Chapter 1

I walked through the world, head down, shoulders hunched, both to protect my eyes from all the light here, and to avoid looking at those beautiful wings everyone else had. As a child, I had spent hours just sitting and watching the others train with them, feathers glinting, folding and unfolding, flapping and gliding. Flying is a series of smooth motions, even flapping is smooth when done correctly. I was taught to keep my core and back strong, because those were the muscles used to control the wings, as everyone is born without wings, and they come in later. But mine never came.

Once, they got a doctor to examine my back, to see if there would ever be wings, and he said I wasn't the same as them, and refused to tell them if there would be wings. We never discovered why.

Today felt different, and I wasn't sure why, but I thought it was probably something to do with the fact that no one looked at me, and I was treated as a shadow, though there were none in this world. I wasn't sure how I knew what a shadow was or anything other than light, but I assumed it had something to do with how different I was, how I seemed to blend in to the world instead of standing out in these streets where everyone stands out.