Namir woke up like any other morning. His alarm hadn’t ringed yet, but for some reason, he woke up before sunrise.
Though he prepared himself to go to college like he usually does, he couldn’t shake off the sensation that something was missing since he woke up. Namir looked at the mirror and saw his reflection, but he had to stop looking almost instantly. He was used to doing that every morning, expecting it to stop once he gained more muscle from the gym.
Namir walked outside his home. It was still dark, but he had nothing else to do. When he remembered the mirror, he began trotting to the campus, but had to stop almost immediately, since his legs weren’t in good shape, even for such a small amount of exercise.
When Namir looked over at the campus, and thought about the lectures he’d have that day, he just sighed of boredom. At least, he could see his friends. He felt like he hadn’t seen them in ages.
After a long wait, and even looking at the sunrise at campus, he went to the first class of that day. There, he met with his friends, who were a group of guys he had met because he hung out with one of them back in school, and the guy ‘adopted’ Namir into their group.
The group, as always, stood outside the ladies bathroom, looking at them and giving them a score, one by one. Namir hated this, but he was too scared to talk. In fact, he was so scared to say anything that would bother them, that he didn’t talk much, no matter the topic. Last time he did so, his friend from school told the group about embarrassing stories of him from when they were still in school
About the time Namir offered himself to be villager in a school play, but he didn’t know it was a female villager. Or about the time he was discovered looking directly at a girl, she even had to stop applying blush because of his perverted gaze. Or the time his mom told the rest of the school he played with her heels when he was a child.
Many stories about Namir that were so embarrassing, he had just lost his voice.
The first class was supposedly a simple one, but Namir was clearly unprepared for it, as he couldn’t remember anything about the subject. This became apparent when the teacher asked a student at random a question and picked him. When Namir couldn’t answer, a girl laughed at him. She was Namir’s school friend’s girlfriend. So, naturally, the rest of the group followed her, and the entire class was laughing at Namir.
The other classes weren’t too different from that one. After a few of them, the day finished at last.
By the time Namir got home, he was exhausted and wanted to sleep forever. At least the day ended up being an easy one, since he had no real problems getting out of bed like he’d usually do. But then he remembered it was the scheduled ‘call you parents’ day for him. Namir always dreaded this, as he had to show them how he was failing once more, and then listen to them telling him how to be an adult. He knew he was really far from being one already, and their lectures didn’t help.
“Beep… beeb…”
It was the third time Namir called, and the phone kept on beeping a few more times before someone answered on the other side.
“Hello? What are you calling for?” The voice of Namir’s father could be heard from the other side of the phone. “Need money again?”
“Tell him he has already spent too much paying for those classes.” The voice of his mother sounded far away. ”How will he pay for our house when we get old if he needs to keep paying a student loan?”
Namir felt smaller with every word, but he knew this was his duty as their son. They had given so much to him, so it was only reasonable that he listened to them.
“No, I don’t need money,” Namir finally replied, timidly. “It's just that we had our call scheduled for today. The one the therapist said we need.”
“Again with this.” Namir felt his father's anger through the phone. “We already told you that we went there because the school said so, but you know ‘therapists’ are just scammers.”
“Oh, right.” An almost barely audible whisper came from Namir’s mouth.
After that, all that was left for him to hear was the beeping of the hung phone.
“Seems like they are busy,” Namir said as he put his phone down. “Let’s hope it goes better next time.” There was little to no enthusiasm in his voice.
The next day, for some reason, Namir couldn’t get out of bed for almost anything. He spent almost all day inside the bed, until he remembered he was flunking half his classes. This made his stomach churn. A cold sweat gathered in his forehead until he couldn’t hold it in and when to throw his stomach’s entire content into the WC. Even though it was only a few bites he ate in a moment of energy some hours prior.
After some days in this mood, there was a shining day where Namir went to college once more. The teacher he couldn’t answer from days ago decided to use Namir as an example of why it is bad to not pay attention in class. This got the class laughing at him once again.
Later that day, he ran into a situation he wasn’t used to. A group of girls were shunning another one. Namir felt awful, so he tried to quickly walk past. But one of the group he hung out with stopped him.
“This is my girl!” the guy said before grabbing the girl doing the shunning by the waist and kissing her.
“See, this is how this is done.” From her voice, Namir recognized the girl as the one that laughed at him before. “With a guy, you bitch.”
The girl on the floor was almost crying, and Namir began hyperventilating. He knew that if he went anywhere that was away enough it would be fine. But he didn’t expect the two hazel eyes looking back at him from the floor, with tears falling down.
Namir tried to turn to leave the place but those eyes anchored him in place. Even when he gathered enough strength to get out of there, his friend grabbed his arm.
“Yeah.” The friend looked at Namir. “Why don’t you show her what a real man can do? Don’t you want it, Namir?
Namir’s breathing was all over the place; the grin on his friend, that friend's girlfriend, the eyes of the girl on the floor, all the people talking and laughing around them. It was too much, Nami’s heart started beating uncontrollably in his chest, air was not entering his lounges and then he blacked out.
A time later, Namir woke up in the infirmary. There was nobody other than the nurse, and the light was turning into a reddish hue.
“What happened?” Namir asked the nurse.
“You had a panic attack and blacked out,” the nurse responded without looking at him. “I need you to sign this that says it was not the college’s fault,” she said, handing him a paper on a clipboard and a pen. “You can leave after that.”
Namir went back home, the image of the girl crying on the floor still fresh in his mind. He didn’t notice at the moment, since he was panicking, but he remembered her pleading for help, and he did nothing. But he reassured himself thinking that he never got help when he needed it, then it was just normal that she didn’t get any help either. That was how it always had been, so why would it change now?
But even though his mind said that, his stomach churned once again, and he ended up in the same place as some days before.
This was how time passed. This was Namir’s normal.
Namir kept going to college every time he could. His parents kept on telling him that the calls were useless. His classmates would keep on laughing when he didn’t know an answer.
And like that, the semester was coming to an end. But Namir still had the girl in his mind. Her face and her plea never left him. Then, just days before the finals, he noticed another circle of people, and heard the voice that had been haunting him since the last one.
He entered the circle and found the same girl being bullied by the crowd. They shamed and belittled her only for whom she liked. Just for the crime of showing love and for being human.
Namir couldn’t keep his anger in check. He felt a force that he’d never felt before. But it also felt really familiar at the same time.
When the girl’s eyes met Namir’s, the girl said only one word and Namir started boiling inside.
“Istas?”
A deep growl came from the middle of the people. It made everyone panic, shaking everything they were as it turned into a deafening roar. Everyone turned and saw a tall, muscular woman with the ears and tail of a cat.
Everyone began screaming, transforming one by one into the owl Istas saw before the ritual, a small brown one. It screamed in pain and suffering, as Istas roar became more and more powerful.
Then, Istas woke up.
#
I felt a weight over my chest. Arlott was there, as cute as always, hugging me. When she noticed that I had woken up, she looked at me and I could feel safe in her arms at last, after all these months that I was not myself.
I kissed Arlott on her forehead before noticing Breena was beside us. She tried to hide her emotions, but I could tell that she wanted to be in the same place Arlott was. So, I took one arm from Arlott’s back and left a space so she could come with us.
Breena had a smile from ear to ear, and jumped over us. She began crying, as she could release her emotions at last.
“I hope I didn’t scared you too much this past months,” I said, jokingly trying to take some of the weight of what had happened
Arlott and Breena look at each other.
“Months?” They both looked at me. “I mean, it was awful and a couple of hours, which is a lot.” Arlott said. “But not months.”
Under their gaze, I started to think about what happened. All those days I lived in that nightmarish world that was my past. Or something close enough to it.
Between hugs, we noticed that Huitaca was too quiet. We looked around for her, but she wasn’t with us. So, we got up and went looking for her. Farther away, she was fighting the owl of my nightmares. Feathers flying everywhere.
Bird screeches could be heard not only from the two owls, but from many birds in the jungle. It sounded like a zoo, but many times louder.
The entire jungle was going crazy over the fight Huitaca had with this other owl.
Blood came out of their scratches, but it never dropped down to the floor. It was like back when I got hurt as a spirit.
The animal sounds got louder and louder. I felt a burning sensation building up inside me. My animal instincts took the better of me, and I roared with the same roar I had made in the nightmare. All of the animals went silent. Even Huitaca and the other owl came to a halt too.
I jumped over the nightmarish owl. All I felt was the need to make it pay. So I slashed at it.
The owl became frenetic, scratching for its life. One of these scratches got me in the arm, but I was too immersed in my wrath to notice.
This continued until the owl disappeared, and my rage with it.
Huitaca looked at me with missing feathers all over herself. But as if my rage had become her will, light poured out from me, transforming into feathers and leaving her as regal as she always was.
“It seems the ritual worked,” Huitaca said as she stood up. I could only reply with my really confused face, as I usually did to these things.
“After you fainted,” Arlott answered, looking at the floor with really sad eyes. “The ritual had to continue, so Huitaca forced the will you had condensed and forced it inside you.” Her voice cracked a little, but she maintained her tone. “But we heard you scream, and we thought it hurt you”
I looked at myself and I noticed I didn’t have the bracelet. But then, Arlott said another thing that changed the mood really quickly.
“I’m so happy Istas is fine,” Arlott said, drying some tears. “But what the heck was that thing?” She looked straight at Huitaca. Brenna and I were also looking at her, visibly expectant for an answer too.
Huitaca flew over to my shoulder. From there, she told us a story.
“When I was still human, we worshiped a goddess that was beautiful.” There was a clear sense of nostalgia in her words. “She was the patron goddess of many things. With time, I was the one chosen as her personification.”
Her eyes got lost somewhere else, in another time.
“They worshiped me and cared for me, until some other people came.” She showed anger. Something I’d never seen in Huitaca before. “They came bearing gifts, so my people trusted them. But one among them had different intentions.”
“He began talking of a single god who was superior to all of the others; a maker of everything. So, my people started to believe this man and his preachings more and more.” Tears began forming in her eyes. “Part of his teachings was how a goddess of witchcraft and sexual liberation, like me, could not be a motherly one.” She paused again, clearly troubled from the memory. “For him, I was just a rebel to the teachings of his god.”
Huitaca had to stop for a second as she cried. I never thought I would see a goddess do so, and it was one of the most human cries I had ever seen.
“That is why I’m almost powerless now, and how I’m alone.” She finished with a sob. “I think the owl that trapped you was sent by this person. He transformed himself into a god when I was cast away. Since then, he has attacked me, and everything I hold dear.”
The pain in Huitaca was too much to bear, so when she finished her tale, we decided to not press the subject anymore, and leave it there.
#
Arlott and I were cuddling in bed. I hugged her tightly, kissing everywhere I could. I needed her after all I went through when I was trapped.
This continued for a while, until we were too tired to go on. As we were about to fall asleep, a knock came from the door.
“Come in,” Arlott and I said in unison. Breena opened the door with a pillow in her hands.
I looked at Arlott, who seemed indecisive. Breena began to leave when we heard some words.
“Just for this time. But don’t make it a habit,” Arlott said with a pout.
Breena’s face shone like the sun. I opened the covers, and she jumped right inside the bed.
“Thanks a lot!” Breena said as she kissed Arlott in the cheek, making her blush everywhere.
After that we talked a little, but soon we fell asleep. And for the first time after all the months I spent in that nightmare, I had wonderful dreams.
