Human Feathers: Black and White

Chapter 7: The Red-Eyed Willow

Three weeks.

Damien lived underground. In a city. With wings. For three whole weeks.

If he wasn’t crazy, then he was dreaming. But since neither options were appearing to be the truth, he was forced to assume that everything he’d seen, heard, and eaten… everything he experienced during the passing few weeks had been real.

It was truly quite a reality shock.

Things weren’t going badly, though. Far from it. There was so much more here for him in the city. Every day was a new day, instead of following a routine his mother had written for him word for word months in advance.

And the company was fantastic. He spent every day with his new friend, and she didn’t seem to mind it. They spent hours on end talking to each other, laughing, or playing around.

In fact, Damien was under the strict impression that if he had stayed in Benlington, he wouldn’t have been able to get to know this side of Rebecca. This fun, spunky, open side where she could be herself; wings, attitude, and all.

Damien lay on his back in the dark room. His wings were flat against the bed sheets on either side of him as he stared up at the luminescent, blue numbers built in to the empty bunk above him. It was too early to get up, but too late to keep sleeping.

But he couldn’t sleep anyway. Today, Rebecca had planned something extra special. A surprise for him. His excitement was prohibiting a good doze, but his mind was full of other things. It was even too full to worry about resting, and that was quite the dramatic leap in attitude from three weeks ago.

As soon as his clock struck 6:00, Damien jumped out of bed. He just couldn’t wait anymore. Now that the morning lights were on in the city, he figured he would spend his three hours of waiting-time doing something productive.

So, Damien slipped on his shirt, which was definitely starting to smell weird considering he was wearing his only pair of clothes, and swung open the door to his ‘temporary dorm.’

Already, there were people pouring out into the bright dome like honey bees into their hive. Most of them were headed to work.

Damien took a deep breath. It was nothing like a good whiff of a cool morning breeze, but it would have to do, considering that it was strictly against the rules to leave the city. As he stepped out the door, he couldn’t help but watch all the people going by with stressed expressions, wondering if they missed being outdoors, too. Or if they’d ever been outdoors in their lives. Everyone acted like they didn’t know the sky existed.

It seemed harsh, the amount of rules and restrictions posted by government officials. It was like they were trying to shelter the entire population from important knowledge, not only from simple pleasures of everyday life. Some of the rules, like being prohibited from talking openly about the war, were downright unpopular to Damien. Whoever was in charge of the city, they were doing a pretty lousy job at guarding the rights and freedoms of the people. Then again, it was like the city was an entirely different kingdom from North Dareen, the country it was hiding in.

Long story short, Damien had heard it said that in order to keep the world of Aviana at peace, each country had a royal bloodline that was responsible for taking care of their people. Basically, the king of any of the countries around Aviana had three main, important callings: feed the people, teach the people, and hold up the economy. With the help of his advisors, he would make sure that laws were passed and enforced, taxes were collected, and people were doing their part to work for their earnings. Protection was not usually a threat, because nobody found interest in messing with another king’s land. Every country was as even as it could possibly get.