Cobalt and Silver

you know there’s other angels at the light in the center of your concave world. you don’t know if they also have human forms like you, but what forms they do have are like majestic flying beasts, yet they still have feathers concealing their many eyes that pierce the fog.
but YOU’RE in the human world, a world not safe for you, separated from your kind. that alloy that’s so deadly to you is naturally abundant here. a touch of cobalt-60, just enough to help the silver seep into your blood and sever you from whatever “divine light” powers you.

you see it on everyone. most carry knives but the most dedicated carry bullets made of it on their person and their hunting rifles never leave their side. either way, your true nature is not something you can show, and all of your quirks are getting harder and harder to hide. your neighbours have noticed that you dont need to eat or sleep. you know they have. so the instant a caravan passes through town, you pay your way for a trip to the next city over. you don’t even care that they’re mostly angel hunters. anywhere’s safer than this.

the journey feels long. most of the world, the inside of the earth, is barren and flat. every so often an angel swoops down and you cower and close all of your eyes because you know those hunters are going to fucking kill it stone dead and erase its beauty from the world.
the hardest thing to hide is your wings. they physically retract easily but the longer you go without releasing your light the less you feel like a person. at night, when everyone else is asleep, you cover yourself in blankets, let them out, shine brightly, and weep.

as you travel you dont talk to the angel hunters, but there is someone you chat with sometimes. a woman, about your age, from another town, headed to the same destination. you make small talk. its mostly to distract yourself from the fear of being found out. she’s a rarity: she isn’t carrying a weapon. thats why you roll your sleeping bag out next to hers, every time. you dare not make any sounds, any movements, any insinuations to anything. you cover yourself as well as you can and shine in peace, knowing she would not kill you.

one night, you’re careless. a sliver of light slips through, and she taps you on the shoulder, but she reassures you with her smile. she asks to feel your feathers.

you’re so starved of any opportunity to be yourself that you don’t even consider it. of course you say yes.

she runs her hands gently across your wings, and the feeling is intense. yet she’s so gentle; she knows how to avoid the eyes, somehow. the first smile you’ve smiled in many years leaks out onto your face. she pulls you in for a hug.

and then a hunter shows up, rifle in hand.

your feathers turn from soft to sharp instinctively, before you realise there’s a person holding tightly onto them. she’s lacerated before anyone knows it. he yells for backup and you let your wings fully unfurl and you take off into the sky, fog obscuring your ascent.

fuck the human world. you don’t care if you have the form to withstand it, you’re going to the light in the center, to be with your kind no matter what, even if you’re no longer human as a result, even if it fucking burns you to death. you’ll immolate and become truly divine. you soar towards the light, wings wider than they’ve ever been, your light joining with the medley of the other angels in the center. your skin burns. your human flesh falls away. you reveal yourself as one of those majestic flying beasts, the sacred thing you always were.

as time goes on you become less and less human, and yet some thoughts never leave your head. that girl’s smile. her touch. her death.

the other angels only use their eyes for seeing. they dont cry. if a human looked into them they wouldn’t see longing. shame. regret. but this isn’t the human world. it’s the world of the divine, where no one has these emotions but you.

you’re divine too. more radiant than ever. but no matter how radiant you are, there’s a part of you that still longs for more than this.