Chapter 1

A white light filled with blinding pain gripped me.  Grabbing my chest and surging upwards, I opened my eyes.  I was kneeling on a mound of furs piled in the center of the floor. I was in a small round chamber that appeared to be carved out of the living rock.  Sunlight streamed past coarse woven curtains drawn across a large opening in one wall. The salty smell of the sea filled the air along with the songs of seagulls.  Rolling my shoulders in an attempt to remove a strange stiffness, I was surprised by a sudden gust of air as large black wings came into view from behind me. Twisting about, I tripped over the wings. A sharp tug on my back pulled me back and I fell on my a*s.

I was alone - the wings were mine.

I was going insane.

Reaching back behind me, I felt the juncture where the wings joined my back just over and inside my shoulder blades. Looking around in desperation, I spied a mirror hanging over a narrow, intrically carved, wooden table set against the far wall. Rising, I approached the mirror, my chest tight wondering what I'd see.  

Looking into the mirror, I met the eyes of a stranger. The face of a child, unmarred by puberty stared back at me. No recognition of the face before me. It wasn't mine - except I couldn't remember what my face looked like. I knew I was old, with children of my own. This child looking out of the mirror at me had long raven black hair that hung like silk below his shoulders. Solid black eyes, like two onyx gems devoid of any whiteness, stared back at me. I raised my eyebrow and the kid mimicked my expression. Rubbing at the ache in my chest where I'd been shot, I stared at the unmarred skin. Like a fading dream, I remembered leaping in front of the gun to protect - someone. Her name was on the tip of my tongue, but like all my dreams, it slipped away. Raising my left hand in front of my face, I searched for something that was missing. As I looked at my unadorned ring finger, a sense of loss and grief washed over me, weakening my knees. Leaning forward, I gripped the table for support. Remembering my breathing lessons from the first responder's course, I managed my fear and and grief, pushing through it to the calm beyond.  Looking back up into the mirror, I met the stranger's gaze.

"Not human", I thought, finally allowing my gaze to take in the stranger's huge black wings.  They were midnight black with purple and green iridescent tinges where the sunlight played among the feathers.  With a thought, the wings spread out behind me, nearly reaching from one end of the room to the other. I wrapped my wings in and around me, like a giant cloak, so I could give the feathers a closer inspection. Running my finger along one, I jerked it back in sudden pain. Blood flowed freely from a deep gash.  Before I could even curse in surprise, the gash closed, leaving behind unmarred skin covered in blood.

"Okay, razor sharp feathers," I thought, willing the wings to fold up against my back. Hearing the curtain being drawn open, I turned and saw a beautiful woman standing in the opening.  She was dressed in a loose fitting sky blue blouse that matched her eyes, and simple brown leather pants. Curiously, she was barefoot. Her clothes were strait out of a Lord of the Rings movie. I half expected hobbits to be running under foot any second. Brown wings, like a robins, were folded behind her. Realizing, I was naked, I quickly wrapped my wings around me. 

"Yep, I've gone insane," I thought.

"Good, you're awake," she said, except the sounds and the shape of her mouth didn't match the words I heard in my mind. It was like watching a dubbed TV show, where the person's lips would move and a dubbed in voice would speak over the top of theirs. "We were worried when you wouldn't wake." As she walked into the room towards me, I realized that she towered over me.  She was either a giant, or I was truly in a child's body. Grabbing my chin, she tilted my face up toward hers. "Your eyes," she said, turning my face back and forth.  I noticed her eye's were golden, like an eagles, surrounded by the whiteness I expected from eyes.  After a moment she let go of my chin. "I am Sarah. What's you name?"

"I'm," I started before realizing that I couldn't remember my name. Oh, crap, I have amnesia, I thought. Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried to remember. Except like a few scraps that felt like some other life, I was blank.  "I don't remember," I finally said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

"Here child," she said, voice full of sympathy, handing me the bundle of clothes she carried.  I carefully reached for them while concentrating on using my wings to keep my nakedness hidden. "They were my sons. They should fit, he was about your size before..." At that, her expression closed in and she turned away from me.

"Thank you," I said, pausing when I realized the sounds coming out of my mouth wasn't English - and definitely wasn't the word okay. "Where am I?"

"You're at Cawerg," she said, kneeling next to the pile of furs, straitening them as if making a bed. Using the opportunity, I quickly pulled on the pants while her back was turned. "We found you a week ago in the fields above. Even though we didn't find any wounds, we couldn't wake you." Standing back up, she planted her hands on her hips and watched me.

I was holding up the green sleeveless tunic she had provided in confusion. It hung in three strips.  For the life of me, I couldn't figure the front from the back, or how I put the damn thing on.

"Here," she said, taking the tunic from my hands. Shaking her head and smiling, she said. "It goes on like this." She held the large portion up to my chest and pulled the rest around my back. "Give me your hands," she said, having me reach up and back like I was snapping a clasp on a neckless. "You button it up by your neck over your right wing. Next, reach down and make sure the cloth rests between your wings.  Reach back by your waist and button the cloth under each wing.  There, all done. Come, we need to take you to the village elders. They will have questions for you."

"Go?" I said, feeling suddenly exhausted. I felt like I was on a roller coaster pulling me along before I was ready.  Was I a man insane and deluded, or was I an amnesia impaired child, insane with delusions of being human? I followed after her to the curtain before looking past to the sunlight beyond.  The opening lead to - nothing.  A small ledge jutted out into the void. Winged people soared and dove beyond. The ocean stretched out to the horizon. Throwing myself to the side, I grabbed the wall for support. Wings outstretched Sarah stepped off the precipice and vanished below. Gasping, I crept forward on hands and knees and looked over the edge.  The cliff fell hundreds of feet to the waves crashing against boulders below.  The cliff formed a horseshoe shaped bay that was dotted with dark openings like the one I peered out of. With a single powerful flap of her wings, Sarah landed beside me. "What are you doing? I said come."

"I don't know how to fly," I said, crawling back to the wall before using it to pull myself up.

"What do you mean you can't fly?  Of course you can fly."

Feeling overwhelmed, I shouted. "Don't you get it? I don't know who I am. What I am. Who my parents are. Everything before waking up is one giant blank.  Do you really want me to jump off that ledge to test if I remember how to fly?" I stood there panting from my rant, pointing out there into the sky.

She met my stare in silence until my pants turned to normal breaths, her anger turning to compassion, until she smiled and said. "Then we will just have to teach you"

Reviews

[Isemay]

I was going to comment about how I thought this seemed like it was a good start and I was looking forward to seeing how you build this world, and then I noticed you haven't updated it since 2010!

I hope you come back to it eventually! I'd like to keep reading!