Flight School: Prey

A Good Hell

How strange it was, to have a final thought. It never occurred to Io that it would have been so vague and indecisive—ultimately, it was yet another question. One that he could not answer.

It served to disappoint him, really, that his mind would always come up with questions and never, never ever answers. Not even in its final product.

There was a lightening of a load and this, Io assumed, was the taking of his breath and freeing of the soul. From where had he heard that the body was a prison? He had long forgotten. Perhaps there was nothing to be remembered in the first place; not at a point of—

Enough.

Was it natural for one to hear things in the afterlife? Io soon realized it to be a stupid question that deserved no answer. He had begun to develop a coming awareness of his senses. Something he had lost moments ago—surely, his sense of time warped and disordered; no less unreliable than the rest of his intuitions.

His eyes opened with a blind surge of light that chased darkness by its tail, returning the sparrow to the nightmare he so wished would end. He barely registered the cool surface of his charm against skin when violent gasps for air ensued as though having been submerged underwater for the longest time.

Io's heart pounded wildly against its cage, perhaps wondering how it would beat again still for it was sure the previous time had been its last.

He sat up, taking in the girl before him and the other beside, on the ground, sobbing quietly into her knees that were drawn up to her chest. Dazed eyes searched for remaining life and he found Shel and Rien a distance away. There was someone else behind—who had it been?

There was the clear sound of something being undone; the unclasping of his choker. The phoenix had little life in her eyes as she did so gently, taking the charm as her own before straightening up from the forest ground Io sat upon.

The latter turned to face the bluejay who stood a second from being his murderer and felt the disappointment of betrayal seep into the deepest part of his cage.

Hatred was hard to dispel and like Love, it was here to stay.

Io thought how he would have, regardless of the bluejay's interference, given up his victory to someone else, anyone else. There was no importance in a victory and this, in comparison, seemed not a matter of the slightest. How could someone else wish so strongly to decide his own fate? To take his life; would he choose to help someone like that?

For it had been his plan all along: to take the Marks—unharmed and unhunted, with their charms intact—to the exit.

There was no benevolence in the act. No bravery; no kindness; no virtue; no strength; no light but also no dark—for the method was in the dream.

The dream was to become real;

His dream. Pipa's dream. The butterfly, the nightingale, the raven, the crow and perhaps even the eagle—

Did the bluejay, in theory, betray his care?

But did she know he cared? Perhaps it was simply because she didn't. There was no form of instant communication in the Box and everything seemed so rightfully wrong. Io heard her sobbing on his left and it appeared to be further than before. Maybe he was getting detached from reality after all and there was no saving from the darkness for it had had his heart.