Howl Your Appellations

A Certain Severing

BOEN OPEOR

    “S-soft? What do you have there?” I ask my cat, she doesn’t flinch or blink. Her eyes look like they’ve been glazed by a coat of holographic lace.She drops the broken cedar-colored wood on the floor and leaves without making the slightest sound. Tiny pieces of the old wood detach and drop on the floor leaving a patch of debris. Soft has never been this distant and spaced out before, she normally approaches me when I call her name, even if it means that she’’. Something’s definitely off. I wait a couple of seconds before I leave the tub. The timing of me learning about the faes and Soft leaving something that is described as the faes “special organ”. If I peek through the center, will I see it? The throbbing red pith and the gradient kingdom center?

    I couldn’t get out of the tub. If I left that would me that I would have to face the reality that the cabin isn’t what it seems and my grandpa could be someone that shouldn’t be revered, someone I shouldn’t look up to when I breathe in this room, this cabin and this city. I don’t want to get out. 

    I submerge myself underwater as if trying to wash away my thoughts. The tangles, spirals, forms and knots of my curly hair under the water makes me think of seaweed. Everything that has happened isn’t something I wanted to happen. I’m better off alone but somehow I believed that it doesn’t have to be the case. Something about meeting a big lady in the middle of the forest made me believe it was fate. I keep my head under the water, trying to find the instinct to save myself and breathe. After a few more seconds my body finally decided that I needed air, and I’m back to reality. The drips of the water seem to play in intervals, I stare at the lone wood.

“I just have to right the wrong.” A voice from the inside of me beckons, “I don’t want to feel like this.”

    And as the scared thoughts turn into thoughts of annoyance, I rise up from the tub, letting a surge of water flow down my naked body and entangled hair. Whatever happens, I want to feel in control of it. I will not go back and I don’t intend to. If these truly are the fae’s stolen organs then I’ll just have to give them back! I think to myself as I hold my hands into fists of determination.

    I take my bathroom towel and proceed to where the wood is. The narrow bathroom seems narrower almost suffocating, the path seems to elongate farther and farther. I’ve made up my mind and I’m gonna get to the bottom of this. If the cabin is 99% wrong then I’m the 1% and I don’t intend to keep that ratio, now that I’m the sole and legal owner of this secluded building.

    I reach the place, the wood. The water dripping from my hair slightly moistens it and I take a step back. I dry my hair as thoroughly as I could with only the towel. I finish and decide to stop trying to stall any longer. I took the wood and spied the center, the color red spreads from the center like a stigmata and a little shining dot-sized crystal seems to be the centermost part of the wood. I take a gulp and feel my fingers shake. I peered inside the dot no bigger than the clock of a wrist watch.

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I leave the bathroom wearing the simplest outfit I could find, which is my black rectangle-neck dress. I dropped the wooden debris the moment I saw what I was supposed to see and feared that I would see. Thankfully, it didn’t break or shatter although it did make me ask why. Old wood should break easily, but this isn’t regular wood, I suppose. I feel incredibly inferior to it even though it’s only a chunk of wood at face value. Now that I’ve determined that the wood is of the faes’, I can finally face this reality. There’s no turning back, the moment I entered the city, no, the continent, I was bound to deal with the consequences, even if they aren’t the ones I prepared for or expected.

For now I have to take down all the hanging decorations. I’m positively sure that most of them are the stolen treasures of the faes. I’m...I’m trying to hold in my anger as I stare at the captive parts of someone’s loved one. The sound of my teeth as I grind them feel like the distant sounds of two boulders hitting each other. Reading the book of Appellations gave me more questions than answers but now I’m less ignorant. How dare I relish under the suffering of these parts! How dare Beanie hide this from me!! How dare Magnaldo do this to a race that is already cursed by something I don’t think I can even comprehend!!! THIS IS SO INFURIATING!!

I stomp my feet as hard as I can and I little ripple like rumble can be felt escaping from my epicenter; a bad habit I acquired when I was young, spoiled and neglected. It only took one stomp to get people to listen to me but presently, nobody’s around and I don’t intend to let others do this task for me. I’ll try to make this right no matter what. First, I have to take everything down, everything that looks like a chunk of wood. I hope to god there isn’t more. There are certain rooms I can’t open but Soft can somehow access, maybe I can ask her to show me the way? I have to be thorough, I can’t miss even just one chunk of the smallest of the fae parts.

“Soft! I need your help! Where are you?” I screamed, but no one came. This isn’t the first time she disappeared and doesn’t reply to my call but she always responds when I shake her toy. I ran to her cat tower and grabbed her favorite stuffed toy. 

“Soft Opeor!” The toy chimes, the signal for Soft to come down or come back. I shake it aggressively as if Soft’s secretly hiding inside it all along.No reply, no tail nor fur in sight. There’s no sign of her anywhere but something tells me she’s still in the house. I think about it for a second and regress, whatever has Soft acting strangely surely has a reason to do so, right? I don’t believe that her showing me the ”organ” was a bad thing nor an accident. If Soft doesn’t come back tonight, that’s when I’ll look for her. I’m trusting the invisible entity possessing her for now.

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I’ve managed to untether the few low hanging wood from the ceiling; I inspected them all and confirmed that all of them are,without a speck of doubt, fae organs. It makes me sick to my stomach and makes me want to scream. I’ve never felt this much rage before in my entire life and it’s incredibly hard to suppress it. This is the only time I’m excusing my bad habit. I stomped my feet equal to the number of organs I managed to liberate. Seven stomps and a loud exhale. If my anger was a god, it would have destroyed the world in an instant. I placed them all on the conversation pit and threw away the red tethers that bound them. I intend to burn them after I’m done releasing every single one of the organs from the ceiling. I have to say, I haven’t done this much manual work since High School. I feel like a fever’s about to set in but I don’t intend to stop now. If I’m lucky, I can work this fever and some of my unnecessary anger away.

As I start to try and figure out how to untether the high-tied blocks from the ceiling, I hear a voice calling me. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but it calls me a second time. I quickly traverse the living room and reach for the front door and I see Lissana.

She visibly looks distraught and more haggard than she should be. I scream her name; I ask her what, why and if she’s okay. I didn’t hesitate to run down to check if she was alright.

“Sana!” I scream her name unintentionally naturally. I didn’t think I’d see her so soon. I say her name a little softer this time, obviously because I’m worried of her, “Sana?”

She doesn’t reply so I reach out to cup her face, with my hands originally pressed on her shoulders. I have her line of sight parallel to mine. She’s scared and worn. What happened? Who hurt her?

“Say something!” I remark. She lowers her eyebrows and pulls them close together. Before I knew it, she shoved me incredibly hard and I fell to the ground a few meters away with a thud. I couldn’t stand up. This is exactly how it felt like when Krolo threatened me. Lissana approaches me and grabs both my arms to pin me on the ground. She starts to speak,

“Plans changed. You need to get out of here. This is not a request.” She declares, “Please leave.” She adds almost sadly.

I can still see that she can be reasoned with. If I tell her what I intend to do maybe, she won’t make me leave. Wait...why does she want me to leave all of a sudden? Didn’t we agree that I’ll be fine?

“What happened, Sana? Why are you being like this...telling me to leave all of a sudden.”

“Everything started with you. Things have been too dangerous. I can’t protect you anymore.” She replies, her strained breathing directed exclusively to me. Her eyes are distant now as if she’s trying to keep herself from collapsing.

“But I can help now! I know about the Weres and the faes! You have to trust me!”

“Trust you? Right after you stole my book? You think you know everything now because you read from that stupid book? You don’t know anything!”

“W-what do you mean? You had that book, you were mentioned in it!”

Lissana lets go of my arms. She grabbed them so hard that they left bruises. Her overwhelming strength terrifies me.

“You think you know who I am?...Who we are?” She asks in a manic tone, “I’ll give you a little peek, missy!”

She points her line of gesture to the sky, and it starts. Her body grows larger and more defined. Her fangs and ears grow sharper and she metamorphosizes into a wild beast. She’s at least eight feet tall with dark and grey fur beginning from the upper part of her head and a snowy white fur from her lower jaw to her chin. Her eyes are still the same masterpiece with strokes of hazel invading the sides. She’s terrifying but most undoubtedly, she’s breathtaking.

Her wolf eyes stare at me as I am at a loss for words, no matter how beautiful I think she is as a wolf, it doesn’t erase the fact that she might decide to bite and snap my skull in half. I’m sure she’s aware of the fear she’s inflicting on me but I will not waver. I intend to untether the parts stolen from the faes even if she doesn’t offer her help.

“I made up my mind. I’m not leaving. If you don’t want to help me maybe the other Weres will. I’ve already experienced two of them. One of them might want to help---”

She snarls at me. Her fangs are longer than my face advance closer. One bite and it’s the end of me. I don’t understand. I know she’s a good person so why is she doing this? I can’t just leave, not now when I finally have a purpose for staying. I start to feel tears flowing down my eyes. I hadn’t realized I closed them in the first place. My trembling feels like a personal earthquake.

After a few seconds, her breathing starts to quiet down. I slowly and reluctantly open my eyes. She’s Lissana again.

“I’m giving you until tomorrow morning. If I still see you here tomorrow I’ll personally destroy your cabin and make you leave myself.” With that, Lissana disappears into the large, indifferent trees. I lay crying for a long time.