CW:

I leaned back on the wooden bench I was sitting on, as I stared up into the night sky. I used to always love watching the stars at night, especially in the park. For some reason, it always felt magical and breathtaking. 

Not anymore. 

The same sight did nothing to improve my mood like it did when I was a child. I no longer stared up in wonder, instead, I just had a blank look as I finally calmed myself down. My tears have long since dried up, but my eyes are still puffy and my face still hurts from the sobbing. I almost felt the tears well up again as I thought back to my meeting with my parents.

Before I could fall back into reliving today's events, I saw a black shadow appear from behind a tree. I watched as it slowly made its way up towards me, and when it got closer I realized it was a cat. Just a single lone black cat. Aren’t black cats bad luck or something? Not like today could get worse anyway. Not like I even believed in superstition anyway.

The cat jumped up onto the bench next to me, and it turned its head to look directly at me. Its blue eyes felt a bit unsettling, like it was piercing right through me. I felt weirded out as it just sat there staring at me, looking at me as if it could feel that something was wrong. I heard animals had a weird way of knowing that about humans. It got closer to me and rubbed itself against my hand, So I decided to give it what it wants and start petting it. 

The cat seemed to enjoy it as it started purring. As I kept petting it, it decided to move onto my lap. Wondering if maybe it was already someone else's pet, I checked its neck and found no collar. It was honestly a cute little thing, if I had a home to go back to I'd keep it as a pet. That hurt to think about, so I tried to push it away again. Didn’t want to startle the poor thing if I started sobbing again. 

I started to feel a bit tired, probably a combination of my emotional state and it being so late at night. I checked my phone but it was dead, it must have died during my distress earlier. 

I sighed as I leaned my head back again, staring up at the sky one more time. I wanted to talk to someone. Whether that was to rant about my situation, or just wanting someone to comfort me. I didn’t know which I wanted, but honestly I probably wanted both. I had planned on calling Sam today, but with my phone dead that plan went out the window. 

I looked back down to the black cat, noticing it went back to staring at me as I pet it. Those same blue eyes, which at first was unsettling, now I felt captivated by them. I swear you could see them shimmering in the moonlight. Heh, I must be really exhausted if I'm seeing things now. I don’t know if it's the exhaustion, or if I'm starting to lose it, but I decided to speak to the cat. I had no one else to really talk to anyway.

“You wouldn’t abandon me would you girl?” I asked it, it stopped purring as it looked up to me. I felt bad that I must have surprised it, so I made sure to keep petting it as I continued on. 

“You wouldn’t just throw me out in the world like that, right? Wouldn’t just kick your child onto the streets right on their nineteenth birthday. Just because they felt different from everyone else.” 

I felt tears coming back again, but this time I didn't stop them. Maybe I just need to get the rest of it out before I can start the slow healing process. 

“Then again, I think I'm the one at fault. I knew growing up that if they didn’t get their way, then it would only bring trouble. Dad was the worst of it, if things didn’t go exactly as he wanted he’d get angry.”

It was true too. I tried many times throughout my childhood, trying to express myself without even realizing it. Trying to grow my hair out was met with my dad shaving me nearly bald. Trying to sneak in to wear mom’s clothes, just because I was interested. That too made Dad angry, he’d yell at me for hours and ground me for weeks. I was lucky if I got away without him raising his hand at me. The one time he caught me trying to put on makeup was the worst. The worst few months of my life. 

I was naive. I thought, since all of this was in the past I would be fine to come out to them. I thought that since enough time had passed, that they had changed. They both had mellowed out once I got older, there was less and less yelling and grounding as I grew up. 

I was wrong though, they never changed.

It was me who changed, I just stopped showing interest in those old things whenever they were around. I never lost interest in those things, I just made sure to hide when they were home. Dad must have thought that his ‘son’ had finally grown up and started being a man. Jokes on you, still just as much a girl as ever. I just knew how to hide it.

Mom was better about everything, she never threatened me or tried to hit me. Instead, she just wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything to make Dad mad. She would stand on the sidelines and take his side every time I did anything he didn’t like. She never supported me either now that I think about it. 

I nearly forgot about my feline friend, until she meowed up at me. She must be angry that I stopped petting it, I didn’t even realize when I stopped. I started petting her again, brushing my hand against her black fur as I brought up my free hand to wipe the tears away. 

The exhaustion I felt earlier was making its presence known again. This time I could barely keep my eyes open. I’ve never felt this tired before, it felt as if someone was calling me into a deep sleep. I couldn’t help but lean over and lay on the side of the bench as my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. 

The last thing I saw was a dark figure making its way towards me before everything went dark. 

~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~

I groaned in pain when I awoke. My back hurt, and my whole body felt sore. As I sat up, I realized I had been sleeping on a wooden floor. That’s probably why my body feels terrible. 

Weirdly enough, the area around me was covered in weird chalk circles. They were made of weird shapes and curves, and looked vaguely like some sort of sigil or symbol. I’ve never seen the symbol before, and if I'm being honest it kinda weirded me out.

Looking around, I realized I've never seen this room before either. This was definitely not a room in my parent's house. Panic started to well up inside me as I realized I must have been kidnapped or something. I didn’t see anyone else in the room, so I tried to keep myself calm so I didn’t alert my captor. I was semi-successful, I still felt like panicking but at least I wouldn't be screaming my head off.

The room itself weirded me out just as much as the symbol on the floor. Jars of unidentifiable herbs and mushrooms filled the room. Some jars even held some weird things, like the one filled with dead spiders or the one filled with dead crickets. There were even some weird crystals and rocks on the shelves. It looked like something you’d see in a stereotypical witch hunt from fantasy stories. If this is a witch's home, then hopefully it's not the child-eating kind even if I'm not a child anymore.

The second I heard the door click, I felt the sudden urge to hide. Unluckily enough for me, there wasn’t really anything to hide behind. My fight or flight instinct kicked in, and since there's only one door that left me with just one option. 

I grabbed a nearby random jar off the shelf and raised it behind me. I readied myself to throw it the second I saw my captor, and hopefully in the confusion I can run by them. 

In reality, I knew I would hesitate when it comes to throwing this at them. It would probably give them enough time to duck away once I did throw it. I know I'm no fighter, and I can feel myself starting to freeze up as the door slowly makes its way open. It felt as if whoever was behind the door was trying to see if I was up without alerting me. 

The second I saw their face, I was glad that I was a big coward who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Somehow or another my best friend Sam stuck her head through the open door and stared right at me with her green eyes, her long brown hair falling behind her. The second she saw me, standing there with a random jar full of mushrooms, she smiled as she giggled at the sight.

Before I could say anything, she turned towards the hallway outside the door and yelled out. “Auntie! Evans awake!”

I cringed slightly at hearing my dead name, but I couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know who I was, who I really was. I had planned on telling her yesterday after I came out to my parents. 

Not noticing my reaction to hearing my name, she walked on into the room. She smiled at me as she took the jar out of my hands and put it down on the shelf. She grabbed my hand and motioned for me to follow her. She took me through the hallway, the house looked just as odd and out of place as the room I was just in. She brought me into a dining room and had me sit down on one of the chairs surrounding the table.

“Sam, how’d I even get here?” I asked the question that has been bothering me since the moment I woke up. I didn’t even know where her house was, if this even is her house. “Last I knew, I fell asleep on a park bench.”

“Ah, we'll explain in a second. I'm waiting on Auntie, she’ll be better at explaining this.” She said, “Just keep an open mind, okay? It’ll probably sound really weird.”

Well, that certainly wasn’t very comforting. I held back a sigh, I knew she was probably right. Sam was bad at explaining anything complicated, I could only hope her Aunt Victoria would tell me what's going on. Sam always talked about how much she liked her adoptive parent, and how Victoria was teaching her all sorts of new things. She always got evasive when I asked what she was being taught, I can probably guess it's got something to do with all the weird jars and crystals from earlier. Are they trying to be witches or something?

My train of thought ended as who I would assume is Aunt Victoria walked into the room. She had short gray hair, and was dressed in an outfit probably twice as old as I am. She was covered in weird knick-knacks. She had at least two bracelets on each hand filled with differently shaped and colored gemstones, along with a necklace with another weird sigil on it. 

Sam spoke up first, as Victoria sat at the table with me and Sam.

“Victoria meet Evan, Evan meet Victoria.” Sam said, each time she spoke my deadname it made me grimace harder. I think Victoria noticed my reactions as she looked at me curiously, but she didn't say anything.

My emotions still felt wild from yesterday, and I knew I was close to coming out to them right then and there. The only thing holding me back was the fear of them having the same reaction as my parents. 

“Evan’s been my best friend for a while Auntie, so I think he'd be trustworthy enough for us to tell him.” Sam continued.

Being dead named again, and misgendered kept hurting more and more. I barely even recognized what Sam was talking about with me being trustworthy or not. Screw it, I promised myself I'd come out on my nineteenth birthday. I can’t take hearing that name again. 

“Well, where to begin.” Victoria started. “First off it's nice to meet you Eva-”

“I'm NOT Evan! I’m not...him.” I said, before immediately regretting what I said. Where did all that bravado go from not even a few seconds ago? The faces of my parents flashed as soon as I spoke up, the face of my dad’s anger. I should have just kept quiet.

What have I gotten myself into now?

Sourie

This is my first public story I've ever released, and it's about 11 chapters long. I hope to improve as a writer as time goes on, so if you find anything wrong with what I've written or you have any critiques then please let me know! I hope you enjoy the story even with its flaws!