Chapter 1
The year is 2180. The rising symphony of dawn swept across the sky-city, or Aetherube as it was known, called Nuuk. It was named for the capital city in Old Greenland that once stood beneath it from the Before. It was the wealthiest Aetherube, where all the most powerful families resided since the After.
Angel Carson jolted awake. He was drenched in sweat and in taking his first waking breath, his lungs filled with heavy smoke suffocating him as he began to panic. He groggily looked around his bedroom, and heard his father’s voice in the hall, realising that his calls were what had woken him. His dad burst through the door and Angel saw an orange and yellow glow dancing on the walls.
Leo Carson was covered in soot and trying not to pass out. He quickly grabbed his precious five-year-old son, promising it would be okay.
Angel pleaded, “Where are Lucia and Daniela?”
“Your sisters are already safe and sound outside, son.” Leo promised, as calmly as possible.
“Where’s mum?” Angel wailed.
Angel wasn’t sure if his father hadn’t heard his question or if he should be bracing himself for the worst.
“We have to stay low.” Demonstrating to Angel, he got to the floor. “Stay right by me, and don’t look back!”
Angel followed his father down the hall, feeling that this all had to be some horrible nightmare. Coming out of his bedroom door, to the left, the flames were quickly approaching, crawling up the walls and creeping along the ceiling like a terrifying swarm of wasps.
They turned right, towards the back entrance of the house moving as quickly as they could. Though his father had told him not to look back, he couldn’t help himself as they approached the exit. Though his eyes stung from the heat and smoke, out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw two figures slumped on the floor. The first vaguely reminded him of his own father who was crawling right in front of him. The second was a woman, with beautiful golden curls fanned around her head like a crown. She looked so much like his mother. The woman whose face was bubbling and burning as the last of the grand family portrait burned above the mantle. He shook the thought out of his mind, deciding that he must be imaging everything.
He heard yet more encouragement from his father, promising that they were almost there. When Angel thought he could take no more, he felt the cool air crash onto his face and the sweet relief within his chest. Angel’s eyelids started to become heavy and he felt his father’s strong arms lifting him and taking him further from the house.
Though Leo was coughing and choking himself, he held his son tight and stumbled as quickly as he could towards his daughters who were waiting by the tree-line at the edge of their property.
Angel heard the comforting vibration of his father’s voice against his cheek. “I love you, son. You and your sisters are everything to me. Never forget. You are stronger than you know and you have always, and will always make me proud.”
The last thing Angel remembered was his father gently passing him to his older sisters, who held him close. As his eyes closed, he saw his father’s figure rushing back into their burning home. His sisters cried out with all they had, wailing for their father to come back. As the sun winked its first hello into the morning sky, Angel’s world fell into silence and darkness.
