back. For the first time, White felt strong. “They can do whatever they want because they children… no one would punish them… so I will punish them myself… for I am a child too… and at least for my own self, I believe that my life is worth something… I won’t be killed… I won’t let them kill me… I will protect myself… I will survive.”
White had never harmed humans. She tried to be friends. But the humans tortured her every day. They abused her… gossiped about her… spread rumours… beat her up. White cried and screamed. She knocked at every door for help. No door ever opened. Neither her parents, nor teachers or friends… no one took her seriously. White stood outside her classroom during lunch break. She hid herself in the washroom. She ran and ran but could never escape. At her home, every night she had nightmares. Nightmares! Nightmares! Nightmares! The face of her school made her tremble. She hated her uniform and that identity card that bore her name. She had no place to go. No place to be in. She was slowly losing her mind. She couldn’t focus on study for a second. Her marks dropped so her mother hated her. Her life was hell. And that day when she was caught by humans, she was convinced that she would be killed. But she survived. She got a knife and she bloomed.
No human ever dared to attack that blood-stained Angel again.