The Fall of a Mortal

Words to live by

The feeling of falling was absolutely destroying his insides once again. He only seemed to fall these days. When he felt the fall slowdown and then stop, he had already been falling for what seemed like years. 

-"You have fled too close to the sun again Icarus."- the same deep, emotionless voice utters somewhere near his head. Icarus doesn't even try to move. Without movements and his head is already pounding to death. The boney hands stretch toward Icarus' body once again.

-"Is it my time to go already? It feels like no longer than a few hours ago i was here."- Icarus manages to croak out painfully. 

-" Do you want it to be?"- the words make Icarus open his eyes quickly, too quickly. His head pounds harder, a reminder of his mortality. 

-"Do I get a choice in this?" There came no answer from anywhere apart from the soft wind around the dimly lit room. Ignoring his headache, Icarus looks everywhere around him, taking in the room. It seems to have walls of wood, countless weapons draped on them seemingly carelessly, but after a while of focus, he notices the pattern. Looking around even more frantically, he gets up, with wobbly knees but strong determination.

-"Where am I? Why am I here? I'm not dead otherwise I wouldn't feel such mortal pain."- Icarus looks everywhere he can to try and find where Death hides, but the shadows are too strong and light too dim. He finally tries to calm down and walks slowly to the bookcases that seemed to fall from the ceiling down to the floor with no disturbance. 

"Who are you? Why am I here?" He screams abruptly the instance he notices that no book has a title. He has no idea where he is, what's the purpose of his placement there, his head pounding, death not even answering a single of his questions. So he screams. He shouts again and again until he feels his lungs get sore. Until his thoughts softly trickle down his face and his tears meeting the cold ground.

One by one, he felt some books fall down around him. For what felt like years but could have been a few mere seconds, Icarus fell. He could feel it again... The cold from the water, the need to breathe, his brain and bones breaking apart. He looked at the book the nearest to him and took a breath too deep too be comfortable. His breath still erratic and tears down his eyes, on his knees and begging for the torture to stop, Icarus took the book closer, tucked it deeply into his embrace. The opened book had revealed a title inside: 

"The fall of Icarus". And he knew very well he had no strength to read what was under the title. In between sobs, he had no idea why they even rippled through him, he whispered so softly it could have been lost through the wind so easily:

-"What is this? Oh dear mother, what is this?" To his relief or not, he finally heard the voice near him, too close, too deep, too faint through his mushy brain.

-"Your legacy."

-"My... legacy?"

-"Yes, Icarus. This... this room is your entire being. The books are your legacy. This world is your creation."- came a soft reply from somewhere near his trembling form. Icarus, still holding the book for the life of him, took all the courage he could muster and got up. Looking around the room, he finally started to notice the missing pieces of before. The light had gotten so much brighter than before. He could see most of the bookcase, its highest point too unreachable for his mortal eyes. He could see a table with a huge book on it. The book looked to be very heavy. Near it was a crystal, a bright blue, spherical crystal, a feather and ink, and on the other side of the room he could see a huge door, but caged. 

The book falling from his embrace, Icarus went near the door. From there he could see Apollo's castle again. The sun was so bright and so beautiful. The castle shimmered under the light like the biggest of torches in the world. Icarus stared absolutely gobsmacked at the beauty of nature and tried in instinct to reach over and touch it. But the cold iron of the cages woke him up from his dazed daydream. 

"Why am I here? What's this cage? What's happening? When can I return to Apollo?"- question after question fell from his lips, a river unable to be stopped. The voice came back, just as soft as before.

"I warned you to be careful because it was not yet your time to die. Now you will have to take each of the iron bars one by one away until the cage is out." Right as the voice was about to keep explaining, Icarus started shaking the bars with his hand as roughly as he could.

"LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE LORD."- the voice bellowed, too close, to strong, too deep near Icarus. He immediately took away his hands from the bars and listened to the voice.

"Thank you. As I was saying, from now on, you will go through your destiny up until the last iron has fallen from this cage. Then, only then can you go back to Apollo. Beware, nothing will ever be the same again. Now you have to go through each of the books in this bookcase, each dream and nightmare, each story and with each of them gone, then you can go back. May the fates be on your side Icarus."

 It wasn't hard for Icarus to notice the voice was gone. Not in the sense that he wouldn't hear it talk. Just thoroughly gone. Just like that. He took a shuddering breath and turned back toward the table and the books. Her was terrified of what would soon happen. He walked slowly toward the table and the heavy book first. He noticed the book was written somewhere not even near the middle. It was just the start. His breath hitched as he noticed words being written on the left page.

"The moment the crying chimera fell through the doors after it heard the soft noise, it immediately pounced on the nearest person,who just so happened to be Icarus, the only mortal of the group." Icarus stared at it in half astonishment and half terror as it kept getting written on.  

"Not even Apollo, God of Light and Speed and Sun could save the mortal from his demise. His light flickered to its death as the mortal disappeared from everyone's sight and the chimera was caught by the servants. His eyes finally losing all their color, the God of Light turned off, his entire being grey and colorless. The sun on the mortal world went grey. It existed thanks to Helios,but it no longer offered warmth or soft rays. It went cold and angry.

Back at the castle, Apollo fell back down the hole of darkness, seemingly to never come back again. He didn't scream or shout at whoever had let the chimera out. Didn't kill or hurt anyone in anger. Artemis was called... The God was..." The words stopped abruptly there and Icarus who had been so focused that he got startled. He swallowed once, twice, his fears coming on the front of his mind like they were trying to stop him from sinning, Icarus took a step closer and reached a hand toward the book. He pulled each page one by one til he reached the very start of his story. 

"Once upon a time, there, in a land far far away lived Icarus. A beautiful boy with brown, curly hair, eyes filled with the hope of becoming a hero in his future, lips filled with word of prayer from the moment of his birth. Brought in life with the danger of dying, he took on life, dripping of hope and fears." Icarus took his hand away as if the book had burned him. He took several steps away, accidentally stepping on the book he had been embracing earlier. He looked down to it,then crouched down and brought it back to his embrace. He kept taking steps away from the book, until his back hit the wall and he slid down it holding the book. 

At least a few long moments went by until he finally made the decision to look at the book in his hands. 

"The fall of Icarus, the poem of the unrequited love of the mortal who fell in love with a God."

As soon as he finished reading the title, he noticed the book glowing a warm yellow tint. He opened the next page and the only thing he could read before he disappeared again was 'death' and 'Apollo'. The next moment he was gone once again.

What he failed to notice though,was that in the huge book there was being written another story.

"It was the need to return back home that pushed the child toward his prophecy and destiny. Story after story, he went through all the feelings and experiences that one can imagine. His future was on his hands. The fallen shall fly back home."