The Day My Sister And I Turned Into Wild Beasts [portable] -

When I stood up, my knees were stained brown, my hair was a nest of twigs, and my cheeks were wet with tears I hadn’t felt fall. I looked at my sister. She was standing on a rocky outcropping, chest heaving, a feral grin splitting her face.

We are not sorry for the fur, the fangs, the claws, or the howls. We are sorry for every year we pretended they weren’t there.

“I know,” I said. “I’ve been here the whole time.” the day my sister and i turned into wild beasts

Let the world beware. The wild is not a place. It is a decision. And we have made it.

Elara dropped her fork. The clang against the porcelain was the first growl. When I stood up, my knees were stained

The cage is still there, back in that dining room, back in the voices that whisper be good, be small, be quiet . But the door is rusted open. And on the day we turned into wild beasts, my sister and I learned the most dangerous truth of all: a caged animal, once freed, will never forget the taste of the open field.

My transformation came later, in the driveway, after the door had slammed and the car had roared to life. Elara was driving—too fast, too furious, her knuckles white on the wheel. She was cursing, a beautiful, blasphemous river of words that washed away the politeness of the dining room. I sat in the passenger seat, trembling. We are not sorry for the fur, the

We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. For the first time in our lives, we were not performing humanity for an audience. We were not smiling to put others at ease. We were not modulating our voices or shrinking our bodies.