The screams in the delivery room weren’t from pain—they were from shock.
The midwife dropped the baby. The nurses froze.
The doctor took a step back, eyes wide.

Because what had come out of Mariam’s womb wasn’t just a baby girl.
She had delicate wings tucked behind her back and a soft tail curled like a question mark.

Her cry was normal.
Her heartbeat was normal.
But the village would never call her normal.

Her father, Ibrahim, didn’t enter the hospital.
He waited outside with his brothers, face pale and hands trembling.
When the nurse finally came out with the news, he laughed.
“Stop joking. That’s impossible.”

But when they brought him inside and he saw her—his own blood—he staggered.
“This is a curse,” he whispered. “This is not my daughter.”

Mariam, still bleeding in the hospital bed, reached out for her baby.
“She’s mine,” she said. “She’s just special.”

But Ibrahim didn’t listen.
He stormed out.
That night, he didn’t come home.

Days passed. Rumors spread through the village like wildfire.
Some said the baby was a jinn.
Others claimed Mariam had slept with a spirit in the forest.

The baby was named Nur, meaning “light”—but no one wanted to hold her.

By the time she turned three, her wings had begun to grow feathers.
Soft, golden feathers. Her tail had lengthened slightly.
Still, she laughed like any other child. Played with stones. Hugged her mother.

But her father never once looked her in the eyes.
Until one day, he brought her a bowl of porridge with a strange smell.

“Eat, Nur,” he said, forcing a smile.

Mariam, watching from the corner, froze.
She rushed forward and knocked the bowl from her daughter’s hands.
The scent burned her nose—rat poison.

“You were going to kill her!” she screamed.
Ibrahim didn’t deny it. He only said, “She’s not human. I’m saving us.”

That night, Mariam ran.
She took her daughter and vanished into the forest.

But that was only the beginning.

---

After the night of the poisoning attempt, and the mysterious disappearance of her wings and tail, Mariam thought it was over.
She believed the nightmare had passed, that her daughter would now live a normal life.

But the disappearance wasn’t a cure.
It was only the silence before the storm.

They named her Aisha, after her grandmother—the only person who had ever stood by Mariam when the village branded her a demon for birthing such a creature.
Her grandmother had whispered with her final breath:
“Call her Aisha… because one day, she will rise above all this.”

Mariam had wept silently and agreed, even though she had no idea what kind of life she was giving her daughter.
On the hospital records, she was simply Baby Aisha.
But to her father, she was nothing more than a scar—a reminder of the night he had tried to kill his own daughter with a bowl of poisoned porridge and failed.

Years passed.

Aisha grew up as an odd child. Quiet. Shy.
Her eyes constantly searched the sky as if trying to remember something.
She sat alone in corners, drawing pictures of birds with long feathers and creatures with glowing eyes.
She spoke less. Laughed even less.

Her father never looked her in the eyes—not once since that night.
Her mother tried to raise her with love, but fear always hung between them like a shadow neither could touch.

One cold afternoon, when Aisha was thirteen, she collapsed on her way home from school.
Her body shook violently, as if her blood had turned to fire.

Mariam rushed to her side, thinking it was a seizure.
But when she lifted her daughter’s shirt, she froze.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Two lines—deep, burning—had reopened across Aisha’s back, exactly where her wings had once been.
They glowed beneath her skin, pulsing like veins of light.

Her mother screamed and carried her inside, locking every door and window.
Her husband didn’t come near.
He just sat in the kitchen murmuring:
“She’s cursed again…”

That night, Aisha writhed in pain, begging for it to stop.
She cried out for her mother, for anyone—even for death.

Her back split open in the dark room, skin tearing, blood flowing—until the wings emerged again, slowly, glowing like smoke and shadow.

Smaller than before, but alive.

When Mariam saw them, she didn’t run.
She didn’t strike her.

She simply fell to her knees and wept.

Her daughter hadn’t been healed after all.
She was different again—maybe forever.

But Aisha wasn’t just different.
She was starting to remember.

---

The next day, Aisha told her mother about the dream she’d had during the transformation.

In it, a voice had called her by a name she didn’t yet know.

“Daughter of Flame,” it had said.
“You were hidden to protect you. But your time is coming. You are not alone.”

Mariam looked at her in horror and awe.
“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Aisha whispered.
“But I think… I’m not just human.”

And things only got stranger from there.

At school, the other kids began to notice that her eyes sometimes glowed blue in the sunlight.
A cat that hissed at everyone began sitting peacefully in her lap during lunch.
Her drawings of winged creatures began coming to life—
one morning, she awoke to find the exact bird from her sketch perched on her windowsill.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

---

One Sunday afternoon, while sweeping the yard, Aisha overheard her parents arguing.

Her father was shouting, his voice raw with fear and fury:

“She’s changing again! I saw it! Those wings! She’s a monster, Mariam! We should’ve ended it when we had the chance!”

And then Aisha heard something that shattered her heart.

“She’s not even our daughter,” her father yelled.
“She’s not a child. She’s something that took the place of a child! I should’ve burned her the day she was born!”

Aisha dropped the broom and ran.

She didn’t look back.

She ran into the forest, tears blurring her vision, blood dripping down her back from her still-growing wings.

The forest was cold and dark—but not empty.

She collapsed beside an old tree, her body shaking from pain and betrayal.
And then, she saw it:

A mirror.

Not a normal mirror—one standing in the middle of the woods, reflecting not her human face,
but an image of her with fully formed wings and golden eyes.

Behind her reflection stood a figure.

A man.
Winged.
Radiant.
Silent.

And then he spoke:

“You are awakening, Daughter of Ash. You have been asleep for too long.”

Aisha turned—but he was already gone.

Yet something inside her broke open.
Something ancient.
Something angry.

And something… terrifying.

Because the wings weren’t the only thing coming back.

Something darker was waking up inside her.

Something even she didn’t understand.

Aisha didn’t remember how long she stayed in the forest.
The trees whispered as if they knew her story.
The cold wrapped around her like an old friend.
Her back throbbed where her wings had returned, the flesh still raw, the feathers still growing.
Blood had stained her dress.

But she no longer felt human pain.
What she felt now ran deeper—
as if something inside her was crumbling.
Memories that weren’t hers.
Voices that didn’t sound like hers.
Dreams that burned like fire in her chest.

The mirror in the forest disappeared the next morning.
But the voice of the winged man lingered:
“You’ve been asleep for too long.”

What did that mean?
Who was she, really?
Was she cursed… or chosen?

She returned home covered in bruises and mud.
Her mother screamed and ran to her.
Her father stood frozen in the doorway, holding a Bible as if it were a sword.

As she passed by him, his hand trembled, and the Bible slipped from his grip.

“You should’ve stayed in that forest,” he muttered.
“You’re not my daughter anymore.”

Aisha looked at him for the first time without fear.
Her wings shifted beneath her clothes.
And her eyes—just for a second—glowed gold.

That night, her mother wrapped her in a blanket and told her the truth.

“You weren’t born in that hospital,” Mariam said.
“We lied. We never told anyone because we couldn’t explain what we saw.
You were born on the floor of a burning hut… in a village that doesn’t exist on any map.
Your father wasn’t even there. He refused to come. Said he felt something unnatural was coming.”

Mariam wiped away her tears.

“You were born with wings. Not feathers, like the ones you have now—but black, scaly wings.
And your tail… it wrapped around me like a cord.
I passed out. When I woke up, there was an old woman standing over you, singing.
She said you weren’t a curse—but a key.
I didn’t understand. I still don’t.”

Aisha sat in silence.

“But the strangest thing…” Mariam’s voice shook.
“That old woman vanished into smoke.
And you, Aisha… you smiled.
Minutes after being born.
Like you knew something none of us did.”

That night, Aisha couldn’t sleep.

She stepped outside at midnight and looked up at the stars.
Her wings opened—slowly, painfully—but they opened.

She could feel the wind bending to them.
But she still couldn’t fly.

Something was holding her back.
Something unfinished.

Suddenly, there was a sound behind her.

She turned.

Her father.

With a bottle of kerosene in one hand and a lighter in the other.

“I should’ve ended this years ago,” he said, tears in his eyes.
“You’re not my daughter anymore.
You’re something else.
Every time you look at me, I feel like I failed.
I didn’t protect your mother.
I didn’t protect our home.
And now this… you.”

He poured the kerosene at her feet.

Her mother screamed from the window.
“Please, no! She’s your daughter!”

“No,” he whispered.
“She isn’t.”

He lit the flame.

The fire jumped.

But it never touched her.

In the blink of an eye, her wings fully unfurled, wrapping around her body like a shield.
The fire bounced off them.
Her eyes glowed so intensely that her father dropped the lighter and fell to his knees.

And then—something even more terrifying happened.

The fire froze.

Not extinguished—frozen.

Suspended in the air like a golden sculpture, crackling without heat.

Aisha looked at her hands.

They were glowing.

Her wings shimmered like starlight.

She had awakened.

Not just as a creature with wings and a tail…
but as something more.

But in that moment of power—
her heart shattered.

Because she had saved herself.

But she had lost her father forever.

He couldn’t even look at her anymore.

He crawled backward, murmuring prayers, calling her names that pierced her soul:
demon, witch, cursed child.

And that night… Aisha packed her bag.

She kissed her weeping mother.

And walked alone into the forest.

Because whatever she had become…
didn’t belong here anymore.

But what she found deep within those woods…

was far worse than she had ever imagined.

Because they had been waiting for her.

And they were not human.

The forest wasn’t just dark.
It was alive.
It breathed. It moved.
It whispered ancient names.

Aisha walked deeper and deeper, her wings folded tightly against her back, her heart pounding louder than the wind.
She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew something was calling her.
Something ancient.
Something dangerous.

She stumbled into a clearing where the moonlight painted the grass silver.
At the center stood seven hooded figures, forming a circle.
Around them floated glowing orbs of fire, suspended in silence like spirits awaiting judgment.

Aisha froze.
Her wings trembled.
But her feet didn’t move backward.

One of the figures stepped forward.
A woman.
Her face was pale, her eyes black as coal.
But her voice—was like music.

“Daughter of Ash, you have finally returned.”

“Who are you?” Aisha asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“We are the remnants of what you were.
We are the echoes of what you are meant to become.”

They didn’t answer her questions.
But they didn’t need to.

Every time Aisha looked at them, she remembered something—
a flash of feathers,
a scream,
a sky on fire.

She had lived before.
Not just once, but many times.
And in every life, she had been hunted, hidden, destroyed.

“Your wings were never your curse,” the woman continued.
“They were your seal. Your protection. Your prison.”

The circle opened, and Aisha was brought into the center.
The ground was cold, soft like ash.
They placed their hands on her wings, her shoulders, her heart.

And then… they sang.
Not a song of joy—
but a song of awakening.

Images flooded her mind.
Her birth in a burning hut.
Her first cry in this life.
Her mother fainting.
A flaming sword.
Her tail wrapping around an old woman to protect her.
Her wings lifting her infant body from the flames.

Aisha screamed as the memories collided.
Her wings burst open, knocking two of the hooded figures to the ground.
The fire orbs turned blue and spun around her head.
Her tail coiled neatly behind her.

She rose.
Slowly.
Lifting off the ground.

Her eyes blazed with golden fire.
And then…
she remembered everything.

She wasn’t human.
She never had been.

She was a guardian.
Born between realms.
A protector of the boundary between worlds.
And she had been reborn here, hidden in flesh, to escape those who hunted her.

But now, they had found her again.

“They are coming,” said the woman.
“And this time, they will burn the world to reach you.”

Aisha was given a new name:
Daughter of Flame.
Guardian of the Veil.

She returned to the village before sunrise,
each step heavy with truth.

Her wings now glowed with streaks of silver.
Her eyes held storms.

And in her heart, she knew—
this would be her last visit home.

Her mother embraced her with tears.

“Your father is gone,” she whispered.
“He said he couldn’t live in the same world as you.”

Aisha nodded, silently.

But the village was already stirring.
The whispers had begun.
Children pointing.
Adults hiding.

And then… night fell early.

A shadow swallowed the sky.

Creatures descended—not animals. Not humans.
Beasts with eight legs, burning eyes, and mouths like pits of fire.
The sky cracked with thunder as they landed on rooftops and trees.
Screams echoed through the village.

Aisha stood in front of her house, wings spread wide.

“They followed me here,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”

But before her mother could reply, one of the beasts leapt toward her.

Aisha launched into the air, her body blazing like a comet.
Her tail snapped like a whip, her hands formed shields of light.
She fought.
Not like a child—but like a force.

But there were too many.

And then—

Her father appeared.

He ran from the forest, machete in hand, eyes full of fury.

“Leave my daughter alone!” he shouted.

Aisha froze.

A beast turned to him.

He didn’t run.

He leapt.

The creature ripped him apart before he could land.

Aisha screamed.
So loud that the air shook.
Her wings pulsed, and a ring of fire exploded around her.

She fought harder, faster.
Every strike was a cry, every tear, a weapon.

But it wasn’t enough.

Until—

A voice spoke inside her.

“Call the others.”

“How?” she whispered.

“Bleed.”

She bit her palm and let her blood fall to the ground.

The earth trembled.

The mirror returned.

And from it—others stepped out.

Winged. Children. Women. Men. All like her.

And they bowed.

“Welcome back, guardian.”

Aisha rose above them, her eyes blazing.

This wasn’t just her fight.

It was a war.

And it had just begun.