Wings

“You know,” the young man began. “When we first met, I had high hopes for you.
He shook his head slightly, shoulder length hair falling somewhat greasily over his face.
“Such high hopes.”
Nitya could only stare, her dark eyes wide, as he raised the ugly metal gun to aim unwaveringly at her.
“But I guess...I was wrong,” he said sadly.
“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Nitya’s body felt simultaneously hot and cold - her frozen fingers trembled, but the sweat was dripping down the side of her neck even as her heartbeats blurred together in their accelerated rhythm.
Only one word came to her leaden tongue. A name: his.
“A...mitai?”
The young man opposite her sighed softly. For a moment his gaze wandered to the orange horizon beyond the barren cliff’s sudden drop, and a ghost of the old half-smile showed on his lips.
“I thought I could teach you,” he said. “Change you. Show you the truth.”
At his words, Nitya’s voice returned in full strength. “But you did show me!”, she exclaimed. “You did! I understand now - I know I was wrong!”
Even as the protests burst from her mouth, she fought against the chattering of her teeth. It was beyond all logic for this person - this person – to act this way. He was the one who had given her the chance to free herself from the constrains of her own power; the one who had put before her not the perfect vision of the future she was meant to bring about, but the disease-ridden shell of what existed now and the bloody religious crusades that still pitted humanity against itself; the one who had given her the purpose that she had sworn to battle for all her life through.
The setting sun glinted off the handgun. A crude weapon for a crude purpose; all wrong to be held in his hand.
“You have changed me!,” was her last, desperate sob.

“But not enough,” was the softly-spoken reply.
Softly-spoken, yet still managing the strength to leave Nitya hurting with the same sting as if the words had been a slap.
“Look around you,” he said, gesturing with his free hand. “If you have the power within you to change the world; if you would use this power as you say; then why is the sky still grey?”
Nitya remained silent.
“Why do we still choke on the air we breathe? Why do our stomachs still growl?”
He was shouting now, his words battling with the crash of opaque, oozing ocean on rocks below. “Why do our throats still burn on the acrid water we drink? Tell me - why is it that if I listen very hard, I can still hear screams on the wind?!”
He shook his head, his jaw clenching once, then releasing. “Nitya,” he told her, “you have not changed at all.”

And it was those words that broke her, because in her heart she had always known they were true.

Nitya had a power that would be the salvation of humankind: to shape the world around her in accordance with what she believed was true.
Very quickly, she had been hailed as a beacon of hope upon which the future rested.
But Nitya had a problem.
In her sheltered past she saw only the world as it had been handed to her, on a silver platter with the plea ‘fix me’, and she had judged against the ones who had made it that way.
Nitya did not believe in a future for humanity.
As her so called acolytes had hidden her away from the ruthless sects that saw her reality-altering power as merely a means to legitimize their faith, Nitya had seen through the smiling faces to the selfishness that lay beneath.
On the day Amitai had appeared in her back garden, dripping wet from the pouring acid rain, and offered her the chance to experience the stories as first-hand truth, she had wondered. But the horrific sights of their travels had only cemented her realization that the darkness outweighed the light. The few happy faces she had met and loved did not balance the bloody pain and suffering delivered by the vast majority.
The rosy skin could not compensate for the deeply rotten core; humanity was a seed that should never have been sown.

So, quite without any more effort than the decision itself required, Nitya had set the wheels of destruction in motion.

But.

How could Nitya ever admit it?
How could she look into the eyes of a fellow human being, knowing that they were going to die by her own indirect hand?
How could she watch the playing children, and know that there was no more hope at all?

So she denied the truth.
She hid away the very idea, and allowed herself to believe that she could share in their innocent hope.

So perhaps that was why she now found herself unable to meet the eyes of the only person who had ever given her the chance to choose for herself.

So when she tilted her chin up towards the soupy sky, her eyes closed against the hidden sun’s reflecting glare, Nitya could only form the conclusion that she had built within herself from the beginning of her self-awareness.
She smiled. “I’m so useless.”
“…What?”
“I’m useless. Incapable. A failure.”
He was silent, and tightened his grip on the gun.

Nitya opened her eyes as wind currents swirled around her. It was a beautiful feeling.
“I cannot save this world,” she said. “But nor can I destroy it.”
“Humanity is too flawed for redemption - it is violent, and selfish, and greedy, and prideful, and angry - but still I cannot bring myself to condemn them. After all, am I not human too?”
She laughed. “After all, am I not just as flawed; just as sinful; just as self-serving as any human can be?”
“You see, I cannot bring myself to make this decision. I don’t want to bear this burden; to stand myself and myself alone as destroyer or savor; and so I cannot do it. All I can do stand by while they suffer, unable to make a choice either way.”
She raised her hands as if to touch the clouds, and smiled bitterly when they were out of reach. “After all - I can change everything in this world, except myself.”

There was only the sound of the sea, until -
“Which is why,” he said quietly, “it is time for humanity to learn to change itself.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I suppose it is.”

And even as the single shot echoed in her ears and she began to fall, Nitya felt as if she was finally able to spread her wings.