I felt my body jolt when I heard the unknown man’s voice. My first reaction was to hide myself from him, but since there was nothing nearby to duck behind, all that instinct made me do was bury my face in my wings. It took a second to realize what a pointless exercise that was; my thoroughly drenched body was still on full display, regardless of whether my face was visible. I would have seen my reaction as comical had it not been for the circumstances.

I curled my ears in the direction where the voice came from, and heard the kicking of rocks on the shoreline as the stranger approached. He definitely spotted me. For a moment, I hoped that my abnormal appearance might have been enough to make the witness run away, but instead the footsteps continued to grow in volume, as he approached me with long, purposeful strides.

I couldn’t bring myself to uncover my eyes and look at whoever was approaching me. I had already been through so much that night that I wanted nothing more than to turn the whole world off. Whatever disasters were happening around me needed to just shut off with a switch so I could be alone for a while, and that meant I had to ignore whatever siren calls they made to bring me back to the present. I could just keep my face buried beneath my wings, and the world around me didn’t exist.

The world, of course, had other plans. I heard the man stop right in front of me, and sensed him loom over me for a moment. Even though I wasn't looking at him, I knew in that short moment that I could really feel him there. In fact, I felt him in a way I had never before experienced.

It wasn't like I sensed his body there, standing above me before he knelt down even closer. It was more like I was sensing his very being; I knew he was close without needing to check with my eyes or even my ears. With no warning, my entire body felt slightly electric as my hair stood on end and my ears twitched rapidly. I had felt nervous or excited countless times in this form before, but no emotion I had known up until now ever caused this reaction. Like something deep within my body was stirring, waking up for the very first time.

Then, I felt a surprisingly delicate touch as the man took one of my clawed fingers between two of his own normal ones. He grasped the finger gently, and used it to lift up my whole arm, stretching out my wing to its full span and finally uncovering my eyes.

Kneeling in front of me was an ambiguously aged dark-skinned man whose fashion sense seemed to mix every decade at once. The gray newsboy cap sitting atop his bald head said “Great Depression job line”, his black shirt with neon triangles and squiggles said “90s bowling alley”, and the red suspenders holding up his equally garish pants said “Disco’s not dead yet”. Surprisingly, he paid little attention to my wrinkly face, instead choosing to engross himself in the veins and grooves of my outstretched wing-arm.

“The skin… no sorcery involved, after all…” the strange man whispered to himself as he observed the beads of water dripping off the tips of my appendage. “The power of dynamic movement in the air and beneath the waves needs only the skin, available for stretching at the wearer’s convenience!”

I bit my lip with my fangs, wondering when I was finally going to catch a break from the panic-inducing moments of the night. I was so terrified and perplexed by this strange man’s musing that I didn’t dare to move an inch, unable to do anything except hope that he wouldn’t turn hostile.

The man’s gaze finally broke away from my wings, and behind thick-rimmed square glasses, his intense bulging eyes locked with mine.

“I always supposed a chiroptarian would need an arcane power to maintain proper flight stance with its unusual stature, but sometimes we can learn more when we suppose wrong! And you, my little bat, are already a treasure trove!”

The man’s voice, no longer a whisper, was as difficult to pin down as his intentions and his fashion sense. Some hints of a British accent slipped through with a few words, but then a few other American-sounding words spoken with his high-pitched voice gave the impression that the accent was fake. He leaned in closer to my face, and I could swear I caught him trying to sniff me.

“Tell me, my little bat,” he continued with glee, “what are you doing on this side? What compels you to approach me so?”

With my fear of the strange man’s antics only increasing, I managed to sputter out, “B-But I… I mean, you… you’re approaching me!”

The man’s grin widened at my response, clapping his hands together like a giddy child. “It talks!” he exclaimed, like I wasn’t even there. “It can speak, and it chooses to speak to me! Finally, the universal force of luck shines down on me again! Finally, the creatures don’t cower in fear!!”

He raised his voice as he spoke, practically screaming to the heavens above as he jumped for joy, completely oblivious to me shuffling away from him. This loon was obviously bad news, whatever his intentions were.

“Hey! Do you know something?” Santi’s voice came from the other direction.

I shot up to my feet, and turned to see Santi approaching from upstream, carrying his small pocket flashlight in one hand and my clothing tucked underneath his other arm. Desperate for safety in numbers, I dashed over to his side, almost toppling over several times as my wet feet slipped on the rocks. Now that I had regrouped with him, we could run away and leave this guy to keep ranting at the stars.

“Hey, Suspenders!” Santi called to the odd man. “You look nerdy! Do you know something about were-bats?”

I shot Santi a look of shock and confusion as I angrily shrugged. He ignored my gesturing and continued trying to get the man’s attention. “Hellooo! I asked you a question!”

The man finally finished his jubilation and turned to look at Santi. I had already been poised to run as fast as my legs could carry me alongside him, but now I could only grimace as I was forced to wait for Santi to chat with the odd stranger.

“Yes, indubitably!” the strange man said, pointing at Santi. “You wish to learn how much I know about the chiroptarian, or the ‘were-bat’ as you so eloquently phrase it?”

“Right! But you know its actual name, which means you do know something!” Santi’s eyes lit up in tandem with the other man’s.

The strange man trotted over to where Santi and I stood at the river bank, as he took off his cap and bowed his bald head in front of our faces.

“Theodore Oliver is my official title,” he introduced himself. “But for a fellow lover of the mysterious such as yourself, Theo can suffice. It’s truly the most esteemed pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

He took Santi’s hand in his own without asking for it, shaking it vigorously. “Please, sonny, I’ll tell you everything, positively everything I know about the arcane underworld! But you’ll need to do the same for me! An information exchange between two pursuers of the curiosities!”

“Deal!” Santi responded without even thinking about it.

Theo clapped his hands together again. “Absolutely wonderful! First and foremost, young man, how on Earth did you manage to tame one of these magnificent creatures? And you even taught it to speak to us, too! Please, I simply must know your training secrets!”

“Huh!?” I yelled in surprise. Once again, he was talking about me as though I wasn’t there. I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“Oh, that’s an easy one!” Santi grinned slyly. “Dullie’s! You know, those fruit chews you can get at the corner store near the Sylvia campus? You just leave a trail out for them, and these were-bat guys will just come and follow it! They’ll do anything for sugar, as long as it’s the fruit-flavored stuff!”

“What are you doing?” I whispered to him, both confused and annoyed. Theo could hear me, but I was starting to doubt he’d actually pay attention to anything I said.

“Telling him how I trained you, remember?” Santi winked conspicuously at me, leaving me to wonder if his main goal was to get information or just to push my buttons.

Theo apparently didn’t notice our obvious subtalk happening right in front of his eyes. “Ah, is that so?” he proclaimed. “The need for sugary substances remains paramount for mammals in all forms!”

He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket, flipped through the cluttered and disorganized pages until he found one with space left over, and jotted a sloppy note at breakneck speed. “Now, moving on to the next question…” he continued.

All of a sudden, his face contorted. The merriment that he’d been beaming just a moment before was swiftly replaced with twisting wrinkles, as his eyes suddenly burned with anger rather than joy.

“What in the name of the Four Hells were you thinking, letting it fly straight into danger like that!?”

He leaned in close to Santi’s face as he shifted to berating, causing Santi to step away in shock before he regrouped and mirrored Theo’s leaning towards him.

“Hey! What do you know about what I’ve been up to, dickhead!?”

In response, Theo snatched the small flashlight right out of Santi’s hands. The swiftness of his movement caught us both off-guard, as Theo shined the light underneath his chin, giving his face a sinister glow.

“You’ve managed to befriend one of the rarest endangered creatures in all of Schriver Woods, and instead of supervising and protecting it, you chose to let it go off into the night on its own devices, and swim right into sheer peril!”

Santi, now in defense mode, interrupted Theo’s rambling. “What the hell are you talking about!? We stayed out of sight the whole time!”

“I’m not talking about that peril!” Theo replied. “I’m talking about this!”

He turned the flashlight away from his face, and pointed it down at my right leg. A slimy dark green residue, left over from where the underwater creature had snatched onto me, clung onto my matted fur. I hadn’t noticed it before, which made it extra unnerving that Theo apparently spotted it before I did.

Santi wrinkled his nose when he saw the odd substance. “Eurgh… Rowan, what is that!?”

“Clear signs of a Marileshy attack is what that is!” Theo answered for me.

My eyes widened. “Wait… you know what’s under the water!?” I croaked out.

To my surprise, Theo turned to me and looked into my eyes to respond to my question. “The Marileshy. A creature of snakelike vines, capable of adopting a wide range of visages. Typically harmless, but if agitated, it has a tendency to latch onto anything that passes by. If it’s out in the trees, it’s a nuisance. If it’s underwater… treacherous. Though it’s certainly curious that you don’t already know about them, given that they come from your side.”

Santi interjected before I could ask Theo what he meant by that. “Wait! So there’s, like, an actual sea monster under that water?”

“Indubitably. I didn’t know for certain until I found you. But I have…” he paused, gazing back up at the sky as he seemed to consider his next word carefully. “…hunches about this sort of thing. That’s the original reason I came here tonight. I couldn’t sleep. And when I can’t sleep, it’s usually because there’s been a disturbance. They’ve been much more common lately; I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month. And now you’ve shown up, too…”

I waited in anticipation for Theo to continue telling us more, but he just put his hand on his chin, trying to figure me out. I thought back to what he just said, and one point caught my attention now that I had a moment to chew on it.

“A month ago…? That’s the same time this started happening!”

Theo looked at me inquisitively. “Hm? When what started happening, little one?”

His question put me on edge. Not because it was unusual or I wasn’t expecting it, but because I didn’t know how to answer it. Where was I even supposed to begin? And for that matter, I wondered whether I even should begin. I still had no clue what this strange man’s ultimate intentions were, and maybe it wasn’t a good idea to reveal everything that happened to me until I knew that for sure. Still, my consideration of this point caused an awkward silence to hang in the air. Realizing what I had just gotten us into, I shot a glance at Santi, hoping he would save me from the situation.

He came to my rescue and stepped in, taking a position between me and Theo.

“Okay…” he began. “Let’s take it from the top. I’m Santi, I’m a human as you can tell. And Rowan here isn’t really a… chiropteran, or whatever you call it. They’re a human too. Or, normally they’re a human. Something has cursed them to turn into this creature at night, and I only just found out a few hours ago. We’re students at Sylv U, and I’m their roommate. Not their tamer, or whatever you were thinking. I was a little freaked out when I first saw them, but I can tell they’re still the same person even in this new form. And then after I discovered their secret, we kinda ended up… falling out of the window. I thought maybe they could fly back into our dorm room, but they said they didn’t know how to do it, so we came here to try and learn.”

I raised my hairy eyebrows at him, and his voice became quieter as he added, “...aaaaand I pushed them off the bridge so they would maybe learn how. ‘Cuz, y’know, their instincts would have taken over.”

I appreciated that he owned up to that part, though I wished he also mentioned how he pushed me out of the dorm window.

“The point is,” Santi continued, “we have no idea what we’re doing. We don’t know how this happened to Rowan, we don’t know what it means, and we don’t know how to fix it either. But maybe you do! You have a name for what Rowan is, and whatever thing was under the water there. So please, as someone who’s well-versed in all the crazy creatures that live here, we need your advice!”

Theo nodded solemnly as he took in the explanation, with no hints of the anger from before on his face.

“I see…” he finally said. “I must apologize for my outburst earlier. What you did was reckless, but then again, you aren’t well-versed in the underbelly of Virgil’s Pine after all. I was too hasty in assuming that you were a fellow surveyor of the sylvan world.”

Theo peered around Santi’s head, making eye contact with me again.

“What is it that you need, little bat?” he asked modestly.

I blinked in surprise. “Uh… what I need?” I stammered out.

“What do you need my help with?” Theo elaborated. “If I were to tell you what I know, what are you hoping to accomplish?”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I drew in my breath, worrying that there might be a wrong answer to this question. Still, I didn’t have time to come up with some lie, especially since I didn’t know what he was hoping to hear. Might as well just tell the truth.

“Well, some answers would be nice,” I started out. “I want to know what I am, and why this is happening. But more importantly, I want this thing gone.”

I gestured at myself, then spread out my wings so that he could get a good look at my whole form.

“I’m not supposed to be one of these bat creatures. I’m just a human, and that’s all I want. I want to be a normal person again. I want to be able to go to parties or hang out with friends or go to night classes without growing a snout. Just like I could before. I just want to… go back to the way things were. When everything made sense, and I wasn’t caught up in all this craziness.”

Theo responded once again with a long, drawn-out nod.

“I understand. Being forced into a new life like this is difficult, and you have nobody who can help guide you. I’m willing to tell you everything that I know.”

For the first time since Theo first appeared, I felt a smile curl up on my lips, almost allowing my fangs to show before I made a conscious effort to hide them.

“Thank you! So much!” I replied, sighing with relief.

Theo held up the palm of his hand. “IF…” he continued dramatically, “the both of you are willing to help me in return.”

My smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared..

“What do you need our help with?” Santi asked. “I’m sorry, man, but like I said, we really don’t know anything besides what you can tell us.”

Theo stepped to the side so that he was in full view of both of us.

“My proposal of what I need is two-fold…” he began. “First, I would like you–Rowan–to permit me to study you. Nothing invasive, you have my word on that. Just enough so that I can confirm some of my research that I’ve never been able to verify. And second, I’d like the both of you to assist me in containing some of the local… leakage.”

“Leakage?” Santi repeated. “You’ve gotta be more specific than that.”

Theo suddenly turned away, and faced the water. He kicked over a few of the rocks on the shoreline, then picked up a particularly flat one. He held it to the side, aimed it out at the river, then tossed it to a spot where he was holding the beam of light from Santi’s flashlight. It skipped over the water a surprising number of times, arcing slightly as it bounced again and again over the water’s surface.

Then, a moment later, the flashlight beam caught a glimpse of the dark-colored vine snapping up above the water’s surface. It grabbed the stone, and in an instant, it was gone, presumably dragging the rock down to the depths where it would never again see the light of day.

“I’m referring to that.” Theo replied, still watching the water. “I don’t yet know exactly what’s causing it, but something is rocking the foundations of this town, and the creatures who live on the other side of it are becoming agitated. So, as the only person who stays up this late, I took it upon myself to help contain any arcane leakage that enters this world. And in this particular case, the task would be much easier with company.”

Even in the darkness, I was able to see the color drain from Santi’s face. “You want us to help you catch… that thing?”

“It’s easier than you’d think,” Theo replied, still watching the water. “All I need is a lure and a second wrangler, and we’ll be all set. I’ll walk you through every step as necessary. All you’ll need to do is follow my instructions.”

I felt my ears twitch as I heard those two role options. “Which one of us is going to be the lure…?” I asked, already feeling like I knew the answer.

Theo pushed his glasses up on his face as he turned to face me.

“Rowan… how would you like a proper flying lesson?”

*************************************************************************************************************

After the earlier events of tonight, the last place I wanted to go was back to the top of the bridge, sitting on the railing yet again. The water, once an ocean beneath my feet, now looked more like the black sludge that oozed out of the Marileshy’s vine when I slashed at it. Or, put another way, it was like sitting above a river of lava, ready to drop into what I now knew to be certain death if I wasn’t careful.

I sucked air in through my teeth, willing my body to stop shaking. At least enough time had passed that my fur had dried off from my last dive into the Trebelick, giving it a surprisingly fuzzy quality that I wasn’t used to. Now all I had to do was hope that Theo’s advice would be sufficient to save me from getting drenched again.

“D-Does this plan absolutely have to include me flying over the river?” I asked, craning my neck to look over at Theo and Santi. Santi gave me a supportive smile and thumbs-up, which provided only minimal comfort.

Theo put his hand on my shoulder, feeling it trembling under his gentle grip. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Brilliant deduction, detective! You cracked the case!” I growled, turning away to look up at the sky. I probably should have kept that outburst in. We need Theo’s knowledge, I reminded myself. I’ll never get cured without it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Theo replied. “You’re putting pressure on yourself because you need this to work. But without proper care, that line of thinking is going to get snagged in your conscience like burrs, and it will hinder your smooth flying. If you’re going to do it properly, you need to brush all those burrs off.”

I sighed deeply, pushing down all the frustrated comments I wanted to make. “That’s… not really my strong suit. Never has been.”

“And it never will be your strong suit if you keep telling yourself that it isn’t. But the only reason that’s the case is because you’re thinking about it!”

Theo leaned in closer, and pointed to the water below us. “A fish in a river doesn't think about the fact that the water is flowing around it. It simply feels it. It thinks about swimming to a nearby piece of food, and it does so. You, as a bat, have already done something similar in the water. Now you just need to apply that same principle in the air. There’s no thinking, only doing.”

More like only dying, is what I wanted to say. Instead, I grumbled, “If you’re talking about me tapping into my instincts, Santi already tried that. It didn’t work out so well.”

“It worked when you were hanging from the window!” Santi jumped in helpfully.

Theo turned back around to where Santi stood. “Hanging… of course! Santi, that’s ingenious! Why didn’t I think of it before!?”

I turned my body around and swung one leg over to the safe side of the railing. Santi was beaming with pride, even though he almost certainly had no idea why Theo was saying that. Theo, judging from his body language, was about to go off on another long bout of jubilation, and Santi and I glanced at each other as we mutually recognized what was about to happen.

“¡Gracias, ganso!” Santi interrupted in an effort to keep him focused. “Please, do explain to Rowan my unappreciated genius!”

Theo spun around again, holding his arms out towards me. “Of course Rowan couldn’t fly when they were sitting like this! It’s not proper takeoff posture for their species!”

I grimaced at hearing the word species being used to describe my form. “So, what counts as proper posture, then?” I asked. As I spoke, I swung my other leg around to the safe side of the railing, silently appreciating the solid ground beneath my feet.

“There! Stop right there!” Theo froze his outstretched arms and knelt his legs in a dramatic fashion. I held my breath as I watched him strike that odd pose. I thought he was about to scold me for turning away from the water like the coward that I was, but to my surprise, he was grinning. “Hold that position,” he ordered.

I did as I was told, gripping the railing with my clawed wings as Theo stood up and leaned in close to me again. This time, he had a pensive look in his eye, and his usual intensity was mellowed out as he brushed the sides of my wings with his hands, as though he were about to give me a hug.

“Rowan…” he began. “I know you’re not just nervous. You’re overwhelmed. This body, these sensations, these abilities, it’s all so new to you. And it’s certainly scary too. But that’s only because there’s so much of it all at once.”

I glanced to the side, unable to shake the nerves caused by the eye contact, even among his gentle words.

Theo pushed on regardless. “When you’re faced with too many new things at once, it’s easy for all of them to become blurry. Sometimes, to focus on what you really need, the first step is an exercise in tuning out noise.”

He ran a finger along the rim of my glasses, careful to avoid touching the frames. “Take these, for instance. Growing up as a human, you’ve lived an entirely visual existence. All of your perception of the world was built up around your eyes from the day you came into this world.”

He then dragged his finger up along the edge of my ear, and I couldn’t stop it from flicking involuntarily. “The bat, on the other hand, lives through sound. It perceives the world through the ears first, and the eyes second. It is not blind, despite the myths surrounding it, but it’s easy for a human to come to that misconception. It’s nigh impossible to truly put yourself inside the mind of something that doesn’t look at the world as you do.”

His finger made its way down to my face, and playfully booped my nose. “But that’s exactly what you need to do. So, as a first step to achieving that, I’ll need you to close your eyes.”

I returned my gaze to Theo’s face, his own dark eyes shimmering behind square frames as they caught the moonlight above.

“What happens after I do that?” I asked warily.

Theo smiled warmly, dimpling his cheeks. “You’ll trust me to guide you through the rest.”

I chewed my bottom lip as I took in Theo’s words, sizing him up from head to toe. He was an oddball, in dress and in character. Amidst those eccentricities, he was now showing a tenderness which was masked before by his enthusiasm. It was hard to tell whether that was intentional, but given his outburst about Santi’s irresponsibility, maybe he was just a guy who truly wore his heart on his sleeve all the time.

On the other hand, he clearly knew a lot about things no person realistically should. More information than he would let on, unless I did this favor for him. This only amplified that feeling I had from before, that gut instinct that made my hair follicles prickle and my ears twitch rapidly when he first approached me. There was more to him than what I was looking at. Even if I had no real proof, the reaction I felt from my newly-enhanced senses couldn't be for nothing.

How and why would he know all that he did? And what did he want with me? Enough to risk me falling into the abyss again just to try to teach me flight?

The silence became suffocating as doubt began to fill my brain. In that instance of confusion, I was surprised to find myself looking Santi in the eyes again. Just like what happened back in the dorm room, I stared intensely at him, somehow wishing he could save me from my latest trap. Even if, in this case, it was just indecisiveness and suspicion.

Santi, immediately recognizing what I was doing, widened his grin and nodded slowly. Reassuringly.

I didn’t smile back. Instead, I intensified my staring for just a second longer so that he’d know that if this got me killed, I would come back as a ghost and haunt him forever. Yet, despite all my hesitation, and the storm of thoughts rumbling in my head, I finally closed my eyes.

Not much changed at first. The crickets still chirped all around us, though as I tried to distract myself by listening to their chorus, I noticed that it was easier to pick out the sounds of each individual insect. It even started to become harmonic the longer I listened to it, as each little bug found just the right note to hit to complete a full chord. Perhaps I was just imagining it, or perhaps it was by nature’s design and I had never paid enough attention to notice before. Either way, it succeeded in calming me down. So much so that I didn’t even react as I started to get pushed backwards.

It wasn’t a hard push; in fact, at first I barely registered it at all. I could feel Theo gently holding onto my shoulders, moving me back little by little as my body weight shifted off the railing one inch at a time.

As my rear end slid down from the railing, the crook of my knees caught my body as Theo’s grip slid its way slowly up to my elbows. He was careful not to touch my wings, holding onto my hairy arms instead.

The sound of the water trickling far beneath me became a bit louder as my head tilted further backwards, but it didn’t come with the apprehension that accompanied it the rest of the night. Instead, the bubbling sounds served as a soothing percussion backdrop to the continued chorus of crickets.

Amidst the soft droning, I could make out Theo’s whispered voice from up on the bridge. By this point, he had shuffled his hands all the way down to my fingers, hooking them into mine just enough so that my body was still slightly tethered to him.

“Keep that focus right there. You’re exactly where you need to be.”

Then, one by one, his fingers slowly let go. I had a lot of time to prepare for the drop, but I could somehow tell that I didn’t need it. By the time he let go fully, I felt the weight of my body falling for just a moment before I was stationary.

And for the second time tonight, I was hanging.

My clawed toes had gripped onto the edge of the railing purely on instinct, holding me above the water with no danger of falling in. Fears about my feet getting tread on or my body dropping into the river never once entered my mind. Before, it was because I was focused intensely on the peaceful sounds around me. Now, it somehow felt like my focus was loosening and sharpening at the same time. The crickets and the river were still there, I was certain of that. Yet they were simultaneously fading into the background, and my attention recentered as something new came into the darkened vision of my still-shut eyes.

Bats. Lots of them, hundreds or possibly even thousands. Huddled together upside-down, just like I was. They all hung lazily by their feet, enjoying the crispness of the air as they slumbered peacefully. They wrapped themselves in their wings, a gaggle of individual cocoons self-soothing with nature’s weighted blankets. Their faces all sported the same leafy noses, wrinkles, and eyes that squinted as they all began to rouse from their slumber. Their ears pivoted every which way, checking out each friend hanging right next to them.

Wait… how were they hanging? Weren’t we surrounded by sky?

I looked down to my feet. No sky below me, or above me. Just… rock. Jagged and easy to hang onto. It was pitch dark in the cave, but I could tell just at a glance from the way the familiar hum reached down to the pebbled floor and back up to the ceiling where we all waited. I could pinpoint exactly how far the floor was from my resting spot, as well as the cave walls and the jagged spots where they narrowed and widened closer to the exit. I knew this not just from the gentle hum, but also because of the pure and warm familiarity.

I shook my head back and forth, clearing out my stupor and bringing my hearing further into focus. Of course I was surrounded by rock; the sky was outside of the cave! How could I have forgotten something so blindingly obvious?

I glanced around at my siblings, all slowly waking up just like I was. They were becoming restless, stirring their ears and rocking their bodies, but not spreading their wings just yet.

The sky was darkening outside. Our instincts were telling us that. Maybe that’s why I got confused; I was feeling too excited about getting some fresh air. A bit embarrassing to get caught up so deeply in a fantasy like that, but at least nobody would know.

The colony paid me no mind, each of them still angling their ears at one another, wondering when the time would be just right. I did the same, squeezing my toes against the cave ceiling, preparing for the perfect moment to let go.

It didn’t take much longer before one impatient family member finally broke the silence. The sound of their flapping wings echoed throughout our spacious home as they made their way to the exit. Those close to them did the same, and within just a few moments, the sound of one set of wings became two, four, ten, twenty, one hundred, one thousand.

We were on the move. My colony members rushed right above my head, flittering their wings rapidly and excitedly as they all moved toward the cave exit. The wave of excitement didn’t take long to reach us, and within a few seconds, I watched as a sibling next to me dropped their body from the ceiling, falling up before they disappeared into the sea of bats on their way out into the night.

Now, it was my turn. No reason to get left behind.

Taking one final glance around our cozy crowded home, I finally let my toes ungrip from the ceiling. I felt the weight of my body falling up and away. And when the moment was just right, my wings stretched out, and I joined the exodus.

I opened my eyes. For real, this time.

The current of the mighty Trebelick was no longer a deceptively calm speed. It now rushed below me, raging like a horizontal waterfall, as if finally letting out all the excess energy that lay dormant beneath its glassy surface.

I was nervous for just a moment, until the rest of the world came back into focus. My ears reopened first, the chorus of crickets gracing my ears yet again, but there was more to it this time. Some sort of rumble, low and constant with a slight whistle twinging the edges.

My sense of touch came back into focus next, and I realized what the low rumble was. The wind now rushed through my fur, much faster than before. It picked up quite a lot of speed in the time I had kept my eyes closed. Unnaturally so, in fact. Unless…

Next, my eyes refocused beyond the rushing water, and my mind followed suit, opening itself back up completely to the world surrounding me. Finally, I registered that despite my feet no longer being latched onto anything, I wasn’t falling. The river’s current, as I realized, was moving at the same speed it always had. It was me that was rushing above it, tricking my eyes for a split second in the process. And now that my eyes saw everything in the night once more, I spotted the dark curtains that lightly draped over my peripheral vision.

They were my wings, outstretched fully and confidently, flapping rapidly in a manner I had never done before, yet somehow the motions felt no different to when I was pedaling my old bike down the hill at my childhood home.

I felt a wide grin stretch across my face. I was baring my teeth this time, and for once, I didn’t care. I was far too busy taking it all in. The sounds of the insects buzzing in the woods to the west of the river, and the quiet hum of the sleeping town to the east of it. The feeling of the cool night air flowing through my fur, chilly but not uncomfortable. Most surprisingly, the solitude. Being far up in the air, in my own space where no one could dare reach me. Where all the sights and sounds continued the cacophony of excitement and trepidation I was used to, but now they were far below me and harmless. They could scream deafeningly to the heavens, but they would never get to me. Not while I was in this fragile, airy bubble where just for a moment, I forgot how things didn’t make sense.

That was what it felt like to fly.

I laughed. Not like the forced laughs I had to make at the dinner table with Mom and Dad. It was the first real laugh I let out in ages, hearty and loud chuckles ringing out from the deepest hollow of my chest. On one hand, there was no reason for me to be laughing. On the other hand, I had every reason to.

As I continued to flap rapidly, I stared at the water beneath me and practically sneered at it as I watched the flow continue like it always had. I was safe from it here. So safe that I even felt confident in my ability to silently mock it, flapping above it without harm, the sight of the monster that dragged me down almost a distant memory. I was with the wind now, and it would carry me as far as I was willing.

I let that thought linger, carrying me forward for what felt like an eternity and also no time at all. After a while, my ears noticed the sounds of the crickets dying down in intensity. They beckoned my eyes to look up from the water and towards the horizon.

There was another bridge coming up. This one wasn’t nearly as large as the one farther upstream. Though it had the same red and gray concentric archway pattern as its much larger cousin, this one was intended only for pedestrians.

This was the bridge just before Windsor Ave. I was getting way too close to downtown. Had I really flown that far already?

I shifted my weight just slightly as my body approached the underside of the bridge. That slight movement turned into a graceful arc as I shifted my body around. I took a glimpse back up at the pedestrian bridge while I did so, noting the decrepit state it was in. The moss growing on the underside of the bricks which had once been placed there with such care spoke wonders about which bridge in this town got more use.

I often wondered why this bridge was even here. If the footpath next to the bridge for cars was seldom used, then this one was fully abandoned. Not many people had a reason to trek across the bridge that took you between two entirely different worlds. On one side, you’d be only a few blocks from the central square of Virgil’s Pine. On the other side, you’d find nothing but Schriver Woods; looming pine trees, dark enough to scare off any potential visitors who might come wandering through.

Why did they build a bridge here? Who would ever use it?

In my peripheral vision, for a split second, I thought I saw someone there. A silhouette of a person standing on top of the abandoned bridge, leaning down just slightly over the side railing. I didn’t get a good look at them before my body completed its arcing motion and I was facing back upstream, only losing a tiny amount of altitude in the entire process.

I pushed the thought of that silhouette out of my mind as quickly as it came in. Why was I fretting about seeing someone on a bridge that nobody walked on, even when the sun was up? My eyes had been playing enough tricks on me tonight; maybe for once I could try skipping the paranoia and just focusing on the here and now. I mean, I was flying! Real flying, just like in a dream, with no strings attached! It came to me so naturally that I didn’t even have to think about how to shift the angle of my wings to turn myself around in that smooth motion.

I chose to focus on that as I followed the river back upstream to the bigger bridge, the chorus of Schriver Woods now mostly coming into my right ear instead of my left. The thought sounded hilarious as it graced my brain; I was flying. Each time that word repeated in my head again, I couldn’t help but giggle.

I reflected on how much of a whirlwind this night had already been. From fear, to true fear, to genuine fear, then an actual near-death experience. Then an odd stranger, a hint at some answers, and now flying lessons that actually worked. Technically, I should have been worried about how easy it apparently was to slip into a bat’s mind, but how was I supposed to care about that at that moment? I was flying! It felt like I was shooting a middle finger into the sky, triumphantly cursing out the floor that needlessly held me back for my whole life. I was above that now, both literally and figuratively. I had never felt this much power in my eighteen years on this Earth.

And there was no reason for anyone to be on that bridge. Surely.

I shook my head, forcefully pushing the thought of that silhouette out of my mind. Nope, not right now. I had to focus on flying. I needed to get back to being in control for once.

Luckily, a welcome distraction from any lingering doubts approached quite rapidly. I had made it to the other bridge, and though I was lower now than I was before, I could still clearly hear Santi and Theo cheering me on from the bridge platform. Theo’s voice had almost turned falsetto with excitement, a successive string of “Bravo’s” piercing the night air. Santi opted for the sports stadium approach of cupping his hands over his mouth, whooping and hollering everything from “Let’s go, bay-beeee!” to “You da beeeaaast!” to “I told you sooooo!”

I wasn’t flying high enough to reach the bridge platform anymore, so instead I let my wings shift and guide me down towards the left bank of the water, steering away from the side with the forest. As I aimed for the grassy hill above the rocky shore, it occurred to me that Theo had never actually said anything about how to land.

For a moment, I hoped that instinct would take over like it had before, but no such luck came. All I ended up doing was curling my body up into a ball, bracing myself for impact before I hit the ground with a reverberating thud.

I waited for a few moments, but only the slightest amount of pain coursed through my body. Just a light bruise, one that would be easy to ignore.

I stretched myself out on my side, looking out at the river and the trees instead of the night sky this time. I felt my body trembling yet again, but the emotion behind it was entirely different. I had ridden on roller coasters a few times in my life, but nothing could have compared to the thrill I had just been through.

I chose not to pull myself up right away. I laid there instead, one ear on the ground, listening to the chorus of crickets that had guided me from the top of that bridge, to the air, and all the way back down here. I once again let myself focus on the harmonies they created, focusing on individual bugs as they chained together different pieces of the ensemble. It was as beautiful to my ears as the stars were to my eyes.

Before I knew it, my body had finally stopped trembling.

I was at peace.