To fall, is to have flown.

Icarus' Monologue – The Feather's Edge

It starts with the feeling, doesn’t it? That tremor beneath your skin, the fluttering in your chest like something—someone—scraping the inside of you, soft, teasing, until it becomes an itch, a hunger, a need. I’ve tasted it before, that craving for flight, and it’s never been kind. It doesn’t let you forget.

I see it now, the way the feathers fall. The white ones, soft as forgotten dreams, spinning slowly to the ground as if caught in the air’s cruel dance with gravity. It’s my body calling to me, I know it. Each tiny fragment of down that flutters across the room, a pulse I feel beneath my ribs. I—I—am the one who can’t stop it. The way they shift in the corners, whispering, slithering around me, pressing themselves into my bones. It’s the weight of want, the heaviness that sinks into me until I can’t breathe without them.

How could I ignore them, Daedalus? How could you ask me to?

The feathers... they’re a part of me, part of this hunger that clings to me. Every night, they crawl into my skin, nestling beneath the flesh, leaving traces of their warmth. I can feel them pressing against the thin membrane of my ribs, stretching out into my lungs, and I... I can’t stop it. Can’t stop wanting it, the sensation of them, soft and sharp at once, invading my every waking thought.

I run my hands over my chest, and there they are, smoldering just beneath the surface of my skin—light, ghostly, like the flutter of wings behind closed eyes, shivering and breaking me open. My fingers graze over the soft burn of them, and for a moment, I think I can pull them out. I should pull them out.

But no, I don’t want to...

I feel it—the pulse. The tremor. I lean in closer, bury my hands in the heat of it, digging into myself as the skin peels back, slow, soft, until the feathers spill free. They coat my hands, cover my fingers, wrap themselves around the tips of my nails. They ache. They are fire and ice. They are all the things I was supposed to be, and all the things I was never meant to have—and yet, here I am, surrounded by them. Wrapped in them. Possessed by them.

My skin... it pulls away with ease now. The rawness of it, the way it stings and burns, becomes something pleasurable, almost maddening in its intensity. I... I can’t stop touching it. The way the feathers feel, they whisper secrets I never asked for—no, that’s a lie, I’ve begged for them. Begged to feel them shred me, unravel me into nothing more than the dust I should have been, long ago.

The feathers make me crave more.

They spill from the corners of my mouth, tracing the shape of my tongue, like soft kisses that burn the edges of my thoughts. My legs, trembling, quiver as I reach for myself, fingers slipping over my chest, my stomach, as though I can carve out the pieces that don’t belong, the pieces of me that are too human to exist alongside the feathers. But with each stroke, with each caress, the hunger deepens, grows.

They pull at me. They whisper at me. Fly, they say. Fly, and I will be whole again. I will be free.

But I... I know what they mean.

It’s not freedom they offer. It’s a promise to consume me, to fill me with the same endless ache that has already made my skin its home. It will burn me alive, or it will break me down, piece by fragile piece. And yet... I want it. I need it.

There is nothing left to be, but the sensation of wings.

I close my eyes, my hands pressed tightly to my body, and for a moment, I think I can feel the pull of them, deep inside me, stretching out, spreading across my back as they sink into the bones that hold me together. I breathe deeply. They fill me. They curl around me like lovers, like the promise of something more. I breathe, and I hear the crackle of heat in my chest, the rasping sound of my pulse quickening.

It feels too good.

It’s more than the feathers. More than the light.

It’s the knowing that I was always meant to fall—just as the wings, like a lover’s kiss, will tear me apart. I crave it. I want it. I will devour it until there is nothing left but this fire, this inevitable fall.

It is the only way.

It is the only way to be free.