Chapter 39 Flight
Flight
Before these dogs can be unleashed on me, thunder begins to bellow across the water and crash all around us, quickly running towards us from a far off beyond the horizon.
The whole room shaking from its sheer power.
The glass becomes lit in a blinding white as it crashes its hammer down upon my snared trap.
The whole room jostles, these larger than life villains now tremble against the wrath of nature’s powerful sword.
Bricks fly from their locked cavities and I watch as little peepholes form below me, down into the spiraling hall.
I cry out an animalistic screech, over and over, scratching at the floor and walls, and pulling at whatever can be ripped and knocked down around me. A harpy I am, an agent of chaos.
“Lir, save me—Lir!” I scream, my jaw unhinging and my vocal cords snapping in desperate cries.
The thunder booms around the tower, wobbling the very stone it stands on.
As if undetonated dynamite is being sparked beneath its surface.
Sounds of storm lurch over the lighthouse, terrifying and liberating.
The reverberating voice of a herald of destruction.
These boys cry scared running down its spiraling steps as they fall beneath them crashing into the sea.
As the monument topples back and forth, the glass around me and the giant whirling lens cracks under the weight of the thrashing atmosphere.
I rejoice in seeing the shocked look on that smooth timbered Captain’s face as everything he thought he had just conquered comes crashing down upon him.
Including my bone knife, which in a moment of pitch darkness between the flashes, comes raining down through his custom wool jacket, his pressed high buttoned shirt, his surprisingly pliant flesh and into his disgusting heart.
Light fills the room again, highlighting the imminent demolition of all the men and man-made things surrounding me. I have not a moment to cry over or celebrate my actions as the floor he lays bubbling his final breaths begins to give way into the collapsing quake.
I consider the roof hatch for escape, but fear transforming into a human lightning rod.
My only option is to try to run down the stairs, jumping through the falling facade that crumbles all about the structure.
My wood stove’s metal flue crashes through the hall like a felled tree, blocking me from going any further.
With nowhere else to go, but still so far from the ground, I stand in a window frame, bracing myself from the violent shaking.
My tears mix with the pouring down rain as I break the blood vessels in my throat screaming out for my savior.
I can’t see through the sheets of water or the blackness of night, which is only being burst open by the crashing lightning bouncing down all around me.
One pebble and chunk of cement at a time, the masonry below begins to give way—with no other option I let go of the edge, ready to fall to my demise.
I would rather accept my cruel fate than be taken captive by these men who now run and scream around like ants being eradicated.
With the same bravery of Little Bird’s first flight, for just a moment—
I fall freely through the air.
My arms outstretched resist against the wind. The element I fall through is not oxygen, a warm heat is shooting down and displacing out every familiar feeling within the atmosphere around me.
Instead of looking down at the incoming ground, I focus on my hand.
It glimmers between bright flashes from the promise wrapped around my finger.
Radiating spokes glisten in the darkness and even in this moment of fear, I feel hope.
No wonder the seagulls always screeched out in joy, for a moment I too am a bird, the sky itself blowing up under me.
But, before I hit the ground with a deadly landing—I am snatched backwards, knocking the air out of my lungs.
Lir’s giant hands hold me easily, catching me within his grasp. Tucking me into a cradle in his shoulder, shielding me from his wrath raining down on the land.
He stands on his tail, a tall force looming over the island like a cobra.
With the motion of his hand, he wills the thunder to crash down through the ship.
It glows for a moment as if imploding in a bright light, before bursting into flames.
I see the embers reflecting in his darkened eyes, these horrors of destruction unbothering to his furrowed brow.
Normally, I would beg for any sort of violence to be ceased, for mercy to win—but, what woman’s rage has not wished for this tremendous power. For good to triumph over the pure evil that grabs at our soft flesh.
I do not smile in delight at their screams, but I do not move to ask Lir to stop. I watch quietly and solemnly, clinging to Lir as the world around us crumbles into the sea.