Sabotage of the Wingéd

Kagoatweed's rant: R&R, and be inspired! But please don't steal ideas!

I'm flying, but my wings are burning. I'm soaring through the clouds, my hair is soaking wet, but still my feathers are in flames. The only thing keeping me aloft is slowly turning to ash.

The simple solution would be to fly to the ground, but I can not. The ground is covered in shattered glass and sharp bits of metal, and I am naked. I'm helpless in the air and no one will help me.

Others fly around me, waiting to collect my carcass from the ground once I fall, but for now they leave me be. They always have. They probably don't even notice my wings are burning.

There's an icy ocean behind me. As it offers salvation, it also represents condemnation. To extinguish my wings is to freeze to death. I wish I had enough time left to fly across the ocean, but too much of my wings have flaked away – I can't fly for much longer. Yet, beyond that icy trap lies others who care. They know my name, and they care for me, and most important, they miss me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll get to see them again, and now with my wings burning, the odds are against me.

So they burn. Heavy flames fall off and flutter to the ground, taking pieces of me with them as sacrifices. So I circle. Lower and lower I hover, like a dying vulture, a shadow of who I once was.

I remember those who care, as the last of my feathers burn painfully away, the pain going unnoticed in the face of the upcoming tragedy.

I fall. My body offers no resistance and I am aimed at the ground face first. I hit, my skull cracking upon impact, smearing my brain among glass and steel.

My thoughts that they were waiting on me was wrong. They weren't waiting there to collect my carcass. They didn't even notice my death.

A different me stands and flies over to them. They don't see me. I blow softly on their wings and each of them catches on some unseen spark floating through the air. Initially they don't notice it, until the flames reach the nerves at the tips of their wings, and then they are screaming.

If they heard my laughter over their shouts, they didn't show it. I turned away and left them there, a mass of burning feathers and flesh slowly sinking to the ground. I will cross the ice ocean. The ones who care will see me. They will see me.