Sam woke, as he always did, to the hum.
It lived in the walls, in the lights, and in the floor beneath the thin mattress pressed against his spine. It was constant, like breathing, like time itself. Sometimes he wondered if it would still be there if he died. If heaven had a hum. If God spoke in electricity.
He stared at the ceiling.
White.
Always white.
Not pure white. Not holy white. Institutional white. The kind that tried to hide stains but never quite could. If he stared long enough, he could see shapes in it. Faces sometimes. Wings sometimes. Once, he thought he saw a hand reaching down for him.
They told him that was the illness.
Sam blinked slowly.
His tongue felt heavy, dry and bitter with chemical ghosts. The medication made his thoughts feel soft around the edges, like someone had wrapped his mind in cloth.
Footsteps approached outside his door.
Keys jingled, locks clicked and the door opened.
"Good morning, Sam."
He turned his head slowly toward the voice.
Nurse Elara.
He knew her by smell before sight. Soap, Coffee and Paper. She always smelled like paper.
"Morning," he said, though it came out like gravel.
"Did you sleep?"
He thought about the question carefully. He always did.
"I floated," he said finally.
She wrote something down on her clipboard, she always wrote something down when he told the truth.
Breakfast was silent.
A metal tray. A plastic spoon, oatmeal and pills. The pills sat in a tiny paper cup red, blue and white.
He called them colors of authority.
"Take them, Sam." he stared at them.
He didn't remember when he started taking them, he didn't remember not taking them. He didn't remember being younger, he didn't remember his past. But he remembered light, a warm light and some little falling.
He swallowed the pills.
The world dulled slightly.
Further away.
After nurse Elara left he knew that one of the many ever changing guards would come and take him to the group therapy session.
Group therapy happened in a circle of chairs bolted to the floor, no one could run. Not that anyone tried anymore.
"Today we talk about identity," the therapist said.
Sam liked that word.
It felt important, heavy. Like scripture.
They were always listening to the scripture being read by father Edmund, and he knew there was God. But he often asked himself, was the God in the scripture the one who brought him to this world?
"Sam," she said gently, "who are you?" she had disturbed his thought process, whenever he tried to ponder about certain subjects his mind either forcefully shut down or a nurse and sometimes a guard would snap him out of his daze.
The room felt very quiet.
He thought for a moment before he answered the same way he always did.
"I am an angel," he said.
No one laughed, they never laughed anymore. They just wrote things down.
…
Afternoon came with rain tapping against reinforced windows. Sam liked rain, it sounded like whispers he almost understood.
He pressed his forehead against the glass, the sky was grey and heavy.
He felt a little strange today, he was awake in a way the pills couldn't fully suppress. Like something inside him was pacing, restless. Quietly Listening, at the same time patiently waiting.
Night fell early, the lights dimmed to their artificial dusk setting. The hum in the walls grew louder.
Or maybe the world just got quieter. Sam lay in bed, staring at the ceiling again.
Something felt wrong, or right he couldn't quite tell the difference.
His chest felt tight, almost as if like the moment before remembering something important… and painful.
Then, without warning the hum stopped, for the first time in his life…
The institution was silent.
Sam sat up slowly, curiosity blooming in his eyes.
The air felt charged, heavy and alive. Outside, thunder rolled deep, ancient, territorial.
His heart began to race.
"I know that sound," he whispered.
Lightning flashed.
Not outside, inside his room the world exploded into white. Pain slammed through his body, like something was trying to rip him open from the inside out. He tried to scream, but the light swallowed the sound.
For a moment, one impossible moment he saw wings made of lightning.
And they felt like a part of him.
Then-Nothing.
…
Warmth, humidity. The smell hit him firs not disinfectant, not bleach and not sterile nothingness. Earth, Smoke, Water and Skin. Something floral and unfamiliar.
Sam inhaled sharply, his eyes snapped open. The ceiling above him was made of woven wood and dried leaves. Light filtered through tiny gaps, golden. He was lying on something soft. Something foreign, Furs, not hospital sheets.
He stared at the foreign object that was covering him, his heart pounded.
He sat up too fast, and the world tilted. His body felt… wrong, stronger and Heavier. he felt alive in ways he didn't understand. And the cloth that appeared to be always wrapped around his mind was not present.
But he wondered how long would this dream last.
Then he heard it, the sound of gentle splashing.
He turned.
Across the small hut-like room, steam curled through the warm air. A wooden basin sat near a low-burning fire pit.
And beside it, a woman stood with her back to him, bathing. Water traced down bare skin, moving across muscle and softness alike, natural and unhidden in the private warmth of the space. Pale scars crossed one shoulder like old lightning marks.
And from her back, wings extended large, and leathered. Droplets clung to them like morning dew, Sam forgot how to breathe.
The woman's movements stopped.
Slowly, she turned her head, their eyes met and confusion filled his face.
"Oh, hey. You finally woke up?" she said, smiling softly.
Sam blushed. He caught a glimpse of her chest fully exposed before he forcefully turned away.
"W-Where am I?" he whispered.
'My place, I know it's a little rough but hey at we have a rough over our heads am I right?" she playfully winked at him.
He looked at her smiling, there was something different about her smile. Unlike the stiff smiles the people running the institution gave him this one was actually warm and inviting.
But before he could return the smile, the world grew silent once more. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the blinding light and the excruciating pain but it never came instead he heard a soft fleeting voice: "Do not forget who you are?"
Like a tidal wave it all came crashing down on him.
Sam's voice cracked as the only truth he had ever known rose to the surface, fragile and unshakable all at once.
"I…" he whispered "I am an angel."
"I… am an angel." he repeated his words as if he was trying to convince himself of the statement.
The confession lingered in the warm, humid air of the hut. Sam's chest rose and fell rapidly as if speaking those words had taken something vital from him. He expected laughter, mockery and maybe fear.
None came.
The woman simply watched him.
Her gaze was steady and thoughtful, as though she were weighing the truth of his words rather than dismissing them. After a moment, she reached for a thick cloth hanging beside the wooden basin and wrapped it securely around her body. Steam drifted lazily between them, softening the edges of the firelight.
"An angel," she repeated quietly.
Her tone held no ridicule. Only curiosity, Sam swallowed. His throat felt dry and sore.
"I… think I was," he said. "I don't remember much. Just white rooms. The hum in the walls. And the pills, I cannot forget the pills never." he shook his head.
He pressed his fingers against his temples as a dull ache pulsed behind his eyes. Memories hovered just out of reach, like distant thunder.
The woman stepped closer, her movements slow and careful, as if approaching a wounded animal. Up close, Sam noticed faint golden flecks in her eyes. The scars across her shoulder looked like lightning frozen into flesh.
"You're not in that place anymore," she said gently. "You're in Skel Hearth. A border village in the eastern marshlands."
Sam blinked. The words meant nothing to him, yet they felt solid. Real in a way the white room never had.
His gaze drifted toward her back. The wings shifted slightly, leathered membranes flexing with quiet life. They were not feathered like the wings he thought angels should have. They looked older, wilder. Like something born from storms and darkness instead of heaven.
"You believe me?" Sam said.
"Why shouldn't I?"she replied calmly.
She crouched beside the fire pit and added a piece of resin wood. The flames brightened, casting gold and blue light across the hut.
"You fell from the sky three nights ago," she continued. "During the Thunder Break."
Sam's heart skipped.
Thunder.
Lightning.
Light swallowing everything.
His hands began to tremble.
"I remember light," he whispered. "Pain. And… something opening inside me."
Outside, wind brushed against the hut walls. Rain began tapping the roof, soft and steady.
The sound wrapped around him like a blanket. "I like rain," he said quietly, almost shyly.
She glanced back at him. Something unreadable flickered across her face.
"Good," she said. "You'll hear a lot of it here."
Silence settled between them, but it was not empty. The fire crackled softly. Rain fell. Insects hummed in the distance. Everything sounded alive.
Sam slowly moved his legs off the bedding. The furs brushed against his skin, rough and grounding. His body felt different. Stronger. Heavier. Real in a way he did not understand.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do while I wait for the dream to end." he admitted.
The woman stared at him for a couple of seconds something flickering in her eyes then she stood and adjusted the cloth around herself.
"For now," she said, "you rest, and you get to hang out with me."
She walked toward the doorway, then paused and looked back at him.
"And you tell me your name, If you remember it."
The answer came instantly.
"Sam." he blurted out.
The name felt small in this vast, unfamiliar world but it was his.
She nodded once.
"I'm Mirabel but you can call me Mira."
They stood frozen looking at each other, then thunder rolled again, closer this time. Sam's skin prickled.
"Let me prepare dinner you must be starving." as if on que his stomach grumbled.