Once Vince found his father’s journals, his whole life felt justified. After his father’s death when he was sixteen, he found them in a shoe box stuffed on the top shelf of his parents’ bedroom closet. He didn't mourn him.

His father was a stalker. There were three journals, all detailing different women he stalked through the years before his death. At first, he couldn’t bring himself to read past the first pages, sick at the thought. But night after night, he thought about them. He thought about the scars on his back that would never go away from his dad’s punishments. He wanted to know why his father was so angry. He worried the answers he’s always wanted were in those journals. Until he finally cracked, rushing to the closet, pulling out the box, and dumping all the contents onto the floor. Mistake number one.

Aside from the journals, there were two separate, braided strands of hair beneath them. One was red, the other blonde. Vince felt queasy. Nothing good ever came from finding locks of hair in a box. Nonetheless, he grabbed the book on top of the pile with shaky hands and opened the cover to show a third lock of hair still inside the cover. Three books, three strands. This one was also red, but a lighter shade than the other. He flipped a couple of pages.

I can’t stop looking at her. Does she know what she's responsible for? What devastation her family has caused? Pushed me from my home like common trash. I have nothing now. It's her fault. 

She always hangs around that boy. The one with green wings. Large, flamboyant wings. My wings are stronger than his and faster. 

Vince flipped a few more pages.

She walks slower than her classmates. It wouldn’t take much for me to just take her in between classes. Even if I were caught, it wouldn’t matter. Axis still sees her as their next savior. Rumors say they believe she'll go home to take up her mother's place. I can't let that happen.

These urges are getting stronger. The more I’m around her, the more I want her. It was revenge, now it is personal. She doesn’t even know I’m alive. I know she’s the one. I just have to show her. I can change her.

It wasn’t the boy she wanted; it was the girl. A deformed girl! Molted, wretched. How sick, to think I would invest my time into such revolting behavior. I was right to focus on taking her out. She can't be saved. Axis will see me as a savior one day, when they see how cracked the Hollis’ are.

He flipped to the last entry.

She’s gone. My life! She’s gone, it’s my fault. How am I going to move on? She was the love of my life. My soul is shattered in two. But she couldn’t see the error of her ways. Even after my letters and my warnings, she still clung to that little bitch till the end. It was her fault. If only she hadn’t tried to run! I shouldn’t have panicked. The other didn’t see me, she ran as soon as she could. Not a good little wingchaser after all. The gods will teach her for me. Her head split open on the ground. She was still alive, but I seized the moment. I strung up my love from the branches to show other sinners the future they could expect. To show Axis that their future is gone.

Vince closed the journal and set it aside, picking up the red strand of hair and examining it closely, his hands steadying as he grounds himself in the moment. He twirled it between his fingers, wondering what this girl must’ve looked like for his father to grow such an obsession with her. To kill for her. Who were her parents… Hollis?

His mind wandered to a redhead he knew—a boy from school with red wings to match. Vince wasn’t his father, but he is his father’s creation. His father made him who he is. This box just proved it. That the darkness inside him was always there. The big hole of nothing, he assumed, where emotions were supposed to go. He had these fits of rage sometimes that consumed him, and often he let them. Feeling something was better than nothing. 

But reading these journals made him feel something. Curiosity. He was seventeen and had never had his first kiss, but here in these journals were his father's perversions laid bare. Everything his father did to these women, every thought he had about them, every act of violence he did in their name. He would end up studying these journals, moving the box from his father’s room to his own, and keeping the red strand of hair in his nightstand. Sometimes he enjoyed looking at it under the dim light of his lamp, twisting the braid between his fingers. 

Henry was the boy's name. The redhead from school. They weren't friends, and as far as he remembered, they never had a proper conversation. But he would think about him while he fidgeted with that strand of hair. His eyes were green and vibrant; they reminded him of summer. His hair looked so shiny in the sunlight. And his wings were nothing short of spectacular, with long red and blue feathers. They made his hawk wings look bland in comparison. 

Perhaps that’s why he thought about Henry so often. Did Vince believe Henry overshadowed him? More popular because his wings were rarer? Red-tailed hawk wings are also extremely rare, but nowhere near as beautiful as Henry’s. No, his were feared.

One night, Vince pulled out a notebook he had gotten for free from school. It was supposed to be used for languages, but he had already bought a notebook for that. So he put this one to use as his own journal. He began writing in it normally at first, trying only to write about the war or daily events, but his writing became corrupted as the months passed. He was eighteen now, and all he wrote about was Henry.

Vince’s grades remained high, and he behaved well in class. He needed to. If he was going to fit in, he needed to smile when someone smiled. He needed to laugh when someone laughed. He needed to lend support if someone cried, not that he understood why. If he gave in to his writings at night, he had to be completely normal during the day. That didn’t stop him from stealing looks at Henry whenever he could. Short glances. Sometimes, he could get away by pretending he was zoning out if he found himself staring too long. They had almost identical class schedules. Henry chose to sit in a perch chair most of the time during classes, so if Vince sat in the back, he could look at him without getting caught. 

Sometimes he felt his heart race during these moments. He could never hold onto that feeling or capture it in a meaningful way. It was fleeting, never there long enough to identify. Vince began to fidget often, especially when he thought about graduation. They would be separated soon, and he knew on good word that Henry would be traveling after graduation. What would he do then? Would his obsession stop? His father didn’t. His father never showed the restraint Vince has. His dedication has only been to one person. Not separated between three. He also hasn’t attacked Henry or threatened him, more than his father ever did. 

Graduation day came. Vince bumped into Henry on purpose while people were signing each other’s bags and books. 

“Oh, hey, uh- Vince, right? Want me to sign your book?” Henry asked with a smile. Vince’s heart began to race again, and that feeling returned, except this time it wasn’t fleeting. It felt as if his chest were being compressed by some cosmic entity, preventing him from speaking. Instead, he simply nodded and handed his notebook over. 

“Oh, wait!” Vince said, reality slamming him, before grabbing his book back before Henry could open it. He briefly forgot about his plan. He swapped out the notebook for his red journal in his backpack. He opened it to a fresh page and handed it over to Henry.

“Sorry about that, I wanted a clean page for signatures!” Vince lied. Henry gave him a half smile and nodded.

“Yes, of course,” He said before signing the page: Here’s to the future! Henry Salvador. Vince smiled widely. It was a genuine smile, he thought. He can't remember the last time he smiled like that. If he ever smiled like that. 

“Thanks, Henry. Good luck out there,” Vince said before closing his notebook and putting it back in his backpack. His chest began to decompress as he walked away. For him, this was closure. It was over, he thought. Mistake number two.

“Hey, did you hear Vespera’s finally settled down? She was always too scrawny for me, personally. Rumor is she’s hanging out with some girl with the same wings as hers. Small world!” 

“The Valient girl? Who's she settling down with?”

“No clue, I heard there was a ceremony in the forest. Something tells me it wasn’t a sanctioned marriage.”

“I heard that the ‘girl’ she’s been hanging out with is actually a man. That’s the rumor, anyway.” 

“Oh, really? I hadn’t heard that. I hope it’s not true, her friend never went to college, you know.”

“See? This is why education is so important. Maybe if he learned why it’s so… Strange, he wouldn't do it,”

“You never went to college either, Hank. No one likes a hypocrite,” Vince said, adding his opinion on the matter.

“Oh? What- what do you know, Wonder Hawk? Or are you into men dressed as ladies?” Hank asked him. His friend laughed.

“You’re the one that’s been talking about them all night, I wouldn’t say I'm the one into pencocks,” Vince said. Hank stood up briskly, knocking his stool over as he did to show his dominance. Vince stayed sitting. It was his usual bar, after all. He knew the routine. 

“You talk awfully big for a man with broken wings,” Hank said with confidence. Vince's shoulders sagged ever so slightly. 

“You talk big for small brain,” Vince responded, chugging his ash ale before Hank could grab him by the feathers. It burned going down his throat. Vince grabbed for the bar, trying to keep his balance, but instead grabbed a bar rag, slipping right off his seat. Hank, who was much larger than him, grabbed him by the hair and threw him out the door. 

“Don’t come back here, beak-bitter,” Hank said before slamming the door to the bar and leaving Vince on the sidewalk. He let out a hefty sigh and peeled himself up from the sidewalk and leaned against the clay wall of the bar. 

“My wings aren’t broken,” he whispered to himself, looking down on his feathers. They were mostly missing. Whenever he would get too angry, he would pull out his feathers. It hurt, but the pain grounded him. Sometimes he regrew the feathers he plucked out, but some spots stayed bald. At this point, he could no longer fly. He took a deep breath of the warm air and shrugged his shoulders, trying to ease the tension of being thrown on the ground. It was then he saw her.

It was as if the summer breeze stole the air from his lungs. Her hair was long and red, and she was wearing nice pants and a blouse that strung around her wings. She looked familiar, too familiar. Vince felt a scratching behind his eyes and tried to blink it out, believing it to be the alcohol. But she was still there, getting farther away. He stood up on shaky hands and crossed the street, following at a distance behind her. 

Her walk was the same. The wings were the same. The color of her hair may be a shade lighter. He began to walk faster toward her. He thought about calling his name. The street was empty, most people had returned home after work, and only the stores on the street could see them as they closed for the night before the longwinds could start. He walked faster.

It's him, this has to be Henry. Here? Is this where he traveled to?

The gap between them had closed, and as soon as there was an opening between the buildings, he pushed her into it. She gasped. Vince realized he still had the bar rag clutched in his hands; he never let it go. He quickly shoved it in her mouth. He hadn't turned her around yet; he didn’t want to see her face yet. She would be scared, and that would make him falter. He pushed her against the wall, trying to undo the straps of her shirt, but with how badly his hands were shaking, he couldn't grasp the strings properly. He resorted to pulling them with force, causing the thin strap to snap. Her wings began to flap incessantly, so he grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against the wall again.

“Don’t move, don’t move or I will yank out every fucking flight feather you got,” He said between gritted teeth and with avoidant eyes. He could hear her begin to cry, but she settled down, pulling her wings close to her side. He used his own disfigured wing to block their view of the street. Hopefully, if someone saw them, they would think it was just him puking in the alley or just ignore them.

Quickly, he pulled down her pants. They were light and a nice material. It was only then that he realized that this whole encounter was turning him on. She was here, in front of him, completely naked. His breath began to quicken. As much as he spent his life trying to prove he wasn’t his father’s son, here he was, proving that he was. 

Finally, he spun her around. Her eyebrow had split open, and blood was spilling into her eyes. She was covering her chest and genitals with her wings. He used his free hand to pull her hand away from her crotch. He only froze for a moment, realizing what he was seeing. 

I wouldn’t say I'm the one into pencocks, he said that at the bar. Yet here he was attacking one. Disgust crept onto his face before realization did. This was Henry, he was in Axion and dressed as a woman. What was worse, the fact that he was obsessed with another man, or the fact that he liked a man dressed as a woman? He didn’t have time to think; he only wanted to react. He kneed him hard in the stomach, causing Henry to fall to the floor.

“Disgusting,” Vince spat out, “you tricked me, you’re trying to trick everyone,” he said, kicking him in the stomach. He collapsed to his side, coughing up the rag and gasping. Vince took in the sight. He didn’t know exactly what it was he was feeling, but it must be power. He kicked him, over and over, leaning his hands against the wall to balance himself as he did so. 

“Disgusting creature, this is why it's illegal in Axion.”

“You don’t deserve wings,” 

“Trickster, fucking inhuman molter,” 

He spat out. Henry was trying to shield some of the blows with his wings, but that just caused Vince to aim for his legs instead. Eventually, he slowed to a stop. Henry laid on the ground, still breathing. Vince himself was breathing heavily, looking at him. He wasn’t dead, but was disfigured. He didn’t look anything like the woman he saw on the street earlier. Shockingly, this calmed Vince, but with the calm came panic. What did he do? Why did he do this? Was his ego so fragile? He looked at the blood that covered his shoes and tried to wipe off as much as he could on the ground next to where Henry still lay. 

Vince brought his wings close to his body in an attempt to hide the blood stains on his pants and walked swiftly out of the alley without so much as a glance back. A picture of his father's face flashes in his mind. He shakes it away. He was better than him.

If he could get home, he’d be okay, he thought.

“Starting new life is easy, depending on your definition of 'life'. This is Captain Hollis, reporting.” The woman spoke. Hollis! He recognized the name. Captain Janice Hollis is the one who landed Elric in Axis; everyone knew that. She was a legend.

“Our mission was confidential, but I’m broadcasting on an open frequency, hoping some communication survives. Sorry, boss, if you can hear me. The ship is stable, the survivors are stable, and I believe I can land on my own. However, there are still three months left in Project Chimera. Of the twenty thousand souls on board, twelve thousand and fifty-two survived. Mostly human. Mostly human dead, too.” She took a deep breath, flicking her eyes between the camera and something off-screen.

“I am not proud. James died. He died without knowing he was a father. I only just found out after being checked over by the surviving medical staff.” Tsk, tsk, tsk, was the noise she made. 

“How reckless. All of this was reckless and unnecessary, I see that now, but it is too little too late. If I don't stick by my morals, what else do I have? A fatherless child that will be born just after landing on an alien planet? And we're supposed to call it home?” She was getting frustrated, her voice raising slightly. She settled back down in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. 

“This is my confession. I'll give it to my daughter when she's old enough, and she can decide what to do with it. I'll give her whatever video logs I end up making. I told him once a week, but that won't happen.” She shifted in her seat. Who was 'he'? James?

“It wasn't about repopulating the human race, it never was. Reaching Terra was an experiment. A test. To see if humans can survive the atmosphere. But the first ship failed, so they sent this one. More dramatic, this one: fifteen thousand humans, but five thousand chimera. Some will not survive, as nature dictates, but some will. Most will. Our scientists are very good, if any made it out alive. It was never about saving Earth, saving people, or discovering Terra; no, it was about changing what reached it. What could we humans do to be more? To survive on a planet not made for us?”

“I am responsible for the deaths of two thousand and sixty chimera and five thousand and twenty humans. I set my pod to wake me three months earlier than my crew. I was part of the Human Rights group on Earth. We believed humans should stay human, not sacrifice that for the chance at survival. Humans are the ones who ruined Earth; humans should have died with Earth!" She took a deep breath. Vince sat back in his seat. This was a lot of information, none of it expected. He thought he would find evidence of his father's crimes, not the Founder of Axis’s confession. He pressed his wings against his sides, subconsciously trying to look smaller.

“This mission was going to happen; it was clear we were losing the fight, even with my inside information. I was able to climb the ranks all the way to the Captain of the Elric. It took an enormous amount of effort, but I'm good at my job. The leader of Project Chimera. On Earth, nothing could be done. In space, this ship is my domain. I purposely caused a gas leak in the sleep pod chamber. I set my crew's pods to wake up five minutes later. I pretended to sleep in the pod, assuming I would 'wake' up with the crowd. But my pod locked, and I was actually trapped. James woke up and broke my pod forcefully with a breaker bar, hitting me on the head. The rest is foggy.

I was supposed to wake up the humans once the crew was awake because of the emergency, but only James woke up. My coding must have been wrong. He was a pilot, not a software engineer. He didn't know how to stop the leak, see where it was coming from, or open the pods with the computer. He and the navigator managed to save twelve thousand fifty passengers before a spark finally caused an explosion in the capsule.” Something seemed to shift behind her eyes. She… laughed. Vince was hanging onto every word. This Captain, she tried to kill the chimeras and failed. She held a long sign and tsk-ed again.

“Once a week, I’ll send out an update and hope someone sees it. Once a week. Someday. I mean, what do you think, James?” Who was she talking to? Her dead pilot? Who was also apparently the father of her child? Earth? How is that even possible?

“I think so too. Someday, James.” She concluded. She turned to the camera and flipped it off. Static prickled across the screen, leaving Vince staring at his reflection on the TV. He looked down at his hands, the blood that covered his knuckles. He clenched them, and it stung. The blood on his hands now seemed minuscule compared to that of his ancestor, compared to the woman whose choices shaped all of Terra. He brought his wings in front of him. Battered and broken in all their glory. She would've rather seen him dead than mutated. Why did his father have this? Why was it among his trophies? One thought flickered across his mind the most.

What the fuck was that?