Skyborn Sequel

CHAPTER 1: NOX

Warning: This chapter starts off kind of dark.

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A blood-curdling scream ripped through the ruins. Nox spun with a start, his Phoenix wings flaring with golden flames against the night. The scream exploded again from his left. It was coming from the direction of a particularly large, crumbled building across the town square.

"Hold on! I'm coming!" He called out, hoping against hope that he wasn't too late. His long tapered wings snapped open and he shot into the air, reaching the building within seconds. It looked like it might have once been a hospital. What used to be the doorframe was now a twisted heap of metal and rock with a huge gaping hole, as if something enormous had forced its way in. The fire of his wings illuminated the dust that hung in fine clouds around him. It was oozing so thickly from cracks in the walls he had to squint to see two feet ahead of him. The ceiling was so low it looked in danger of caving in if he so much as flapped a wing.

The pained cry echoed around the remaining three walls, the fourth one having collapsed by a recent attack, judging by the huge claw marks etched into every surface.

He was close enough now to recognize that the voice belonged to a woman. She screamed again, this time joined by a man. Nox's nerves burned hot against his skin. Those voices were sickeningly familiar.

He was sprinting down the hall, shouting for them through the mist. He burst into an enormous room and immediately tripped over something long and stiff. The Phoenix hit the stone floor with a bone-jarring thud. His foot lay centimeters from a severed arm. Nausea filled his vision and ignited his wings like oil. Flames rippled through the air, eating away the fog. He wished they hadn't.

All around him lay people, covered in blood, their bodies broken and mangled. A panicked scream burst from his lips. Suddenly everything was horribly clear.

Just a wingspan in front of him, half-buried in fallen rubble, were his parents. They were sprawled on the floor, frail arms reaching pleadingly toward him. Their black Crow wings stuck out at crooked angles from beneath the rocks.

"Tannox!" His father's scream rang through his ears, full of terror and pain.

"Son, help us!" cried his mother.

"Father! Mother! I- I'm here!" Nox scrambled to their side. "What can I do? How can I save you?" His sweating hands gripped the sharp debris, but he couldn't seem to pry them off. It was as if they were sealed in concrete.

"Nox!"

His head snapped toward the sound. His eyes found the source. A familiar girl made of marble was slumped against a wall. Her right wing and both her legs were all ground to shards no bigger than a coin. The boy's stomach lurched.

"Icara?" He rushed over to her and tried lifting her off the ground, but she too seemed glued to the stone.

"Boy! My protégé!" He spun to find the Talon limping heavily from around the corner of another hallway. "Haven't I been a good mentor? Haven't I cared for you all these years?"

Nox hurried to his side as the Osprey man fell to the floor. The Phoenix slid his shoulder under his boss but couldn't get him to sit upright.

"Come on," Nox shouted. Hot tears blurred everything into a jumble of gray and brown. "Get up!" He tried again in vain.

"Nox!" That was Gussie. Her long wings were broken and her body was covered in scratches.

"Nox! Help!" Twig's white and brown feathers were scattered across the floor. Just as they had been the terrible day his wings had been sawed off.