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The underground city remained an eerie gray whether it be dusk or dawn above. You awoke to gray and lay your head in just the same hue. The gray was a constant and the color a symbol for a life condemned to dismal decline hardly before it began. For Levi, this was no different.
His first memories were shrouded in this gray tinge, amongst dirty alleyways, cramped spaces, and the rough feeling of fabric near his cheek as he huddled behind his mother’s skirt. He spent his early years being told to hush, look down, to never meet the gaze of another man.
“Do you hear that, Levi?” he heard his mother’s stern whisper. “That is what happens when you speak out of turn. That is the same pain you’ll face when you make your presence known.”
His mother had lived a harsh and unforgiving life. Anyone could conclude this from a simple glance in her direction. She was a beautiful woman, undeniably, but her youth had been chiseled away at much before her time. Her cheek bones protruding at sharp angles, her steps slow and pained. Most noticeable were her eyes. They should have been a stunning blue, perhaps they once had been, but they no longer held light. They were now as gray and dull as the underground itself. Nothing was left behind in those eyes but a faint and tender twinkle reserved only when she looked upon Levi.
Levi knew very little about his mother for she’d never speak of her past, or much at all for that matter. What he did know well was their daily rituals. She’d rise after only having rested a few hours and slip out the door of their one room home. She’d leave the door cracked, just an inch, allowing some semblance of light to filter in. Levi would stare at this sliver, for how long he never knew, until she’d return. He’d feel her gentle touch, against his hand, against his cheek, hear her soothing words, and soon he’d find his way inside yet another cocoon. The closet was a second home, a sanctuary. He’d wait there, wrapped in darkness. It was a shield, as were his hands against his ears, as he lie patiently for his mother’s touch once again.
This was his favorite part of the day, when he’d emerge, almost reborn, to a feast of food or a new bar of soap. This was, of course, on the good days. Good days were when Levi didn’t hear the noises his mother so often warned him of. Noises that were coming from someone who sounded a lot like his mother. He had the dots in front of him, so painfully clear were the lines he should make, but he never found the time to make the connection.
Instead, he focused his energy on more important matters. He was undergoing a metamorphous. Each time he returned to his cocoon he became plainly aware of his limbs growing longer, his body becoming decimals stronger, and the dull, but persistent, aching of wings sprouting forth from the spaces between his shoulder blades.
Why else would his mother put him there? Why else would he lie for hours, so still, without a sound? He understood his mission. He would one day fly away from this place and find somewhere safe with his wings. He’d return and take his mother there once he'd found it. There, up above, they would be safe.
Things carried on this way for so long that the days soon bled into one indistinguishable loop. It wasn’t much of a life, most would have seen it as a hellish, unrelenting existence, but for Levi he knew nothing else. This was his routine, his reality and his constant.
He took comfort in this predictability, savored it, in fact, until he no longer could. Until one day Levi lay tight in his cocoon for much too long. So long it became evidently clear his transformation might never complete. His body had simply become too weak, his mind could wander no more.
When he eventually crawled from the closet he found his mother laying there across the cold, dirt floor. She was too quiet, even for her. He held her soon after, when he’d finally been forced to connect the dots. He held her, rocking for some time, humming a sullen lullaby she’d sung to him since before his hands were big enough to hold a bottle.
When he finally found the strength, he moved her body to the bed. He thought she was too cold, too rigid to hold any longer. He’d let her warm there under the blankets and find somewhere nearby to wait. What was he waiting for? He wasn’t sure. He knew she was dead. He’d known it since the moment the noises stopped. They were noises that were too loud for him to block out, those awful sounds he’d spent much of his life hearing. What else was he to do now?
So he'd wait. Counting the bricks in the wall that lay in front of him. Counting his steady breathes, the tedious rise and fall. Counting the time it took for his stomach to gnaw at him with hunger and the time it took for it to slowly fade to a dull hum in the back of his head. He would count until he could count no longer. Until he could rest.
For maybe then he would finally grow his wings. He’d fly up through the hazy layers of gray, heavy and suffocating, until he broke to a dazzling light. He’d grasp it once he found it, that never-ending light, tight in his palm like the handle of a blade, and never let it go.