Wings
Pain.
This all started when I was about 9. That’s when the first part of the wing started coming in, the first part is always the worst. It’s the joint that connects the wings to your shoulder-blades. It starts as two boney protrusions that come out at the bottom of the shoulder. That’s when the doctor visits start. The pain is blinding at times but you learn to live with it, the pain medications never work any way. At this time the wing is still covered by your skin, to protect it while it grows. That is what gives the doctors the illusion that it is some form of bone deformation. I remember going to the doctor with my mom and every time they would say “we just don’t know” she would burst into tears, and I would look out of the window, numb. I was diagnosed with Scoliosis, Kyphosis and many others, the symptoms never quite lined up. The second part to develop is the “fingers” the skeletal support of the wing. These don’t hurt as much, they grow from the joint down your back, still in the skin. This is where the doctors get very confused. And your parents get very scared. When my “fingers” started to grow I was twelve, by this time I was already a freak of nature, people avoided me, and threw in the occasional “how’s your back today?” I couldn’t play sports or hang out with my friends; I took a handful of medications and went to school, got home, took another handful and slept. I lost so much weight. I didn’t want to eat. I was falling behind in school, my mom decided to home school me. I hated being alone but I was more comfortable. Next the skin starts building up around your wings, the extra skin will become the leathery “sail” the part that actually gets you airborne. This is the part when your parents think the end is near, strange relatives start to visit and the house fills with flowers. The odd part was I was feeling much better; growing skin is much less painful than growing bone. They must have thought I was crazy; I had a giant deformity on my back and was asking to try out for soccer. I was thirteen when the sail started growing. After the sail the skin covering starts to become transparent, that is so the wings can come out, like a hideous white butterfly. I guess in the "wild" one is supposed to rub against a tree or something to break the covering I however didn't know that, or that the covering was supposed to break at all. I remember when my covering broke, it was on a Saturday morning. My parents had gone to the gym before I woke up. I was fourteen. I remember thinking that I would sleep in a little longer, and wiggled farther under the covers. That’s when I turned onto my back, it felt like my back ripped apart and all the usual pressure on my back just disappeared. My heart stopped. I sat up and looked at my bed and saw a mixture of water and blood everywhere. I got up and felt something limp on my back, I reached around and touched it. It was wet and felt like clumps of skin. I panicked and ran to the bathroom, they were deathly white and had boney fingers running through them. They fell like a cape on my back wet and limp. They were long enough to touch my hips. That’s when I started to realize what they were. Wings. I didn’t scream, I didn’t faint, I just looked at them. Wings.
Motion.
My parents however did scream and faint, multiple times in fact. They also rushed me to the emergency room where they had every nurse and doctor in the place come look at me, most of them screamed too. In the end they just cleaned off my back and sent me home, attributing the strange resemblance to wings as a coincidence. They also told me to be very careful for about a week. The real break through came when I discovered I could……..move them. I was home alone again, and despite the doctors orders I wanted something on the top shelf. When I reached up to grab it the wings went up too. That’s when I screamed, very high pitched if I say so myself. No deep manly screams here. I would like to say I screamed and then started experimenting with them, but that’s not the truth. I screamed and then tried to outrun them. However its very hard to outrun something that is attached to your back. Cross “embarrass myself” off the list for that day. I then sheepishly went back into the kitchen and started to lift my arms up again, the wings obeyed whatever my arms did. Arm up, wing up. Arm down, wing down. Arms do thriller dance, wings do Thiller-like dance. The wings motor skills then are nothing compared to what they can do now, now they are completely independent of my arms, I can even move individual fingers to grab things. When my parents got home I decided not to show them, they would have made me go to the doctor again and everyone would scream and try and run as many test on me as they could, I was not going to do that again. I felt great, better than great. There was no more pain, I could move anyway I wanted for the first time in six years, six useless spent years. My mom did eventually find out that they moved, and promptly fainted. When she came to however I made her promise not to tell a soul. She then told my dad, thanks mom. This was about the time that I could be independent again, with the help of a very puffy camouflage jacket. I could go to the store with my mom. I could go see a movie. I could go to the zoo for the third time in my life. I spent almost an hour looking at the bats, there was now a resemblance. I stood there fascinated by their wings and strangely enough their faces. They kept looking at me like they knew that I understood better than anyone standing next to me what their lives were like. Because we both shared wings we were somehow connected. They knew the weight I carried on my back. I watched them talk to each other. I watched them sail through the air, and I watched them take off and land, and I got an idea.
Falling.
My first attempt at flight was a couple weeks before my fifteenth birthday. I searched for weeks for the perfect place to launch, I looked at different cliffs, hills, big rocks. Some had too many trees, others were too steep, and some were not steep enough. After searching a while I finally found a small cliff that looked perfect. While my parents were out of the house for a couple hours I walked to my small cliff that happened to be about a mile from any road, I know I checked. It took me about half an hour to reach it. I scanned all the trees and tried to memorize where they were, just in case. Then I checked the ground for rocks or holes, clear. As I stood opposite the cliff side getting ready to try out my wings a thought came into my head, “what if I fall?” I slowly walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked over, it looked so much higher than it had the first time. I could just imagine myself leaping off of here and falling…..all the way down there. Ummmm…about that awesome plan of mine to jump off a cliff and fly? Yeah not happening. But what if I just jump off this rock here and try to hover? That could work! Looking down from my little rock here is not very intimidating, I could do this! I’m gonna fly! I gathered my muscles and took a deep breath. Then I jumped as high as I could. The cool air blew past my face, lifting my hair off my head. This is working! Then I realized as I hit the ground that no this wasn’t working. As I held up my now fractured wrist I realized it defiantly wasn’t working. “Crap! Joshua Ramsey how are we going to get that fixed now!! Please doctor ignore the giant wings on my son’s back!! Its his wrist you need to worry about!” “mom I just fell, its not my fault.” Well technically it was my fault, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “DAVE!!!!” “What is it this time Jeanette?” “Come see what your son did!!” This dear readers is a bad sign first she used my whole name, normally she just calls me Joshua , then she renounced her parental claim on me. Crap. “He broke his wrist!!” “Well is it really broken? Can he see straight?” that was dad’s response for every injury, for example when I was eight I stepped on a rusty nail and it punctured my foot. When my mom called my dad his response was “is it really cut? Can he see straight?”
“Yes Dave he can see straight! How would he have gotten home?!?” “okay, fine I’ll take him to the doctor, where’s that damn coat?”
My second attempt at flying was six weeks later when I got the cast off. I went back to the same spot but this time I was much more careful. The first try I managed to hover for about two seconds, then fall. The seventh try I managed to hover for four seconds. The thirteenth try I stayed airborne for a whole six seconds. However it took me three weeks of falling to beat the six seconds with a record time of, get ready, seven seconds. The more I went out to the hill/cliff the stronger my wings became. They also got tanner and tanner, they were no longer deathly white, they were more pinkish tan. They also started to grow a kind of fuzz on them. It made them less sensitive and I didn’t get sunburned as much. Getting a sunburn on your wings hurts like hell, wear sunscreen children. They also started to get longer and more robust. It was becoming easier to hover. And the easier it became to hover the more confidant I became with my new wings.
Learning.
The more confidant I became the higher I jumped. The higher I jumped the bigger rocks I had to find. The bigger the rock I jumped off of the bigger my head got. The bigger my head got the higher I jumped. Thankfully though I didn’t break any more bones even jumping off of small cliffs. The only thing that bothered me though was that I wasn’t really flying I could never go higher than where I had jumped from, I was just slowing my fall. It bugged me to no end, I wanted to fly and I wanted to fly right now. Maybe I just needed a bigger cliff, it was time to go back to my hill/cliff combo. There I was again facing the cliff, but this time I was confidant I wasn’t going to fall. I shook myself loose and bounced from one foot to the other like the boxers in the movies do. I got into a runners start position and gathered my muscles. “just because a baby bird has wings doesn’t mean he can fly” I think I jumped higher then than when I was jumping off a cliff. I whirled around looking for the voice “up here” I looked up and found the source of the voice an African man with long braided hair pulled up in a ponytail. He was sitting against the trunk of a nearby tree, and had huge black wings. I had thought my wings were impressive they already reached almost to my knees, but they were nothing compared to his. If he had let them they would have dragged the ground several feet behind him. He extended his wings and almost floated down to the bottom of the tree he had been sitting in, his wingspan had to be over 20 feet. Another skill he had impressed me almost more than his wingspan, his arms didn’t have to move, to move his wings, they were independent. “ your trying to fly too soon, your nothing but a baby bird” A baby bird!! Is that what I was now? I am a lot of things but I am NOT a Baby bird! “I’m fifteen!!” “even in human years your still a baby bird” “Why do you keep calling me that!?!” “well what would you have me call you?” he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and raised one eyebrow. Crap even his Eyebrows are independent!! “well…..i…...” and then I resorted to the all powerful “ummmm…….” “your trying to fly way before your ready, all you can do is hover a few seconds right?” “uhhh……” he took a couple steps toward me as I took a couple steps back “your wings are still pink your nowhere near ready for real flight, how long is your wingspan? Eight feet? Maybe on a good day?” his face had hardened slightly and his eyes narrowed. “where are your parents? Flying across the world probably” I was slightly stunned by the question. Flying across the world? “they don’t have enough money for the tickets” He stopped walking towards me and stared at me, confused. “tickets? They don’t have wings??” “no, they don’t” his face became more confused. “are you adopted?” now I was really confused. “no I saw my birth certificate, their really my parents” “grandparents then?” what was he trying to get at? “no, none of them had wings” he looked at me like I was a liar, then slowly asked me “how is that possible?” Now that’s funny, he’s the one who has had wings years longer than me and known about them probably way before he even had wings, and HE was the one asking ME how is that possible. Who’s the baby bird now? “I don’t know, is that not normal?” What? He’s still an adult, even if he is a six foot tall baby bird. “I’ve never heard of that ever happening, not even in the legends. One of the parents or even grandparents would always have wings.” “none of my family that I know of has ever had wings” his face lit up “are any of your family members missing?” oh!! Now I understand where he’s going, gotcha!! “yes, my great great uncle Patrick, my mom used to tell me all the rumors of how he disappeared when I was in the hospital.” For a couple seconds he leaned against a tree, and stared hard into my eyes. “you need to get home baby bird its past eight, I’ll see you here tomorrow.”
The next day I walked to the hill/cliff combo and waited for baby bird to show up. I was day dreaming when a shadow fell over me, I looked up and saw baby bird flying over me. He had his wings extended all the way, I was right, his wingspan had to be over twenty feet. His legs were trailing behind him acting like a rudder, I’d never seen someone that was that big doing something so graceful. As much as I hate to admit it, I was in awe. Every single move he made seemed perfectly calculated. And the fact that his wings were independent just added to the picture. He dived so close to the ground I thought he was going to crash, but instead he angled back up and then dropped his legs and landed perfectly on a rock about five feet from me. For a second he stood there staring at me with his wings outstretched, with the sun glinting off his sails. Then he gently hopped off of the rock while folding his wings behind his back. When he was right in front of me, he crossed his arms and asked “so what’s your name baby bird?” “Joshua.” He turned his head and stared into the valley next to my cliff. I paused waiting for him to say something, he finally turned back to me and said “I knew a Joshua once, he was an idiot. He flew into a sandstone cliff.” “I’m guessing he didn’t fly away?” He threw back his head and laughed. “not hardly! He looked like human jello when they finally found him. My names Iregi.” “Iregi? Is it from…” He raised his eyebrows at me “Africa? Yes its Kenyan, it means rebel” He turned and started to walk away toward a glacier rock, then paused and looked over his shoulder. “And don’t go calling me reggie, i-re-gee that’s how you say it.” He covered the distance to the rock in three steps and sat down leaning his arms on his knees. I don’t care how much he seems to want to help me, I still didn’t trust him, not one bit. “Why are you here?” He raised his eyes toward me. “The best place to hide is where no one is looking.” See? He’s hiding from someone, all the more reason to not trust him. “Hiding from who?” “listen baby bird, not everyone with wings is nice like me, some out there would kill you on sight. the….” A slight nagging panic was rising in my chest. “But why?!"“you weren’t born into their family, therefore you are the enemy. You need to make sure to always hang out with mutts, safety in numbers.” “But who are they?” He looked down and sighed, I cautiously changed my weight to my other foot while glancing at the sky. “there are families, where they all have wings, in the older families children born without wings are killed. They come from every continent and every country. The oldest are from places like the Australian outback where they can fly without others seeing. The oldest family I’ve met are the Kambure from Australia, their also one of the nastier families.” I was stunned. Who were these people? “are those the ones that are after you now?” He chuckled and sat up. “their always after me! They don’t forgive insults very easily.” At this point I wasn't sure what to say. But I now knew that there were families out there that would kill me given the chance and to make it worse they could fly too. "So how do we stay safe with these people out there?" "well the simplest thing to do is never get caught in between them and another family. These families are vicious baby bird when they get together." He looked me in the eye and grinned. "But enough about our dear cousins lets see how long you can hover."
We spent the next several hours with me jumping off of rocks and Iregi coaching me on how to stay up longer. Even though I hated to admit it six foot tall baby bird knew a thing or two, which is much more than I knew. The first thing I had done wrong was what Iregi called "the hummingbird." Well what he actually said was "stop, you look like a damn hummingbird..." Instead of angling my arms and wings to catch the air and push down on it, I had been uselessly flapping as fast as I could. He told me if I would bend my wrist down and almost "hug" the air I could capture more and stay in the air longer. I even gained a little altitude on my sixth try!
By lunch I had completly exhausted myself, I wasnt used to exercising that much. While I was resting I couldn't help but start asking Iregi more questions about the families and the mutts. What I learned was this, the four top dogs are the Kambure, the Masatu who are mainly from Ethiopia, but they also extend deep into neighboring countries, the Banu Askad from the deserts in the middle east, and the Tenactican, or Mesa Tribe from mexico. There are also smaller "off shoots." These off shoots are family groups that stay near one of the top four so that they can benefit from the larger families efforts to secure their territory. Iregi told me that he was born in an off shoot of the Masatu family. According to him the Masatu are, compared to the other three the kindest of the top four, if you call beheading infants kind. There are also small family groups that live far away from the top four in an effort to stay out of their squabbles, they mostly live in colder climates. And last but not least there are the mutts. The mutts are from families that are aerodynamically challenged, and the ability to fly can skip generations. In mutt families wings are the exception not the rule. Families like mine.
Me and Iregi were sitting in our clearing near the cliff, we were talking about how I was having trouble landing without using my arms when a shadow fell over us. Before I could do anything I felt myself being jerked into the air, Iregi was yelling at me but I couldn't understand what he was saying. It sounded like "run joshua" but that didn't make sense because I was in the air. While I was thinking about this I felt the claws release my midsection and I was falling towards the earth and death. I braced for impact... and heard beeping. Thats funny I don't remember anything about alarm clocks being in heaven. But thats just it I could be in bat people hell where alarm clocks are set off to torture my every sleeping hour. I rolled over and looked at my clock, 6:45. I had been meeting Iregi in our clearing that he liked to refer to as "the classroom"for three weeks now. I had definitely made progress, I could now hover for about ten minutes. Iregi wouldn't let me actually fly until my wings were strong enough to hover for at least thirty minutes, because gaining altitude was a whole lot harder than jumping and maintaining status quo. I flipped my covers off and laid still for a couple seconds then let my legs slowly slide off the edge of the bed. Eventually the rest of my body followed and I ended up sitting on the floor between my bed and the window. The sun was brighter than I was expecting. I used my bed to pull myself up while squinting my eyes against the sun. As I was brushing my teeth I tried to move my wings without moving my arms, it wasn't perfect yet but as my flight muscles grew the easier it became to move them without my arms. However even the new muscles didn't stop me from getting toothpaste all over my face.
As usual I beat Iregi to "the classroom" I think he did it on purpose so he got to fly in and land in front of me, show off. While I waited for him to get there I started stretching my wings and shoulders. Just like a runner about to run a marathon I had to stretch before our marathon hovering sessions or I wouldn't be able to move the next day. I loved to stretch my wings especially because all of the muscles and tendons were new and I could feel them ripple and stretch under my skin. It made me feel strong for the first time since I was seven. I was never the biggest or tallest when I was young but I was that kid that could run all recess and never get tired. I could tackle kids almost twice my size when we played football. I would run through these very woods and only turn back when I heard my mom calling me back in. I can remember pretending that I was a great warrior who fought to protect the woods from an invading army of mutant people. I always won too, with only a sword and an Ak-47 to protect me. As I stood stretching I realized that no matter how hard I had fought the mutants back then they had still found their way into these woods. Iregi eventually landed next to me but this time he remained silent and instead perched on a rock his wings completely outstretched soaking in the sunlight. He watched me stretch for a good twenty-ish minutes, every once in a while smirking as he watched me struggle to control my wings. He tilted his head and said "joshua when is the last time you spent time with normal people?" "last night when my parents forced me to eat at the table and talk about my day." He raised his eyebrow and shifted his weight "no josh i mean friends" I can vividly remember the last time that had happened, I was ten and my friends had wanted to go see a movie that had just been released. It was a modern adaption of red riding hood except the hunter has to fight a legion of werewolves. Our parents dropped us off at one of my friends houses and we all piled into the back of his mom's van. We got lots of candy and sat all the way on the top row, and amused ourselves by throwing candy at each other. Halfway through the movie my pain medication wore off and we had to leave. "no not really. why?" "joshua you grew up with them, not your own kind. You never got to know what it is like sitting around a fire yelling and talking about how high you will fly one day. Or how wide your wingspan will be and how you will soar over the mountains and the seas. You cant live your life alone." I stopped stretching and looked up at him, he was still perched on the rock but now I could see that his eyes were very shiny and he was blinking frequently. "Iregi is there something wrong?" "you have to have people josh, doesn't matter if they have wings or not. You have to have them." "Iregi what happened?" "my sister is gone." I didn't move a muscle as he took a deep breath and looked down and then back up. "no lesson today joshua." He was in the air before I could say anything, I stood there and watched him fly away. It made me sad to see him hurt but I didn't know how to make it better, I didn't know what to say. I had never experienced that kind of loss, I mean I lost my grandfather but he was sick and I was never particularly close to him. He had preferred my three cousins, they were athletic. I couldn't even begin to understand what Iregi was feeling.
That night I had another dream about flying but this time I was flying with a group of people. None of them had faces as dream people sometimes don't. They were all flying as if they already knew what the others were going to do before they did it. They would sail down and then all at once with the sunlight catching on their wings they would all aim straight towards the sun. Just as I was about to scream to warn them not to fly too close they all twisted and folded their wings in and dropped like rocks toward the earth. They kept falling gaining speed as they went, they looked faster than anything. Right before they hit the ground the earth turned into water and they dove down into the ocean. I suspect they eventually resurfaced, none of them looked like this was a new thing they were doing, they had every motion memorized. I did not find out if they did or not that night however because something jolted me awake. I looked around my dark room searching for whatever it was. I found nothing even after looking outside my window, something didn't feel right but I couldn't put my finger on it. After searching and brainstorming for over an hour how tired I was overrode my diminishing uneasiness, and I eventually fell back asleep.
We spent the next several hours with me jumping off of rocks and Iregi coaching me on how to stay up longer. Even though I hated to admit it six foot tall baby bird knew a thing or two, which is much more than I knew. The first thing I had done wrong was what Iregi called "the hummingbird." Well what he actually said was "stop, you look like a damn hummingbird..." Instead of angling my arms and wings to catch the air and push down on it, I had been uselessly flapping as fast as I could. He told me if I would bend my wrist down and almost "hug" the air I could capture more and stay in the air longer. I even gained a little altitude on my sixth try!
By lunch I had completly exhausted myself, I wasnt used to exercising that much. While I was resting I couldn't help but start asking Iregi more questions about the families and the mutts. What I learned was this, the four top dogs are the Kambure, the Masatu who are mainly from Ethiopia, but they also extend deep into neighboring countries, the Banu Askad from the deserts in the middle east, and the Tenactican, or Mesa Tribe from mexico. There are also smaller "off shoots." These off shoots are family groups that stay near one of the top four so that they can benefit from the larger families efforts to secure their territory. Iregi told me that he was born in an off shoot of the Masatu family. According to him the Masatu are, compared to the other three the kindest of the top four, if you call beheading infants kind. There are also small family groups that live far away from the top four in an effort to stay out of their squabbles, they mostly live in colder climates. And last but not least there are the mutts. The mutts are from families that are aerodynamically challenged, and the ability to fly can skip generations. In mutt families wings are the exception not the rule. Families like mine.
Me and Iregi were sitting in our clearing near the cliff, we were talking about how I was having trouble landing without using my arms when a shadow fell over us. Before I could do anything I felt myself being jerked into the air, Iregi was yelling at me but I couldn't understand what he was saying. It sounded like "run joshua" but that didn't make sense because I was in the air. While I was thinking about this I felt the claws release my midsection and I was falling towards the earth and death. I braced for impact... and heard beeping. Thats funny I don't remember anything about alarm clocks being in heaven. But thats just it I could be in bat people hell where alarm clocks are set off to torture my every sleeping hour. I rolled over and looked at my clock, 6:45. I had been meeting Iregi in our clearing that he liked to refer to as "the classroom"for three weeks now. I had definitely made progress, I could now hover for about ten minutes. Iregi wouldn't let me actually fly until my wings were strong enough to hover for at least thirty minutes, because gaining altitude was a whole lot harder than jumping and maintaining status quo. I flipped my covers off and laid still for a couple seconds then let my legs slowly slide off the edge of the bed. Eventually the rest of my body followed and I ended up sitting on the floor between my bed and the window. The sun was brighter than I was expecting. I used my bed to pull myself up while squinting my eyes against the sun. As I was brushing my teeth I tried to move my wings without moving my arms, it wasn't perfect yet but as my flight muscles grew the easier it became to move them without my arms. However even the new muscles didn't stop me from getting toothpaste all over my face.
As usual I beat Iregi to "the classroom" I think he did it on purpose so he got to fly in and land in front of me, show off. While I waited for him to get there I started stretching my wings and shoulders. Just like a runner about to run a marathon I had to stretch before our marathon hovering sessions or I wouldn't be able to move the next day. I loved to stretch my wings especially because all of the muscles and tendons were new and I could feel them ripple and stretch under my skin. It made me feel strong for the first time since I was seven. I was never the biggest or tallest when I was young but I was that kid that could run all recess and never get tired. I could tackle kids almost twice my size when we played football. I would run through these very woods and only turn back when I heard my mom calling me back in. I can remember pretending that I was a great warrior who fought to protect the woods from an invading army of mutant people. I always won too, with only a sword and an Ak-47 to protect me. As I stood stretching I realized that no matter how hard I had fought the mutants back then they had still found their way into these woods. Iregi eventually landed next to me but this time he remained silent and instead perched on a rock his wings completely outstretched soaking in the sunlight. He watched me stretch for a good twenty-ish minutes, every once in a while smirking as he watched me struggle to control my wings. He tilted his head and said "joshua when is the last time you spent time with normal people?" "last night when my parents forced me to eat at the table and talk about my day." He raised his eyebrow and shifted his weight "no josh i mean friends" I can vividly remember the last time that had happened, I was ten and my friends had wanted to go see a movie that had just been released. It was a modern adaption of red riding hood except the hunter has to fight a legion of werewolves. Our parents dropped us off at one of my friends houses and we all piled into the back of his mom's van. We got lots of candy and sat all the way on the top row, and amused ourselves by throwing candy at each other. Halfway through the movie my pain medication wore off and we had to leave. "no not really. why?" "joshua you grew up with them, not your own kind. You never got to know what it is like sitting around a fire yelling and talking about how high you will fly one day. Or how wide your wingspan will be and how you will soar over the mountains and the seas. You cant live your life alone." I stopped stretching and looked up at him, he was still perched on the rock but now I could see that his eyes were very shiny and he was blinking frequently. "Iregi is there something wrong?" "you have to have people josh, doesn't matter if they have wings or not. You have to have them." "Iregi what happened?" "my sister is gone." I didn't move a muscle as he took a deep breath and looked down and then back up. "no lesson today joshua." He was in the air before I could say anything, I stood there and watched him fly away. It made me sad to see him hurt but I didn't know how to make it better, I didn't know what to say. I had never experienced that kind of loss, I mean I lost my grandfather but he was sick and I was never particularly close to him. He had preferred my three cousins, they were athletic. I couldn't even begin to understand what Iregi was feeling.
That night I had another dream about flying but this time I was flying with a group of people. None of them had faces as dream people sometimes don't. They were all flying as if they already knew what the others were going to do before they did it. They would sail down and then all at once with the sunlight catching on their wings they would all aim straight towards the sun. Just as I was about to scream to warn them not to fly too close they all twisted and folded their wings in and dropped like rocks toward the earth. They kept falling gaining speed as they went, they looked faster than anything. Right before they hit the ground the earth turned into water and they dove down into the ocean. I suspect they eventually resurfaced, none of them looked like this was a new thing they were doing, they had every motion memorized. I did not find out if they did or not that night however because something jolted me awake. I looked around my dark room searching for whatever it was. I found nothing even after looking outside my window, something didn't feel right but I couldn't put my finger on it. After searching and brainstorming for over an hour how tired I was overrode my diminishing uneasiness, and I eventually fell back asleep.
