Page 70 of Palingenesis

Friends leaving.

Siblings choosing distance.

I deserve better.

One wayward thought and I’m stumbling through the foyer like my life doesn’t depend on reaching the exit. I’m near bawling as I rip open the front door that Ilios has carried me through multiple times now. Gasping with a pain so deep in my chest that I might never take another breath again when I hit the tree-lined pathway that leads to my getaway.

And yet, every piece of me screams to turn around and give in to Ilios; to succumb to the fantasy of what he’s given me.

He’s saved my life.

Learned my language.

Read my thoughts and known what I’ve needed even more than I, myself, have.

Never once made me feel… less.

Which is exactly why I can’t stop.

Glancing over my shoulder, the sunlight baring down on the glowing landscape, I see him following me. He’s big, bigger than he was just minutes ago, and… morphing.

He clears the porch on a leap, wings exploding from his back with sparks flying, and he lifts into the air. It’s effortless. Beautiful.

I stumble.

Barely catching my footing, my heart pounding in my chest, I sprint towards the direction I came when I first found this place. It all looks so different now, glittering in the light of day, with a winged creature hot on my heels.

A heat I can actually feel.

I have no idea what he’ll do if he catches me this time.

The idea terrifies me as much as it excites me.

But do I let that stop me? Absolutely not.

Hauling ass, I aim for the path with the flowers that I know will lead back to my truck that I left behind when I wandered in here. If I can just make it there, I can leave and gather my bearings. Go home and shower and do just about anything without the eyes of a monster searing into me.

Just a little farther…

My body halts, legs still kicking except there’s nothing to push off from. Air fills the space beneath me as I’m lifted clear off the ground, the gusts of flapping wings disrupting everything around me. It’s like a wind vortex leaving everything below me swirling and spinning into oblivion as Ilios lifts me higher.

Talons the size of my head—bigger—wrap around my arms, holding me steady despite my swinging. The claws are terrifyingly sharp, and tight around my biceps as he takes us higher and higher. So far that my adrenaline bleeds from my being and makes way for the very real possibility that if I fall from this height, it’ll kill me.

Maybe that’s been his plan all along?

I find myself clinging to him now, my throat vibrating with my shouts, as he flies us just beneath the canopy of leaves and branches, expertly maneuvering us between obstacles.

Everything seems so much larger from up here, mostly wide open for him to navigate through.

Except for a few thick branches he goes through instead of around.

My heart is racing, my throat dry.

Instinctively, I curl my legs up close to my body and make myself smaller. When we finally land, it’s on a branch big enough to stand on, maybe even sit, but so high above the forest floor that it makes my stomach turn.

The familiar hum of Ilios’s presence tickles the back of my mind as I cling to the branch with both arms.

He doesn’t speak—or think, I guess—as he guides my legs to hold on, too. I oblige willingly. I’m a pliable mess, too scared of falling to my death at the hands of my nightmare.