This is a one-shot based on a legend from Greek mythology that spoke about a father and son, Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus was a great architect, one of the best, and his work was the most recognized. But he was getting old and he started to lose inspiration, so a younger architect got the best of him and Daedalus was jealous of the younger competitor. That jealousy led to Daedalus assassinating the young architect. The penalty for murder sent him and his son on a small island.
How will they escape, or will they?
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We lived on an island full of rock and sand, surviving by fishing and eating some black and red berries that Father once named – but I forgot.
Food was the least problem, or so my beloved parent said. Water was the worst - after letting it boil, it would taste like mud and I almost always refused to drink it.
I was not accustomed to this kind of life. It greatly differed from my life in the past.
I remembered the large manor that we used to live in, Father and me. I remembered the smooth stone underneath my fingers, the cold floor below my feet, the easy life without the sun burning your skin…
I remembered all these thing… but now it's gone. Replaced by this wasteland.
My Father, Daedalus, never told me why. He was keeping me in the dark.
I did not know even why were we here, not why is the soil that I can walk on brown and dark yellow, but the one that I can fall through the same color as the sky.
That blue soil was an interesting thing to me - it would always get my clothes cold and stretchy.
I once asked my Father about it… He just waved me off.
One day, Father was watching the sky. Or was he eying the blue ground?
I was not sure.
His eyesight was storming and roaming the horizon, seeking wildly, and then he suddenly stopped. I caught his eyes laying on beautiful white birds.
One of them lowered it's body and sat on the blue soil. I was taken aback. How could it do that? I looked closer, thinking that I saw wrong… but no – my sight was normal.
"Father, how could that bird stay up on the blue ground? Is it a magical bird?" I asked, but no answer came from my Father. I pulled his finger in order for him to recognize me.
He didn't even blink, and to my surprise, he ran off towards the bird and stretched his arms to catch it, but the bird escaped and my Father Daedalus was left with a disappointed expression, yet is eyes glistened with hope.
What was he thinking?
He tried to catch another one, and he was successful. The bird's head fell limp in his strong hand as he held it.
When he came back to me, he threw the bird on the rock and said:
"Try to catch one. We will need it."
But I did not, for my fear of the blue soil that now haunted me.
My Father, however, did not order me anything, and when he realized that I will not be of any help, he went off and caught more white birds.
When he was done, he plucked all the birds' feathers, and started to arrange them like wings they were pulled of.
Father was sticking the feathers together using a dark yellow mixture, or whatever it was.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing.
"Wax." he simply replied,smiling while he did his work.
The feathers were perfectly arranged, beautifully formed into two pair of wings.
"These wings will get us out of hell." he muttered as he laid the wings at my small shoulders. Then he did same to himself.
I watched him, curious. Yes, my Father was an architect, but never did he invent a thing such as these.
He was whispering to me:
"We will fly off this damned island and save ourselves. But, remember, do not fly too high; nor too low. If you go too close to the sky, the sun will burn your wings, and the wax will melt. And if you go low, to the sea, your wings will moist and you will drown."
I nodded, barely understanding – why all these words that I don't know about?
I flapped my wings, and I found myself off the ground.
"Follow me." Father said and went forward.
After a time, my eyes stung and teared themselves from the wind, and i wanted to stay a little while on one of the islands we flew over, but Father rushed and didn't gave me time to relax.
When the sun started to go down, my arms threatened to go limp, and the rest of my body was tired as well.
I looked at the blue ground beneath me…
Maybe I could take a small pause… if I sat on the blue ground, or the sea, as the bird from before. Now I had wings, surely nothing would go bad. What could?
And so my body started to go lower and lower… my arms waving slower and slower.
"Icarus! Icarus!"
He called me. I wanted to say something, but I was in a trans, so tired…
Unutterable force pulled me lower, so low that I could not breathe any more.
And then… the darkness swallowed me whole.