You wake upright. You wake up wrong. Your eyes are open. You are crying.
What's happening to your [[body?]]Your [[skin]] feels wrong. Your [[wings]] feel wrong. You are [[crying.]]Your skin is ashen when you look at your hands. You are pale because the sun cannot see you here, so far beneath the eart. You miss it, even as it drips from your eyes, even as it runs in your veins. That's (link-undo:"alright.")You can't feel the wings on your back, but you know they're there. They hang, usesless, featherless, and hard like a carapace. You have traded your flight for invisibility. That's (link-undo:"alright. Isn't it?")The sun pours from your eyes like hot tears. It effervesces when it leaves your cheek, dissolving into the air before it hits the ground. When you blink it continues dripping. Sobs are trapped in your throat like caged birds. You can't breathe. You are [[hungry.]]It gnaws at your stomach, pushing you to rise from the [[earth]]. There are small creatures around.
You are [[so hungry.]]It does not press down upon you. You cannot breathe but not because of the earth. You float through it like smoke. It is nothing to you. You are (link-undo:"nothing") to it. You fill your mouth with flesh again and again, barely chewing as you force it down but whatever [[cold]] is burning within you still hungers.You wrap your scarf tighter around yourself. It doesn't help the //nothing// that you feel. If you could peel your skin away and only leave bones, maybe there wouldn't be so much of you to [[feed.]]
Where is your [[grave?]]You have no flesh. Maybe that's why you hunger for it. You're only skin and bone (and flame and pain), after all. You (link-undo:"shiver.")Where is it? Why don't you know? You have to know. It's your right.
There is no graveyard nearby. There are no stones. Only a pile of [[ash.]]Was this [[you?]]//Was this [[me?]]////It was the [[sun...]]//You fell as ash. Do you [[remember?]]You don't. (link-reveal:"You do.")[Did you fall? Did you fly? Were you forced, were your wings held back--] [[//No.//]][[//Not like this.//]]They watched you (link:"burn.") [//and they laughed.//]
//Am I happy I know? Was it worth it?//
[[Yes. You deserve to know the truth.]]
[[No. It was better to be lost and hungry, but not hurting.]]This wretched ghost cries brightness into its hands that it can never escape from. It will wander, hungry and alone, and will find no comfort in light or darkness. But at least it knows.
//At least I know.//It will fade, the memory of the burning. The ghost will not. It will find comfort in the sun even as it hurts them. It will consume and consume, trying to fill the void inside of it. It will wander alone but not in misery. Only numbness.