Flight School: Predator

Wake

The awakening was odd and disoriented, as though he found himself in another world without light. Iolani crawled upright, fingers groping in the dark as he recalled the will to rest in order to extend his journey ahead. He felt for the flaps of the tent, only to realize that he was, already, outside.

It had turned dark while he was asleep, perhaps a good two hours had passed since he first collapsed somewhere in the late afternoon, just as the sun was beginning to set. Despite so, Luna was not with him.

The night was awfully, oddly quiet. The silence was unlike that of a night, without the whisper of a breeze or the rustling of leaves. Even the crickets had ceased their usual conversations, as though the island had called for them all to die at once.

Nothing was breathing and perhaps this was the very reason for his awakening. The clouds were beginning to clear in the absence of sound, having waited for this very moment of darkness. When everything else had been lulled into an eerie silence, the calling was easier heard.

Stepping into the darkness, he heard only himself and his breathing. There was no light to follow but Iolani understood that the only way for anything to light the way was if he became the light. Now, he walked in the dark.

He had heard something; in the nothing, he did.

It was odd, really. The instinct that had struck a chord in the very depths of his cage. There was not a sound in the external world and yet, he heard it all.

Vision had always been key to his existence, but Iolani Tori was coming to terms with the parts of himself that could not always see—that were sometimes blind and required the remaining senses to make up for its loss.

Something was amiss in the darkness. He stepped over things he knew not what they were, taking in the scent of red and fear. He had been cautious, but the breeze that was beginning to pick up behind his back seemed to stir an urgent disease. It spread to his feet and all of a sudden, he was a little faster, reaching out to fan the low-hanging branches out of his way and breathing to the heavy beat of his heart. A little faster.

Io looked up at the sky that was dark

and as though the act itself was a question,

he was rewarded with an answer.

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An eagle's call

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Then, he was running and shredding everything in his path, ripping branches aside and tearing through the undergrowth that clung to his legs and attempted to slow him down for he felt something within burn with a flame so bright that he was on fire.

He would recognize that sound and respond to it even if his ears had somehow ceased to hear the voices of a world that existed independently of himself. Though absurd a case, Io discovered that he never really had to hear Luka, all he had to do was feel.

As incredibly romanticized he thought himself to sound, the boy could not afford to discard that which he felt were true; and as though willed by this, he took to the eagle's side with a burst of light.