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I open my eyes to the twilit darkness of the cave. I lay on the stone floor, my head resting on Rafe’s thighs. He sits on the floor, his back against the wall next to the crate. He is asleep. His purple wings are wrapped around us and I feel cosy and warm against him.
Shadows from the camping lantern play on the cave’s ceiling.
My muscles are weak, like after a long training session, and I am thirsty. I slowly raise my head, trying to sit up without disturbing Rafe.
“Hi”, Rafe croaks next to my ear.
“Hi”, I get up, not as gracefully as I wish, stumbling away. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you. I just wanted to get some water.”
I walk around Rafe to the crate. Surprisingly, the lid on the crate is featherweight, which doesn’t seem to coincide with the size or thickness of the metal. A metal water canister is nestled inside the crate, in the corner, with its lid shut.
Unsure, I turn to Rafe. He’s watching me.
“Go on. Try to lift it”, he says, jerking his chin to the crate.
“You’re crazy. This canister’s at least what...forty litres”, I reprimand him.
“Seventy. There’s the nozzle at the bottom of the canister. If you take it out and then put it on the lid, it will be a lot easier to get the water”, he says, reclining leisurely against the wall, his arms folded behind his head now.
“You are nuts”, I glare at him.
“Go on. Try”, he nods again at the crate.
I dive into the crate, my body bent in half over the side. I grab the canister’s handles, prepared to break my bent back in half, and gently give the metal canister a cautious tug. The canister leaves the crate with ease, like an empty cardboard box.
I take it out and turn to face Rafe, mouth agape, still holding the canister by its handles, staring at him.
“You can put it down now”, he chuckles.
I release the handles like they are on fire. The canister drops to the stone floor with a wall vibrating thud, narrowly missing my toes.
“What? How?” I can’t seem to come up with anything coherent or to finish the sentences I start.
“I’m pleased to inform you that your transformation is complete”, he gives a small old fashioned bow. “The strength you just demonstrated tells us that you are a fully-fledged angel now.”
He effortlessly gets up and strides to where I stand.
“How do you feel?” he asks, studying my face.
“Okay, I think. Just thirsty and a bit weak, but otherwise fine”, I say, side glancing at the canister, as if at any moment it might turn into a lion and bite my leg off. I’m still thirsty but I’m not sure about touching the canister again.
Rafe follows my gaze, picks up the canister and takes it back to the crate. He fills a mug with water and brings it back to me. I drain it in a few thirsty gulps and hand it back to him.
“More?” he chuckles.
I nod and he fills the mug again, bringing it to me. Once the mug is emptied for the second time, I feel that I can formulate my question.
“Okay, so I’m an angel. But am I still me?” I ask him.
“I think I am”, I mumble to myself.
“You are”, he smiles. “You still remember your family, right? Your life before?”
I nod.
“And besides”, he lowers his voice, leaning in, “when you woke up, you didn’t jump up on me, so I know for sure that you’re still you.”
I pull back.
“Good”, I snap at him.
I chew on my cheek for a bit, thinking about what I’m supposed to do now.
“So apart from freaky strength, what else can I do now?” The thought pierces my mind. “Do I have wings? Can I fly?” I look at him in awe at the sudden mind scrambling possibility.
“Yes and no.” His face is stern again. “You do have wings now, but they’re underdeveloped and you can’t use them yet. They won’t hold your weight at the moment.”
Once he utters the word ‘wings’, I start spinning on the spot like a cat chasing its tail, trying to see behind my back, and when I catch a glimpse of a transparent, membranous section of a dragonfly wing with bluish veins running through it, I stop spinning and reach behind my back. Sure enough, I can feel the fibre of the wings behind me.
I drop my hand, gaping at Rafe, unable to hear anything over the shock and the sensation of a pile of cotton wool wrapped around my pounding head. I watch Rafe’s lips move but I can’t hear a word, like we are divided by thick invisible glass.
“Ariel”, he touches my arm and I jump up.
“What have you done to me?” I move my lips but cannot hear a word.
“What have you done?” I push it out of me louder, closing that short distance between us. My words come out of me in a strangled whisper.
“What have you done?!” I screech from the top of my lungs, but I can’t hear anything. Blood is pounding in my ears, pumping through my body by my overworking heart, beating a deafening killer rhythm. I cannot see anything. A pitch black blanket of frenzy covers my vision, numbing everything but the rage.
I jump on him. I punch, kick, hit, claw at him in a blind frenzy of rage. Some part of my sluggish mind registers an animal howl around us, and before it has the chance to process the presence of a rabid animal in the cave with us, I realise that the howl is escaping from me.
But that is unimportant because the raging animal takes over. It doesn’t want to stop. It only wants to kill. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I punch and punch, grip and rip apart.
But suddenly I am squashed in a vice. With my arms bound to my sides, my legs have no ground to move. Only my head is still free, so I try to head butt anything that might be near, but it doesn’t connect.
The trapped animal screeches and thrashes in the vice. Its echo bounces off the walls. The thrashing slowly exhausts the animal within and slowly it settles inside its cage, angry and resentful but calmer than before.
“If you are quite done”, Rafe’s composed, admonishing voice of a stuck up highbrow comes into my head.
As the red veil clears and I manage to focus my eyes on him, I immediately feel remorseful, his bulletproof vest is ripped apart, its chunks sprinkled under our feet. His T-shirt is torn, showing bloody scratches underneath, and now fresh new scratches mar his beautiful face.
“I’m getting increasingly tired of your outbursts”, he reprimands me, fairly cheesed off, glaring at me.
“I’m not me”, I sob, “I’m no longer human.”
“You were never human”, he cuts me, short and commanding. “You were born like that. You are finally seeing on the outside what you are really inside and you need to deal with it. It’s a very simple choice, you either live or you die. But either way, you will live as an angel and you will die as an angel.”
I weep with his every spoken word.
It is one thing to be told by many people that you are something else, unique, unnatural, a freak, and quite another to be confronted by it with such finality. Only now I’ve realised that since all this hell has begun, I was running away from it and I was looking for my way back to my family, to my sister and even to my mum. Now everything has changed. With an absolute brutal clarity, I can see that I’m no longer human and if I’m to believe Rafe, I never was.
“Ariel”, he calls to me and I jump up, startled. “The transition has given you wings, but they’re still not ready. They’re fragile at the moment. You need to work with your essence to complete the transition in full”, he instructs, waiting for me to look back at him.
“How?” My voice is so weak that I wonder if he can even hear me. My gaze is frozen to the back wall, as I watch the black veins of the pigmentation run across the rock.
“The essence is coursing through your body now. It has become you. Now you are becoming your essence. You’ve opened the essence in your core and you were strong enough not to let it consume you, to not lose yourself. Now you need to draw on your strength and on the infinite resources of the essence, on all that’s inside you and to use it how and where you need it most. You’ve managed to unlock the door to the library, now it’s time to learn how to read. And I promise you that this part will be easier. At least a failure won’t mean the end of you.” He smiles, trying to lighten the mood.
I’m still standing there like the salt pillar of Lot’s wife, studying the black volcanic rock. He comes closer, his face stern, as he gently lifts my chin up, gazing into my eyes.
“I don’t want to pressure you but you need to do it fast”, he mutters. “We have been here for three days now and its three days longer than we have. You need to at least grow your wings before we can leave this place, and you need to tap into your essence to access the powers of the essence and to be able to do everything that it can do.”
“How do I do it?” I almost cry. He is telling me all these things he’s expecting me to do, and very little about how to do them.
“Close your eyes. Try to relax”. He reaches for my hand and puts it flat on my belly, covering it with his. “Here. Just above the belly button. Can you feel the heat and a vibration? Right here. It’s where your essence has bound itself to you. Now try to find and to see it inside. It should look like a spinning wheel of sparkling white energy. Can you see it?”
As he speaks I feel a delicate vibration seeping into my hand from my belly and I strain to see ‘inside’ with my closed eyes.
I’m about to tell him that his nonsense doesn’t work, when slowly through the murky darkness I can see a flicker of light coming closer. I gasp and open my eyes.
“Close your eyes”, he barks and I slam eyes shut. “Find it again and stay with it.”
And I look for it again, a weak glimmer through the fog.
The hum and vibration grow inside me, together with the brilliant light that approaches me, and I can make out the outline of a wheel, with energy and shine reverberating from it. I brace myself to be trampled under its ferocity and might, but when it fully emerges to confront me, it slams itself around me, trapping me inside its ring of power.
And the next second I am amongst the havoc of a violent earthquake.
People, in ancient clothes are running for their lives, screaming, looking for a safe place, while magma streams down their streets, catching up with the slower ones, trampling them, dissolving their bones, while they scream for mercy under its heat.
The buildings shake, turning to rubble, burying people underneath. Waves, higher than the tallest buildings, are rolling onto the city, crushing everything on their path, solidifying magma on contact with a sizzling hiss, drowning everyone who survived the earthquake.
The destruction and chaos is everywhere, cries of women and children, howls of men and pleas for mercy and me.... floating above it on my powerful wings, orchestrating the destruction, with no mercy to give. I’m not enjoying it. It’s a cool detachment, composure from a job that needs to be done.
I wave my hand and the ground immediately settles under the feet of the survivors, waves collapsing on themselves as they gently lap at the survivors’ feet and the corners of the buildings. The wave retreats, leaving behind glistening pools and puddles of standing water.
But the quiet doesn’t last long for them and with another wave of my hand, the ground rips apart everywhere, like a straining fabric, releasing a horde of eyeless lizard-like creatures, similar to the ones I saw during my detour in the wasteland, but these are more feral and beastly. They don’t have any weapons on them or gold neck collars. These are the wild creatures of the abyss.
And again, the air is filled with terror and screams.
The bare, greenish brown scaly bodies of the lizards move fast on all fours, crouched, darting from side to side, invading the landscape. From high above, it looks like the ground moves and sways like the ripples of a wheat field. Each lizard is the size of a large human, but these creatures are as far removed from humans as a fly from a bird.
Large and heavy muscles tense under their skin. The skinned, blind faces have only one hole, surrounded by uneven, razor-sharp teeth, which serves these creatures as a mouth. Slime and blood ooze out of them.
A set of horns run down their heads. Neither of them has eyes and that total blindness infuriates them, it’s a weakness that controls them, making them vicious and bloodthirsty.
The tails behind the lizards are moving, whipping from side to side, looking for victims. Once a tail has found one, it coils around its prey, and accompanied by the lizard’s victory screech and the human’s cries for help, the lizard darts into the nearest rip in the ground with a surprising speed, dragging its victim down with him.
But some lizards are struggling to catch victims with their tails. Those raise their blind scaly heads, let out an angry piercing screech and a thick snake of a tongue leaves their teeth guarded mouths.
Their tongues are as thick and slow as lazy anacondas, dancing unrushed, swaying from side to side, seemingly uninterested in all the commotion, but the second they lock on the victim, they shoot out with a lightning speed, coiling around a human limb or torso and not letting go.
No one can escape them.
The expanse slowly quietens down. Only the occasional lizard’s victory screeches are heard with fewer and fewer human voices left above the ground to cry for help. The eerie silence settles over the rubble of the now empty, but once great city.
I’m still there, floating above, overseeing the pandemonium I’ve created.
“Try to bend those powers to your will”, Rafe’s commanding voice cuts through the vision. “Send the power to your wings, finish the metamorphosis. The essence has shown you what you’re able to do, now you need to show it what you want it to do. Will it, control it. It’s your chance to turn the balance around.”
With a low hum the ground vibrates under my feet like an overheating pressure cooker. The rumbling sounds of falling rocks cut around Rafe’s voice.
“Control it”, Rafe’s voice grows urgent. “Send the power only to your wings.”
The violent push sends me flying across the cave.
I open my eyes to a glow coming off my body, as came off Rafe’s body last night.
Rocks, snow and ice fall past the cave’s opening. The floor is shaking under our feet.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Rafe kneels in front of me, but he doesn’t touch me. His perfect marble forehead is creased as he darts uneasy glances over his shoulder to the rain of boulders past the cave opening, listening to the throbbing of the earthquake shaking the mountain.
Fear and agony must be showing on my face as Rafe tries for a reassuring smile. It’s unsuccessful though.
“That’s okay. Your essence controls all natural phenomena, including earthquakes, so just try to stop it. Calm it”, he orders over the splitting sounds of cracking stones, the deafening boom of rolling boulders over our heads, and the deep rumble in the ground below us.
“I’ve killed them. I killed them all”, I whisper, staring with unseeing eyes into a taunting, winking oblivion. I’m afraid and petrified of what I am and what I can do. “I killed them all”, I whisper. “I killed them.”
Is that what I am now? Is that what I’ll become? A killer, a murderer of the innocent?
I’m rocking myself. My heart thumps a sprinting rhythm in my chest, sending drumming pulsations to my ringing ears and down to my tingling fingers. I can’t seem to get enough air in my burning lungs, like someone’s choking me, squeezing my throat with their iron fingers. I want to puke to relieve the expanding burning ball inside of me, but I can’t even get enough air to do so. The world closes around me, pushing me into a small tight ball, leaving me with only the agony inside.
“I killed them”, I whisper over and over again. “I killed them.”
Suddenly I’m zapped, as if I touched an open electric wire, although I haven’t moved. I cry out in shock and my eyes fly open to see Rafe on his knees in front of me, grinding his teeth and nursing his left arm. He swears under his breath with a long list of intricate and imaginative profanities.
I stare at him, woken by the shock, but my mind is clear.
The floor is vibrating under us. The rumble of the falling rocks is thunderous.
“Ariel, you are not a killer”, he says through his teeth, catching his breath as he raises his eyes to me. “Well, not cold-blooded, anyway.”
His gaze is locked with mine.
“These people were following Baza in pursuit of the power and the gold. They were selling their own children to him, invading neighbouring cities, murdering, burning, raping. No one could have stopped them but you. You have done what you needed to do, to warn off anyone else who decides to follow Baza’s promises. You can’t plant an orchard without getting your hands covered in manure”, he heaves through his teeth.
He’s still on his knees, nursing his arm, but his jaw slowly relaxes.
“Power isn’t easy to handle or to live with, but it is always up to you, how you decide to use it”, he says, gazing at me.
A new tremor violently shakes the mountain.
“Ariel, you need to calm this earthquake. Now”, he commands.
“I can’t. I don’t know how to”, I cry over the new mountain vibrating quake.
Spidery cracks are spilling out of the rock veins and over the cave’s walls, breaking the rock. They are shooting up and down, zigzagging down the floor under our feet. The stench of the rotten eggs is getting stronger with every new tremor, slithering into the depth of the cave, and I start to cough.
A new tremor pushes the cracks on the walls wider apart, like shutters pushed open by a giant’s hand. The grinding noise of moving stone lifts the hair on the back of my neck. The crack along the opposite wall is now wide enough to push a fridge through.
Under my horrified gaze, the cracks widen and while I’m still thinking on what to do, Rafe rushes at me, scooping me in his arms. The next second, the crack shoots down and splits open the floor, just where I stood a second ago.
And Rafe doesn’t slow down.
He runs, with me in his arms, as I hold onto his neck for dear life. In a few long strides he reaches the edge of the cave and without a pause, takes to the air.
The second his foot pushes us off the cliff’s edge, the face of the mountain which sheltered us for the last few days, slides down into the magma ocean below with a deafening roar.
As I look down at the ocean of molten lava below, I see all the way to the horizon, that the earlier, perfectly still and calm ocean of magma is now disturbed and unsettled, moving erratically, creating high waves and large vortexes.
Rocks are falling behind Rafe’s back into the lava below. His wings pushing the air, desperate to get the distance between us and the lethal mountain. But we are not fast enough.
Another quake sends the entire mountain down. A large cloud of dust shoots up in the air, engulfing us, blanketing the faint light, blinding and suffocating us.
We are surrounded by the noise and turbulence in the air. Rocks are shooting and flying around us and once the large boulders start falling into the lava ocean below, toxic pillars of magma shoot up around us, like deadly cannonballs of fire.
We are bombarded by the lethal missiles from above and below, toxic lava shooting from below and boulders falling from above. Occasionally they collide and then a rock, embraced by magma, dissolves into it with a tiny hiss like those dissolvable aspirin tablets dissolve into water. Both of them, now as one, fall down, called by gravity.
Rafe performs the miracles of aerobatics. He ducks and swings, swerving erratically, turning at an angle and bending at the waist, dodging the lethal missiles while pushing at the air with his four purple wings.
I can feel Rafe’s grip on me slipping.
I tighten my arms around his neck, and before I can change my mind, I push my back at his arm and swing, hooking my right leg around his torso. His eyes briefly meet mine, but he is too preoccupied to question my shenanigans. I wriggle on him and hook my left leg around his waist. Now I’m straddling him, my face to his, my legs hooked behind his back, my chest to his.
I duck my head in, closer to his chest. His breathing is laboured next to my ear.
“Okay, we have to move to Uras now”, he yells over the sound of the commotion. “It’s still not ideal, but we have no choice now.”
I just nod.
Suddenly, the tall fiery pillar ejects from the depth of the magma ocean below, shooting high.
It shoots behind Rafe’s back. I feel the heat of the fire on my face as I tuck my head behind Rafe’s chest.
And then Rafe screams.
Raw agony of pain billows above my head and we suddenly drop. We freefall, like the stones around us and now I scream, desperately clinging to Rafe’s body, which is falling down with me.
My throat is raw from the screams. I feel the rush of the air past me, which pulls at my clothes and pushing my hair above me and I think for the first time in my life, really believing, that I’m about to die.
Rafe is still howling above my head. Our agonising screams are joined by the surrounding cacophony of death. I feel the jarred movement of Rafe’s left shoulder under my face and hear the swish of his two left wings still cutting the air, but that does nothing to slow our drop and we’re still falling.
People who tell you, that you can come up with a rescue plan when you are about to die, that your brain comes up with clever solutions, driven by adrenaline are lying to you. All that your brain allows you to do is to accept the inevitable while still trying to grab hold to something around you. And that’s it! No calculation, no schemes or plans, just the knowledge of impending death and mind numbing terror.
The fall is so rapid and jarring, and the shock is so great that it has wiped my mind blank, leaving only animal instincts behind. I slam my eyes shut.
Suddenly, we are both yanked up, like a fish snatched out of water. The pull in the opposite direction is so strong that my hold on Rafe loosens and I slide down his body.
I open my eyes.
The rainfall of stones around us died down and now only the dust cloud lingers heavy in the air, reminding me of the collapse of the mountain just a second ago.
The ground still rumbles and vibrates below us like the empty stomach of a hungry giant, but the magma below us is settling down now, bubbling and simmering.
Rafe is no longer screaming above me. The quiet has settled around us. In all that chaos I slid all the way down Rafe, now holding onto his waistband, my legs wrapped behind his knees, face pressed against his rock-hard stomach muscles.
I raise my head, warily looking up at him as I make my careful attempt to climb up his body. I never was good at PE and the skill of climbing a rope always eluded me. The highest I’ve ever managed to climb was to the level of the glaring, disappointed PE teacher’s eyes.
“Sorry”, I say looking up at him apologetically. “I was afraid I might fall holding onto you like that.”
“That’s okay”, he grunts through gritted teeth.
Rafe’s eyes are on me, watching me closely. He is in pain and he cringes with my every move but he says nothing as he regards my pathetic wriggles up his body, as I slowly make progress.
If we were on the ground I would be mortified by my position on him, now wriggling there, but for now I ignore any thoughts like that and keep on with my climbing. I’m so afraid of the fall and of hurting him that my clumsy arms and legs take forever to bring me up.
Once my face is next to his again, I can see large beads of sweat covering his face and rolling down his temples. Only his two left wings are moving the air behind his back.
“How do you feel? How are your wings?” I wonder how long he will be able to hold us mid-air with his injured wings.
“Hurts... like crazy”, he stammers. Trying not to hurt him with any more of my movements, I peek over his shoulder to see his injured wings and gasp.
There are no wings there, at all. The two black charred stubs are poking from behind his back where a pair of glorious purple wings had been.
We float quietly, each preoccupied with our thoughts. Minutes tick by.
I feel horrible. Guilt claws at me for what happened to his precious wings. I don’t know what that will mean for him now. Will he be left without his wings forever or will he be able to heal and somehow re-grow them? I sure hope so.
“I’m so sorry about your wings”, I whisper. He says nothing. His eyes are closed as we float in the air. “Thank you for keeping us alive”, I murmur, dazing up at him. “I really appreciate what you’ve done for us.”
“Thank you”, he mutters, pushing words out through the pain. He lifts his tired lids slightly, gazing at me. “It’s you who saved us.”
“What are you talking about?” I try to smile at him. Bless him for his gallantry. He doesn’t want me to feel guilty and useless.
“You are flying us right now, not me.” He looks at me with his soft brown eyes, all serious and matter-of-fact.
His spoken words are ever so slowly churning in my head, sinking into my brain like through a quicksand. I wonder what is showing on my face as Rafe gives me a short confirming nod.
Oh. Shit. Now what happened?!
Somewhere at the back of my mind, the little composed part of me, rolls her eyes at me, telling me to finally get a grip and to get used to all ‘out of this world’, an unbelievable fairy tale shit that I’ve been bombarded with since that fire at school. God, I only wish I knew that morning that it would be my last ‘normal’ morning. I would have taken longer shower, had Paula’s fried greasy breakfast. Okay, maybe not that, but something just as normal. I never thought I would miss an ordinary day of my ordinary life.
‘You are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy’. No shit, Sherlock!
Carefully, I turn my head, craning my neck, desperate to see behind my back, while still holding on to Rafe.
But I don’t even need to turn my head far to be able to see immense purple angel wings behind my back. I watch, mesmerised at the steady and measured opening and closing of my wings behind me.
The feathers are the deep purple colour with a touch of gold shimmer, like they’ve been brushed over with golden glitter. They are much bigger than Sam’s or even Rafe’s. I think they are even bigger than Baza’s. I’m sure I can shelter both of us in my wings.
We are floating in the air, held above the ocean of death by my wings. I can’t take my eyes off them. I want to touch them but I’m afraid to let go of Rafe. Although Rafe said that it’s me who’s holding us above, I still can’t comprehend it.
I turn my head back to look at Rafe. I should say something. No doubt there are questions I should ask, but my head is empty, and only one thought is rolling with a rattle in its vast emptiness: My wings are very pretty.
“You’re doing really well”, he stammers after a while, watching me. “I’m very proud of you. Even if it means that you had to destroy one of only four mountains in Hinnom.” His white lips strain into a small smile. He is really in pain.
“I’m so sorry about your wings. What can we do? How can we get you some help?” I ask. I spin my head left and right but all that I can see is the ocean of magma to the horizon. Two of the three remaining mountain peaks are barely visible from here, jarring the line of the horizon.
“Shall we fly there?” I nod in the direction of the peaks.
“We can if you want to take a break, but that is not our destination now. We need to get to Uras. I think Baza and Mik’hael will be here any moment now after your little rattle and jingle.”
His lopsided straining smile wakes the guilt again. Heat colours my cheeks.
“Okay. So how do we get there?” I sound more eager and upbeat than I feel. “Which direction do I fly to?”
“You don’t even need to fly”, he starts with a soft chuckle but stops abruptly, wheezing in pain. “That’s the beauty of your powers. Once you have your wings, your powers are able to bring you anywhere you want to be, as long as you’ve been to that place before”, he heaves, stopping now and again to gather some air. I’m not a doctor, but it looks like he’s getting worse. I’m afraid he might pass out.
“And I will be able to get help with my wings there”, he heaves, sweat rolling off his forehead. I reach out my arm and wipe his face with the back of my sleeve.
“But how am I supposed to take us to Uras if I have never been there? You just said it yourself that I should’ve been in the place at least once to be able to get there”, I try to sound calm and level, like Rafe was before, but my voice spikes with alarm and I have to cough, to compose myself and to bring my voice down. He is probably already delirious, as there’s no other plausible explanation for offering something that he already knows I can’t do.
“I have been there”, he grates through his teeth. “I can start getting us there, but you will need to push us through. Like jump starting a car. I will ignite it, but your powers will transport us there.”
A coughing fit starts deep in his throat.
“Can’t we just get back to my home? I’ve obviously been there and you can help transport us there. Maybe we can get you some medical help–”
He glares at me and I break mid-sentence.
“And you’ll risk bringing Baza... and his malakhims to your home... to your sister just because you’re feeling homesick? While you can’t protect them?” Rafe is incredulous. His reprimanding tone annoys me but I know that he’s right. A wet cough rumbles his chest and once his coughing fit is over, I answer.
“No”, I grumble with a sigh. “Of course not.”
“Good”, he exhales. His eyes stay closed and I wonder if he’s about to pass out. “I was worried that you were too childish for your new responsibilities.”
He opens his eyes. The whites of his eyes have turned bloody red. His usually hazel-brown irises are barely visible on the backdrop of red. Blood, like tears, pools in the corners of his eyes.
I pull my head away from him, petrified, afraid of him and afraid to fall, wanting to let go and needing to hold on.
“Rafe”, I stammer. “Your eyes...”
I don’t know how to finish this sentence because I don’t even understand what is happening to him. I don’t know what I am expecting him to do, but I’m desperate for him to speak, I need to know that he is alright.
“Yes, I know. Now we’re really running out of time. You need to open your wings as wide as they’ll go and try to reach my two remaining wings. Keep our wings connected. Don’t move.”
A heaving cough stops him and a thin ribbon of blood snakes out of the corner of his mouth.
“Keep them connected”, he stammers with the gurgling sound of the blood in his mouth, gazing at me with bloody unseeing eyes. He closes his eyes and this time bloody tears spill over, travelling down his cheeks.
I want to scream. I want to pull away. Shock rakes me and my mind picks up the pace.
I can’t pull away. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hold on to him, but I have to try to do what he said. Worse comes to worst, I will have no choice but to get us where I know and so far with my limited life travels it is either my mum’s house, the children’s home or Baza’s place. But then again, I don’t know the technicalities of that sort of travel. My mind is like a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from one thought to another.
I push the sickening thoughts and prospects of being stranded here to the back of my mind, forcing myself to concentrate on the task at hand.
Okay. Open my wings, then touch his wings. I can do that.
Rafe’s body is suddenly heavy in my arms. His head lolls to the side as blood snakes down his chin and drips onto his chest.
“Rafe. Rafe.” My trembling voice calls to him in the silence of the hell, but Rafe doesn’t answer.
Breathe, breathe. I try to stamp out the panic in me. Easy. Open wings, touch the wings.
I take two flimsy shallow breaths.
I will my wings to open but nothing happens. They continue to move behind my back, rhythmic, unrushed, relaxed, belying the panic in my head. I don’t know how to control them, how to make them listen to me. I strain, curving and bending my back, shrugging my shoulders, even doing a little jig with my hips but nothing happens. Frustration boils.
“Open. Open, damn you”, I scream over the silent terrain. The left wing jolts, then opens, slams immobile, pressing flat against my back.
The moment my wing stops its movement, we fall, tumbling down, spiralling, spinning on our own axis, held up only by the movements of my right wings and a bit of a pull, provided by Rafe’s still functioning wings.
My petrified scream fills the silence around us. I scream from the top of my lungs. Falling, head first, like a diver, I see the blanket of magma rushing towards us, but I can’t stop the fall or straighten our descent.
The reflex to flap my arms like wings is so overwhelming that I have to grab hold of Rafe to make sure that I don’t drop him. In a panicked frenzy, I move my shoulders up and down, up and down, screaming, falling.
But I managed to hold us up before.
I close my eyes, trying to block the rush of the wind in my face and its whoosh in my ears, counting. 1,2,3,4... 13 and slowly I feel the change in our trajectory. It’s not a harsh tug, but the soft curve of a controlled aircraft.
I open my eyes to see us doing half a loop, turning and climbing back up on my wings away from the deadly ocean of fire. My wings move again with a calm and even rhythm.
I throw my head back and roll my eyes skywards. Relief floods me and the desire to cry is so overwhelming that I start counting again. I can’t come apart, not just yet. Besides my arms are busy holding Rafe so I wouldn’t be able to wipe my running nose once I start.
Once calmer, I look around, racking my brain how to touch my wings to Rafe’s. The only way I see is to slide around him, closer to his back, and to synchronise the rhythm of our wings so they stay connected while holding us in the air.
Rafe is still unconscious and heavy in my arms and, seeing him like that, limp and lifeless, I need to push to overpower the suffocating panic.
I’m scared. I feel so alone, lost, out of my depth in this bizarre and hostile place.
I take a practiced calming breath and ever so slowly, I slide sideways on Rafe. It’s like sitting on top of a tree and moving around its trunk, one slip of a foot, a loose grip, and you will be falling. Only here I will drop Rafe.
Now I am almost at his back. His two left wings are still moving about. I sit there for a few minutes, watching their measured flexes, feeling the tempo of their beat, willing for my own to synchronise with his, and when I feel that I’m ready, I twist sideways, allowing my wing to touch his.
A sharp zap of energy shocks me.
I almost let go of Rafe again. I really begin to wonder about his chances of survival out here with me. If I knew how easily I could kill by accident, I would’ve taken Baza or Butcher with me on this trip.
I adjust my grip on Rafe, wriggle to hook my legs better, and go again.
I’m zapped again like I’m touching bare electric wires. I grit my teeth, holding on tight. The power is raking me, my body shakes and my teeth do a crazy chatter, but with the last of my strength, I hold on to Rafe’s body. My legs are hooked around him, twisted at my ankles, my arms tight around his strong body.
Somewhere behind my back, I feel growing heat and a second later, I am blinded by the light of an explosion so strong that its wave throws us through the air. I slam my eyes shut.
It’s like a nuclear bomb exploded behind us.
We tumble through the air, a tangled mess of limbs and bodies, and a second later we collide with a stone wall.