I was falling from Eden.
I closed my eyes and relished the cool winds blowing over my face. Their gentle whispers in my ears were like melodies I hadn't heard for years. I actually felt free. The chains binding me to this world were burning away.
Time slowed down. The wing emerged from my back, and I felt like I was flying properly, like old times. A smile rushed to my face. I wrapped my wing around my body. It was warm. I wondered if it looked like a coffin from afar. My painful existence would finally end. I sealed my lifeforce, lest it save me, and waited for the impact, hoping the next life would be kinder to me.
I had heard about the Judgement in the myths and legends, when the ones with impure hearts were banished. It was invoked once again now, to cast me out.
'Mother,' I spoke loudly using lifeforce. 'Is this the punishment you chose for me?' I waited desperately for an answer. 'Talk to me! Just once... Please...' In her eyes, what I did at Gehenna was an unforgiveable sin. But I was angry, and in pain. Too bad I ultimately failed. Mother recalled me by force. She had always been kind—even to pests that don't deserve it.
After she stopped my rampage, she went silent. She would come around, I thought. How foolish I was. She never softened. And now I was even banished. I would never see her again, never hear her voice.
She didn't even say goodbye.
'You're wrong, Mother. I reject your Judgement. I'll stay with you.'
The punishment would be my choice. I'll merge with the Lifestream and find the eternal peace... So what if she exiled me? She'd have to welcome me in her embrace again, once I become a part of Lifestream—a part of her. I surrendered to the fall. The winds ran their fingers through my hair. It got harder to breathe as I picked up speed and the air thickened.
And then, it all stopped.
The winds went silent. I couldn't sense anything. I couldn't move. I was suspended in this endless world with no vectors. The time had stopped. Or rather, the whole world had stagnated around this... Presence... It was colossal... Kingly... It made me feel so weak and powerless. So much for being the angel everyone feared.
An image flashed for a brief moment and disappeared. A broken statue of a man standing in the middle of ruins, carved with ice, with dragons like red lightning assaulting it endlessly. What was that vision?
'My foolish brother Ruklene...' a voice, amused, absolute, reverberated through that world. It was soundless, but it was somehow reaching directly into my head.
'My miserable brother Prime...' another voice responded. It came from the other end, but it felt like it was everywhere, and yet nowhere.
'The fate promised to you is a cruel one, my little lord.'
'Still not as cruel as it has been to you, my king.'
I wanted to speak out, understand what was happening, but I couldn't. I had somehow become a forced spectator who was eavesdropping on the conversation of these godly beings. How was it happening? How do such beings even exist? I ought to have known about their existence at least.
'The fate is smiling at you now... Look around, brother.'
'Such is your gift. It's beautiful.'
'When you meet the end, tell him I'm alright and his night will be fine too.'
Those last words echoed, and the next instant, the presence receded, just the way it came. I could feel the gears of the world turning, shattering the invisible glass of stagnation into little shreds. And I was falling again...