THESE HIDDEN WINGS

[178+179] INTER COR GAMES : DAY TWO (THREE)

I STARE at the space Harvest once stood.

I am frozen.

It feels like I am in a waking nightmare.

I can barely feel anything. Simply stunned.

Lira says something but it just sounds like a far-off noise, as I crumble to my knees.  I can't even cry, I just stare at the ground. I feel lost. Foolish, weak, stupid, still—most of all, I'm in disbelief.

How could it all end in only a few simple words?

"Talanda? C'mon. On your feet Reddy."

Oh, I'm too weak for that.

My knees are far too weak.

I look upwards at Lira. But I'm not looking at her. Not really. My eyebrows are drawn and I simply blank out into the nothingness.

To describe what I feel is impossible. A feast of only the most ugliest feelings.

Betrayal, Anger, insanity—The rabid emotions inside me turn my body so numb, it is as if Harvest single-handedly activated its emotional defense mechanism.

Present and elsewhere at the same time, I don't understand existence. I'm weary and tired, foolish and broken.

And then—I'm flung to the beginning.

The very beginning.  As if sucked into the spiral tendons of time.

I can see Mom and I, laughing on the plane.

I see her hands brushing through my hair as she leans back, her smile warmer than ever. Her lips are moving, and my smile is light.

Small moments of pure happiness.

The calm before the storm.

And then the plane trembles and all hell breaks loose. Everything zooms past so fast that our hands grow farther and farther apart in only a few seconds. Her frantic eyes, desperate to reach for me, failing utterly and I'm falling, and falling and falling.

Her face glitches, replaced by that metal rod chasing after me from the sky.

Falling to my death.

Part of me, a rotten numb part of me tells me it should have ended then.

I take a deep breath in, a heaviness in my chest, staring at the ground, my knees sunken in the grass.

"Red?" Lira calls out unsure, as I find it harder to breathe.

I fall forward but her arms reach out and she catches me, falling to her knees in the nick of time. I take a large breath in before I am thrust again, and lost in my memories.

I blink, and I'm back in the plane, Mom beside me.

Yes. Back to the calm.

Back to the calm.

Thank God, I'm safe. I smile at my mother, as I watch her take the book out of my hands, chuckling, and my cheeks are warm in embarrassment.

It lasts only a moment, and I'm suffocating again, gasping for air as the image glitches and the plane goes haywire, twisting in the air. My hands tighten against the armrest, trying to breath. The plane turns and I can hear Lira's voice, a soft distance away, calling for me.

I blink, and we're huddled as the plane creaks, under Gravis' arms, his gaze squinting through the pieces of champagne glass floating about in the diving plane, and my head turns.

I look at myself tightly tucked beneath my mother's arms, but I'm looking through the window.

My gaze follows hers and I spot the winged convert.