Sound descending, not falling

Screaming. Laughter and falling bodies and his own screams rang through his ears in the middle of the night. Footsteps in the dark, a gasp caught in the back of the throat, screaming, the creak of a door, the sound of the sea, screaming, the flick of a knife, the crumbling of a wall, and so, much, SCREAMING-

Apollo shot up, gasping for breath, his heart pounding furiously against his chest. He listened around the room and, hearing the sounds of the ocean waves, almost believed he was home in his own bed. Then he remembered that his home no longer existed. It was gone. He was on a ship, his loved ones were dead, and home was gone. He began to feel a bit sick.

Hanging on to the bed, he stood himself up, careful to keep note of the vessel’s ceaseless rocking, back and forth, side to side. He felt along the wall for a moment, reaching out in the darkness for his cane. Once he finally retrieved it, he made his way out the door from his cabin, and stepped out on to the deck.

The smell of the sea hit him like a hard slap to the face as it filled his nostrils. Breathing in deeply, Apollo closed his eyes, and slowly made his way to the edge of the boat, placing a hand firmly on the railing. He began trying to clear his mind- but nothing seemed to be working. He could still hear the sounds of his nightmares, replaying themselves over and over again. The incident had happened not more than a month ago, and try as he might, he could not force himself to forget.

Sighing, he began to feel his way along the side of the ship, until the railing curved to his right, and he figured he must be at the end of it. He stood there, imagining what it would be like to look out to the vast expanse of ocean from that point on the deck. His father had described it to him, the ocean. Or at least, attempted to. But he had said it was beautiful, and Apollo smiled at the thought that here he was, in the presence of such beauty. He wondered to himself if the sun might be rising, too. He had no idea what time it was.

It was in that moment that he noticed a faint sound coming from overhead. Something was moving in the air above the ship. A bird? he thought at first, but then shook his head. If it was a bird, he’d hear flapping wings. Whatever- or whoever was above him was producing different soundwaves; it was gliding.

With a tilt of his head, Apollo noticed that something wasn’t just gliding; it was humming. He listened closer to better make out the sound. And oh, what a sound it was! A sound, he thought, like nothing he had ever experienced! It seemed as though a thousand of the most beautiful voices in all the world were being condensed into a single, simple, flowing melody that was unlike any other in diatonic purity. Leaning over the end of the boat, he lifted his head up to the sky, yearning for a greater taste of the music emanating from above. It was far more beautiful than anything mankind could have possibly dreamt of. It was…heavenly. There was no other way he could describe it. Heavenly.

What was this? Apollo thought to himself, his head still held high towards the sky. The more he listened, the greater the number of voices became, and the more harmonious the sound that resonated against his eardrums. He was sure that music like this had never before been experienced by human ears. Imagine, thought he, what Mozart or Chopin or Debussy might have felt upon hearing something of this magnificence. It was absolutely unreal. And here he was, hearing it, living it…

And so he wondered, why it was he and he alone that got to hear this? Perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t real after all. Am I still asleep? Is this some sort of dream, or hallucination? He almost wanted to pinch himself, but couldn’t bring himself to move from his perfect position.

At one point the music began to fade, and a high voice became present above the humming. He could not tell if it was male or female- it was just a whisper in the wind, yet still so perfectly melodic. It took the awestruck Apollo a few moments to respond to its inquiry.

“U-Um…yes?” he stammered. “I am. I can hear you.” He wished for some, any confirmation of the reality of this experience- another observer, perhaps, to tell him what it was that was producing such a glorious sound. But no such observer appeared.

Well, this must be it, I guess, a voice in his head started to say. You’ve finally gone off the deep end. You’ve pushed yourself right over the cliff and fallen down the rabbit hole. Welcome to the land of Insanity, population: you. Still, he mused, if this is what insanity felt like, he was pretty okay with it. Insanity at least sounded far more beautiful than reality right now, anyway.

“Are….are you….is this actually happening?” he asked. Beautiful as insanity might be, Apollo still wanted to be perfectly sure before resigning himself to the life of a madman- and a blind madman, at that, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about. “I mean, you’re not just a figment of my imagination, are you? You’re real, right?” With all his focus on insanity, Apollo failed to recognize the fact that calling out to objects in the sky might not have seemed the most normal to anyone who might have been passing by at that moment.

Whew, Apollo thought to himself. Thank God! Not crazy yet!!

Though as the voice continued speaking, Apollo did begin to question just how sane he was before he walked out there that night. Surely his consistent nightmares were something to be considered- but did post-traumatic stress count as insanity itself, or was it merely a driving force..? Was he just a pressure cooker, building and building until one day he’d explode? Or had he already exploded, and this was the aftermath?

Apollo shook his head, and with that, shook those thoughts out of his mind. Now was certainly not the time to be addressing the state of his mental health- nor was it, really, a topic he wanted to delve into any further. There was something phenomenal going on here, and he was going to make the most of this strange encounter.

“It’s fine, really,” he said with a smile. He could tell whatever creature he was speaking to had moved significantly closer to him, so he could finally tilt his head back down from the sky to face him properly. “I didn’t take it that way at all.” Liar, his inner voice said, but he quickly shut it down, reminding himself that the figure before him was merely trying to be polite, and meant no offence by that statement.

“You…you called me a mortal,” Apollo recalled, cocking his head. There was something strange about the way this creature spoke…then again, there was absolutely no reason for him to assume that a flying, music-producing being following the ship in the middle of the night could possibly be human. “You…please, I’m asking this with all due respect….what…what are you?”

An angel. Wow. Alright.

Manta Carlos certainly was special. He hadn’t even arrived at the school yet, and already Apollo was getting a taste of the kinds of extraordinary people he’d come into contact with. Though it was quite a lot to process at first, the boy couldn’t help but think to himself:

This is pretty freaking cool.

He wondered if this might make him a prophet or something. His family had never been very religious, but he was pretty sure that angels didn’t just pop in on the human race on a daily basis. No average Joe walked into work one day saying he’s spoken with an “angel of the Lord.” People would think them out of their mind.

The angel’s name did not get across all that clearly to him; he’d have to figure out another way to address him, quickly. First, however, he offered the angel his own name:

“I’m Apollo. Apollo Liron. I’m, uh, starting school here…though I guess that’s kind of obvious.”

He chuckled. “I’ve never really been good with names….you sure I can call you anything?”

He thought about it for a bit, thinking what name could he possibly bestow upon a creature of such divine status? The short answer was that no name on Earth could fit- but he had to call it something.

He suddenly had a flash of his mother’s voice, from a few years back, softly and somberly telling him the story of how he came into this world. She had told him that it took her and his father quite some time and effort to have a child; they had almost succeeded once before Apollo was born, but the baby never made it into existence. His parents didn’t even know whether the child was going to be a girl or a boy. They did, however, have a name picked out- a name that they felt had too much grief behind it to use for Apollo.

“May I call you Echo?” he asked. As he spoke the name, it seemed even more fitting, with the way the angel’s melody had sounded through the night and into his ears. The name suited the nature of its voice-soft but resonant, like an echo in a large room.

Apollo grinned at the angel’s approval of the name, happy to have pleased it. “I agree,” he said with a smile. “Names are important things.”

He then shook his head, looking down. “No, no, you didn’t disturb me. I…I couldn’t sleep. Simple as that.” He tried to shrug it off, but the memory of his nightmares had slowly crept its way back to the front of his mind. Every night, the same thing, the same scene, the endless screaming. He found himself feeling slightly worse than he had been ten seconds ago. He tried not to let it show, but he had a feeling he wasn’t succeeding.

“I’m not surprised I’m the first one,” he added, pointing his head back towards Echo. “I’ve got pretty acute hearing; my ears perceive sound a lot better than normal.” He smirked slightly. “Perhaps it’s my own special form of compensation- I don’t know. It’s pretty nice, though.” He paused. “I’m glad I did hear you, though,” he said, and there was a great deal of respect in his tone. “Your voice…it’s like nothing I could have ever dreamed of. It’s…perfect. Absolutely perfect.”