XSTR XSTN

The last time I fell into a storm,

and I remember it,

all of it,

all of my senses,

the wind sharpened into my eyes,

my limbs were batted at like a beast does a pest,

the dim glow of the cage as everything blurred,

my breath began searing of my lungs as i fell closer,

clean through a fringe of petrified branches,

snapping my wings as if they were hollow,

the spaces between my scales cracked open as my last thought was how no one will ever live to know the feeling of falling into hell.



Then I felt nothing.

Saw nothing.

Heard nothing.

I thought nothing,

not even the thought that I was nothing.

Because I knew I wasn’t.

And without my body

I sensed the the cold, and the warmth.

And without my eyes,

I sensed a light the warmth came from.

And without ears, or a mind, or any concept of language…

I sensed its words.

IF THE GROUND WERE TO BOIL

AND THE SKIES CLOUD WITH SOOT,

IF THE SUN WERE TO ENGULF YOU AND BURN OUT,

UNDERSTAND I WILL STILL BE WATCHING YOU.

I WILL BE AN UNMISTAKABLE VOICE

AT THE BACK OF YOUR LIVING SOUL,

DRIFTING THROUGH THE VOID OF ENDLESS SKY.

AND I WILL GUIDE YOU.

WITH ROADS OF STARS TO LEAD YOU.

WITH SWARMS OF MASS TO PULL YOU,

WITH THE SONG OF A PLANET TO CALL TO YOU,

WITH THE WEIGHT OF ITS LOVE TO HOLD YOU,

WITH THE WARMTH OF ITS CORE TO NURTURE YOU,

AND ONCE MORE, AS LIFE YOU WILL RISE.

DO NOT GIVE UP.

EVEN IN DEATH.

WE WILL CATCH YOU.

I woke up, feeling unlike I ever had, the same person I always was, in a world that never could have been.

I never saw Yesuva again.

I moved on. Or, tried. Most of the others say I haven’t.

It’s not Yesuva I haven’t moved past.

It was the hell I fell into.

Because I’m still here.

Unable to explain to anyone.

Unrelatable.

Crazy.

I thought that would change, once...

Raptor!

... once I met another who had fallen like me.

How'd you end up in the church?

Vasan!

You're talking with the bugs?

You can't be the one acting surprised at me, we thought you died.

No, I did it, Raptor!

You survived a fall?

No. I made it to the moon. And back.

What?

The bugs carried me there.

Above the storm the whole time? You didn't fall through the cage?

No. I'm alive. Did you think I died and came back to life?

... No. I'm not that crazy, Pigeon.

It wouldn't be as crazy as what happened on the way there.

♀⚳♃♄♅♇

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