Damian's POV

"Appreciation is what I have learned far too late, and I regret it."

—Damian Stark

How long has it been since they took us—no, dragged us off our broken world? Since those monsters beat the shit out of us and threw our battered bodies into this airborne nightmare. I don't know anymore. Days blur into one another like blood in water. Time bends here. I sit on wet feathers—soaked through, slick, cold. We all do. Me, Frank, Paula, and the others.

Our prison is massive. A steel monstrosity, the size of two buses welded together by a sick god. Crude bars line the edges, wide enough for your limbs to dangle out, narrow enough to remind you you're nothing but meat inside a metal box. The feathers beneath us are white—some the size of cars—and sodden with rain, piss, maybe tears. I feel them rubbing against my thighs, slippery and foreign. I can't stretch my legs properly. There's no comfort here, just existence, hunger, and thirst.

They gave us nothing. They've told us to drink our own shit and piss. And we did. We hesitated at first, sure. But after the second day, even dignity cracks. By then, it was either die or comply. The first day… we still held on. Whispered our farewells to Earth like lovers betrayed. Enjoy- the s$tor-y% by r!ea&di*n+g on *.*

I still remember the mountain—the dome—that was cracked and still is like an eggshell. That was the last thing I saw of home. Now, all I smell is waste, human rot as some of bitten their tongues up. Their cries were horrifying, silent, and oppressed by the lightning of storms.

The broad soldier Frank sits beside me. He is the man who once stood unflinching as an orc slammed him into the dirt. His head hangs now, solemn, almost asleep, but I know he's not. There's nothing left to dream about. He was a warrior, that man. A patriot. A self-proclaimed martyr for the greater good. And now? He stares into nothing. Only the abyss of a dark sea beneath a storm of wind and tsunamis, and I wonder: What good was it all for? What "greater" purpose justifies ending up here, caged, soaked, reeking, worthless?

I'm not like him, never was. I'm a coward. I ran. Hid. Avoided the fight. And yet here I am, beside him, punished just the same.

The wind screams through the bars, it howls against my ears, as if being the cries of those who have taken their lives only days ago. Water whips across my face like shards of glass under a pressure hose. It stings. It always does. Across from Frank—two people down—sits Paula. Blonde. Young. Her left arm ends in a stump, hastily wrapped. The cloth is filthy now, brown with old blood, and to be frank, I don't know how she's still alive.

We've been flying for days, maybe even more. Across oceans and storms, through clouds so black they bleed. The beast that carries us—the bird, too large to be real. Not for a second in these last days or weeks was it tired. And neither do the creatures that commandeer it.

The storm is a living thing. A roaring, unrelenting demon. Water slashes across our faces, but not from the tsunami below us, but the piss of God, if one even exists anymore. Lightning kisses the sky every few seconds. Thunder follows like a second heartbeat. It's not white, that lightning. It pulses gold. Shimmering. Alive. For a brief second, it paints everything in eerie contrast. The wet metal, the bodies huddled in pain, the feathers, and the fear.

My legs dangle outside the cage. The wind pulls at them like they're nothing more than forgotten laundry, but this isn't wind. This is a fucking hurricane, all possible natural catastrophes in one place. It's hell itself. I glance sideways—far right—where the monsters sit. There, just beyond them, I see it. A wall of water. No… a wave. But no wave is that high. Must be hundreds of meters tall. Another tsunami.

There's only one explanation for this kind of atmospheric insanity.

The moon.

It was too close yesterday, and even closer and bigger today. Closer than ever. A giant, veiled in gold, before the clouds swallowed it whole. And now we pay the price. The oceans rebel. The skies split open. Storm after storm. The second time since our imprisonment.