[Oraniel]
The tower beneath Oraniel crumbled into drifting light, leaving him suspended alone above a world that no longer existed. Below him stretched only the familiar pale midday blue of the sky he had always seen in Oros, but now that sky extended in every direction. It was all that remained. Every structure, every plaza, every statue and archway had dissolved into the same soft, endless color. There was no horizon. No ground. No cloud to interrupt the seamless surface.
He beat his wings and rose higher, but no matter how far he climbed, the world did not change. The sky remained a perfect sphere around him, gentle and empty. His voice echoed faintly when he whispered to himself, as though he had entered a hollow place that reflected sound in strange ways.
"This is not real," he murmured. "This cannot be everything."
He turned slowly in midair. Without buildings or landmarks, he could not tell where Oros had once been. He could not tell how far he had flown. The world felt immense and claustrophobic at the same time. The uniform blue pressed in on him from all sides.
He tried to focus. If he lost control, fear would drown him faster than the void below ever could. He stretched his wings and picked a direction at random, choosing to fly toward a faint brightness that might have been a trick of the light or might have been nothing at all.
He flew for what felt like minutes, then for an hour, then perhaps longer. Time blurred in the empty sky. There was no sun in view, only the steady brightness of a midday glow that had no source. His muscles ached, but he pushed himself onward, determined to find some boundary, some edge, some sign of the world beyond this blank expanse.
But the sky never shifted.
It was endless.
Eventually a strange heaviness settled behind his eyes. His thoughts began to drift, as if sleep were trying to pull him under even though he was fully awake. He blinked hard to clear his vision, and for an instant everything went black.
He shook his head and blinked again. The sky returned to its normal shade of light blue.
Fatigue washed over him in a sudden wave.
"Why am I tired," he whispered. "I should not be tired."
He blinked once more, longer this time. The world dimmed for a breath before returning to the same endless sky. His wings faltered for just a moment before he steadied himself. A creeping fear began to grow in the back of his mind. Fatigue shouldn't have consumed his body this fast.
He forced his eyes wide open and flew harder, but the heaviness returned almost immediately. He blinked again, unintentionally. The sky pulsed darker for the briefest moment, like a shadow had passed over his vision. It lasted only a fraction of a second, yet it was real.
With each blink, the sky darkened.
He gritted his teeth and fought to stay awake, but his thoughts grew sluggish as if soaked in honey. His heartbeat slowed in his chest. His wings felt heavier as he rose through the vast blue emptiness. He knew this exhaustion was unnatural. No angel should feel such lethargy simply by flying.
The emptiness tugged at him from every side. Oros was gone. Nothing surrounded him except endless sky and the growing pull of sleep.
He blinked again despite struggling to keep his eyes open. This time the blue darkened noticeably, lingering longer before brightening again.
Oraniel's breath caught.
He tried to call out, to shout into the emptiness, but the words came out weak. His wings slowed. His vision blurred at the edges, the blue bleeding into gray.
He forced his eyes open one last time and the sky stayed bright for a moment.
Then he blinked again without meaning to.
The darkness crept in even deeper.
He realized with a spike of panic that he could not hold on much longer.
And the sky above him seemed to darken once more in response.