The female in my arms grows ever more feverish. Her strength bleeds away by the second, and what power I use fails to last—unable to fully heal what has taken hold.
When sound leaves her—it’s strained, fragile. Speaks of pain.
Not a conscious sound, since wakefulness is a battle she fought honorably and lost some hours ago. Now, her eyes flutter faintly as if to open, but their leaf-like hues remain hidden behind eyelids heavy with sleep.
Sweat dampens the wavy, dark strands near her hairline, and her cheeks have gone from olive to blush overnight.
Unable to solve this great mystery, I cradle her tightly to my chest, as if my body alone might keep hers from unraveling. Then I head toward a mild storm system, hoping the cooler weather will offer her some reprieve.
Moments later, I adjust my hold and climb higher, wings stretching wide as I carry us into the grey clouds. The air shifts as we breach them—thick, cold, and wet. The world below disappears, swallowed whole by a dense, colorless void.
Hope—thin as it is—returns when her body softens against mine. Her breaths are evening out. Heat ebbs from her skin.
We travel in this manner until the cold does more harm than good—until the chill has her trembling in my arms, her teeth chattering loud enough to be heard over the wind.
Recognizing that, in flight, there is little I can do, I change course. I break through the cloud cover and begin my descent, surveying the surface for somewhere safe to land where I can tend to her properly.
Dawn is breaking. Dark blues are now infused with sporadic rushes of pink and orange. The sky lightens along the mountain ridge to the east, though it will be another hour yet before full sunlight graces the day. So I remain in the sky, where it is safest.
We pass over a once-prosperous city now lying in ruin. The remnants of life linger in the complex highway no one travels. The grid system of streets with mass traffic that never moves. Multilevel buildings stand hollow, haunted by the ghosts of those who toiled away their time here in vain.
Meaningless labor toward meaningless pursuits.
We pass silent towns, cratered pockets of earth, and husks that used to be homes.
Flashes come then—of the ages of man, generation upon generation. Their humble beginnings. Back when land was not owned, only inhabited, worked, tended, and trusted to provide what was needed. When survival and prosperity were worthy aspirations, when they muddled their way through creation and discovery—finding language, art, music—and held love and God above all else.
This—this was what set them apart? What elevated them above all other beings in His eyes?
When and why they turned from these, I don’t know, but it was when the shift first occurred, when God’s influence slowly began to disperse, as many turned from faith and looked outward instead of inward for Him.
Yet he waited.
Remained a solid presence in their lives.
Gave them untold chances to change their ways.
His love was never-ending until he had to choose between them and all the rest of creation.
Through Him, I saw what came before my rebirth and then witnessed the past few centuries unfold as they fell from his grace.
The magnitude of the waste here burdens my soul. The true meaning of life slipped from their grasp ages ago, and they didn’t even know it.
What might the world have looked like then? A question now without an answer.
Because now it no longer matters.
But the knowing remains—that this end was not inevitable. That it might have been averted had they understood the weight of what was placed in their hands… and remembered why they were here. Such understanding is not easily borne once known.
Aware that I have let thoughts such as these plague my mind for longer than they should, I press on toward the more rural outskirts until a forest comes into view.
Though even here, death is unavoidable.
Dead pines stretch up from the scorched ground, tall, leafless, and blackened—their trunks dusted with ashfall.
Broken syllables pull me from my thoughts—not words, not yet, but breath and sound slipping from her lips.
Then they took shape, stilted at first, and stammered, but cherished all the same.
