Flight

Aquila stepped out onto the dark balcony, heart thumping in her chest, in both anticipation and fear of the upcoming events. She looked back at the door from which she had exited and grimaced, hoping that no one was up late enough to see her. She quickly flicked off her beat-up converse and sighed in relief. She felt it was those shoes that had been holding her back, the shoes full of memories that she didn’t want to ever think of again. She walked as quietly as she could in her sock clad feet and gripped tight to the railing on the balcony, overlooking the London skyline. Her short black hair blew in her face and she quickly put it into a braid and jumped over the balcony with ease, balancing on the outer lip, clutching to the railing behind her, turning her knuckles white. She took one last look at the place that she had grown up in for the last few years and had hated for just about as long. Taking a deep breath, she released the railing behind her, letting her body fall limply towards the ground. She felt the cool autumn breeze brush across her face like a caring hand, pulling wisps of hair out of her loosely done braid. She let the thin and beaten jacket lift off her scrawny shoulders and it flew away easily in the breeze like a piece of paper. Just as she was about to collide with the sidewalk below, she threw her arms out and a pair of long, yet enormous black wings came from between her shoulder blades, through two holes in her shirt she had cut earlier. They flapped frantically yet silently and gracefully carrying Aquila into the air and away from the ground below. She let a puff of air come from between her lips and grinned ever so slightly, she was free. Free from the orphanage below and its occupants. Her wings fluttered clumsily for it was her first time using them. While she was as happy as she could ever remember being, a unease stirred in her stomach. If someone were to see her, she may be shot down. She may be taken in for experimentation. She may be called a freak, ridiculed by her people. She may be killed. At these thoughts she flew up higher so that the clouds may act as a concealing layer for herself.



She flew and flew in a horizontal line for the rest of the night, not without doubts and troubling thoughts however. Falling from that balcony earlier had reminded her of a past attempt to end her life. She remembered it clearly and she hadn’t thought of it in sometime. She remembered the salty tears streaming from her face. She remembered the ground swirling below her. She remembered the voice in her head whispering to her, do it, not look back, do it. She remembered the faint breeze that carried the sound of silence. She remembered the sudden hand that grabbed her from behind and pull her backwards over the railing. It was Amelia, the girl who slept in the bunk above her. She remembered she too had tears streaming down her face, possibly more than Aquila. She remembered bawling out at that point, not caring that she was humiliating herself in front of Amelia and remembered Amelia wrapping her in her arms like a mother and whispering in her ear that it was okay now. She remembered talking to her that night on the balcony all night and Amelia admitted that she too also had similar thoughts to do the same. She remembered most of all wiping away her tears to see Amelia stand up and disappear into the wind like dust. It was then that Aquila made the realization that Amelia had died two months ago from lung cancer. It was then that she recalled the memories of watching Amelia slowly deteriorate and lose hope for herself. She also remembered the entire month after she would sit up on her bed and cry herself to sleep with the memory of her smiling through thin, pale lips from her hospital bed seared into her mind. Aquila shook the memories away and felt tears falling from her face at the thought of it. She put it back into the crevices of her mind and never wanted to think of it again.