Divine

Chapter One: Of Sky and Fire

PART ONE

FIGHT

I am a shooting star.

A super nova.

My body is burning with fire hotter than this sun or any other. I'm melting and reforming faster than the human eye can capture. But I feel it. Oh, God, I feel it. But more than anything else, I can feel the slow, cold burn of my Grace at my very center.

My Grace is colder than the deepest ocean, like having a thousand cubes of dry ice inside my body. It's so cold it burns. It burns more than the parts that are actually on fire and burning up in the earth's atmosphere. I am like a meteor, to the very last detail.

I am a fire spirit. A creature of flight and fire. But I do not fly. I can only Fall.

I open my mouth to let out a bloodcurdling scream, but I can't. My lungs and vocal cords are boiling liquid. I can't scream. I am silently wailing in agony, a miserable flightless creature caught in an eternal descent.

White feathers surround me. They dance around me, taunting me with their beauty at such an excruciating time. Then they burn. They burn into black whispers of a once powerful being of light that existed on the celestial plane.

I feel myself turn up to face the sky. The place I wanted to leave. The place where everyone I know is. The place I left to face the unknown of below. It's so blue, like the faint glow around an archangel's wings. Dread seeps into me. I know what comes next.

Every bone in my mangled body will shatter all at once, as if made of glass. I will be like a paint splatter on the earth's surface. I will see the unnaturally bent arch of my white wings as they bleed into the darkness of the Fallen.

I feel the ground no more than ten inches below me.

I am a shooting star.

I am a super nova.

I am Fallen.

Cold sweat covers my entire body. I'm shaking. My throat is dry and my eyes sting. I'm having trouble breathing. I have a fistful of my sheets clutched in a death grip, almost as if my body is trying to tell me that it's okay, the falling is over. You're safe now. As safe as you can possibly be. You can't fall any farther than you already have.

I stare up at the dirty ceiling, ice running through my veins. In the midst of my memory inducing nightmares, I'd somehow managed to throw one of my blankets halfway across the room. The other one is tangled around me like a serpent. I'm sideways, my feet dangling off the side of the bed.

I curl myself into a ball. I feel nauseous. Despite the fact that it was just a dream, an old memory from nearly six months ago, my whole body trembles like a leaf on a windy day. I almost died. Which is irrational. I can't die. Not like that.

Is this what it's like to have a panic attack? Am I having a panic attack?

I lay there holding myself for at least ten minutes. Finally, the tightness in my chest eases up. I slowly sit up and breath in and out. My eyes adjust to the room I'm in. It's become so familiar to me, with it's dirty white walls and wood floors. I have to wear slippers so I don't get splinters. There are white drapes over the one window in the room. If I pull them open I can see the brick wall of the neighboring building and the dirty alley between us. There's an old dumpster out there, along with the neighborhood stray that lives behind it, Philip, a skinny little tabby.

There are people moving in the floor beneath mine. My friends. No, friends is not the right word. Acquaintances. Yes. My acquaintances are downstairs. Being friends with me apparently isn't very good for your health, angel or not. Wonderful best friend with a Russian accent or not. I only have two friends on this earth, and their names are Rhythm and Lyle.