Axin had always been jealous of his elder sister, Aphel. The way his parents looked upon her always felt unequal compared to the gaze that would fall upon him, and while this bore the natural feelings of resentment, he also could not deny that she deserved it. He never could tell what it really was that she did when she set off into the distance every day, but most people would simply liken her work to that of a worker of miracles. She would leave for some time, come back and the puffs of white in the sky would come with her.

Shortly after they appear, water would fall into the ground, making it wet, giving life. As far as Axin could tell, his sister was the only person in the village who had this power. Without her, the white puffs would never come. Without her, the animals and the people would have nothing to drink and nothing to eat.

Some nights when she would get on his nerves especially deeply, he would storm out of the cabin, running far away into the distant rolling plains. He'd get tired, lay on his back and stare into that deep abyss above him. At night it appeared as jet black, until it would warm into orange hues, and finally cool into that bright intoxicating blue. Axin didn't care much for it, but he knew it was the source of his jealousy. How she could populate that sea of nothingness with the white puffs.

The day came where she gave into his annoyances. She would teach him how she performs her miracle. Not expecting to hear this, he felt complex emotions bubble within. A sort of excitement and fear and deservedness. And they began to walk where she would normally only walk alone. Far into the distance, far into the horizon until their village was a speck of nothing against a rolling verdant green and looming blue. They came upon a ladder. Axin looked up to see how high it went and got vertigo, as if he was looking down instead, as if a fear of heights threatened that he would fall upward.

She had that stoic judgmental look on her face. The one he hates. So he took the lead. The climb was long and wore on his muscles. By the time they arrived to the top, the sky was once more a soft orange, spurring a strong tiredness in Axin. The ladder terminated into a floating piece of earth, no larger than their own cabin. Exhausted, Axin sat as Aphel began to prepare, sparing no moment. She brought out strange trinkets, contraptions that made noise. The same noise they heard when they were younger. Their mother would start the machine when it was time for them to both sleep. Axin would not fall asleep though. He looked intently at what she would do with this music. She got into position and began.

She executed a series of movements. She would duck down, pirouette upwards and to the right, before mirroring to the left. Axin became confused. Why was she just moving around? Nothing came from her hands. No puffs of white appeared. He exclaimed to her that it must be a trick. She insisted it wasn't and that he should stay quiet as her movements were important. For another hour he watched her move predetermined steps. Never growing tired, she continued, with her eyes closed and not acknowledging Axin.

He grew impatient. Wanted to be home and resting. She chastised him. He exploded, kicking the trinkets. She finally exploded in return. He gave one more kick to a trinket, and for this particular object, Aphel gasped, and lept just a bit too far. She lost her footing, and she began to fall. Axin tried reaching for her, but it was all too sudden. By the time he made it to the edge, she had already fallen off the edge. He yelled and looked down to see that she did not fall.

She was nowhere to be found.
She was gone.
Axin reached around the island trying to grasp for her, but she was gone.
He was dumbfounded and left with a new sound.
A low noisy drone. The first gust of wind he ever felt through his body, chilling him. It would be the first of many.

Axin sat on the uniform grass of the hill. Another chunk of land had been properly expressed on the paper in his hand. He looked up and out to the vast horizon, still as empty as ever. He decided it was time to head back home. His parents, now further stricken by age welcomed him home warmly. The entire village welcomed him warmly, as they often do in recent times. They come asking for the updates on his maps - asking if he had found any more magic caves.

Today, he was not fortunate enough to find one, but the village maintained their respect and excitement for him, knowing that his practice was not an easy one. In fact, no one truly knew how to do what he could do. The thought suddenly came to him. That they look at him just as they looked upon his sister, as if he were a worker of miracles. But with that realization came an inability to understand what that realization was supposed to mean to him.

Axin sat in his abode for the night. His parents were soundly asleep, and his eyes drifited to the fire once more. Fires had become much more necessary ever since the winds started. The white gentle puffs transformed into dark menacing puffs. That day, on the day of his deepest regret, the puffs became furious. They multiplied, and cast themselves all over the land. The days were no longer filled with brightness from the blue above. The plants now have all the water they need, but there is no light to sustain them. Without the plants, no one could eat.

On that day, Axin ran across the fields, crying. He stayed away from his village for weeks, for he knew he could not return. But the storms that came drove him to desperate measures. That desperation led him to something new. Underground tunnels consisting magical mines. Mines filled with materials of power. Materials that just so happen to produce bright light when they're set ablaze. Eventually, he returned to the village with wonder materials, and Axin was named a hero, even amidst the unsavory circumstance of his sister's disappearance.

Set on searching for his sister, Axin found many other wonders, and the village continued to hail him as a hero. But to him, what he did was no more than a practice. It was just a means to an end. For him, it was all in the name of righting the wrong he committed.

He continued to stare into the fire. Then he heard his mother quietly sob from her bedroom. Mourning Aphel's disappearance once again. The usual reminder of his own doing. Axin would not go in to comfort her. This was not the first time she has cried.

Then that day came.

Axin did not think that day would come. Scrounging around in one of the mines, he found one of the trinkets. He did not know what it was called, but he knew it was the exact same trinket that Aphel dived off for. And with it, he hurriedly made his way to where it all began. To the ladder.

The storm was active and torrential as it ever was. He climbed the ladder, and as he ascended, the storm became more fearsome. The ladder bent, and sounded out as if it were going to buckle. The winds blew Axin back and forth. Trying to wring him off like an unwanted insect. Axin's hands grew red, his teeth grit. He continued climbing. Step after step. Higher and higher as the winds finally punish him for his misdeeds. With a final push to the top, Axin thrust through the bitterly angry puffs. Giving it his all. Even as the water slapped his face and threatened loosened his grip, even as his muscles wore down his will, he continued.

And then he stuck his head out. There lied the same piece of land from all that time ago. He slumped onto the grass, taking a long time to breathe and recover. Shortly after, he noticed something strange. The grass was warm. It was a warmth the world had lacked since his sister disappeared. The weight of his guilt finally manifested within his chest, which worked its way up to his eyes. He began to cry.

After composing himself and rubbing his sore eyes, he looked out. A bed of gray puffs lined as far as the eye could see. And yet, surprisingly, another ladder stood before him. This second ladder led up and up to something new: a great ball of light in the sky. It was so bright that he could not directly look at it. It emanated that familiar warmth.

Axin knew what he had to do. He took a deep inhale, and began climbing the second ladder. This journey was not as brutal. The gusts were mild and tender. He was being gently caressed by the air. And all around him was the blissful blue that had been gone for so long he nearly forgot what it was like. He took his time, so that his muscles would not ache so quickly.

And he climbed, and climbed.
He ascended and further yet.
He traveled so long that he seemed to trance throughout the trek, focusing on one rung at a time.
And before he knew it, he arrived to another piece of floating earth.

He felt something in him.
He was expecting to see her, in the same dress as the day she disappeared. Waiting for him, but when he came up to the land, it was empty.
He climbed and stood on the grass looking out.
He looked up, and there was the hazy airy blue.
He looked down and there was the watery deep blue.
To his left, the warm blue.
To his right, the cool blue.
And in front, a blue emptiness that called out to him, beckoning.

He hesitated. He didn't know what to do.
He held the trinket in his hands.
He stepped forward once in the grass.
The wind blew in the same direction, as if to reassure him.
Another step and the fear of falling came in.
Another step and the blue drew his eyes forward.
Another step and the image of his sister came to mind.
Another step and the feeling that he was close.
Another step and the feeling that something was different.
He looked down, and there was no longer grass, but the expanse.
He looked back and saw no patch of earth.
He was surrounded by nothing but the blue sky.
He imagined that he should have felt the effects of freefall.
And as soon as he did, he began falling upwards.
Shock swept over his body.
He quickly fell forwards.
He screamed of panic and excitement.
He was thrown left, right, into and out of nowhere.
And he looked out and felt something deep within him.
A feeling grew within.
A feeling of liberation quickly sprung forth. He felt happy.
He let himself be thrown through the chaos.
His vision distorted.
He smiled a great smile.
He was dying, he was sure of it.
He embraced the infinite around him.
He embraced the hallucinations.
He could now see within the deep blue skethces of his own life, his family, even creatures he had never seen before.
He had witnessed stories he never known, heard sounds he couldn't imagine, and seen sights unknown to all.
It was all so magnificent.
And looking into the center of chaos, he found the one who had become one with the sky, itself, his sister.
She was orchestrating it all, conducting a dance thousands of millions of times more intricate, elegant and beautiful than the one she practiced in front of him that fateful day.

It was too much, the sight he was beholden to was overwhelming.
He woke up.

Deep pains within his body. He had clearly impacted the ground. Fresh tears were streaked across his face. He looked around. The village was nearby, but a ladder was nowhere to be seen. He looked up, and the clouds were gone. He somehow knew they were called "clouds". And into the sky, in that immaculate blue, stood the sun, beaming warmth into the grass, into the world, into himself.

His trinket had gone missing, but in his hand was replaced something else. A gem with perfect facets, soft refractions and a material as pure as the sky itself. He imagined that it was something he caught while he was flailing in the fall. And with it, he let the warmth thaw the coldness that had sat within him for so long. He glanced to the great blinding ball of fire in the sky, waved to it earnestly and shyly, and within the distortion of his squinted eyelashes, he thought he saw Aphel giving a joyful wave back to him.

He made his way back down to the village. Whose residents would continue calling both of them workers of miracles.