It looked like wings were starting to grow out of Goldie's back!
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"Mother, father… What is this?", Goldie asks with her back turned against her parents, showing the twin horizontal growths which had emerged overnight.
"Ah! Jesus! What is that?!", screams Goldie's mother, Mrs Becky Markell, in shock, completely freaked out by the horizontal twin growths protruding out of her daughter's back.
"Oh wow! What on earth…", says Goldie's father simultaneously, in quiet fascination, equally shocked, his eyes widening.
"WHY does it look like something is starting to grow out of my back?!", questions Goldie in an equally freaked-out tone, turning back around to look at her parents with bewilderment, dread and confusion written all over her expression.
How could she be waking up to two horrid, large things growing out of her back?
Before she slept last night, there was nothing on her back. Her back was all smooth, fair, and pretty.
But after she woke up this morning, she felt an itch. A small, yet disturbingly serious itch.
'What was so itchy?'
Naturally, she unconscious tried to scratch, not really thinking that it was any big deal, but when she tried to scratch, her fingers felt an unknown, unusual texture.
So she went to check it out in the mirror, and was met with the absolutely horrifying sight of two large, disgusting-looking horizontal growths, sticking out of her back!
That was when she screamed.
Something horribly sickening was growing out of her back!
Two horrible, uncomfortable, itchy, disgusting things, growing out of her once beautiful, perfect back!!
How could such a thing happen?
How could two large, ugly growths suddenly appear on her back overnight?!...
What's worse, this was happening on a school day!
"It twitches, and is a bit itchy and so uncomfortable… and ugh it's so uglyyyy!!!", complains Goldie in the girliest, most teenage, irked-out tone, stomping her feet in irritation.
"Hold on for a moment, let me see that again…", says Goldie's mother, turning Goldie back around to take another look at her back.
"What could this be?...", she murmurs, bending to take a closer look with a revolted yet curious expression as the atrocious sight becomes more and more glaring by the second.
"It looks like newly developing bones protruding out of her back underneath extending skin…", says Goldie's father, Mr Franz Markell, leaning in to also take a closer look as he examines one of the growths more closely like an archaeologist discovering artefacts in an ancient ruin.
"...and are those feathers?!...", he suddenly exclaims in disbelief, his eyes widening for a brief moment before he regains his cool composure.
"They really are feathers! Ha!", he chuckles in disbelief, giving his wife a stunned look before returning his gaze to the growths.
"Fascinating!...", he murmurs, inspecting even more closely each tiny detail.
"Feathers?!...", questions an uneasy Goldie with her face to the side.
In the mirror, she had indeed seen what looked like tiny little plucked feathers and stalks sticking out of the growths, but…
'Feathers!? How could they actually be feathers?
What on earth were these growths?!'
"If those are feathers, that could only mean one thing…", begins Goldie's mother, Becky Markell, taking a step back to look critically from a distance at Goldie's humongous, scary-looking growths.
"She's growing wings!", she says in a factual tone.
"Wings?!!", questions Goldie in greater alarm, turning to look her mother in the face with dread written all over her face.
'Wings?! What?!... oh God!', she panics further.
What the hxll did they mean she was growing wings??!
"Mhm. I agree… that is indeed what they look like…", Goldie's father nods at her before he takes his gaze back to the growths.
"What?!", exclaims Goldie out loud. Her father was confirming it too?!
"What do you mean I'm growing wings!?", questions Goldie, turning around in alarm.
"Well, that is what they look like…", begins Goldie's mother, her attention, absorbed by the intriguing sight on Goldie's back as she glances at her daughter's back, horrified.
"Hold still dear…", she instructs Goldie, coming back forward to keep her daughter's back in place and stop her from fidgeting during the examination.
"Hmmm… strange, but true.", murmurs Goldie's father, observing the form and texture of one of the horizontal ridges.
"These horizontal ridges look like they are formed by underlying solid bones, developing out of the back of her scapula…
You can even see the detail of new muscles forming from the sides…like the start of budding wings. Wow!...", he describes in biological terms.
"Mhm…and with these little feathers on the surface…", adds Becky Markell, Goldie's mother, his fellow 'archaeologist', equally inspecting the growths closely.
"...and judging from the bone structure…", continues Goldie's mother as she examines the growths, proceeding to touch one on the side.
She gently strokes the side of one of the atrocious, newly developing, disgusting-looking 'wings', with her fingers, and suddenly…
it twitches!
To her utter dismay.
"UGHH!!", she exclaims, out of shock, instantly pulling away her hand to stare with horror at the twitching growth.
The twitching… it looked absolutely horrendous! Gross!
"Oh my god… that's… that's just disgusting. Ugh!", she says as a matter of fact in a hilarious tone, retching as she turns her face away immediately, completely disgusted with the horrifying twitching.
Seeing that up close, and worse… feeling it twitch so unexpectedly right under her fingers in a scary and disgusting way… it was too much.
It had taken her completely by surprise, scared her and grossed her out, causing her to retch and scream in alarm.
'ugh! So gross!'
…
"Mooom!!", Goldie protests in alarm, turning around to glare at her mother.
'How could you?!', her eyes ask the question.
"It moved! I swear, it moved just now… darn, that growth is disgusting.", defends her mother, causing Goldie to narrow her eyes further, intensifying her glare.
"Ha… ha-ha", her mother laughs nervously, caught in the act, brandishing a fake smile as she notices her daughter's disappointment with her cruel words and negative reaction.
'Ah… better fix this…', she reasons, instantly switching up her attitude and tone from 'disgusted' to 'sweet'.
"...But not you dear. You're my sweet little angel.", she says to Goldie in the sweetest tone, as she immediately changes her attitude, raising her daughter's perfectly beautiful face by the chin to admire her genuinely as she praises her beauty.
"So beautiful!"
Indeed, Goldie was a stunning beauty with hazel-green eyes with a hue of gold mixed in. Hers were interesting eyes.
Paired with her jade-smooth skin and thick, long, curly brown hair and exceptionally pretty face, her looks were unmatched.
But at the moment, her angelic pretty face was lined with a complaint.
"Dad, tell Mom to…", Goldie turns to complain to her Dad and get him to defend her from her mother's ridicule, only to see him taking pictures.
"Dad!", she squeals, embarrassed, stretching her hands in a failed attempt to cover the growth her father is so interestedly taking pictures of.
"Honey, you can't say that to our child.", says her dad, turning to very briefly and oh so unseriously reprimand her mother to satisfy Goldie's complaint before returning his full attention to Goldie's back to take more pictures.
"Daaad?!... What are you doing? Why are you taking pictures?!", questions Goldie, alarmed and super embarrassed.
"Sorry, darling. Just one more.", he says to Goldie, hurrying to take one last photo despite her agitation.
"We need these for your private photo album… wooow….", he responds, reacting in awe to the fascinating sight of twitching, plucked bird growths behind his daughter's precious, otherwise perfectly smooth back.
"... this is truly fascinating.", he whispers to Goldie's hearing.
'What?!...', Goldie thinks, losing her patience as she has just about had it with both her parents.
"Okay, stop! Stop it!", she turns around, dramatically battling her father for the phone which he raises high above her head.
"That's enough! Stop taking pictures. You two have to explain. Why am I growing wings?
How could this happen?"
Goldie was beside herself with questions.
This was worse than not having a belly button.
'Mom and Dad!... They must know something.', she reasons, looking from one parent to the other with suspicion.
Goldie wasn't naive. She knew well that her parents knew something, and were withholding important information from her.
They weren't telling her everything about herself!
They had to explain.
"...You can't say I'm normal. No normal teenager grows wings. I know that well. I mean, you both don't have wings, as far as I know, so why am I growing wings?
And why do I not have a navel?", questions Goldie intently, piling up her questions in a very long speech.
"This has something to do with my not having a belly button, doesn't it?...", she presses further for information.
Both parents quietly give each other knowing gazes, communicating with their eyes.
"Hah… It's time we told her.", says Franz Markell, Goldie's father, to his wife with a sigh.
Goldie's mother, Becky Markell nods in agreement.
It was about time they told Goldie. They could no longer hide the truth.
"Tell me?... Tell me what?", questions Goldie with rising suspicion from her parents' shifting gazes and questionable comments.
"Sweetie…", begins Goldie's mother, pulling her down to sit with her on the sofa as she begins to explain with detail, matters unknown.
"Listen. You know how we said you're special?"
"Yeah?...", responds Goldie as she sits on the sofa between both her parents, facing her mother.
"Well… you're a little bit more special than we explained.
The reason you have no belly button… aaand why you probably have that growing out of your back is because you were born out of a golden egg!"
"..."
The words echo to Goldie's hearing, sinking gradually into her consciousness.
'...born out of a golden egg…
…Out of a golden egg.
…Golden EGG!'
"Wha-?!"
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