Chapter 2

Flightless/Beyond the Wall

Author’s Note:

So I am treating Chapter 2 as an experiment because my biggest critique on the revision was that I didn’t close the distance between the main character and the voice. So in this chapter I did some heavy experimentation with voice and I wanted to see if this paid off. If it doesn’t, then I am going to make this piece a 1^st POV because I don’t want my revision to be negatively affected, and the distance between Will and the narrator will be closed because they are the same. With the interior dialogue that Will has with himself, I left the first segment in unchanged (no italics), but the segment after the tentative chapter III is in italics. I did this so you could compare and see which style is better. The reason I do this is when I introduce Belle’s dialogue I want it to be telepathic, and will utilize italics for that. I don’t want to confuse the reader by having them wonder if it’s Will or Belle who is speaking in italics. So the question there is should I let Will have italics or no? Also, I introduce the sense of grandeur by having the encounter of the Fallen trying to tell Will he is special, but because there is a language barrier, we don’t get the message. Is that scene effective? Also, I don’t know if it’s because I read Little Texas, but does the scene where Will helps Belle get dressed sound okay? I’m not used to writing sensual/romantic stuff since I mainly stick to horror/fantasy in my writing. I hope you all enjoy the read, and can’t wait to read your comments.

Chapter II

Village after Village fell beneath the Fallen’s wings. Neither wall nor mote could halt their vile crusade. For their wings gave them the power to surpass all obstacles in their way. Indeed, they would attack directly from under the sun so no mortal could see their gleaming armor until the Fallen were upon them. Their defeat was thought an impossible act that is until Timar invented a way to halt the Fallen in their tracks.

1^st Tome of Timar: The Genesis

Will knows he heard the door open, the characteristic moans of rusted bolts fill the dark house with their creaky voices. The door closes. Silence. It did open, right?  He waits, listening to see if his father has a late night visitor, but he does not hear the familiar baritone of his father’s booming voice. Maybe Evelyn is sneaking out, he thinks and pushes himself further into his cocoon of blankets. He closes his eyes, and hopes to drift off to sleep, except he hears what sounds like a heartbeat, beating its rhythmic tune downstairs. The beat grows louder and louder and louder as it begins to creep up the staircase. Will knows that the beat is someone’s, or something’s, footsteps. “Maybe it is just Evelyn sneaking back to bed,” he whispers to the opened doorway. The footsteps speed up, as the intruder begins to rush, the thumps of its feet racing up the staircase, mimicking Will’s own beating heart.

Spindly fingers, wrap around his doorframe. A huge, shadowy figure lurches into his room. Will screams, jumping out of his bed and races to his moonlit window, eager to escape its grasp. The sound of bells booms in the room and the footsteps start again. Will reaches for the window, but the window is now filled with sunlight. He looks around his room to see that it is his kitchen. Will looks down to see that his clothes are too big for him, and that he is only five years old again. He looks up from his clothes, and sees the naked Fallen man, lurching through the door. The Fallen’s torso is speckled with blood. Several of his gleaming white teeth are missing, and blood leaks through the gaps in his teeth. He spots Will and reaches out an arm, his smile splitting his face into a wide grin. Five year old Will screams as the naked man walks towards him and scrambles up the counter as the Fallen’s spindly fingers latch onto his legs. The Fallen picks Will up with one hand and makes Will face him. The Fallen pulls Will into his bloody chest and begins to speak fervently to him, shaking him from time to time in his earnestness to convey something. Will refuses to listen, screaming at the top of his lungs, and the Fallen puts him down, but Will’s head is barely above Its torso.

The Fallen man puts a finger to its lips, trying to silence Will, but Will continues to scream. There is a scuffle at the door, Abram’s booming voice echoes in the hallway, “Where are you, Will? Did you leave the door open?” The Fallen puts its hand over Will’s mouth. Will knows what he needs to do. He bites the Fallen’s fingers.

Bells fill the kitchen, fill the house, and shatters the windows. As the Fallen backs away from Will, pushing tears from its eyes, Abram enters the kitchen. Its eyes grow wide, and it begins to garble broken notes to Will as It reaches out towards him.

“Don’t you lay a finger on my son!” Abram bellows and crosses past the kitchen table, his hammer rising above his head.

            The Fallen man is still speaking to Will, his blue eyes gazing into Will’s own. As the Fallen’s hand reaches for Will’s face, it jerks back, as Abram’s hammer collides with its skull.

It stumbles to the ground, no longer speaking, but staring. It touches Will’s small feet, and kisses them. The Fallen stops as the hammer strikes the Fallen again and again. While the hammer swings, Will still stares into the Fallen’s sky blue eyes. As blood begins to pool around the Fallen’s cheeks, Its mouth twitches into a smile, and Its eyes lock onto Will’s.

            Will jerks up from his pillow, and stares directly into the set of sky blue eyes. “Gods above!” he shouts, as he swings an arm out. It collides with the side of Evelyn’s head, and she tumbles off the side of the bed with a groan.

            “My Gods, Will. What was that for?” she asks, touching the red flesh, which was starting to swell on her cheek.

            “Nightmares.” Will says, “Sorry about that, you startled me.” Wills head was still spinning from his dream, he pinches himself to make sure that he was awake.

            “Well, you should be,” Evelyn states, looking up to him from the ground, “help me up and let’s get breakfast.” She reaches out a hand, and Will takes it. “I forget you have that dream after every Reckoning,” She states as the walk towards Will’s door.

            “You’d have it too, if a naked man grabbed a hold of you when you were five.” Will responds. He looks outside the window one last time before following his sister, glad to know that he was not dreaming.

            “Good point,” Evelyn says. She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again.

            Will and Evelyn ate a silent breakfast. After putting the dishes away, Evelyn walks out the door without so much as a backward glance to Will, “Going to help Father with the bodies. Have fun, killer!” and bangs the door closed.

            Will was in Evelyn’s room half a second later, digging through her piles of clothes, and being careful about touching her delicates. Fallen don’t need delicates, he thinks to himself. After rifling through clothes, he finds some of his sister’s older clothes which look like they would fit the Fallen girl. Putting, them in his pack, Will begins to walk towards the hill.

(Tentative Chapter III (5))

            It’s hard to call out to someone who doesn’t speak your language, Will thinks as he waits on his hill. What am I supposed to say, come here, come here little girl? Should I get a dog whistle? Would she respond to a dog whistle? If I were her, I probably wouldn’t cause I’m not a dog. Will decides it would be best to just whistle a tune. He reaches down and plucks a plume of grass, and placing it between his thumb and forefinger, he begins to whistle. After half an hour of whistling through the bit of grass, he sees a head poke out of the woods. Will stops whistling and waits. The head pokes out from a large oak tree, and he waves to the Fallen girl. That took you long enough. “I’ve got clothes for you to, uh, for you to change into,” He shouts. Well maybe to put on, since you don’t have anything to change out of, he thinks.

            The Fallen girl comes out of the woods, and cautiously walks up to Will. She stand resplendent, wearing nothing but the belt and dagger Will gave her. She smiles at him, and he blushes as he looks her over. Will glances down as the Fallen notices where he is staring and covers herself up with her hands. “I got you some clothes,” he says to the grass, and pulls out Evelyn’s blue dress from his pack.

            The fallen girl cocks her head to the side as she gazes at the dress and jingles.

            “Well, they aren’t mine, they are, um, they belong to my sister.” He holds them out to the Fallen girl. Just take them, please take them.

            She snatches them from him and attempts to put them on.

            Maybe I should have gotten delicates for her too, Will thinks. What if a breeze came by and blows the dress up? His cheeks flush and he stops worrying about whether or not he should have brought them as he watches the Fallen girl struggle with the dress. Will snorts as she tumbles over loose fabric.

            She rights herself and stands up and scowls at him, jingly high notes of anger, her dress forgotten.

            Will stops laughing and blushes again as she keeps jingling at him. “Okay, okay I’m sorry, please put your clothes on, it isn’t…it’s just not natural.”

            She looks at the dress, then back to Will and sighs exasperatedly and sits down in the grass and looks at the forest.

            Will picks up the dress, “Let me help you put it on.”

            She looks up and jangles a phrase or two, as if she was telling him that she would appreciate the help.

            “No problem, that’s what I’m here for,” Will states. “First you got to put this flowy end over your head like this,” And he raises up the bottom of the dress and helps the girl’s head through. “Okay, now you got to your arms through these holes here.” He holds her arms, and guides them up the dress and out of the sleeves. “There you go, you, uh…you look pretty.”

            She looks at him and nods her head, as if she already knew what he was thinking. She takes the belt off from underneath her and puts it around her dress.

            Will looks at the belt and dagger, “Can I by chance have that back? If I don’t have it, my family might notice,” he asks. He holds a hand to reach for the belt, but the Fallen girl jumps backwards and shakes her head. “Seriously, I need it, give it back.” She shakes her head. “Why are you doing this, I need that back.”

            She jingles at him.

            Will thinks for a moment, trying to figure out how he can get his gear back, “What about a trade then?” Will asks her after a moment.  

She stops moving and waits, as if to say, “I’m listening.”

            “If I give you underclothes, those are clothes that you put under your dress, will you give me back my knife.” He looks at her, for a reply.

She cocks her head to the side. She looks down at the dress and lifts up the hem.

            “Put it away!” Will shouts, shielding his eyes, but an unexpected noise causes him to drop his hands. He hears laughter. He looks at the girl, and sees that  her hem is down and she is bent over laughing. The sound of high peals of joy permeate through the air and she begins to gasp from laughing. After her giggle fit subsides, she looks at Will and nods.

            “Thank you…by the way, what is your name?” He asks, the thought just occurring to him.

            She jingles.

            Will sighs, “Well, seeing as I can’t say that, how about Belle? Because, you know, your voice sounds like bells.”
            She smiles at Will, approving his choice.

            He reaches out to pat her head, “Good, now I can call you-“

As he touches her hair, she smacks his away, and scowls and jangles at him, indicating that she is not a pet. She stands straight and looks him directly in the eyes.

            “Touchy, okay, okay, sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you, was just trying to help,” Will states, throwing his arms up in the air.

            She nods at him, “you’re forgiven this time,” her eyes say.

“Okay. Well, Belle, I will try to be out here tomorrow around the same time. We also need to find a way to hide those wings, so get ready to brainstorm on that. Okay?” He says.

She jingles at him, and begins to walk away, her boney frame slithering in the grass like twin pairs of snakes. As she disappears into the woods, Will walks to town. He is not particularly looking forward tomorrow. In some ways he does not know which was worse, a naked Fallen man grabbing at him, or having to go through his sister’s delicates tomorrow. Both prospects seem rather invasive to him.