Are you afraid?
It was cold. The sensation rippled down her spine, pulsed through her body. No warm heart, only the cold. Wind howled in her ears, rushed past her – or perhaps even through her, she wasn’t sure. Frost nipped at her, the air’s jaws wide and hungry. Every slow breath that crept out of her only fuelled it, the cold. The nothing. For that was all that seemed to surround her: nothing. The ground beneath her was still, one long shadow, barren and bleak. Not a flower bloomed, not a single blade of grass graced the plain’s surface. Even the water had fled, if it had even been there to begin with. Only mist rolled at her feet, its pace lethargic, its will weak easily shoved to and fro by the wind.
Was this her fate? She wondered, her thoughts but soft callings, words that were hers but seemed unfamiliar all at once, to be like the fog? Not whole, and one that others would push as they pleased. No. Ever fibre of her body screamed in defiance. She would not be mist. She would not be flimsy and foolish. She would be more, much, much more. Disgusted she turned away from the clouds at her feet, perhaps if she didn’t look at them, she wouldn’t become them.
And that was when she saw it. The sky.
Looming above her a circle greeted her. Glowing softly, silently smiling with flickering beams. Beside it, splattered across the canvas were tiny glimmers of gold. As if there had once been something large and grand there, but now reduced in the shadow of the sphere. The canvas behind it was blue, not black like the ground, but a vivid dark blue. Wide-eyed she stared, the skyscape, she supposed, that hung over her head left her wide-eyed and in awe. It was beautiful, it was what she longed to be, what she longed to mould into. But it was unreachable. The female elevated herself, stretching higher and higher to no avail. Vanity propelled her but her efforts were just that, in vain. Perhaps that was what made it so enchanting, so captivating, the fact that she would never touch it, that no matter how hard she tried it would always be out of her grasp.
And then the wind shattered everything.
Suddenly, it seemed to back out into a howl, a venomous cry. It battered against her, surging past her at a speed no physical creature should ever reach. Cold seemed to freeze her, inside and out, tearing at her nerves and biting into them, leaving deep, piercing wounds. Pain leaked from the bitter frost’s movements, but she was still, unflinching.
It rumbled.
Wind its pilot the mist at her feet began to stir, almost humming softly as they swirled, ascending higher and higher in one thick cloud of black. Smoke, it was, leaking higher into the sky, ripping at the fabric of blue, swallowing the golden jewels, chewing them, destroying them and spitting out their remains. Dust, it sparkled as it fell, down, down, down, caught in the hurricane of the beast. The shadow, the mist seemed to growl now, more vicious it became, devouring more and more of the sky, greed empowering it, sins its engine.
And then the circle was gone. The full creamy hallow destroyed, swallowed, gone. All that was left was the shadows and the smoke and the cold. All that was left was nothing, everything had been swallowed. The sky had been eaten.
Are you afraid? they whispered, voice like venom, fangs – though invisible one can feel them – still wet with appetite. Eyes lock onto the shadow that is now both the land and the sky and a smile graces the female’s mouth, shining with her own hunger, one that matches the beast above her.
No.
Skyeater.
