The canopy of the Woodstock Forest sang in the wind from the clement sky— a paean known only to those attuned to nature's song and dance. Leaves fluttered adrift amidst the breeze that shook the very trunks of the numerous deciduous and evergreen trees that sprawled the exuberant forest terrain.
A break in a thick cedar's plumage revealed not a scurrying squirrel, nor a whistling bird, but Arik Mitchell, crouched on a branch like an ever-watchful gargoyle.
It was Sunday, the day after the expo, and Arik had found himself stuck in quandary once again. What else was new. But this time things were a bit different. His contemplations were familiar, yet faint, like some kind of indirect deja vu or a sudden memory of a childhood long-forgotten. He had walked this path before, or at least strolled down one much the same. The only hesitation this time was due to the denouement of the last.
Did he even deserve to see Celesti anymore after all he had done? Sure, she was ready to rekindle an old relationship. But could he allow that to himself? Was he being weak by rewarding himself with such accolades that he had long cast over the soporific precipice?
You would think that he would jump at the opportunity of something he had longed after for so long. But life has a dynamism to it that has a tendency to catch one off guard in the moment. Arik himself didn't know what he should do next, and that meant no one did.
But he didn't have to have an answer until Friday. And if there was one thing the dilatory master was versed in, it was introspective thinking (often of a superfluous nature) and procrastination.
In the meantime, he could focus on why he was currently hunkered down in a tree high above the ground.
On a robust straight limb impossible to reach through conventional means, Arik desperately built up much needed fortitude. This was the highest he had ever flown, easily topping the 10–15 foot crumbling brick walls of the esoteric logging town he had been practicing in. By his estimations, the branch he was supported on was probably 25 feet off the ground, the first flight done out in the open since first discovering the ability a week ago.
It was reinstated news to Arik that he felt uneasy at great heights, if not afraid. The elevation he was at dwarfed the ground below and dread churned his stomach like a witch stirring their hazardous cauldron. However, compared to the barriers he broke through yesterday, this was but a drop in the pond.
His reason for scaling the lithe tree was two-fold: reach a new record of vertical ascension through his flight, and claim a record for horizontal distance as well by flying to the concrete silo a couple dozen yards away. The silo was the next part, and boy was the pent up courage once harbored within crumbling like a massive statue atop a shoddy foundation of twigs.
"C'mon. You got this." He slapped his cheek a few times as if to gain his own attention. "Come on! Fear isn't real. It's just an illusion designed to keep the weak alive." He looked to the ever-shrinking ground and gulped. "You're not weak, are you?"
A light fluttering and vibration of the tree branch startled Arik, forcing him into clutching the branch for dear life. He looked up to meet eyes with a dazzling bright yellow bird with black and white wings. Arik had spent copious amounts of time in the forest drawing its various wildlife, so he knew that it was an American Goldfinch from its sunny design.
The bird flitted about on the branch with little interest in the elevated human, analyzing the area for either an easy meal or perhaps loose sticks for a nest. Arik held his breath for fear of scaring it off, but before long, it took to the air. Its direction was coincidental to say the least, soaring through the air toward the very silo Arik had marked as his destination like an extension of his very will. Within mere moments the bird had landed atop the concrete tower.
He let out an amused chuckle. "Well I guess that settles it."
Arik focused his consciousness on the thought of flying like he always did before takeoff. His wild black hair slowly began to rise as his body gradually became lighter every second.
"I can't just let a bird show me up. How will I be able to sleep tonight if I do?"
He let out an anxiety ridden sigh and let go of the branch he had been clinging to for dear life. With a courageous push of his legs and faith to boot, he began drifting from the tree like a weightless astronaut that was being towed behind their ship. He wasn't moving very fast, perhaps walking speed, but the emotions and chemicals running throughout his body were enough to make him feel like he was on tip of the world.
Looking down, he could see the angle of structures below him shifting with every foot. Looking to the silo, he could see its shape growing in size and its detail becoming ever more clear as he drew near. The precarious dimensions he was experiencing without any footing to be that high was almost nauseating. But whatever mental capacity wasn't being used for the flying was avidly avoiding a delve into dark and fearful thoughts; a nice little trick he had picked up in the last week of his flight practices.
From the moment he had pushed off from the tree he moved at a sluggish pace out of fear and lack of skill. Like anyone using a muscle, he had a vague idea that he could go beyond what he was pushing, and the further he flew through the air, the more comfortable he became, and the faster he went. It wasn't until he was finally closing the treacherous distance that his selfish acceleration had gotten the better of him.
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The trees among his vision began to blur with speed and his heart violently pumped like the steam engine of a train vigorously running on all cylinders. Any critical thinking went out the window as Arik slammed into the top of the silo with his lower body, flipping over the brim into the hollow center of the tall cylindrical structure. A yell grew ever distant as he disappeared into the dark depths of the giant concrete silo.
After a few moments, the shouting halted, followed by a small bird landing atop the silo. It was the same Goldfinch from before, still fluttering about, but this time seemingly more curious to Arik's condition than twigs. It looked down into the abyss in search of clues. Almost immediately, the flying man rocketed out of the silo toward the sky, scaring the bird off in a cloud of feathers and squawks.
"Wooohooo!" he yelled in glee toward the sky above.
His body was flying faster than it ever had, and this time it was no accident. The speed, the control, the fear; all was all so clear now. It was so easy to do, as if his fear had been the thing holding him back the whole time. But who wouldn't be afraid to soar through the sky with no safety measures?
Arik felt free. More free than possibly ever before. All of the inhibitors that had literally held him down this whole time broke away in his wake like pieces of weak debilitating armor. He had no use for them anymore; their mileage long overdue. When looking down to where he came from, he saw ever-shrinking trees in an ever-smaller forest. He also saw the shoddy image of what he used to dwell on: fear. But in its place was a reflective feeling of dopamine as he simply didn't care about the fear. He was actually doing it when everything including his former self said he couldn't.
His body was like a behemoth bullet as it punched wafting holes in the clouds blotting out the sky. Once strange thing Arik noticed was that his body wasn't experiencing any drag. No wind or atmospheric resistance to be had in his speed, of which was admittedly most likely much slower than it felt. But even more to the point was his clothes were unaffected by the speed as well, responding only to Arik himself and gravity.
'Very strange,' he thought to himself.
One thing that did affect him however was the cold. Being up so high into the clouds was much more frigid than on the nice core-warmed ground.
'Geez, isn't heat supposed to rise?'
His velocity came to a hushed stop above some drifting clouds. Analyzing the earth all around him, the view was surreal and beautiful. It wasn't a completely new feeling, most everyone had flown in a plane at least once in their life and saw the world from an elevated distance after all. But it was dumbfoundingly different with the middleman, i.e. the plane, removed from the equation. It was just him and the world in the most indirect yet direct contact he could imagine.
He slowly began sinking back through the clouds, this time enjoying that experience a bit more as well. He was being cautious when going down, as he had to directly face the fear of the ground he left beneath. Not to mention the intense and hated feeling of his stomach dropping. Going down proved to be much harder than going up, which bore an ironic resemblance to his life that he found rather amusing.
Arik found a gentler view a ways away toward the city line. From where he was, he could see everything that the bustling city offered and just how much of it had shoved the forest aside throughout the years. On one hand it was a tragedy, but on another it elaborated on the juxtaposition of nature and human ingenuity throughout the centuries. Arik didn't fully hate it.
But it did make him think: 'This is real.'
How long would he have to hide what he can do? How long until he had to show the world what he was capable of? Any closer to the city limit and he would be running the risk of being seen by people. In his heart he knew that it would happen eventually if he decided to keep doing it.
But times had changed drastically in the last few hundred years. At least he wouldn't be tied to a stake and tried as a witch... Hopefully.
Arik was most of the way down at this point. Perhaps a couple hundred yards or so. The descent had gotten easier with time as well, although his head was beginning to wave with a headache.
"Most likely due to prolonged use," he decided, slightly befuddled.
What ensued was hellish chaos.
A strike of pain zapped his body in every direction as his heart and brain went into a frenzy like none other. His vision began to ripple through shades of red as if peering through a thick stained glass window. The headache that was quickly becoming a nuisance was now violently attacking every inch of his body and he could feel his heart rapidly clicking as opposed to softly pumping.
To make matters worse, he was now careening to the forest below him like a bird with a broken wing.
'Am I having a heart attack?!' he thought aghast.
His body would hardly listen to him, moving in a slow motion only comparable to his sleep paralysis when he was younger. If all of that wasn't enough, he was also being constantly battered by the harsh wind that he was previously immune to when flying.
'I can't even activate my flying. What is going on?!' He saw the trees of the forest draw rapidly nearer like massive pikes. 'All of this just to die of a heart attack and fall damage. Can't say this isn't fitting.'
Arik closed his eyes in his final seconds out of defeat. He didn't want to die, not anymore. But there was nothing he could do.
Rather than plummet directly into the hard ground below, his body managed to collide with a large fir tree. Tree needles and wood flew everywhere as his helpless body rag-dolled down the tree, hitting and snapping what felt like every branch along the way. Once filtered through the serrating tree limbs, he hit the mossy ground in a heavy and crinkled thud.
Face up to the sky, he opened his eyes. Although his vision was very foggy and dizzy, he was alive, much to his dismay. His body hurt all over, but he didn't know which assortment of things had caused it at this point. He could feel the warm blood trickling down from his nose and various parts of his body. Simply put, he was scared to move.
'I think I'll just lay h— BLURGHA."
Talking was a mistake. Blood exploded from his mouth like a crimson fountain and speckled his face in more nauseating warmth. The cough forced part of his body to move in contraction, and a pain unlike anything he had ever experienced wrinkled his face.
Trying his very hardest to lift his head, he managed to look down at his abdomen. It was sporting a hefty branch right through it that painted his shirt red. He could see the pine needles folded over each other sticking out from his wound as well, as if the very branch was growing out of his stomach.
Even in his pain ridden stupor he realized, it was the tip of the tree he had fallen onto.