The village had always feared the sky.
It lay tucked between thick forests and broken hills, where shadows lingered longer than they should and the wind carried whispers no one dared to name. Superstition was a way of life there, anything different was dangerous, and anything unexplained was a curse.
She was seven years old when it all started.
It began with screaming.
Not hers, at least, not at first.
The ground shook beneath her bare feet as voices rose around her, sharp with panic. She stood in the center of the village square, small hands clenched into fists, her breath coming in uneven gasps. The air felt wrong, tight and buzzing, pressing against her skin.
"Stop staring at her."
"Something's wrong."
"She's not normal."
The words cut deeper than the cold stone beneath her feet.
Her chest burned, and her heart pounded so violently she thought it might tear itself free. She tried to speak, to cry out for her mother, but the sound was caught in her throat. Fear coiled in her stomach, twisting, growing heavier with every heartbeat.
Then pain tore through her back.
It was sharp and blinding, a force so intense she collapsed to her knees with a scream that split the air. Something ripped free beneath her skin, tearing muscle and bone as though her body were being pulled apart from the inside.
The sky darkened.
A violent wind exploded outward, throwing villagers back like rag dolls. Stalls shattered, wood splintered, stone cracked, and from her back, soaked in blood and agony, wings burst free.
They were dark and enormous.
Feathered in shades of midnight and ash, glistening with blood as they unfurled instinctively, reacting to her terror. Power surged from her in a violent wave, invisible yet devastating. Homes crumbled, and screams turned to silence.
Half the village fell in moments.
She didn't understand what she was doing. She didn't know how to stop it.
She only knew she was afraid.
When the wind finally died and the dust settled, the square was unrecognizable. Bodies lay broken across the ground, blood soaked into the earth, and smoke rose in thin and trembling lines.
And she stood at the center of it all, wings trembling, sobbing, her small hands stained red.
Her parents found her there.
Her mother screamed.
Her father didn't.
His face went pale, eyes wide with a horror that cut deeper than any blade. He didn't rush to her or call her name. He stared at her the way one looks at a monster crawling out of a nightmare.
"This… this isn't possible," her mother whispered, backing away. "She's cursed."
"No," her father said hoarsely. "She's worse."
They didn't ask what happened, nor did they ask if she was hurt.
That night, they made a choice.
They locked her in the cellar beneath their home, chains cold and heavy around her wrists and ankles. She cried until her throat burned, calling for them, begging them to make it stop, but fear is louder than love, and shame is crueler than mercy.
That same night, they brought fire.
She screamed as the flames touched her wings, the smell of burning feathers and flesh filling the air. She thrashed against the chains, her cries echoing through the underground chamber, but they did not stop.
Her father held her down.
Her mother turned away as iron hooks tore into her back, ripping the wings from her body piece by piece. Blood pooled beneath her, soaking into the dirt floor. The pain was so vast, so consuming, that her mind shattered beneath it.
When she finally went still, they thought her dead.
They sealed her in a coffin, nails driven deep into the wood. Darkness swallowed her whole as the lid closed.
They buried the coffin at the edge of the forest, far from the village, far from memory.
But angels, fallen or not, do not die so easily.
In the suffocating dark, her broken body healed slowly and painfully. The wounds closed and the blood dried, then her heart began to beat again.
She woke screaming, trapped in darkness, her fingers clawing uselessly at wood and earth, and then the coffin splintered.
She crawled from the grave like something reborn, gasping, shaking, her back torn and scarred where her wings had once been.
Her parents found her wandering days later.
This time, they didn't burn her, they did something worse.
They sealed her memories.
They erased the truth, the blood, the wings, and the village. Layer by layer, they buried the girl she had been beneath lies and silence. They moved constantly, never staying long enough for questions to form.
She grew up believing she was fragile, normal, and human.
But some nights, she woke screaming, her back burning as though something were trying to break free.
And deep within her, something waited patiently.
The world would one d
ay remember what her parents had tried to erase.