I gazed out the misty window, tears
fogging my vision. Everything was a twisted muddle of emotions and beliefs. None
of it was supposed to happen; not this way. And yet there I was, facing a
doomed camp filled with children who didn’t yet know they were a few days from
government imprisonment.
Before tears could overtake me
completely, I sauntered slowly into the fresh downpour. Though rain suffocated
my powers, I hoped it would suffocate my emotions and drown my heart, killing
it before the pain could.
Standing on the edge of the pier, I
felt the air around me freeze, unable to attend to me, even if I had called it.
The rain bled through my clothes and seemed to penetrate through to my very
core. I threw back my head, openly crying now, my arms outstretched and my hair
clinging desperately to my skin, as though pleading for me to go in. I heard
the plants sigh, grateful for the rain after the unusually warm winter, but
hoping it would soon end. The trees breathed peacefully in their bare skin, sleeping
through the traumatic events crushing my imperfectly rebuilt world.
Everything seemed to speak to me,
bringing its peaceful nature to my ears, until my entire body was flooded with
the sensation of every living plant and creature within the surrounding area. Not
even voices within the cabins were safe from my prying.
“Drei,” I heard Valetta saying as if
she was next to me. “She is outside—”
“Leave me alone, Valetta.” If I
hadn’t already been numbed from the noise and rain, a dagger would have pierced
my heart at his words. I had expected as much, but it didn’t stop it from
threatening to hurt.
I heard him walk away and Valetta
plead, “She needs you. You are the one who said she was more important than
anyone else.” There were tears in her voice.
A long pause ensued. At the end of
it, Drei replied, “I was wrong.”
The conversation faded out and
someone else’s voice found purchase in my thoughts.
“Why is Abriel so sad, Nick?” a small
voice questioned. “You did something, and now she’s sad. What happened?”
“People hurt other people, Mikael,”
Nick replied softly, a rough edge to his voice, as though he were hurting as
much as anyone. As though he deserved to be in as much pain. He didn’t, though.
Nick wasn’t losing as much as some of us; he was one of theirs. He was safe.
“Abriel doesn’t hurt anyone. She
takes care of us all; she makes us all friends,” Mikael insisted, flustered.
“No,” Nick said angrily. “Everyone
hurts someone, and we hurt each other, and—”
“You don’t love her like we do—else you’d
know, Nick. Abriel doesn’t like to hurt people,” Mikael argued back.
“You don’t get it!” Nick yelled,
storming to another part of the cabin, leaving Mikael to wonder.
Their voices faded in a cacophony of
sound erupting in my body. They all said the same thing. But I wouldn’t believe
them. Everything had failed, again. I would never be able to lead any kind of
content life; I was broken, and ruined life for anyone I came in contact with. The
amazement that filled my senses until I overloaded and passed out wasn’t real. They
were imagining someone else in my place.
Broken people always fell.
Free, normal, harmonious
people were the only ones who could ever dream of flying.
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