liammczcz
The forest was unnaturally still, cold air heavy with a metallic tang. A scream tore through the trees, sharp and otherworldly, followed by a crash that shook the earth. Simon Riley stumbled toward a smoking crater, where a small figure huddled amid splintered wood and scattered feathers.
A boy-barefoot, bruised, trembling. Wings, broken and bloodied, draped uselessly across the ground. His body shuddered, flickering with faint pulses of strange light beneath the skin. When he lifted his head, Simon froze. His eyes glowed-gold and white, shifting like molten light.
Panic radiated off him. He scrambled backward, wings dragging, air whipping into chaotic spirals around him. Feathers spun in the vortex, static crackling along his bruised skin. Fear alone made the forest shiver, branches groaning, leaves torn from their stems. He wasn't attacking; he was cornered, wounded, and certain the world-or Simon-was coming to take him.
The boy curled around his broken wings, the forest holding its breath as terror became a storm, ready to shatter everything in its path.