In the heart of New York City on a stormy Sep­tem­ber 4, 2014, Hen­ry finds him­self entan­gled in a piv­otal moment, grap­pling with the real­i­ty of let­ting go. Amidst the relent­less down­pour, a halt­ed clock sym­bol­izes the ces­sa­tion of a sig­nif­i­cant chap­ter in his life, as he faces Addie, a woman marked by an indomitable spir­it and a his­to­ry that refused to be erod­ed by time or cir­cum­stance. Hen­ry’s protests, steeped in des­per­a­tion and dis­be­lief, are met with Addie’s res­olute seren­i­ty, a tes­ta­ment to her accep­tance of their inevitable part­ing.

Addie imparts a poignant truth to Hen­ry, sug­gest­ing their farewell as a twist­ed grat­i­tude for the vis­i­bil­i­ty and affec­tion he gift­ed her, urg­ing him to embrace vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty in seek­ing con­nec­tions that tru­ly rec­og­nize him. The con­ver­sa­tion, heavy with unspo­ken weight, veers into the realms of love, loss, and the tran­sient nature of exis­tence. Addie’s words hov­er between wis­dom and melan­choly, urg­ing Hen­ry to savor the fleet­ing beau­ty of life while gen­tly steer­ing him towards a path of self-dis­cov­ery and gen­uine liv­ing.

In their final moments togeth­er, the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al dis­tance between them widens, with Addie beseech­ing Hen­ry to hold onto the mem­o­ry of their con­nec­tion, her pres­ence slow­ly dis­solv­ing into the tem­pest that sur­rounds them. Hen­ry’s des­per­ate attempt to cling to her, to promise her any­thing, ends in a poignant real­iza­tion of her absence. She van­ish­es, leav­ing him adrift in a sea of dark­ness, the vivid­ness of their encounter fad­ing into the night, leav­ing Hen­ry with noth­ing but the echo of a promise and the sting­ing clar­i­ty of loss.

This chap­ter is a vivid reflec­tion of the com­plex­i­ties of human con­nec­tion, explored against the back­drop of a stormy New York City night, encap­su­lat­ing themes of love, let­ting go, and the search for mean­ing amidst the ephemer­al nature of life.

Fol­low­ing Taee’s adven­tur­ous expe­di­tion, his vis­its to me became more fre­quent, his youth­ful curios­i­ty and affec­tion for me pre­sent­ing a refresh­ing break from his typ­i­cal­ly grave and duty-bound peers. Despite being on the younger side and not yet engrossed in the rig­or­ous sci­en­tif­ic train­ing of his age group, Taee, bare­ly twelve, dis­played a blend of wis­dom and play­ful humor often found in sea­soned genius­es. To him, I was akin to an enter­tain­ing pet, a source of amuse­ment as he endeav­ored to acquaint me with the cus­toms and tech­nolo­gies of the Vril-ya.

One such fas­ci­na­tion was the art of fly­ing using large, mechan­i­cal­ly enhanced wings designed from the feath­ers of a gigan­tic native bird. These wings, ele­gant and effi­cient, were beyond my mas­tery despite my phys­i­cal adept­ness and expe­ri­ence as an adept swim­mer. My attempts at flight result­ed in bruis­ing fail­ures, high­light­ing the stark dif­fer­ence between the inher­ent capa­bil­i­ties of the Vril-ya and my own. The wings, though tech­ni­cal­ly attach­able to any being, demand­ed a lev­el of voli­tion­al con­trol over the vril ener­gy that I, as an out­sider, lacked. This ener­gy, inter­wo­ven with their being from birth, allowed them to manip­u­late these arti­fi­cial appendages with instinc­tive ease, a trait born from gen­er­a­tions of adap­ta­tion and inher­i­tance.

Zee, ever the patient observ­er, final­ly inter­vened after a par­tic­u­lar­ly har­row­ing attempt that near­ly end­ed in severe injury. She posit­ed that my repeat­ed fail­ures weren’t due to any lack on the part of the wings or a phys­i­cal defi­cien­cy in myself but stemmed from an “organ­ic defect” in my voli­tion­al power—a gap unbridge­able by mere prac­tice or desire. The Vril-ya’s sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship with vril, devel­oped over count­less gen­er­a­tions, had evolved into an innate fac­ul­ty, as nat­ur­al to them as any instinct. Acknowl­edg­ing the futil­i­ty and dan­ger of fur­ther attempts, Zee, whose con­cern for my safe­ty had grown, decid­ed to cease the exper­i­ment. Her attach­ment to me, it seemed, had deep­ened beyond mere sci­en­tif­ic curios­i­ty, hint­ing at a bur­geon­ing sense of care and pos­si­bly an emo­tion­al bond.