Caelum

-Have you ever dreamed of flying? Flying free through the endless blue sky, with the wind in your face and a feeling of freedom in your heart? I did... I dreamed about it every day, but I cannot fly… Not with those deformed wings, these wings that I was born with. I am trapped in this land unable to leave, I can only watch these angels flying in this beautiful sky...

Utopia, Capital of the Angels

Caelum walks slowly through the crowd of angels in the middle of the square. The midday sun shone upon Greek-style buildings and illuminated the pompous details of a majestic angel statue in the middle of a giant fountain, while dozens of angels passed and disappeared in the city.

As she walks, several of the angels look at her with disgust, Caelum chooses to ignore them.

A little girl who ran through the crowd stops when she notices Caelum and starts staring at her with curiosity. After a few moments she innocently asks.

-Hey, hey miss. Where are your wings?

Caelum was visibly shaken by the sudden question.

She stared at the young girl with a melancholic look, after a brief sigh she makes a forced smile and says:

-Well, my wings were faulty, so they… removed them.

A few meters behind them, the girl’s mother appears worried looking around till she sees her daughter talking with a stranger, she approaches them in a hurry and grabs her daughter and gives her a warm hug without taking even a second look at Caelum.

-Where were you?! - She says.

The woman then turns to Caelum and says with a relieved expression.

-Sorry for my daugh-

But, when she looks at Caelum she stops mid-sentence and her expression changes immediately to the same disgusted look Caelum saw many times before. She abruptly takes her daughter’s hand and walks away without saying a word.

While they walked away and disappeared into the crowd Caelum could hear her voice scolding the girl.

-Never come near her again! She's evil! Understood?!

Caelum remains there, standing in the crowd watching them walking away in silence.

-Huh. - She says.

With a slight sigh, she regains her composure and takes a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket.

Caelum

-Ok. Let’s see what I need to buy.

After a few steps, Caelum sees an agitation as various angels gather at one specific point.

The reason for this was one middle-aged angel talking in front of all those angels.

Caelum

-What is happening?

One of the angels answers without looking at her.

-Shut up, the prophet is speaking.

Middle-aged angel

-Falling from the infinite blue like a shining star showing the terrible fate of our people, the being opposite to us and existence itself, unable to fly and yet coming from the highest plane, whose presence brings destruction and the fall of everything around it!

He notices Caelum watching and continues.

-Our ancient prophecy told us from the beginning about our fall! Warned us! And yet we ignore it! And now, when no one else can ignore the impending downfall, they realize the obvious! That the being of misfortune, of perdition! Has been with us for over a decade!

Caelum gets impatient and mutters to herself.

-Nonsense.

She then walks away from the crowd, some angels stare at her from behind with contempt.

Already out of the capital and close to the edge of the island, Caelum walked under green fields and watched the sky on the horizon of this flying island. She then goes up a small hill with a single tree on top of it, tied to this tree was a pegasus waiting for its owner.

Caelum speaks, stroking the animal's mane.

-Sorry for the delay, let's go home, old friend.

Caelum attaches leather bags that carried her purchases to the animal's saddle and mounted on it she flies away from the capital.

They passed through several small islands that floated around the capital until they reached one of considerable size, it was further away from the capital, and on it, there was a small farm.

Caelum took her pegasus to a stable and then entered a house carrying the leather bags.

She is greeted by an old man sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating bread.

Old man

-How it was?

Caelum

-The usual.

Caelum passes by the table going straight to the stairs that led to the second floor and her bedroom, the old man stared at her in silence, upon entering her room, Caelum throws herself on the bed and after a few moments looks at a window and sees her island, her home, she smiles and then falls asleep.

A few days later, Caelum was back in the capital once more, she then saw the same crowd as always around the prophet.

She sighs and speaks

-And here we go again…

She tries to get around that crowd but stops when she hears a booming voice screaming.

-What is the meaning of such a commotion!? -The screaming voice cuts off the prophet. A silence descends on the crowd, which is broken by the march of soldiers. They were led by Leo, the general of the angels, he had short red hair, about 2 meters of a strong and brawny body, and was wearing a red earring in his right ear and a tight ruby-encrusted armor.

The crowd opened a path for the march.

Caelum looks Leo straight in the eyes without any preoccupation while Leo approaches her.

Leo

-Caelum… So this commotion is your fault.

Caelum

-This is... no.

Leo

-Caelum Somnium Volare, you’re under arrest for disturbing the peace!

Caelum is taken by surprise.

-What is the meaning of this, Leo?!

Leo

-Caelum, it will be better for you not to resist, men you know what to do.

Caelum is quickly surrounded by soldiers aiming spears and swords at her, she raises her hands surrendering, she looks around and sees smiles and people celebrating her arrest.

Surrendered, Caelum walks with her head down under the soldier's escort.

An angel yells from the crowd.

-Die!

Another angel picks a stone and throws it in Caelum’s head making her fall stunned by the impact.

Caelum

-Ugh!

Still feeling dizzy she looks around and sees some angels from the crowd around her at a distance throwing more stones and shouting offenses. Caelum curls up on the ground trying to protect herself as much as possible from the rocks.

Rocks and offenses fly into Caelum.

-Disgrace!

-The world would be better without you!

-Die! Grotesque creature!

While she is stunned on the ground, her head turns towards a familiar voice, as she turned she could see, the mother and the child she had met just some time ago, the mother had a stone in her hand screaming

-You should never have been born!

Her daughter was frightened by the scene in front of her, trying to stop her own mother, but all her effort was futile.

Leo, annoyed by the actions of the people, screams and gets in front of Caelum blocking the rocks with his own body.

-Stop! You are interfering with official affairs of the kingdom! Any future disturbance will be severely reprimanded!

Leo then turns to Caelum and says.

-Stand up Caelum, you must be arrested in the name of our peace.

Caelum thinks to herself.

-Why?Why?WHY?!

Caelum looks around again, but all she sees are the faces of the other angels with a mix of anger against her and at the same time happy for her suffering.

-Useless… I just have to endure this ordeal, one more ordeal, that's all I can do, “endure”. I can't do anything…

Suddenly, in the fountain behind Caelum and Leo, a big explosion spits water to all the sides.

-What is this?

Everyone turned their attention to the source as a figure started moving and with visible difficulty, he managed to rise and stand up, he was a teenager completely soaked and for some reason was also stretching while he loudly complained.

-Why did I have to fall? Now I'm all screwed.

Everyone in the square stopped moving, they all just stared, frightened by that sudden appearance, tension and silence spread through till they were broken by a single word.

-Hello..?

The crowd practically yells their lungs out in pure horror.

Caelum in shock thought to herself.

-He has no wings!

END OF THE FIRST CHAPTER