'One day I am gonna grow wings'

In the mountain-locked village of Calvara, where clouds hung low like secrets and stars blinked like whispered promises, every child was born with a dream etched onto their skin.

Mine was a single line, faint and curled around my collarbone:

"One day I am gonna grow wings."

My mother said it was a curse. My father, gone before I could remember, had the same line. He’d vanished on the eve of the Equinox when the wind was loud enough to swallow screams.

Everyone in Calvara had their own etched truth destinies or warnings branded by the godlike scribes who whispered to souls before they were born. Most people's markings were clear and grounded: “You will heal the sick”, or “You will cross the sea and find your heart.” But mine? Wings? No one in Calvara had ever flown.

By sixteen, I still hadn't grown anything but calluses from climbing the Watch Trees and bones too long for the tiny life I’d been told to stay inside.

Then came the Featherfall. Once every fifty years, the skies opened for one hour, and feathers rained like snow black, white, gold, and ghostly gray. People gathered to catch them and burn them in rituals to keep the valley sealed and grounded.

But this time, I didn’t burn mine.

t shimmered obsidian in the moonlight. It hummed when I held it. I kept it hidden beneath my mattress, and each night, it whispered stories of a kingdom in the clouds of towers carved from thunder, and queens with silver wings.

One night, the feather began to glow. My shoulder blades screamed as if someone was carving open the truth inside me. Pain gripped me like chains. And then

I split.

From my back burst two wings, not like a bird’s but like ink spilled in a storm: black, tattered, veined with light. My bones reshaped. My destiny arrived.

I stumbled into the night air, climbing the cliff’s edge where the stars burned closer than they ever had. I leapt not because I knew how to fly, but because my dream had finally stopped being silent.

I soared.

As I vanished above the valley’s fog, I heard the gasps of those who watched. Some in fear. Some in awe. Some with envy, their own dreams long since buried under stone and soot.

But I didn’t look back.

After all, I was born for the sky.

And the skies were finally mine