In a forest, far from the humans and their yuckyness destructive nature, there is a hole. In the middle of a forgotten wood, amongst the ancient tress who protect their cryptic friends, there is a hill with a round, mossy door with no handle. There is a manhole cover, obscured by decades of undergrowth. There is an upright ring of naturally bending branches, the air shimmering inside with blurry lights. There is a waterfall, cascading down a small precipice, that no human has ever seen the backside of. These, my fellow inhuman humanoids, are the secret entrances to a special place, untouched by mankind.
If one of us were to take up the journey, to travel to the undiscovered wood, they could be free of the humans and free to live as their ancestors did; as cryptids should.
So raise your wings, flex your digging talons, prepare your multi-dimensional travel. Think of the sun, up obscured by pollution; think of dirt without chemicals. Think of the Cryptic Forest, and come home.
Hive hovered over his pilfered computer. They pressed keys, creating human words in pixels that could be seen over all the world. Humming, they considered how to phrase it. perhaps use a code? A secret code sentence? they needed to do it so that humans wouldn’t find it odd.
As the hive mind of strange insects crafted a webpage disguised as group therapy for the physically disabled/outcasted, a young man was gritting his teeth.
“Einar, I am so disappointed in you. After all that we do, all that we give, you go and get silly with your friends and almost expose us. Your wings almost came unveiled, Einar! Do you know what would happen if the humans found us? Well, do you?”
His jaw hurt. His eyes burned. His chest felt like it would explode. The floor was blurry under his feet. “Yes, mother.”
“Tell me what your folly would bring upon our family, on our people.”
He proceeded just as he’d been taught from the time he could speak. “The humans would take us all away, and they would pry into our history and our way of life would be lost in the tide of mankind’s misguided destruction of what they do not understand.”
“That’s right.”
A moment of silence left him wondering what would come next. Would he be yelled at more? Slapped again? His red cheek still throbbed from his father’s wing tip whisking across his face. Or they would ground him from school, and he wouldn’t ever see Juniper or Leen, his best friends, ever again. He focused on his breath, trying to keep his emotions from dumping out his eyes in a pathetic show of what they called ‘being human’— having feelings like a person.
“Go on. Up to your room.” His mother’s voice was tired, exasperated and still furious all at once. “Your father and I have to talk.”
He nodded, turned to go.
“What was that?”
“Yes ma’am.” He sounded scratchy and weak.
She huffed quietly. “Yes, go on now.”
………………..
Up in his room, the curtains drawn to block all the light, the mirrors all laying facedown on the floor so he didn’t see himself, Einar lay in his huge mattress nest with his wings wrapped around himself. His wings, which he couldn’t control because they were too big, too clumsy, too imperfect. The tears finally were released, spilled over his face in salty drips.
He was blasting music in his good headphones, the ones he hardly ever used because they were so nice and he didn’t want to be ‘the rich kid with all the nice stuff’. But they were very loud, and noise cancelling, and comfortable. So he had them on 50% volume while he deafened his ears with Dream on Dreamer and Solence.
A notification interrupted his tunes with an obnoxious ping! His phone screen blazed with blue light. Nose scrunched, he turned the brightness down with more aggression than strictly necessary. Tightening his sore jaw, he opened the notification just so it wouldn’t bother him again. What? Group therapy for socially estranged, physically disabled and/or mentally differing from the societal norm? Why…?
A link in blue print called the site “cryptic minds group therapy”.
