You lie beside me. I should leave—slowly, gently—but I cannot. Only the soft rise and fall of air moving through you can be heard. There is silence. The silence of our existence. No sound outside, nor within. Only quiet breaths, a fragile rhythm.


    I should go. I must. Yet your gentle pulse fills me with such profound peace—like a mother’s heartbeat calms her unborn child. This peace wraps us both, a silky veil beneath which the world could become anything.


    Still, I linger. Still, I listen.


    Now, I can feel it—the steady pulse of the universe, its ceaseless beat that draws tides and lifts moons, that births stars and leaves riddles for earthly minds to chase. They peer through vast telescopes, searching for truths, unaware of the tiny breath-cosmoses you create right here, beside me.


    I must go.


    Perhaps I’ve been here for millennia, or only for the barest fraction of a second. Time moves as we choose to measure it.


    It’s hard to lift my wings—so complete is the stillness, so pure the silence that you, unknowingly, have given me. You don’t know I was here. And so, it cannot hurt when I leave. This is how it must be. Not by rule—only by wisdom.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    I could have been something solid—a mountain lost in verse—but wings are for flying. That’s why they exist. Yet, still, I hesitate. I fear the faintest movement might ripple through your quiet rhythm, shattering entire worlds you’ve crafted here, in this fragile, careful silence.


    The wonder of it holds me still.


    But what if one day your calm ceases? If you wake—and find me here? That cannot be. I must go.


    But I don’t.


    And as the pulse of creation shifts—sometimes steady, sometimes restless—the sun begins to rise, sure and constant, its light climbing higher, promising safety.


    Dawn breaks.


    And I stay.


    As the light thickens, it filters through my heavy wings. I see it pass through me—but not through you.


    You stir. You rise.


    And you do not see me.


    You no longer lie beside me. No longer does your soul’s rhythm calm me. No longer do you create cosmoses.


    I must go.


    And so, I do.


    This time, my wings lift easily. What once held me captive now raises me high—light as the breath-worlds you once created.


    I will return.


    Someday.


    Time flows as we choose to measure it.


    To you, I was never here. I am not here. And perhaps you will never know what a wonder you are.


    Do your work—or what you believe to be your work. And sometimes, when you’re not paying attention, create new worlds.


    I will watch. I will marvel.


    But you will never see me. Never touch me.


    Because everything could break.


    Dream.


    Of angels.