September Skies, Lies, and Butterflies (Thirty Day Writing Challenge)

Day 1

Day One: Write a short story/one shot based around the song Awake My Soul by Mumford and Sons

A/N: So this is my first entry, and I LOVED this challenge. This is by far my favorite one shot I've ever written! I hope you all enjoy it too, and feel free to critique any of my writings!:)

She was laying on her side when she awoke, curled into a desperate fetal position. The glowing white dress she'd worn was wrapped around her body in tatters, stained from the dirt of the crater. She tried to breathe in, feeling a sickening in her ribs.

What was this? This horrid feeling, stuck in her side. Could it be? Was this pain? The horrid thing she couldn't feel when she was above. When she was in Heaven.

She crawled out of the center of the crater, clutching the handfuls of sand she pulled along with her. It was too hot, the air dryer and hotter than any she'd ever felt before. Was this Hell? Was this what it felt like to be cast into Hell?

And yet, there it was. Standing just a few feet from her, reassuring her she was not in Hell at all. Her eyes were cloudy, black spots swimming along her vision. Her head pounded and the air around her vibrated, but she saw it. A camel.

She was on Earth.

Her heart quivered as the fog in her memory cleared slightly. She'd fallen. Oh, yes, she remembered. Seven days of nothing but black and twinkling stars. The fall, something they were meant to dread. And yet, it had happened to her.

It was because of him, she knew. The man with the two tiny stars tattooed at his hair line, yet hidden under the shagginess of it all. Him, yes, he caused her fall. The Maker must have seen what was in her heart, what she harbored for the man with star tattoos.

The Maker, he cast her to Earth, to this dreaded place. It was her punishment, she knew, and yet she could not bring herself to want to go back to Heaven. She only wanted to see the man with the star tattoos, one last time. But he was invisible to her, down here in her body. In this Earthly thing she was cast into, of flesh and bone. He was merely spirit.

Her wings drug the earth as she crawled. The beautiful, pure white feathers not have so innocent as they were in Heaven. She couldn't stand to look at the dreaded things. The things that made her who she was. The limp, almost dysfunctional things that merely flapped graciously along the skin of her spine, the span of them practically enveloping her. She wasn't strong enough to fly yet. She couldn't fly yet. She didn't want to fly yet.

She only wanted to see the star tattoos one last time. She'd never gotten to say goodbye, the sorry thing it would be. Just a tiny whisper from Heaven, nothing he would be able to hear in his devious place on Earth, his rightful place in Hell.

 "Goodbye, love." She whispered, her voice as cracked and dry as the desert itself. Her throat hurt, her tongue like a giant sponge resting heavily in her mouth. This feeling, this feeling of pain, she'd never felt it before. It was something dreadful, a feeling that should never come to her.

And yet, was not being with him pain? Could she have perhaps actually felt pain up there? Pain, longing, want; was it all the same thing? Was she defying the Maker's makings? Could she feel it, deep in her body, even though the Maker said she couldn't?

She wandered through the desert. It seemed like forever, the sun slowly sinking back and forth in the sky. The sun, what a curious specimen. It was a source of light not native to Heaven. It beat down on her, causing a strange, watery sensation to cover her body. What was this? This ooze emitting from herself? She felt disgusted, hating this place.

She wandered until the fourth time the sun sunk, and it stayed sunken when she happened upon a pool of water, giant in itself. The desert sands brushed along its shore, a magical body of lapping liquid. She approached cautiously, unaware large bodies of water could form so close to the desert.