The sky was colder than Aren expected.
Not just cold in temperature—but in feeling. Up here, the wind didn't comfort him anymore. It cut. It judged. It reminded him how thin the line was between flying and falling.
He hovered above the clouds, shaking.
Below, the city was a blur of lights and chaos. Sirens multiplied. Search beams sliced the darkness like knives. He could still hear them faintly, even from this height.
They weren't stopping.
Aren pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his heart slam like it was trying to escape. Every breath burned. His muscles screamed, not from exhaustion—but from overuse, like they'd been stretched beyond design.
"So this is the price," he muttered.
He tried to descend—slowly this time. Careful. Controlled.
The moment his feet touched a cloud's edge, his vision flickered.
The world stuttered.
For a terrifying second, the sky vanished.
Aren dropped.
"—!"
He caught himself barely in time, wind surging up to break his fall. He gasped, lungs spasming, panic flooding in hot and fast.
"What was that…?"
His hands were trembling worse now.
He focused inward, searching for that familiar pressure in his chest—the pull of speed, the lift of wind.
It was still there.
But weaker.
Like a muscle that had been torn.
Aren swallowed.
You pushed too hard.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
His mother, late at night, sewing by weak lamp light. Her fingers always shook when she was tired, but she never stopped.
"Rest isn't weakness," she'd said once, without looking up. "It's how you survive."
Aren squeezed his eyes shut.
"I didn't rest," he whispered.
The wind didn't argue.
He forced himself down, gliding instead of running, drifting like a leaf through broken air. By the time his feet touched solid ground—an empty stretch of highway miles from the city—his legs nearly gave out.
He stumbled.
Caught himself.
Then collapsed.
The world tilted sideways as he hit the asphalt, staring up at the open sky. Clouds crawled slowly overhead, uncaring.
His body felt heavy.
Too heavy.
Aren tried to stand again.
Nothing happened.
His legs refused to answer.
Panic clawed up his throat.
"No—no, no, no—"
He slammed his fists against the road, rage and fear mixing into something ugly. "Get up! Just—get up!"
The wind stayed silent.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer.
Eventually, his legs responded—weak, shaking, like they belonged to someone else. He dragged himself upright and staggered to the side of the road.
That's when he saw it.
Blood.
Not much—but enough.
A thin line trickled from his nose, dark against pale skin, dripping onto the concrete.
Aren touched it with trembling fingers and stared.
He'd been hurt before.
But never like this.
Not from himself.
"So I bleed," he said quietly.
The realization settled like a weight on his chest.
He wasn't invincible.
He wasn't chosen.
He was just a man—running on something fragile, something finite.
Far away, helicopters thundered.
They were still looking.
Aren wiped the blood away, jaw tightening.
"Then I'll run smarter," he whispered. "Fly less. Hide better."
The sky above him rumbled softly.
Almost like laughter.
Because deep down, Aren already knew the truth.
The first thing he'd lost wasn't his safety.
It wasn't his anonymity.
It was the illusion that this power would let him escape consequence.
And once that illusion was gone—
Everything else would follow.