Metal Birds

Chapter 68: Messenger in the Sky

Berlin, Germany, July 23 1944

A bitter chill settled over the room, though this was extinguished by the fire placed among them. They lay in heaps of their own feathers, stuffed into the corners of the room and the holes in the walls, and the seams of their clothing. They were dressed heavily, in clothes mostly stolen, nursing wounds with what little they could recall. 

Their talents hadn't been put to use for some time. 

But they would use them. There was no doubt about that. 

They needed to gather things. Paper, weapons, more clothing, more fuel for their fire, ammunition, medical things. It was a whole heaping list of things they needed to gather, all collecting in their minds. 

Bella Maes would not leave, even if she was able to. 

And she very well was. 

But others -Andries- were not. 

Bella had found herself and Lauren to be the only two of the group able to fly. Andries, Luka, Matthias and Hynrik were grounded. 

Lauren and Bella did most of what needed to be done, while the others rounded up what they could and cared for each other. Lauren, with her loyalty, would not leave Bella alone to venture out into Berlin's dirtied, crowded streets, and Bella most definately wasn't leaving. She wouldn't allow herself to. 

What she wanted desperately was a radio, and to bathe. Her hair felt disgusting, and her feathers did to, but she simply hadn't had time to bathe more than to splash her face. She wanted to sit down and preen, to do more than just take a small cat nap before putting out the fire or awaking to the sounds of a commotion outside. 

They were all tense, all scared. They didn't want Gilbert, or Ludwig or anyone who was against them to arrive, though it felt as if they could at any moment. 

But they did not. 

Bella's gaze shifted across the world outside. The guardsmen had died in the basement when the building collapsed. It appeared that such atrocities had struck the rest of Berlin as well. Homes and workplaces lay in ruin, the streets were mottled with dust and debris, and crime ran its course primarily unmonitered. The people of the previously proud city were no pitifully miserable. 

The sensation of vain hope that ran across the faces of those she saw outside was enough to both lighten the weight on Bella's shoulders, and cause it to become heavier. The war, it appeared, was soon to be over. The blood-red tapestries of the enemy army were worn and torn, and the citizens trudged through their lives in a dreary desperation for the whole encounter to just finish. 

"Bella." Lauren's voice drifted over the sleeping forms of the others. 

"Yes?"

"We are to find a way to send a message tonight, yes?"

Bella nodded promptly, bringing her wings upright. 

"You will have to lead the way to the mail office you saw the other night." Lauren whispered. 

"Of course." 

After a moment of the two of them rightening their clothing, and drawing their wings as close to their backs as possible, they emerged from their sunken lair. 

They were quick, light footed through the rubble of Berlin. Their feathers raised every so often to stop them from tripping, two girls, two sprite-like angels ducking in and out of alleys and ruins. 

The mail office Bella had in mind was at the other end of the city. It was practically the only civilian run letterbox in the whole city, as most listened to the radio. They scrambled up towards a leaned over apartment, delipidated and filled with destroyed, un-salvageable furniture. Up through the first floor stairs, and then around out the second floor window to the roof just above, they were like great falcons scaling cliffs.