Echoes of Forgotten Wings

Chapter 2 - The Old Woman in the Forest

The stillness in the village had started to feel like a character in its own right. Days began to blur into each other, while nights appeared intolerably long with an expanse of nothingness drawn over all. It was as if Ivo were being watched and that it was the silence itself that was doing the stalking. Ivo felt it even when he was the only one around, clouding the periphery of his faculties. At times he thought he heard them, soft sounds, but every time he reached out to grasp them, they faded away, mist scattering in the wind, leaving him with just that dreadful emptiness.

Every night was a miserable tussle with sleep as he wavered between dreaming and being awake. He would see himself trapped once more in that furious never-ending tempest, wings flapping against the blackness, worn out and bloodied tipped wings. The ache was his as he felt every wail of the wind that lashed at him and the cold hard rain that drilled into him. Far away, there was a sound, a voice calling something that almost seemed familiar but not quite, drawing him ever deeper into the blizzard. Each time he tried to go for it, he would be pulled back into consciousness, this time with his heart pounding, the space around him darkened and silent, even more so than before.

The tranquility that pervaded the village had taken on an almost corporeal quality. The sense of time was lost; day bled into day, and night dragged on, a bottomless void encompassing all. The young man had the distinct impression that it was not only the eerie quiet ruled over them but also the oppressive quietness that gazed back at him. Even when there was no one around, he could still feel it( the silence) slowly pervading from the periphery of his senses. Once or twice, he thought he heard people talking, but each time he listened closely, the sounds disappeared like a fisherman's net into the water, and he was left once more with that deep, hollow silence.

He would spend hours laying in bed brooding and tossing in a hazy interval of restless sleep and alertness. He would find himself soaring through the ravenous storm with a set of huge black wings, a wild and furious beating emanating from them, entrails of matted soft feathers and blood hanging from them. The agony was not just that of an outsider looking in but of immersion, feeling every sweep of pain from the wind and each chilling throb of water thrusting into him. Then, from a far-off place, there was a voice, or rather, a name he had not fully heard, and it drew him further into the chaos. As he attempted to grasp it, he would wake up in one violent outbreak, heart pounding and the room dark, silence even more suffocating than before.

One daybreak, he decided to step out before sunrise with the saved hopes that the chilly weather would ease him. Mist was low and swirled around his feet as he ambled about and it managed to submit everything to soft and wavy silhouettes. He crossed the village square, staring at the few villagers who stirred, even motioning, in the pale dawn who kept their heads down. He remembered his dreams, where huge wings were flapping up in the tempest. Why him? What was that supposed to imply? He attempted to dismiss it, but the questions remained with him, locked in his head, and much more vivid than he would have liked.

Wandering, however, made Ivo observe something strange. The trees that were once filled with flapping wings were now silent; there was no longer the usual noise. He heard the river but only slightly, its earthen burbles not as rough as he remembered, as if something was egging the land on to become still. The stillness around him became more pronounced, and each step he made seemed to move it, conscious and expectant.

Ivo felt the change in the atmosphere and his heart started racing. He looked up at the mountains which encircled the village. They were always there, large and oppressive, a constant presence in his life. They still appeared like that today. The fog settled on them as though they were refusing to let it free, the tops in darkness, like old men squatting in a cave. Then for a moment there passed a thought on if something is looking at him from above, any entity buried inside this solid white curtain of existence.