Challenge Submission The Call of the Void

[Atomic Soul]

Spoiler: Ren, Suicide

I think about that sometimes, vividly
What it felt like to look down and see tranquility
One sudden movement in a world of possibility
Only one movement to expose our fragility
-Ren, Suicide​

He extended his wing long and low, opening the feathers to the breeze; it caressed the primaries, invisible touch shivering through every vane and barbule, around the marginal coverts in little vortexes. It ran through the feathers like flight, the rush of air over an appendage suited for the sky. But he couldn't fool himself that he was flying: he was planted on the roof, bodyweight leaning back on his battered hands. It didn't matter. Norepinephrine and serotonin bubbled behind night-sky eyes, metabolizing in his brain from the little tablet of Lift he'd swallowed some fifteen minutes earlier. Colors were brighter, the night sky aglow with lurid light pollution; he felt deeper, sensation surging back into his numb heart like a limb that had been paralyzed regaining range of motion. His world was on fire, and he loved everything: the lights shining in high-rise windows, the haunting, distant blare of sirens singing through the darkness, the crush of night weighing heavily on his bare shoulders. As he took that elevator up, he racked up potential energy like a step function all the way to the top, ticking up with each floor; now, he buzzed with it, sitting at the edge with his feet dangling over, a vast expanse of space expanding below his soles—and him, nothing but a dark, lonely bundle of potential energy, humming with a confidence-boosting high, just enough for

one

little​

push.​

Overhead, the moon glowed bright, reflecting in his dark star eyes. It shone on his face, contused, violet-red biliverdin blooming like wilting flower petals beneath the skin of his left cheekbone; sleepless bruises rimmed his under-eyes, dark circles of exhaustion shading his face. He stared out over the bright city skyline, bridges criss-crossing over a glittering bay, kicked his feet, ruffled his wing, and smiled brightly between broken teeth. It was a beautiful night for death. There were no strings to hold him down—he didn't need wings to fly. Just the Lift buzzing in his brainstem, the sensation of nothingness beneath his feet, the tousle of wind in his useless feathers. He threw his head back, closed his eyes, and felt the tug of gravity pull at his body—a force smugly mocked by Avians and deadly only to

Him.

Euphoria hummed in his heart, and he laughed, a deep, unsure sound that bobbed his Adam's apple up and down, up and down. He was scared. He shivered with it, fear, raising goosebumps along the undulations of his spine; his body sensed the mutiny that had formed in his brain, psyche erupting in a coup against his fragile corporal form.

In spite of it, he was ready to let go, holding onto his restraint with rope-burned hands, gripping, as his skin melted beneath the friction. And with the release of that rope, with the relief to allow those stinging, burning hands to rest, he could finally smile. It was a mournful smile, a grieving smile, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he looked up at the starless sky. The glaring colors of the city drowned out those pinprick diamonds he'd so often heard dotted the night in shining swarms. He wouldn't look down into that sea of infinity, that ocean of tranquility; he'd glared into the darkness too many nights, tracing constellations in the asbestos-dotted ceiling and wondering what it meant to live. To survive? To breathe? He knew too much of survival and of breath, inhaling the toxic fumes of a cigarette together with anxiety, with fear and with hate, and exhaling it through his crooked nose like a pensive dragon.

Gripping the edge of the rooftop, he stood, balancing on his toes before that dark ocean before him. Then, he turned his back to its abyssal depths, shrugging off the siren song of the void.

All one needed to breathe was two lungs,
no reason.​

 

[Lore N. Fables]

Absolutely LOVE Ren! Haunting writing to go with such a powerful song.