Aether Caedo
She stood on the very edge of the rooftop, looking down at the bustling city. It was a tall building; she could see the rows of windows below her, and a window cleaner somewhere around the fiftieth floor. There were no taller buildings nearby to block wind from blowing at her dark gold hair. The corners of her unzipped jacket flapped with the edges of her white t-shirt.
"You shouldn't be here, kid." It was the janitor who spoke, "This wasn't made for sightseeing. No fences."
"I know," replied the girl, "I'll be but a minute."
Tiptoed feet on the edge of the rooftop. They were bare, sneakers and socks placed neatly by the air duct. Why is it that heights always make one want to step off? Why is it that heights always make one feel as if one could fly?
What if she simply walked off the edge? Why not try? What did she have to lose anyway, now that her life is such a mess?
The feet inched towards the edge, stepped off, and soared as the back sprouted wings.
Wings grew from her back; she screamed as they tore through her flesh. Skin was ripped open in a forced exit for the new feathered limbs. Blood was splattered across the windows of the building. The fabric of a jacket torn to bits by rapid growth fluttered down with silver feathers, like bits of an eggshell, but softer. The back of her shirt was stained red.
Stretched out, the wings eased her fall down to the sidewalk below. Even so, she fainted. Cuts were drawn across her skin by the sharp edges of pebbles on the concrete. Screams rang out. Sirens came to life in the distance.
---
"That gash on her cheek looks nasty. The nurses cleaned her up, yes?"
"How do you know it's a she? For all we know, the males of the species look like this too."
"She's human. If there was another sentient species, we'd've heard about it by now."
"But the wings, humans don't have wings. And how do you know it's sentient?"
"She's wearing clothes, for one. And the wings, they're probably just a deformity that happens to look like wings. There've been plenty of fetuses with extra limbs, but most got aborted. Either way, we'll know when the DNA test comes back."
"Yes, the DNA test. Then we'll see who's right."
"Oh look! She's waking up. I wonder if she heard anything?"
She opened her eyes slowly. Two men, clad in white and looking down at her, came gradually into focus. Doctors? So was she in a hospital then? She tried to sit up, but found that she had been strapped down the bed. There was lump beneath her, digging into her back. Oh yes, the wings. She had forgotten. So they were still there then? She almost expected them to have shrunk back in again, their appearance had been so sudden. Her arms had been strapped down too. Her throat felt dry.
"Water," she croaked.
The younger of the doctors turned towards the other. "See? She spoke! That proves she's human."
"Yes," said the other dryly, "And so are parrots, I suppose."
"She knows what she's saying! She's dehydrated, so she asks for water! It's perfectly logical."
"Well monkeys know when they're thirsty too, and so do most other animals."
"But she was able to express it in words!"
"And parrots can ask for crackers when they're hungry."
The girl glanced at the jug and glass on the nightstand to her left. "Water," she said again. She tasted blood in her throat.
"Well never mind your parrot metaphor now, she clearly needs water." He walked over and poured water from the jug into the glass. "Here you are," he said, a little clumsily dumping the cold liquid between the girl's parted lips.
She looked around. The room was painted a pale green. There was a window on the wall to right. It was closed and white curtains hung limp on either side of it. To her left was an open door that led to a small bathroom, and another closed door which likely led to the hallway.
How long had she been unconscious? It had only been early afternoon when she fell. Or had it been late morning? She couldn't remember, and her head hurt from all the thinking. She was tired. Perhaps she hadn't rested long enough. She let her eyelids close. Bit by bit, wakefulness left her and was replaced by troubled sleep.
---
The nurses looked down at the girl, her forehead sweaty in a fitful sleep. They could see her wings peeking out from under her, a pale shade of silver, with the lights turned off and only the dim remnants of sunlight coming in through drawn curtains.
"She's beautiful," whispered one to the other, "How could they strap her down like that, as if she were a beast? Just look at her, so young and innocent. You're so full of ideals when you're young."
"Yes," whispered the other back, "and then those ideals all fall to nothing, and they leave you bitterly disappointed."
---
When she woke again, she knew it was late. The curtains had been pulled closed over the window, but through them she could see the yellow glow of street lamps. The lights in her room had been turned off, and the doctors were gone. Nothing stopped her from leaving now. Nothing, except the straps. She tugged at them, trying to free at least her arms, but to no avail. She was trapped here, and couldn't even move. What did they want with her? Why will they not just let her go? She had done nothing wrong. Deep inside, she knew what they wanted with her: they wanted her for testing, as a rare, never before seen specimen. Deep inside, she knew why they would not let her go: because they were afraid, afraid that she would turn into a vengeful harpy and destroy the city. Deep inside, she knew what she had done that was such a crime: she had grown wings.
So she cried, because she knew that freedom was beyond her reach now, and in crying, slowly cried herself to sleep.
---
Flames. She was lying on a bed of coals, and flames leapt around her, devouring her. Someone — the doctor who had compared her to a parrot — poked her with a red-hot iron rod. She squirmed, trying to get away, but found she could not, because the flames had strapped her down.
Water fell from above, rescuing her, but turned to steam before it could. The warm mist condensed on her skin like droplets of glue, and hung in the air, suffocating her. She couldn't breathe, gasping for air, and cried because she knew she was doomed.
When she woke again, she would remember nothing of the dream.
---
Dawn seeped through her eyelids. The golden light cast itself across the city, stretching the tall buildings into mile-long shadows. There was the sound of opening shops down below, neighbours calling to each other as they wiped clean their glass counters and prepared their shop fronts for business. The sounds of cooking mixed with the smell of home-made breakfast were enough to make any passerby hungry. "This neighbourhood is good for business," the vendors always said, turning the sausages on their grills. She could already hear the hiss of cooking meat and smell the tantalizing aroma.
Her own apartment was strangely silent. Usually at this time Mom was already up and making toast. But today, no sounds came from the corner of the living room that served as a kitchen.
She knew the reason why. She had known it since the visit to the police the night before. But now, lying tangled in her sheets, with the morning sun casting stripes onto her face through the blinds, she couldn't bring herself to accept what had happened and face everything. There was so much she had to do now: find a job, pay the bills, fix the broken microwave, do laundry, cook meals — all the things Mom used to do while she was at school or doing homework. But she couldn't even bring herself to cross the first threshold and accept that Mom was gone.
Maybe Mom's tired, and still in bed. Maybe she's just not feeling well.
There was still the lingering hope that the horror of the night before, when the police asked her to identify the corpse, was all a demented hallucination her mind had forged to scare her.
She should get up and check, open the door to the other bedroom, but that would mean seeing the empty bed and the final confirmation that what had happened was real. She buried her face in her pillow and pulled the sheets over her head.
Maybe she should just die.
The flashback ended; the girl in the hospital shed tears through closed eyes.
Life was painful, and so were memories of what was lost.
---
"She has a fever."
"Yes."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know."
"You're not talking to me."
"Maybe."
"Look, is it my fault that the DNA test came back inconclusive?"
"Yes. It's your department who sent the sample, not mine."
"Whatever. She has a fever. Either way, we have to make sure she gets better. Whether it's a deformity like I said, or a new species like you said, we both lose if she dies. But it's probably not serious; get the nurses and medical students to do something about it."
"Why me?"
"It's your hospital, yes?"
Were those two always arguing? It seemed as if every time she woke to daylight the first sounds she heard were those of the two doctors arguing. She could feel a headache coming on.
They said she had a fever. Did she? Well it did seem rather hot. She'd heard that severe injuries sometimes brought on fever. Were hers severe. Her skin burned: feet, hands, face, neck, back, abdomen. It scared her a bit. She couldn't remember having had a fever this bad before, but there were lots of things she couldn't remember from before her mother had died. It probably wasn't as bad as it seemed; she was still conscious, wasn't she?
She realized she hadn't eaten anything in a whole day. She should be famished. But the thought of eating anything made her feel sick.
She changed her position, as much as the straps would allow, and fell asleep again. Neither doctor knew that she had been awake at all.
---
Demons. Demons leapt from the flames, clawing at her. Demons with red skin that burned like coals and tongues of flame that shoot out to whip you, burn you. Her mother was there, a little way away, trying to reach her, to save her, to tell her that everything would be okay. But demons blocked the way, and she cried.
Days and nights passed, and she drifted in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware that she had been put on a drip. Sometimes, when she was awake but not forming coherent thoughts, she would stare at it for hours, watching the clear liquid in the plastic bag drip down the tube, drop by drop. When the nurses came in to adjust the speed, or change the bag, they would smile at her. They treated her like any other patient, so why couldn't the doctors do that too?
When her mind felt well enough to function properly, she would notice how a shadow passed over the nurses' faces after they take her temperature. They smiled at her when they caught her looking, but even in her semi-conscious state she could tell they were forced. She would drink the whole jugful of water all at once, but always, when she woke again, it was full.
Most of the time, she slept, and was dreamless.
But she never slept for more than a few hours at a time, waking for just a few minutes before she slept again. Often, she woke in the middle of the night, to find her throat burning, and the room empty.
Sometimes, she dreamed of flames, flames that held her down until she turned to ashes. Sometimes she saw feathers in those dreams. Sometimes she struggled, and continued struggling as she awoke.
Often she cried, because her body knew that it was dying but would not let her consciousness know. Thus she did not know why she was crying.
And so the days passed, in a strange narcotic blur.
---
Five days had passed since the winged girl in the special ward had first started having the fever. It was getting serious now; she was unconscious more and more often. When she slept, she sometimes struggled in her bonds. The sickness was more serious than they thought, and none of the doctors could draw a conclusive diagnosis. The temperatures just kept on rising higher. It was amazing that she was conscious at all.
---
The window was open. A gentle breeze was blowing in. The curtains billowed. The nurse stood in the doorway, frozen with shock
The straps connected to the bed had been torn, ripped apart by the unnatural force of a possessed mind.
She was gone. Through the window as if she had never come.
A single grey feather lay on the pillow, like a goodbye note, a memento.
---
Screams rang out. Sirens came to life in the distance.
A body lay at the foot the tall building. People crowded around, but though the area had not been cordoned off by the police yet, nobody drew too close.
The body was that of girl, but one who's back sprouted wings. A few bloody feathers lay on the cement sidewalk. The wings were folded tight against her back, as if determined to serve no purpose, to pretend that they did not exist.
The janitor of the building stood frowning. "I told you that you shouldn't be here."
Several people turned away, feeling that the world had lost something.
The corpse was smiling.
---
She rose, looking downwards at the cityscape below her. People bustle around, going about their everyday lives. There was quite a commotion where she had left her body. No wonder; she herself had not known that people could have wings until she grew her own as she fell down the side of the building.
The air was cool after the burning of the fever.
There was a light up above, beckoning to her like the welcome sight of home after being lost in the dark. A home where light spilled out of the open doorway, with a silhouette of someone welcoming standing there.
This doorway had a silhouette too, one with wings. The girl knew who it was, as soon as she saw it. It was Mother, there to welcome her home, among her people.
And now her mother spoke, with the voice that she knew so well, the one that sounded like a choir of angels.
"It's time you rise again; we've had a long fall."