(no subject)
Title(s): Angel's Flight
Author: julia_dreamer
Fandom(s): Original
Pairing(s): N/A
Length: 606
Summary: "They do not see the dawning elation in his deep green eyes."
Note: This is the prolouge to my JulNoWriMo~
Feedback: Always appreciated.
The bridge is pocked green steel, unadorned, stretching heavily across the river. The metal is crossed and bent, a weighty hump of support for the cracking roadway. He examines it impartially, standing near the cliff that overlooks the riverbank. People driving by on the road notice him; they see a young man in baggy khaki pants and a button-up shirt, long black hair blown into his eyes by the breeze. They do not see how threadbare his clothes are, or the holes in the toes of his canvas shoes, or the ragged edges of his hair where it had been cut with a Swiss Army knife. They do not see the dawning elation in his deep green eyes.
He leaves the shoes on the cliff, walking barefoot through the damp grass to the cool cement sidewalk. As he walks, he unbuttons the shirt, letting the wind carry it over the side of the bridge to float forgotten in the water. A car slams on its brakes behind him, and he hears a shout. He disregards it.
Things are changing.
He stands balanced on the rail of the bridge, toes curled, leaning forward.
Weightless.
The wind rushes past him, curving up from underneath the bridge and pressing him backward. Holding him up.
There are people behind him, people he doesn’t know, people who just happened to be passing by. Cars parked in the middle of the road. He can’t hear them over the rushing wind, but he can feel their presence, their tense desperation to keep him, a stranger, from doing this - not this. They do not touch him, do not even come close, but they hold him back with their minds. He can feel the tenuous grip of their hands on him, like the brush of a ghost on his skin.
He thinks they must be shouting, or trying to talk him down. He remembers it from their televisions and their reality and their way of life. He knows why they cling to him, to stopping him. He knows they can feel it changing.
They do not understand.
He shifts his feet, and more of his weight is balanced on the wind.
He will show them.
A scream cuts the air, louder than the white noise in his ears, louder than the thudding of his heart. He smiles, carefully, but if they could see it now they would not call it a smile. They would see how strange that look was on a face shaped like theirs. It is as if he has remembered their reality, their lives, and has thumbed over them all, learning them, knowing them, and although what he sees of them makes him sad, he knows he can make it better. He knows that he is the grain of sand that will finally tip the scale. He knows that he is the beginning, and his time has finally come.
The wind is dying down, slowly, and he can hear them now. There is a man speaking to him very slowly, very carefully, in a fashion that reminds him of how one handles a piece of fragile glass, so thin that the faintest pressure leaves spider-webbed cracks all along its surface. He turns to look at them, just once. He sees horror in their faces, and despair, and fear, and morbid fascination. His smile then is just like any other smile.
The wind stops.
Without the counter-balance, there is nothing to keep him on the rail. As he falls forward, there is a shout, a rush from the crowd-
And then his wings extend, brilliant white and silver, and he is weightless once more.
[A/N] So I'm really behind the actual doing-stuff part of my JulNo. But you know what? I refuse to care. Because my computer GLOWS PURPLE. Ha.