A ragged breath tore through the silence, heralding the return of the blind warrior to the presence of the Creator. It was as if he had wrested himself from the jaws of some ravenous fiend, a nightmare given flesh. In that fleeting instant, he could almost feel the distant caress of the stars—mute sentinels above, seemingly offering him their silent cheer. Yet his vision betrayed him still; nothing had changed. The Creator stood unmoved, eyes lifted skyward, eternally veiled beneath a voluminous hood. His unchanged and untouched form bore no signs of repair or rebirth. There were no stitches, seams, or traces that he had been remade. The warrior could not even be certain that he had returned within the same shell of flesh and bone, or if he now lingered in some new, unknowable prison of form.
He knelt, body slack, hands pressed against a floor as soft and ephemeral as cloud. A strange serenity washed over him, as though his unspoken prayers had found a divine ear. The air bore the faint, teasing scent of mint—a whisper of comfort amid the unknown. Yet the place to which he had been cast—remote, forsaken, perhaps forgotten even by the God the Creator had once named—was no sanctuary. It was a threshold, and he stood at its edge. Before he could rise, perhaps to offer gratitude, a gentle weight settled upon his right hand. He turned his palm upward. There, resting lightly, lay a slender rod, no longer than twice the length of a finger. The resurrected angel knew at once what it was: one of the thousand feathers that had once adorned the wings upon his back. He recognized its warmth. Its softness. The memory of the dark womb where he had once been cradled, reborn.
"Nine hundred and ninety-nine remain. Tread carefully, child of ash…"
If only he had a mouth…
If only that wandering knight bore the right to speak…
But he was alone again, embraced now by a rancid stench that clung to the air like rot. The odor of carrion. Panic seized him. He was cast down, forsaken, hurled into a pit wider and darker than the shallow reservoir of courage he scarcely knew he possessed. With trembling fingers, he clutched at his hair and ached for the Creator's presence, yearned to return. The sword with the hand-shaped hilt lay forgotten, discarded like a common relic. His knees remained drawn tightly together as he trembled in dread, eyes blind yet ever searching. The stench grew worse. The spheres he had touched earlier still surrounded him, though had he seen the grotesque manner in which they tangled and coiled, even breath would have failed him. Then came the end of pain—both fleshly and unseen—ushered once more by the mournful lament of a voice feminine, ethereal, and cold.
And yet…
A flicker.
A spark of curiosity stirred within the fallen warrior.
It was as if—just for a moment—he believed that the voice, whoever she was, might guide him. Might even save h—
SPLASH.
So it was that the first trial unveiled itself: a wall not of stone, but of terror—insurmountable to the unprepared. Only the burst of violet blood, painting the air from yet another detonation, revealed the truth: there was life. Or something like it. Vegetation—unseen before—twisted beneath his feet. Thorned vines slithered through the spilled lifeblood, now hardened into a dark, gleaming film. In that place, there was no boundary between life and death. Both were threads woven into the same shroud, and the angel could now begin to comprehend the terrain of that fetid, sunless realm.
"Two feathers have fallen. How pitiful… Evil does not lie beyond, waiting in shadow. It is here. Around us. Even now. Do not compel me to cast you down harsher paths."
Upon his return, the Creator spoke but once—words etched in eternity before casting his progeny once more into the abyss of prophesied ruin. There may have been a reason he withheld his hand from his own son, yet the ease with which he abandoned him during the act of genesis betrayed another truth. Why, then, not forge anew—one more perfect, more sound in body and mind? And so it was that the winged one stood still again, unmoving, in the very place where his feet had touched ground for the third time. No force could tear him from that cursed soil. Were his eyes not sealed shut by divine decree, grief would have flowed from them like rivers. He curled into himself without delay, folding his limbs and rocking like a newborn cast into a world too cruel. And yet, he blamed not the Creator. His faith endured—irrational, unbroken. To him, this suffering was the work of fate, a grand design turned against him by powers unseen. A lament the mortal race knew well—those who yearned for the pleasures of greatness, cloaking their hunger in false humility. Not even the spectral whisper of the feminine voice, once a fragile comfort in the dark, came to greet him this time.
The blind son laid himself low, his hands clawing at his shrouded face, brushing inadvertently against the strange, round orbs that clustered near him. The air reeked with a stench so vile it seemed to devour the breath itself—fumes of rotting thorns and poisoned roots. He would have retched, had he been granted a mouth through which to suffer.
SPLASH.
Nothing changed.
Without the intercession of the Creator, ascent was a myth. He fell again, and again—twenty feathers lost to the void—yet no guidance came. No sign, no trick, no balm to ease the way. And with each rebirth before the throne of his Father, the fallen one would collapse to his knees in wordless plea, begging not to be cast down once more into that accursed chasm. But mercy was never spoken, and neither vision nor taste was bestowed upon him—nor ever would be.
By the thirty-fifth death, he began to wonder if even such senses, had he possessed them, would have served him at all. Only two guides remained to him in the dark: the sobbing of the unknown woman—present at times, but often silent—and the choking stench, relentless and ever-persistent. So this time, for once, he chose—or rather, dared—to act otherwise.
He allowed himself six further deaths, each a bitter thread in the tapestry of his ruin, to reconstruct within his mind the dreadful forest that ensnared him. He began to ponder: what doom would befall him, should he lose all his feathers? At last, he made his move—forced, revolting, but resolute. With no hesitation, though filled with loathing, he edged nearer to the scent of decay that haunted him. He yearned with every shred of his being to remain near the Creator, to dwell eternally in the safe fragrance of mint and light. But he understood then—cruelly, clearly—that only through this foul passage could he hope to return. Every other soul or remnant he might have clung to treated the Creator as a stranger. Now, he was alone. And he could sink no further...