Chapter Two
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Lily
The trek down from the ridge tests every muscle I own.
Prophet is the name stitched into his vest, so it’s the one I’ll use.
He weighs more than I judged from above, and even with the makeshift travois I’ve rigged from pine branches and paracord, every step drags at my shoulders.
Bear pulls beside me and the harness strains, his breath freezing white in the air.
Alaska watches us struggle and offers nothing, the wind picking up to scatter snow across our path.
Every step feels a degree colder than the one before.
My cabin materializes through the twilight gloom, smoke no longer rising from the chimney.
The fire died while I’ve been gone. Another problem to solve, another task to complete, another reminder that out here, survival requires constant attention to a thousand small details.
I drag the travois to the covered porch, muscles screaming in protest. Bear collapses immediately, sides heaving, tongue lolling. The dog has earned his rest. I haven’t, not yet.
Inside, the cabin holds cold that bites deeper than the outside air, the kind that settles into walls and floors during winter. I need heat and light, and I need to assess his injuries properly instead of the rushed examination I did in the crater.
The wood stove takes priority. My hands move through familiar motions.
I crumple paper, arrange kindling in a careful pyramid, and strike a match with shaking fingers.
The flame catches, holds, then grows into orange light, pushing back shadows while heat begins its slow work of reclaiming space from winter’s grip.
Only then do I return to the porch for Prophet.
Getting him inside requires leverage, determination, and a complete disregard for proper lifting technique.
Medical school taught me how to protect my back.
Alaska taught me that sometimes you do what needs to be done, regardless of textbook recommendations.
I drag him across the threshold, the travois scraping against wood, and position him near the stove where warmth will reach him fastest.
The bivvy comes off first, then my coat wrapped around his torso.
Beneath both, his vest remains, that impossible material that absorbed impact no human-made fabric should withstand.
I hesitate, fingers hovering over the leather, over those patches proclaiming Kings of Anarchy MC, Alaska Chapter, Prophet, Chaplain.
This vest represents evidence of something, perhaps membership in an organization or a connection to people who will come looking. However, it also covers injuries I need to examine.
The decision makes itself. I can’t provide adequate care through leather and whatever else lies beneath, so the vest has to come off.
My hands work zippers and fasteners, peeling away fabric from skin that should be colder than it is.
His body temperature registers wrong, not hypothermic despite exposure, not frozen despite the crater’s ice.
Warm. Actually warm to the touch when everything I know about medicine and cold-weather trauma says he should feel frozen.
I set the vest aside, patches up, and focus on what lies beneath.
His shirt hangs in tatters, burned and shredded. I cut away what remains with scissors from my medical kit, revealing skin that makes my breath catch.
Burns cover his torso. These are not ordinary burns—they look as if they’ve already been cauterized, with edges too clean and precise.
The lacerations I noted earlier, the slash across his ribs and abdomen, are not bleeding anymore.
They are not scabbed over or closed, just not bleeding.
And beneath the damage, beneath the wounds that should be weeping and raw, I see...
No. That’s impossible.
I lean closer, firelight casting shadows across his chest, and watch. Just watch. For thirty seconds, a minute...
The burns shrink.
Not dramatically, but they shrink. Edges pull inward by millimeters, angry red fading to pink, then to skin tone that matches the surrounding flesh.
And the lacerations, they knit. Tissue regenerates before my eyes, cells multiplying at rates that defy everything I learned in medical school and mock every principle of human physiology.
My hands hover above his chest, afraid to touch, afraid to confirm what my eyes report. Human bodies don’t heal this way. Can’t heal this way. They require proper treatment, clean wounds, and absence of infection. It doesn’t happen in minutes while unconscious in a freezing cabin.
Unless the body in question isn’t human.
There’s no explaining this away anymore.
Whatever fell from the sky wasn’t human.
I’ve been operating under the assumption that what fell from the sky was a man, and that the impossible survival came from luck or adrenaline.
The medical intervention would follow normal patterns.
All those assumptions shatter now, broken by the evidence of accelerated healing, survival that defies physics, and that strange light I saw in his eyes.
I rock back on my heels, medical kit forgotten, mind racing through implications.
Not human. Those words reshape everything.
The crater makes sense now, or makes the kind of sense that exists beyond human understanding. The wing prints burned into earth, the wolves’ reverence, the tear in the sky, all pieces of a picture I can’t quite see but know exists.
Fear crawls up my spine with icy fingers. Five years I’ve lived in isolation, running from humans, from their capacity for betrayal and violence. And now I’ve brought something else into my home, something that fell from heaven, hell, or whatever exists beyond the veil of normal reality.
Smart would be putting him back outside.
Smart would be leaving him on the porch, where whatever he is becomes Alaska’s problem, not mine.
Smart would be protecting myself from this complication and impossibility, who wears a human shape but heals with inhuman speed.
My hands move to his shoulders, preparing to drag him back through the door.
His eyes open.
Impossible blue pins me in place, holding me frozen. Light swirls in those depths, not reflected firelight, not tricks of shadow, but actual luminescence originating from within. Power radiates from him, pressing against my skin without physical force, making the air feel charged.
“Please.” His voice emerges stronger, though pain threads through each syllable. “Don’t... I won’t hurt you.”
The words should reassure me, but they don’t because creatures that can survive impossible falls, heal from catastrophic injuries, and carry light in their eyes operate by rules I don’t understand. Promises mean nothing when you’re dealing with something beyond human.
“What are you?” The question rushes out, rusty and harsh.
Something crosses his face, grief, maybe, or regret. “I don’t... I don’t know anymore.”
“You’re healing. I watched your burns disappear. Watched lacerations close.” My voice climbs despite efforts to control it. “Human bodies don’t do that.”
“No.” He tries to sit up, fails, and falls back with a groan that sounds entirely too human for whatever he is. “They don’t.”
“The wings. There were wing prints in the snow. Burned into the ground.”
Confusion clouds those luminous eyes. “Wings?”
“In the crater. Where you fell, there were wing prints, thirty feet across, seared into the permafrost.” I watch his face for recognition, confirmation, or anything that makes sense of the impossible. “What fell wasn’t a man.”
“I fell.” The words come slowly, as if he’s discovering them while speaking. “From... above. There was light. Pain. The sky...” His eyes drift closed. “The sky tore open.”
“I saw it tear. Watched light pour through a rupture in reality.” My hands clench, nails biting into palms. “You fell through that tear and rode fire down to earth. Created a crater on impact that should have killed anything mortal.”
“But I’m not...” He opens his eyes again, that light dimmer now, fading. “I’m not mortal. Not anymore. Or I am now. I don’t...” Frustration bleeds into his voice. “I can’t remember.”
The confusion reads genuine. Whatever he is, wherever he came from, the fall has stolen more than just his wings.
Memory loss would explain the disorientation and uncertainty.
But it doesn’t explain the healing or address the fundamental question of what lies in my cabin, bleeding light and defying nature.
“Your vest says ‘Prophet.’ ” I gesture toward where I’ve laid the leather. “That mean anything to you?”
He stares at the vest, brow furrowing. “No. Should it?”
“It’s yours. You were wearing it when you fell.” The implications pile up, heavy and complicated. “Which means somewhere in Alaska, there are people who’ll come looking for you.”
“I don’t remember anyone.” His hand lifts toward the vest but drops before reaching it. “Don’t remember anything except falling. Except pain. Except...” His gaze finds mine. “Except you. Finding me. Saving me.”
“I haven’t saved you yet.” The words emerge harder than intended. “You’re not human. That much is obvious. Which means I don’t know what you need, how to treat you, or if standard medical care will help or harm.”
“I need...” He considers. “Warmth... rest... time to heal.” A bitter laugh escapes. “Apparently, I heal faster than humans. So time, mostly.”
“And food? Water? Those still apply?”
“Yes.” The certainty suggests some instincts survive whatever amnesia the fall created. “Human needs still apply. Just... augmented by whatever else I am.”
Whatever else he is.
Alaska’s wind howls outside, rattling the windows and reminding me that whatever internal crisis I’m experiencing, external reality continues its relentless march.
Night deepens, temperature drops, and inside my cabin sits something that fell from heaven with light in its eyes and amnesia in its mind.