HALF: Dead nor Alive

“How was it?” Eve asked as she sat on the chair in front of the bathroom and stared at the bathroom where Archie was inside. “Don’t force yourself if you can’t do it,”

The sound of cracking bones echoed in the bathroom and luckily it was just the two of them in the barrack. If the others were there, they could have been scared and terrified by that sound because it sounded so painful to hear.

Archie was trying to copy Eve’s ability to make wings from her scapula and it was unpleasant because it was really painful. He could deform his scapula but expanding his muscles and skin was hard to do because he never knew how wings work.

“Maybe we should stop it there and find a bird or a bat so you can understand how a wing works,” Eve said as she stared at Archie’s scapula coming out from his back. “Let’s go outside and find some,”

“Right, I need to know the anatomy of winged creatures,” Archie said as he came out of the bathroom and grabbed his shirt. “What about you? How did you manage to get the idea of making wings and be able to fly with it?” he asked as he stared at Eve.

“Cherubim showed me how wings work, it was quite easy since they’re intelligent beings and very good at teaching,” Eve answered with her legs crossed and her chin on her fist. “You should know about it as well since you were guided by them as well, right?”

Archie shook his head as he put on his shirt. “No, mine didn’t have wings, it’s like rings stacked to each other with many eyes on them. They called themselves Throne,” Archie answered as he looked at himself in the mirror._.

“That’s interesting, I wonder if I can see them because I don’t think I can imagine what they look like. It’s the same as you because you haven’t met Cherubim before, but compared to you, I guess mine is always by my side and watching me,” Eve replied as she stared at Archie.

“Yeah, mine abandoned me, well not really, but they weren’t really there unless my existence is endangered by the humans. You already knew about it when they wiped the humans’ memories about me,” Archie nodded his head in agreement.

“Right, they don’t care if you die by another Adam,” Eve said with her arms crossed and leaned on the chair. “Anyway, let’s not waste our free time before Faye called us,”

The two of them went to the training ground and saw birds resting on the trees, Archie grabbed a pebble and threw it at one of them. He hit the bird right in the head and died the moment the bird fell to the ground.

“Nice shot,” Eve said as she ran to the tree and grabbed the bird on the ground.

Eve walked back as she spread the bird’s wings to show the anatomy of the bird’s wings.

They both were staring at the bird’s body and bone structure like a scientist staring at the parasite’s anatomy. Eve plucked the bird’s feathers so Archie could see the wing’s bone structure and the muscles on it.

“So there are different types of wings? I didn’t know that,” Archie looked at Eve with his eyebrows raised.

“Yes, there are three of them and you can tell by the shape of the wing. You will understand when I show you the difference between one bird with another,” Eve nodded as she pointed at the shape of the wing.

“Come on, let’s find the other two types,” Archie didn’t say anything and followed Eve outside the city to hunt some birds.

As Eve said there were three types of wings and each had a different shape and purpose. The Soaring Wings, the Elliptical Wings, and lastly the High-speed Wings.

“Elliptical wings enable a high level of maneuverability and control in confined areas and minimize the drag to permit rapid descent and ascent. Elliptical wings are suitable for short bursts of high speed, making them more effective. While elliptical wings allow high speed, the speed cannot be maintained.” Eve explained as she looked around the trees. “The one that you killed back then was one of them because usually, it belonged to small birds or crows,”

“Oh? What about the other two?” Archie asked and looked at Eve.

“Since you have seen the Elliptical Wings, the Soaring Wings are different in shape,” Eve squinted her eyes and looked up into the sky. “What a right timing,”

Eve threw a pebble into the sky and then she started running after she managed to shoot down a bird that was circling in the sky.

Archie followed Eve from far behind and then he saw an eagle laying on the ground dead while Eve was staring at it.

“This eagle has Soaring Wings,” Eve said as she spread the eagle wings open. “Soaring wings are very narrow and long allowing the bird to fly without the need to flap the wings for quite some time. These types of birds depend a lot on the prevailing wind currents of the particular flying area and that’s why this eagle was roaming around in the sky above us,”

“The down and up flight style of this bird makes it use the small differences in the wind speed so that it can travel the long distance with the minimum energy in use. This shape of the wing is called the soaring shape and this allows the bird to decrease the drag in the air,” Eve explained as she looked at the wings. “With that explanation, this type of wing is the most fun to use when you just want to fly around,”

“So this shape of wings is your favorite, Eve?” Archie asked as he stared at her.

“Yes, I could spend an entire day flying with this shape,” Eve answered as she nodded her head.

“Now, the last one is quite hard to find or catch but I think I saw one earlier,” Eve said as she looked around the trees and up in the sky.

Archie stared at Eve and she looked so excited about it, maybe she had been so lonely that she had nobody to share the knowledge that she had. It made him smile and happy for some reason, and then Eve looked at him with confusion.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Eve asked with her eyebrows raised.

“Nothing, it’s just I feel like you’re enjoying this. You look so excited and happy when you were explaining things to me,” Archie answered while he kept smiling at her.

“Really? I didn’t realize that but I’m excited because I never thought I could share what I know with someone else. Not because there’s nobody to talk to, but because I never think of sharing anything with anyone before,” Eve replied and stared blankly at the ground. “But now that I have you around me, I feel like I can tell you about everything,”

“Anyway, let’s find the last type of bird,” Eve said as she walked past Archie.

They spent an hour to find the bird and finally, they found on far away from the city. It was a falcon bird and the bird was chilling up on a cliff of the hill, Eve threw a twig and startled the bird.

It was hard to catch the bird as Eve said but they finally managed to kill it after they threw dozens of pebbles at it at the same time.

“Now this is the wing that I used when I brought you up to the north, the High-speed wings,” Eve said as she spread the falcon wings open and put them on top of the flat surface of the rock.

“High-speed wings are very thin and long as you can see here, but they are shorter than the birds who have Soaring Wings birds. As the name of the wings, the birds who possess this type of wing are very fast. Also, these birds are good at maintaining their flying speed for a long time, unlike the birds who have Elliptical Wings,” Eve explained as she pointed at the falcon wings.

“A high-speed wing allows a bird to fly very rapidly and relatively sustains that speed for a long distance, which helps it to outperform slower-flying species. High-speed wings are narrow and not razor-sharp, allowing the bird to fly with less air resistance,” Eve explained as she took the wing from the falcon and showed it to Archie.

“Now that you have seen it, why don’t you go and try to make one of these wings,” Eve said as she showed the three types of wings in her hands. “Which one do you think is the easiest to recreate? She asked as she stared at Archie.

“I think the High-speed wings are the easiest because it almost looks like our scapula,” Archie said as he removed his shirt.

“Alright, let’s give it a try,” Archie said as he nodded his head.