If Skies Would Weep

Navon! A frightened yelp rang through Navon’s mind, Chaim clearly agitated. Almost immediately an image followed of a dust ground speeding towards him – for a moment, Navon thought it was actually rushing towards him, though he was sure he was on a Cloud a second ago –

Of course, it was only Chaim, panicked and scared, suddenly as young as he was when he first learned how to speak.

All Chaim could see was a dusty, dry ground, stretched out as far as he could see, becoming clearer and clearer as his body rushed towards him. He’d felt suspended within the cold, forever-moving air, a blemish in space, for so long, a kind of peace radiating through him as his days were spent listening to the crackly voice of the only person he knew.

Now, though, panic wrought a furious storm through him, his fists gripped in fright. He knew the impact was coming at some point in his strange life and now it was upon him and he desperately wished he was someone, anyone else.

Chaim, Navon whispered in his ears. Calm down. You will be fine.

Chaim repeated that in his head, desperately wishing he could believe it. He was falling so quickly; how could he land on the Earth’s dry surface and survive? It just wasn’t possible. The pain would be agonising and the death – he hadn’t even thought of death before, not really. Navon had told him the horror stories of the Fallen who’d disintegrated in the pressure of denser air, but where did they go when their bodies could no longer hold them? Did their souls fall apart and wander in pieces through the air?

Thinking about this distracted Chaim from the inevitable torture of impact. The actual death did not scare him – it was the pain he feared. Pain was a sensation he’d never felt before, a sensation none of the Cloud dwellers had experienced first-hand. But Navon had described it to him once, of the humans whose very bodies contorted and writhed because of it, how it came, in many different forms, the main ones being thirst, infection and bleeding cuts. Would he experience any of these? Chaim wondered.

With a gasp of air, he suddenly realised he could see the details of a dead plant on the surface. Help me! he cried without thinking.

I’m sorry, I can’t, Navon replied sadly just as Chaim smashed into the ground with a roar that burst his eardrums.

The crust caved underneath him, as though he were a weight it couldn’t hold. He couldn’t draw a single breath into battered, collapsing lungs. His bones crumbled inside him, his neck splintered; blood trickled from his lips. A fire had erupted inside him. His very soul was being burned alive.

Nothing could have prepared him for this – this agony and suffering! He found himself wishing desperately for death to carry him away into oblivion.

But it never came. Hours bled into days into weeks of agonising, never-ending pain. He forgot his name. He forgot everything but the feeling of every inch of his body as it was flayed and boiled and burned to a crisp.

Somehow, after what seemed like an eternity, the pain started to increase. Somehow, it rose above excruciating to a point that was too unbearable to be described in words – and he screamed without a voice.

Navon, overhead, wept and sunk halfway through the Cloud he was sitting on. In desperation, he laid down, giving his weight more surface to spread out, but it only helped a little. He tried to block out Chaim’s shrieks in vain, knowing he could never do a thing to stop the pain eating away at his son.

Through the thick haze of agony, Chaim’s mind began to work again. Broken though he was, he knew this otherworldly pain was his bones stitching themselves back together again. Every single bone repaired itself; the grazes and deep wounds scarred over; infection was driven out. Slowly, his body was practically reborn.

And he opened his eyes.

They were sandpaper dry without the constant wind to whip them into watering. His fingers were stiff as he flexed them in silent awe. The pain was just a distant ache, almost like a tickle after what he had experienced. Now aware of his surroundings, he could feel the rough sand beneath his bare back, could see that he was at the bottom of a ditch just the right size for his seventeen-year-old body. When he shifted, the sand adapted to mould his shape. And up above was that endless blue sky with the blinding circle of an unforgiving sun.

Hesitantly, he raised his hands in front of his face, wondering at the gift of movement. While he Fell, movement was pointless: The air had him trapped like a bird in a cage. But now, on this barren land, with his body obeying his though, all he felt was an overwhelming sense of freedom.

His father wept as Chaim’s joy spread through every vein. The Cloud reluctantly started to support him again. But he knew, in his feather-light heart, that happiness could only be fleeting, in this now-cruel world.

It took him what seemed like hours but eventually, Chaim was sitting up, his head now able to see over the lip of the ditch. Although nothing could squash his wild joy at this point – for he was alive and free – it was dampened by the two splintered wings hanging limp from his back.

They glowed dimly with a light that was unearthly and sent chills down his spine, even though they were a part of him. He’d never given them much thought before but now, in a practical, harsh world, he realised how fantastical they were. And how much majesty they’d hold if they were at their best.

It was a pitiful sight to see them weak and helpless, pathetically limp and sad. A flash of Navon crossed his mind, whose wings were almost intimidating in their shocking beauty.

Smiling, Chaim pushed this from his mind, reassuring himself that one day they’d repair themselves. He tried to clutch at the walls of the ditch to help him stand but they crumbled under his hands. Wobbly, he rose into an upright position, perched on two unused feet – and stumbled out of the ditch in a clumsy movement that left him on his stomach, mouth full of sand.

Almost unable to believe the connections he was making in his hand, Navon rubbed his eyes in confusion. Through their bond, he sensed Chaim stumbling again and again until finally his body was accustomed to holding itself up. If Navon’s hope was right…if he really was right…it would change everything.

And so, when the impact comes, he will stumble…

It was the smallest connection, but it was there. Could Chaim be the man from the Prophecy, the Prophecy that claimed he would save both worlds?