The Winged

10- Despair

I lost count of the times I tried to fly.
All I wanted to do was touch the lid. It wasn't far, hardly more than a jump. Stupid, really. I'm not really sure why it was so important to me that I press my fingers against the black plastic. It would be cold, immovable. Like touching a block of melting ice.
Pressing my hands against the topper wouldn't free me from this prison. This awful situation I had got myself into... why was it so important to me? I don't know. Maybe it was to prove to myself that I could still fly. Or it was to make me feel that I could still do something. In all the power they held over me, their threats and glass prisons, I could still achieve something, no matter how small and meaningless.

Each time I leapt up the floor, the failure was worse. Always the same; I tensed my wings, hovered for almost a second, before a numbing cramp had me folding to the ground. Fast, gentle, slow, nothing was working! Even the small bit of hovering I could manage was wildly out of control. I must have smacked into the glass countless times. Barely double my height and I couldn't do it. Every single try ended in utter failure. And the pain of when they gave out and crinkled against my back. It felt like bad stomach cramps. It was nothing I had ever experienced, hurting in a way I hadn't known I could be hurt.

I eventually collapsed onto the chilled crystal, barely hearing the horrible clink sound that the glass prison made in response to my every movement. There were hot tears in the corners of my eyes that threatened to spill out with each breath I rasped. My back was burning. My jittering wings felt as if they were tearing at the seams.
I screamed a curse. It was childish and immature, the Elder would have looked down at me for... breaking. But I didn't care anymore. I slapped my hand against the wall and swore again. Had a tantrum.
Why wouldn't they work?! I felt like some bug trapped in a jar. It wasn't fair— it wasn't fair. Why wouldn't my wings work anymore?! Driven by nothing more than emotion, I tried once final time to throw myself against the lid that taunted me.
They wouldn't even lift off my back.

I slipped down the glass wall. My own shallow breathing echoed inside the desolate container. It's not fair. Unsurprisingly, there was a soft clink when I dropped to the bottom of the prison. The same noise I had been hearing since they threw me in here— every breath, every movement, that same incessant sound.
However many hours that had been now. However many days.
It felt like I just stared at nothing for a very long while, maybe trying to make sense of everything, mostly just feeling too overwhelmed to think much at all. At some point I pulled my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Biting down on my lip didn't make me feel the slightest bit better. And quite suddenly, I found I was on the verge of crying. My wings. My wings, my wings. They were everything I was, I was a Winged— Azure, Hollow Winged. Who was I without them? What was I to my people without them? Just another parentless child left behind after the Blaze, needful and bothersome. The Elder would have no use for me. I was worthless without my wings.
Why is this happening?

I would never be able to escape. Every attempt I made to get away from those monsters ended in disaster. Now I couldn't even fly anymore...

My stomach groaned without a care for how it had interrupted my thoughts. The hunger was a sort of relief, honestly. At least it took my mind off of the despairing situation. I gulped back the wetness lingering in my throat and tried to remember the last thing I had eaten. And when. I hadn't eaten since... since before I arrived at the Burrow. Had I eaten the morning I left? I couldn't help but think not. How long ago had that been? I had lost track of how long I had been here. It seemed like a lifetime had passed.

The human Mike had been gone for quite some time now, and I hadn't seen Sam all morning. That only gave my anxiety more fuel, but I hoped that he had simply gone for a walk or something... done something normal. Something that didn't involve me.
Now I was alone. The tent wasn't like the woodlands— it had no ambience. Not a single sound to attract my attention inside these green walls. It should have been a relief, this silence, but it wasn't. No tremulous footsteps, no talking that sounded amplified, no noise at all. Nothing but my own scraggly breathing, echoing forever around me.