Both Struck By Lightning

   Shiny sun. Blue sky. A usual day in the Republic of Griffinia. I reach up behind my shoulder, pulling out my rusty old pocketknife I keep hidden in my feathers. Used for harvesting the bearing of our family's grapevines, the thing is perfect for anything but the job. I grunt in frustration as I slowly sever the connection between grape bunches and the vine—the stupid thing's blade isn't even serrated.

  My name is Duez. I'm a little gray midget of a griffin; as a matter of fact, I'm barely taller than a fully grown unicorn pony. Like most of the griffins living outside of big cities, my life is pretty uneventful. I'm not exactly average, based on everyone else at school telling me I'm too "happy" and "nice" to every person that crosses me and their slight admiration of the things I'm good at. I guess they're right. I don't see many other griffins that can get straight As in Civics class and play the cello.

   All in all, I'm average and weird at the same time, popular and bullied—I'd rather not elaborate on the bullies. They suck, enough said.

   Within five minutes, I've got a vine of grapes cleaned and ready to strip another, a time I wish I had a better knife for. Picking the basket up in my mouth, I head for a second vine. Damn, I wish my dad wasn't at work, I think, He could've helped me with this boring job. Sighing, I saw off another grape pod as a chilling shriek suddenly emanates from the forest.

   "What the—" I spin towards the direction of the noise. What was that? I listen carefully, and it comes again, this time louder. It's coming from a pine forest. It sounds like a griffin! Without thinking, I sheathe my knife and fly in the direction of the call. I have to save the griffin.

   Once again, I hear the scream, preceded by a much quieter growl. Whatever's messing with this griffin, it's probably canine. A thought goes through my head: What can I do to save this guy? If his tormentor is a timberwolf or something, I'm screwed. I don't fight. I pick violet fruits. What was I thinking?

   The scream is just around the corner now. I shake my head. No going back now. I drop to the ground as the dense trees come close. Twisting my neck around, I pull the pocketknife out from my shoulder feathers and push against the handle with my tongue, releasing the blade. I take off again.

   Pine needles crack beneath my feet as I run through the forest just as another shriek cuts the air. The growl I heard becomes a menacing bark. Whatever's happening, it's literally a few feet away.

   Letting out a cry, I leap forward, letting the knife drop from my mouth and into my talons. My feline hind legs shoot me through the air, and suddenly, I see two living things. One is a battered and bloody griffin, and the other is a blue mass of muscle. Recklessly, I plunge my blade into the blue monster. If I can get onto what might be his back.... A yelp hurts my earslits, then the creature backs away from me.

   I hit the ground beneath the creature. Ouch.

   Pain shoots up my chest. The blue creature snarls viciously at me. Dizzy, I turn towards it just as it leaps forward and crashes into me. The feeling of the paws on my shoulders and the unsheathed claws digging into me tells me what this creature is. It's a Diamond Dog. A fucking Diamond Dog. Perfect.

   I can feel my wings beneath me, getting crushed the Dog's weight and my own. Panic overcomes me. If I'm under here too long, my wings will break. I reach across myself and try to grab my knife, which was apparently sunk into the Dog's shoulder, but it's just thrashing too wildly for me to grab it.

   My wings hurt. They really, really hurt. A few tears blur the edge of my vision, and I grow desperate. I rake my talons along the Diamond Dog's chest, leaving four small gashes. Almost no blood leaks out. My attack did nothing. I scream in equal terror as the previous griffin had and drive my beak into the Diamond Dog's leg.

   It loses its footing and falls over. I'm free. I just have to get up, get up, get up! I twist my back, and just like that, all my weight is put on my right wing. Already hurt, the pain makes me flinch, just long enough for the damn Dog to struggle back up. The next thing I know, it has me pinned, forcing my face into the ground—with one paw digging into each wing.

   Pain. That's all I feel, is pain. The tremendous heftiness of the Dog puts so much pressure on my delicate wings. I can hear the feathers and maybe even bones cracking. The pain. Oh, Gods, the pain. A tear leaks from my eye. I can't take much more. Oh, please, just make it end!

   My left wing snaps in half. The pain is crippling. My head spins. I'm scared now. I'm scared of dying. This Dog is going to kill me. I begin to weep as the Dog's jaws dig into my shoulder. Absolute fire lances up my flesh. Blood spurts from the wound. This is it. I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.

   "Stop!" I manage to cry up at the Dog despite my face being shoved into the ground. "Don't kill me, please! I don't want to die!"

   The dog snarls. I'm covered in the Dog's spit. It presses down with its right paw. The next thing I know, I hear another snap, a fresh explosion of fire—

   —and then everything goes black.

   I wake up in a white bed in an equally white room. I'm laying on my back. My wings feel funny, kind of numb. Everything else throbs, though. Dizzy, I turn my head to inspect my surroundings. I see a row of beds identical to the one I'm on, as well as several machines, a couple of which are hooked up to me. The only other person in the room is a beaten-up griffin covered in bloodstained bandages. By now, I can guess that I'm in some sort of hospital, but why?

   My head begins to clear, and slowly I remember what happened. The screams, the Diamond Dog, my broken wings...I shudder. I was so close to being dead.

   A door opens at the end of the room, and in walk a group of griffins. Two are carrying a third, sick-looking griffin through the room and leave through a door on the other end. One is a crisp, white female griffin. The final two are my parents.

   My stomach does a dive for my tail. I completely forgot about what my parents are going to think of me charging into the forest towards a random screech. My blood turns to ice, and body tenses up. I pray that my mom does most of the talking. If my dad has anything to say, it won't be good. I shrink against the bed when they see me.

   My parents, under the monitoring of the nurse, head straight for me. My mom looks weak with fear, and tear streaks line her face. I feel a bit ashamed. How worried had my parents been when they had found out I was hospitalized? I don't have to wait long to find out. The second they reach me, mom opens her mouth to speak.

   "What in the world happened to you?" she whispers, staring at me in awe. I'm silent, too scared to find out about what's going to go down. What my parents are going to say. How damaged my wings are.

   "What happened, son?" my father asks.

   I struggle for words. "I– uh– what–"

   My mother grabs my talons, holding them in hers. "What happened?" she repeats. "Why did you go into the forest?"

   I finally find my voice. "I-I heard a griffin screaming from there. I went to go... to go help him. A Diamond Dog was there and-"

   "A Diamond Dog?!" my father interrupts, and I wince. "Son, what were you thinking?! Taking on a Diamond Dog?!"

   "I didn't know it was one at first. And I was thinking that-" I stop to wait for a sudden wave of body-wide pain to wear off. "-I could kill it."

   "Why would you think that?" my dad cries incredulously. "A Diamond Dog, son. Not even a well-trained infantry griffin could take one of those, let alone a fourteen year old! What were you thinking—"

   "Leono!" my mother says crossly, just loud enough for him to hear. He stops and turns towards her.

   "What?" he growls.

   "He's already hurt enough as it is! We don't need to be screaming at him when he's lying in a hospital bed!"

   "So you're saying we shouldn't punish him?"

   "I'm not saying that at all. But right now, he's punished enough! He's going to be scarred, Leo. Scarred."

   Utter confusion erupts with me. Scarred? What? I'm just a little hurt is all.

   "What do you mean?" I inquire. "I just got beat up. I'll be fine, right?"

   My mom flinches. "N-no, honey, you won't," she replies nervously.

   "What? Why? What's happened?" I stare at my mom, who doesn't answer. "Mom!"

   My dad snaps at me. "Give her time! This hurts her too, you know!"

   I glare at him. "Well, obviously it doesn't hurt you! Can't you feel at least a little bit bad for me since, you know, I got put in the fucking hospital?"

   "Watch your language!" my dad yells at me.

   "Language? I'm in a sitting injured in a hospital bed, and all you can care about is my language?!" Any pain or fear I felt vanishes. "Well, screw you, dad! You worthless piece of shit! My wings were broken in half, I nearly got killed, I'm trying to find out what the hell's going to apparently scar me for life, and if all you can do is sit there and whine about my language, then I don't know why you still consider it a good thing that I'm still alive! Do you even care about me? Because I don't want you in here if you're going to ridicule me! Get out, dad!  Get the fuck out!"

   My dad gets ready to shout at me, until the white-feathered nurse, out of nowhere, deftly injects a needle right into a vein in my neck. Whatever it was, the effects set in immediately. I suddenly feel incredibly tired. My head spins and my eyelids feel heavy.

   "What... was that?" I moan, my words slurred. I start to feel strange. Everything spaces out and seems far away. Through the feeling, I hear the nurse mumble something about a... "setadive?" "Sedagive?" What?

Sedative! She gave me a damn sedative. I'm going to pass out.

   I don't get to curse her for it before I collapse flat onto my back.

   The world comes into focus around me again. I'm still in the hospital bed. The nurse that sedated me is tending to something, and my parents—well, my mom, at least—is still there. Everything is fuzzy, and I want to fall back asleep. I groan and rub my head. I still can't feel my wings. My mom sees me stir and seems to grow tense. "You're awake," she says flatly.

   "Yeah," I mumble. I remember the miniature blowout I had with my dad, and guilt washes over me. "Listen, about me swearing at my dad..." I hesitate. "I'm really sorry. I guess what he said just...made me lose control." I wait for a response.

   My mom sighs, then gently wraps me in a one-armed hug. "It's okay," she murmurs. "It happens to even the most well-behaved teenagers. It's a part of life. We all lose control sometime." I hug her back, sitting up fully to put both forelegs around her. I rest my head on her sleek shoulder for a second, sighing sadly.

   "I wish I hadn't said what I did," I whisper. "I know everyone regrets something, but I don't think this... whatever this is, is something I can live down." My mom doesn't answer, just hugs me tighter. I want to stay like this forever, embraced, comforted, but I know I can't. There's still one more unanswered question.

   "So, mom," I begin slowly, pulling out of the embrace. My stomach twists. "I really have to ask. What did the Diamond Dog do to me that made you so worried?"

   No answer. My mom looks away from me. I shake her shoulder and ask her again. "Mom? What did the Diamond Dog do?"

   My mother whimpers a bit. "What it did..." she hesitates. "It's going to change your life. In a bad way."

   "What?" I'm more alert now. What did the Dog do to me? "Mom, what happened?" I grab her shoulder. "Mom!"

   "What I'm going to tell you might make you cry. But I want you to remain strong," she says.

   "You're making me nervous, mom. What did it do?"

   "It..." Mom cringes. "It completely destroyed your wings. The doctors had to amputate them."

   My claw drops from her shoulder. Everything spaces out, like I'm on that drug again. I can't feel anything. What did she say? My wings—gone? My trademark as a griffin, gone? "Did you just say..." my voice trails off. I'm too stunned to speak.

   "Yes, sweetie. He cut your wings off. You won't ever fly again." A tear leaks from my mother's eye.

   I just stare at her. I can't believe it. I won't believe it. No. My wings are not gone. Anything but my wings. Absolutely not. "You're lying," I say. "There's no way..." I dwindle again. I can clearly see my mother crying. My mom never cries. There's no way she could be faking it. She was—no. My wings are fine. She's just being dramatic. I'm going to come out of this hospital with the only scar being the mental one of the Diamond Dog nearly killing me.

   Then I remember my wings felt funny when I first woke up in the hospital. Almost like they were... missing.

Oh, no. Slowly and carefully, with a shaking talon, I reach behind my back and touch the base of my wings. I feel a little stump. Oh, Gods, no. I reach for my other wing. Another stump. My wings... they aren't there.  "No..." I whimper. Tears form in my eyes. "No!" I sob, louder this time. "Not my wings! Anything but that! Not my wings! What kind of griffin am I without wings?!" I go weak. "No no no no no!"

   My mother wraps me in another embrace, standing on her hind legs to put both arms around me. "I know, honey," she says shakily. "I know. But we'll-we'll get through it, somehow." I don't hear her. All I can think about are my grey, broken wings, probably burning in some furnace fire by now.

   "This isn't happening!" I scream. "I can't lose my wings!"

   My mom squeezes me even tighter. "It's not the end of the world, honey! It'll be okay!" I can feel one of her tears roll down my shoulder.

   And it makes me snap. I shove her off.

   "First off, no it won't!" I screech. "Flying is everything to every griffin! What kind of griffin doesn't have wings? A useless griffin, that's what kind! Half of my classes at school are in the fucking sky, mom! How can I get to them if I can't fly? HOW?!"

   My mom tries to speak, but I cut her off.

   "Secondly, why are you crying? I'm the one that lost my wings! You're not! You still have yours! I don't! I'LL NEVER FUCKING FLY AGAIN! EVERY OTHER GRIFFIN GETS TO DO IT, BUT NOW I'LL JUST BE OVER HERE LITERALLY GROUNDED AND THERE'S NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO ABOUT IT!" My head begins to pound from all of my screaming, but I don't care. I reach out to scratch my mom. "YOU CAN'T—"

   Then that Gods-forsaken needle plunges straight into my neck again. I try to fight the sedative, try to give my bitch of a mom what she deserves, but within ten seconds I'm heavy and zoned again. I struggle to keep my eyes open and make my mouth work. Nothing comes out, and soon I'm falling into blackness again. Just before darkness closes in, a final thought jumps through my mind.

What do I do?