Wings To The World

13.

'Wings for an angel and the world is fine.'

I hear the noise around me the way I hear Jahcynael reveal the knife: barely. There are whispers, and there are shouts, but none of them is loud. A hum of background noise to the picture that is painting.

Somewhere out there, still worried, I can imagine Saraiel. My gut twists. Would she be worrying? Would she care? Does she understand what she feels?

I stare at Jahcynael. I didn't want this. "Don't do this," I murmur. "Please, don't do this. I want to live, please."

She looks at me the way she did when I was begging before. Its resigned softness, sharp edges blunt to the touch, like a paper cut no one notices. "Oh, love," she says, rolling it off her tongue. "This won't kill you."

Love. That echoes in my mind and brings tears to my eyes. Oh, if only, if only she had been like that before- if only she had understood, before. If she had understood what it was like for me, things would be different.

She reaches towards me, stepping with it. As far as I push back, she pulls forward, and onwards our dance goes. Even if I try to get away, she will catch me. It's like a rabbit in a trap.

The knife glints in her hands. The jewels reflect a myriad of colours on the wall, far too bright and far too beauteous for this moment. She pulls me down by the top of my head, a hand fisted in my hair.

The knife presses against the base of my wings. "It's a shame," Jahcynael mutters. "Your wings are so pretty."

Before I even realise, tears are pouring from my face. With them follows the salty taste of tears in my mouth and snot from my nose. I hiccup, my head spinning.

She doesn't even notice. Instead, she presses the knife further into my wings and grips my hair tighter when I almost scream. She keeps talking, my ears buzzing with the noise.

"I'm going to take these, Siaphaele," I can hear the smile in her voice. "As a prize. A gift. A souvenir. I deserve it, don't you think?"

Having a limb hacked with a knife from your body, especially something like a wing, is never fun. The fact I'm on my knees in front of Jahcynael only makes it worse.

"Pathetic," She spits. "Without your wings, you will be pathetic. But don't worry, it's not like your friends would ever have loved you anyway."

There's something to say about poetic nature. There's something to mention about the way I was always begging her in this same position. And here she is taking my wings, with me like this. But there's nothing to say at the same time.

Only I would notice the similarities. Only I would call it poetic, only I would think of it as destruction in such a pretty way. Jahcynael won't even remember it by the time I see her next. And I'll only call it poetic once I haven't seen her again.

She won't remember me by the time I see her next. At this rate, she'll scrub her memories clean with some drug before I can even begin to make sense of what she's done to me.

"For an angel of love," She says with the air of someone who knows the world's final secrets. The world sways a little, and I do too. "You aren't very worthy of it."

My mind shakes as she keeps pressing the blade further. On the horizon of my eyes, I see spots of black, and my head swims with nausea. As the world spins, the black envelops me.

There is a workshop on the hill. I drift around it, floating above the ground. I see two ash trees growing, their limbs spreading higher. I smile at the memory, whispering their names under my breath. 'Ashley, Ashton,' I breathe out. 'You're growing so well.'

The trees droop, towards the gems we planted below. I crouch down and find the small, jagged rose quartz we planted at the base. It should be underground. I reach towards it, but it hurts.

My hand stings, and the dull ache where my wings would be follows. The pain is white-hot, searing, spilling from everywhere. But when I pull away from the gem, the pain is gone. I turn to my left.

'Hello,' a man says with a gentle voice. 'You are hurting.'

I blink. 'Yes, but I don't need healing. I chose this.'

The man smiles at me. He looks familiar, with long hair swept backwards. His eyes are wide, and he smiles. When he talks, I hear the faint remains of a German accent. He bends down, his face turning to a smile.

'We never do,' He chuckles. 'Healing is never easy, it's never what we need. We heal in other places, and that fixes the rest of us.'

I stand. We're the same height. 'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I shouldn't be here, should I?'

'Well,' He says, looking me in the eyes. 'No one should be anywhere. We're here because we chose to be, aren't we?'

'Why are you saying this?' I ask.

'Why not?' He shrugs.

We stand there, for a moment. He looks around and smiles towards the sky, watching the two ash trees I was knelt under before. He takes a few steps around, hands behind his back. I watch him with curious wonder.

'Das ist gut,' He says under his breath. I wasn't meant to hear that. 'Das ist zehr gut, und ziemlish interessant. Ich finde das Schön.'

'Excuse me?' I ask.

'I said it's beautiful and very interesting,' He chuckles.

'It is,' I reply. 'Very. I... well, I don't think I fit.'

'You do,' He replies. 'No one can't fit. Why do you think you don't?'

'Well, I... I don't know myself,' I say. 'Not as well as everyone else here. They seem to know everything about themselves, they have it all at their fingertips.'

'To truly know the world, know your own being,' He begins. 'To truly know yourself, take a real interest in the world.'

I gasp. The room is blank, and dark. There are no people playing in the background. There is no noise to fill the silence I find in me. I reach forward, stopping when a sharp ache shoots through my shoulder blades where my-

My wings.

Jahcynael has them, doesn't she? She took them, after all. I can't remember much after her asking for them, I can only remember screaming and reaching for something.

I scan the room. It's dark, a little too dark to see anything, but through the window, I see a light. Careful to not move my back too much, I get up and head towards the window.

The light is white, brighter than sunlight would be and more direct than rays. It's harsh, blinding, and seems painful to the dust of it. When I peer through the window, standing on my tiptoes, I see a circle on the floor.

There's an angel trapped in the middle of the circle, and the more my eyes adjust the more I remember them. Their hair lays across their back. It sprawls in all sorts of directions. A broken purple hairband lies in the middle of the blonde hair.

It looks like the angel is crying, hunched over with their back pointed towards the source. Their voice mumbles something I can't hear. I recognise them.

It's Haphaes.