Everything was blurry as Mark y there. The wind rustled his hair as the clouds drifted by. Slowly, everything came into focus. Casting his gaze around, Mark could see that he was in a field of flowers. Looking around the park, he could see the carefully maintained garden of flowers and the small ented mps that hung irees so that even at night, kids could py. He remembered this pce. The jungle gym sat empty across the park as the summer sun shone overhead. That’s when it clicked with Mark. This was Ramset Park. Mark looked around quickly, his eyes darting from left tht as he felt a tightness in his chest. Where was he? Father was supposed to be here.

  Then, a loud voied across the park. “The fuck do you think you are doing boy? Flower s are you fug serious?”

  Mark looked down to see an almost finished flower ade out of various flowers from the small meadow he was sitting in. The fell to the ground as Mark stood up. He knew what was going to happe. He o stop it, but he couldn’t speak. He tried to beg, scream, cry, anything to prevent what would happe.

  *Thump *Thump *Thump

  The sound of Dad’s heavy boots made their presenown as he marched his way over. His tall, powerful body cast a rge shadow as he towered over Mark. Spittle flew as he yelled. “I didn’t raise you to be a sissy. You're ten now. It’s time you man up.”

  Mark knew he o keep quiet or say anything besides what he had said in his memory. “B-but the pretty flowers..” Too te, the words had already been uttered. Mark could only watch his dad’s face turn from ae.

  “Flowers! You care about some fug FLOWERS!!!!”

  It felt like ahquake as his dad‘s boot came down on the ground. The earth shifted and cracked as the soil split, tore, and tilled. Mulg the flowers around him. The flower beds tipped over and crashed to the ground. Mark stepped towards the flower beds, hoping to do something to stop the park from beiroyed, only for a rge steel-toed boot to enter his vision and send him flying.

  Like a searing white iron, paihrough Mark’s back as he hit the tree. He heard the siing ch as his wings cracked and folded underh him. He tried to scream, but everything locked up as the paihrough his body.

  “Pathetic. Such a disgrace.”

  With that, Mark felt a hand cmp down on the back of his ned begin dragging him away. The sight of his favourite park in plete shambles made him feel sick. If only he had been more subtle. If he hadn’t e and pyed today, the park wouldn’t be destroyed. It was all his fault.

  Tears streamed down his face as his vision became blurry once more. The sery quickly faded as the colour bleached away into nothing. A sihought repeated over and over in his head.

  ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  Mark awoke with a start. He could feel the pain still ng through his back from his broken wings. He could so vividly see the destroyed flower beds and meadows. His breathing was ragged as tears stung at his eyes. He shouldn’t cry. He knew he shouldn’t cry over a memory from two years ago, but it still haunted him.

  Then he felt it. Two arms ed tightly around him. They were so warm and fortable. He could feel the faint traces of electricity dang across his skin from Victoria’s touch. Looking up, he saw they were on the cou the living room. Mark could easily see in the dark, one of the few perks of being ah draid he actually liked, that the clo the wall said 3:15 a.m.

  It took a bit of wiggling, but Mark mao escape his mo… no, Victoria’s grasp before he headed upstairs to his bedroom, scratg idly at his right arm. It was only a few mier when Mark was lying in his bed staring at the ceiling. His mind raced as he thought back to his dream earlier. What a horrible day that had been. By far, it was his worst birthday ever.

  Mark gave his wings a weak flutter. It still bothered him. Because of that day Mark’s wings had ruly healed or developed properly. Especially since his Dad wasn’t willing to pay to fix them, it didn’t help that Dad was stuck paying off the massive fine handed down by the city for the events in the park, but money was hat sparse. He just didn’t care.

  Mark didn’t uand. What had he done wrong? Why did his dad hate him so much? Why had he abandoned him? Mark didn’t know why his dad hated him so much or why he rejected mark and treated him like a disposable object, but he did know that it was all his fault. Mark must have done something to anger his father so much. If he had simply behaved properly, if he had merely listened and done as he was told, his father would still love him.

  The itess on Mark’s arm increased as he rolled out of bed and perched up on the window seat, looking up at the night sky. Ohing Mark didn’t mind about being dumped out here was that it was so much easier to see the stars. Mark’s expression fell as he thought back to his home in Winnipeg. He missed his friends. He missed being allowed to have friends. Here everyone bullied him because of who he was. Just a weak, brokeh draid that could barely summon up a ball of mud.

  Finally, like a switch had been flipped, the itg stopped. With a small sigh of relief, Mark looked down at his arm and saw that one of his scales had e off. This wasn’t unusual, as his scales would sometimes break and fall off, but this was the first time it had happened just from scratg. Mark had tried to pull off one of his scales before, which had hurt alot. Looking down at his arm, Mark could see that a new scale was already ing in under where the old one had been. Odd, this has never happened before.

  Mark froze. It felt like all the heat had been sucked out of the room. Looking down at his arm, he could finally properly distinguish the colour of the new scale growing in. It was Amethyst.