Death had long since become more commonplace than the air itself. Fear, panic, the frantic pounding of the heart whenever yet another feather neared its inevitable loss... none of it was new anymore. By all reason, the angel's body, plunging headlong toward the earth, should have been shattered upon impact. His only prayer was that the wounds carved into the great gate upon its chest would not knit themselves together once more.
Streams merged into mighty torrents; the torrents poured into tributaries, and the tributaries surrendered themselves to rivers of blood in full flood, staining the savage duality that raged within the nameless one's eyes. Endless ranks of armies, bereft of sword and shield, marched in bitter hatred, their faces infected by a sinister crimson, advancing toward the two colossal oaks that formed his irises.
Now he could do nothing but watch the twin wanderers circling above while the wind rowed fiercely against him, as though plotting the hour, the course, and the frailties that his next death would offer as opportunities. Yet whether death itself could truly be called his fleeting ally remained impossible to tell...
"The heavens slumber in the womb of God,
where stars of pitch and frost
remain entwined within His sovereign breath.
Like shadows famished by the deepest abyss,
they drink of life while gazing upon His world;
suspended by a mirage that beckons the profane,
fed by kisses that bleed deception.
He gathers them into a fatal embrace,
a promise of flesh that hungers for tomorrow;
His eyes melted into theirs,
one single gaze,
when once again the cosmos shall fall into His hands."
And yet... And yet they envy us. Never have they ceased to watch us... to listen to our voices, to our songs. Profound and joyous is their envy. Boundless are their desires to walk as we walk, to dwell among us. Desperate and treacherous are those who abandon the vast celestial stage for the mere privilege of touching our soil, if only for a heartbeat. And so God punishes them, rending the heavens apart and casting them into Hell, that oblivion alone might receive them.
But why? Why would they ever choose such a fate? How could they spill mosaics of countless hues whenever that dreadful yet harmless angel alternated between rebirth and the loss of another feather?
All these questions first brushed against the angel's newborn obsession like the gentlest breeze. Slowly, almost tenderly, they entwined themselves with that madness, hand in hand, twisting together into a double helix that coiled tighter and tighter until it crossed the point of no return.
Man and God...
Sacred and profane...
Sea and sky...
Each acquired an entirely new meaning within the winged warrior's mind. Now he felt as the celestial lights themselves must feel. He understood their weeping. He understood their endless distance. He understood that even a spark might race across the great sea fused with God, and that the only true flame was the one with which He punished his harlot sisters. No longer could he count himself among the children born of the primal fires: the encounters... the warnings... the countless souls he had crossed... the endless voices forever whispering behind his back, speaking only of the winged servants enthroned upon his shoulders...
All of it had made him different, unlike the living sparks that wandered upon the organic sea. The suspended ocean above, kissing both the dead and the "blades of living grass" from on high, had become the only true destination. For the first time, he did not merely touch the heavens with a fingertip: he tore them open, as God Himself had done.
Then, at last, the fire arose: the divine flame awakened within his very cells, spreading through flesh and sinew, devouring every thread of living warmth that held him together until, at last... it claimed him. Not a single cell of skin burned. Not even Death arrived before it. Only the hands of the scattered souls remained close—mere breaths away from his face—as they desperately reached for the twin gray tips of his hair. They leapt in despair, climbing upon one another's shoulders, hoping another body might become the rung of a ladder. A ladder capable only of screaming... and weeping.
The speaking sparks no longer gazed upon the nameless one's majestic wings. No longer did they dream of fluttering a few fleeting yards above the earth. The fire to which they longed to belong had become something greater: eternal, unique. Thus God became the answer. The cursed angel became the path. For he alone had flown. He alone had allowed his flesh to kiss the breath of the stars, their distant sisters. Those nearest to him clawed desperately at his body, helping one another only when necessity demanded. Those farther away sought by any means to touch, even if only with their eyes, the immense burning arm that stretched forth from the flame into which the angel had willingly confined himself. It stood proudly between death and the winged warrior, shielding him so that his destined task might be fulfilled. None could share it. Not even those who sought to retrace the chosen one's path by casting themselves headlong into the nearest great flame.
Their flesh boiled. Eyes, whether willingly shut or sewn forever closed, melted away. Their nails softened into sticky wax. Hair and fur recoiled in an instant like dry straw hurled into a blazing hearth. And what had first appeared to be a mother's warm and loving embrace became, in a single heartbeat, the greatest betrayal imaginable. Like the stars condemned by God, they evaporated without ever being granted the chance to turn back, or even to scream a warning to those who followed. It was as though the divine sea itself had declared war upon creation while wearing the smiling face of a demon.
Yet all that sudden glory had become foreign to the young angel. More than foreign: it had become unbearable. Even as the whole world cried out his name, he desired only union with the heavens. To reach them, there was but one way. He had to fly. The two wandering twins had become his new means of ascending unto God. The great bonfires were merely relics of a journey in which he had lost his identity, feathers, and perhaps even the memory of his own father, who seemed to have willingly forgotten his son.
Thus he could only accept this new calling, the burden hurled down upon him by those distant, war-hungry sparks above. A new star was about to be welcomed among her sisters. None deserved such a fate but he. All the other sparks sought only an escape from monotony, from the death born of endless waiting.
Then, like a great bowstring drawn to its limit, the burning arm tightened its grasp upon the angel and swept halfway around the mother flame, gathering impossible force before hurling the nameless one back into the echoing vault of heaven. Its girth swelled like the muscle of a giant tensing before a single strike. Fiery manes blossomed along its immense length, making it broader, brighter, incandescent with the sudden obsession that had consumed every joy and every sorrow alike. The sparks not yet reunited with the remaining "blades of living grass" transformed into birds, insects, and winged creatures of countless forms, each sculpted by the artistry of living fire. For every one of them, to plunge into the great arm of the mother flame from which they had been born was the highest emblem of honor.
The son of the Creator. The savior they had awaited since the dawn of ages. He had chosen them. And so they would gladly offer up their very existence if only, at last, they might ascend together into the presence of God.