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Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Her words percolated in my brain, slowly unraveling the bonds formed by grief since the crash. Dad affirmed it, adding that they also had their own hopes for what my life could be like which would never be realized if I refused to go on.
Maybe I just needed to hear it from them in person. Whatever it was, I felt the poisonous cloud which enveloped me after the crash, which had in fact been slowly choking me to death until now, rapidly evaporate.
“I’ll do it. It makes sense now. It still hurts, but...I can’t let it kill me. That isn’t what you planned. I have to live out my life! I have to try my best to find happiness, because that’s how you wanted it to happen, so it’s got to be that way.”
Dad sighed. “That’s not what I...no, you know what? Fine. If that works for you.” Mom laughed. Just then a great shadow once again passed over us outside, accompanied by another ear splitting caw. We all huddled against the far wall in the hopes of escaping notice.
“Now there’s just the problem of getting you to the top of the tower” Dad whispered. The tower? “What’s up there?” He shushed me, only replying once the last of the wind outside died down. “Other than waking up, it’s the only way out.”
The problem was how to approach the tower without being spotted by Crocraw. As we navigated the countless darkened corridors carved within the concrete walls of the maze, again and again Croctaw soared overhead, stirring up powerful winds.
Looking for me. I knew the minute I showed my face atop the walls of the maze, I would be plucked from it like a crow snatches a worm from the soil. I turned when I heard a scuffle. Dad dragged another one of the creatures in through a doorway, then cut its throat.
I gasped. “LOOK AWAY!” he shouted as he went about his grisly work. So I did. Perhaps thirty minutes later he told me I could look again. There was no body in sight. Just the bird skull, and a black, feathery cloak which I discovered upon donning it was the creature’s skin.
I didn’t have wings, but it’s rare that they reveal them anyway. I fought back distressing questions about who that creature may have been, distracting myself best I could from the dried blood on my father’s hands and face.
“He’ll only reappear somewhere else. That’s how it is here.” Reassuring to hear him say that, but it did very little to subdue my nausea. Worse still was the feeling of bloody, freshly removed skin wrapped around me.
It did the trick though. After making our way back to the center of the maze, we did not so much as attract an errant glance. I shuffled along in my best imitation of the way that I’ve seen them walk, and soon enough we reached a doorway at the base of the tower.
The long, tedious climb was made worse by the windowless darkness of the spiral staircase. When we arrived at the top, there was a great concrete throne with a nest tucked into it. In the nest were several eggs, identical to the one I saw earlier.
But that wasn’t the strangest thing. The sky, which I assumed until now was an empty black void, came close enough here that I could see it for what it truly is. A black fabric canopy, like a great dome over this land. Never a real sky in the first place, just more stagecraft.
There were criss crossing scratches in it directly overhead, light faintly showing through. “Croctaw has been trying to break through for eons” Mom whispered. “But of course he can’t do it, for the same reason your father and I can’t.” Dad handed me a jagged knife. “But you can.”
Another deafening caw shook the ground beneath our feet. In the distance, Croctaw approached. Wings beating furiously, trailed by a vast black cloud which I realized must be an imposingly large flock of his followers flying just behind him.
“NOW!” Dad yelled. “Do it now, there’s no time!” He and Mom took me by the hands, then began flapping their wings. The wind generated by it tossed my hair this way and that as slowly, I was lifted from the top of the concrete tower towards the underside of the fabric membrane.
Another caw. Closer and closer they came as I awkwardly flailed the knife, struggling to stay upright as Mom and Dad held me aloft. When I looked down, Mom was crying. Dad just looked fiercely resolute.
“I’ll remember what you said! I’m sorry I fell so far that you had to do this. I love you so much” I called down to them, unsure if they would hear me over the steadily increasing sound of flapping wings and Croctaw’s infuriated cries. “We love you too!” they answered. “Now go! Go, and live!”
I slashed at the fabric, this time splitting it open just wide enough that I could slip my hand through and grab the edge. With Mom and Dad below, boosting me by the legs, I crawled up through the opening. Through the ripped black fabric, through a thin layer of soil on top of it...tumbling confused and tearful onto the dew-speckled grass of Greenborough park.
The End. Follow me for more like this!