The Sky's The Limit

Chapter One

I was soaring through the sky like a bird, looking down at a thick forest below. My strong wings supported me in the air as I rode the wind currents. Below me there was a large clearing in the forest, the tops of buildings visible from the air. I glided down to the ground, landing in the middle of the village where I was greeted by smiling faces, and warm hugs. I was home.

"Lily."

Someone was calling my name. I looked around, but couldn't find who was talking.

"Lily!"

I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I turned around, only to fall to the ground. Suddenly my limbs were constricted, I couldn't get up! I thrashed around on the ground but couldn't fight off my invisible attacker.

"Lily! Its just me! Calm down!"

I woke up with a gasp. "What...?" I looked around and realized I was on the floor next to my bed, my blankets wrapped around me. I looked up at the person standing next to me, laughing. It's my twin sister Layla.

"You were twitching in your sleep and I thought you were having a nightmare so I tried waking you and you just fell right out of your bed!" She says, laughing so hard there were tears in the corner of her eyes.

Although I was annoyed for her at waking me and my butt felt bruised from falling onto the floor, her laughing was contagious and I started to giggle. "You woke me from such a cool dream! I could fly and there was this village and all these really nice people!" I got up and stretched.

She laughed, "You could fly? What, like you had..." her eyes suddenly got very wide "...wings" she whispered the last word and sat down very suddenly on the edge of her bed, staring at me with her mouth slightly open.

I felt self conscious from her staring. "What is it?" I ask nervously.

"I- you- ..." she seems at a loss of words. "Look in the mirror."

I walked over towards the large mirror hanging on the wall in between our beds. "What is it? Is it that my hair is all frizzy, because you know that happens every mornin-" I had reached the mirror. My reflection was mostly normal, my short-for-a-sixteen-year-old body, my smooth brown skin, wrinkled pyjamas and black (and yes, very frizzy) hair looking exactly the same as it did every morning. The big difference was behind me.

Two large, white, feathered wings were coming right out of my back.

"WOAH!" I yelled and twirled around trying to look at my back so suddenly I almost toppled over. I looked over my shoulder and reached to grab one. I could touch it, they were real. I let go and tried moving them. It was as easy as moving any other limb. I stretched them out so far they almost touched the other side of the room, then closed them so they were folded against my back.

I looked over at Layla, a grin spreading over my face. "I have wings!"

She still looked horrified. Before she could say anything, we heard footsteps coming down the hall towards our bedroom.

"Quick, hide!" Layla said and threw a blanket over me.

"You guys need to get ready for school, the bus gets here in twenty minutes!" It was our dad.

I stick just my head out from under the blanket. "Yep, we'll be there soon!"

He gave me a weird look and I just smiled at him sheepishly. He leaved the room.

"That was close." Layla said.

"Too close."

"So... you have wings?"

"Yeah... I guess I do." I threw the blanket back onto the bed and stretched out my wings. The back of my pyjama shirt was bunched up above the wings at my neck. "Maybe I'm... dead? And I've become an angel."

"Don't be silly, you can't be dead. You were just sleeping, surely you didn't die in your sleep? Plus, you don't look very dead to me." Layla said, thinking logically as usual, unlike me who just says the first thing that comes to mind no matter how stupid it is.

I folded up my wings so they mostly closed, it was the most comfortable way to hold them. "Yeah, true. I don't feel very dead. In fact, I feel more alive than usual."

I walked over to the window. Our bedroom was on the second story of the house, and I had a strange urge to open the window and just jump out into the sky. I wonder if I can fly. I do have wings, after all.

Layla was sorting through her wardrobe, all her clothes organized by colour. I looked over at my side of the room where my clothes were scattered all over the floor and bed. We were practically opposites, even though we were identical twins.

"Come on, we need to get ready for school." Layla said.

"Yeah, I should probably start getting dress-" I suddenly had a terrible thought. "How on earth am I going to go to school?! No clothes will hide these things!" I gestured to my wings.

Layla smiled. "Luckily, its Halloween today."

I stared at her blankly. "And?"

"Come on, Halloween! Everyone at school dresses up for Halloween! The wings will just look like a costume!"

I grinned at her. "You genius! I'll just make sure to keep them still and they'll look like fake wings!"

Layla picks up one of my shirts, a flowy white one, and a pair of scissors, and before I can protest she cuts two long slits in the back. "There, now you can put your wings through the holes and you don't have to wear your shirt like that to school." She gestured to my shirt bunched up above my wings.

I brushed my unkempt hair as well as I could and put on the shirt as well as a pair of light blue jeans. To complete the costume I put on a fake flower crown with delicate white flowers.

I looked myself over in the mirror. "There. I can say I'm dressed as an angel. Not exactly a Halloween costume, but I could say I'm dressed as a dead person or something."

Layla smiled "Perfect. No one will suspect a thing."

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Hi readers!! I hope you are enjoying the story so far! I'm currently in the middle of exam week so I probably won't be able to write much more until that is over. Anyway, gotta go get ready for my geography exam, bye!

Published 15th September 2020

Word count: 1111 words