The morning light spilled over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. Gibreel stood at the edge of the wreckage, looking out across the barren land. The world felt like a dream, a surreal landscape where nothing made sense. His body was still changing, and he could feel the immense power growing within him. His wings fluttered, more real now than ever before, as if they were a part of his very soul.
Saladin approached slowly, his gaze never leaving Gibreel. The man he had once known as a glamorous film star was now something else entirely. Gibreel's face had lost its softness, his features sharpened and defined by some force neither of them fully understood.
"You're not the same," Saladin murmured.
Gibreel turned his head slowly, his eyes dark and filled with a sense of foreboding. "Neither are you," he replied. "But we are not done. We are only beginning."
A strange silence fell between them, and in that moment, Saladin realized that whatever they had been before the crash, it was gone. The world had reshaped them, and they had to navigate this new reality. What they had lost in the crash was nothing compared to what they would gain.