Before he fell, the first thing he did was fly.
The air was thinner than before, and his wings trailed behind him like banners of his rebellion against the gods. The sky was not like before, it felt different without his father. Moreover, with gods trying to strike him out of the domain.
But he did not scream. He did not beg.
He only looked down.
The sea waited with its endless, blue light; trembling with memories that were not just his. The ocean’s tides rose up like an old friend, almost as if trying to save him a second time. Icarus didn’t want that. He looked away from the sea and scanned the land. And for a moment, as the wind passed his ears, Icarus thought he saw the edge of Crete.
Icarus believed that he saw home.
The tall towers of Knossos, mocking the prison. The labyrinth, long collapsed with no Minotaur. Princesses with laughing eyes missing and tied to different fates. The silver horns of the bull gleaming in the sun. The scent of salt, honey, and olive smoke in the wind as you would walk by any part of the palace.
He imagined Daedalus waiting on another isle, standing on a cliff where the sea touched the sky, scanning the horizon for another set of wings he crafted that never returned to him. Icarus longed to call out to him even if it was impossible.
Not as the boy who flew too close to the sun everybody knows, but as the son who tried to return to his father by defying death. The son who, even if not at the time, still believed in the sound of his father’s voice guiding his hands to craft.
And then he thought of the sea. Of Poseidon. The god who believed he was worth saving.
Of cold water cradling his broken body. Of breathing beneath the surface when no one should. Of a voice that rumbled like deep stone: Who are you, mortal?
Of being given a second try at life. Of being named with his father’s name in tow.
Was that freedom? he wondered, as the waves swelled higher, the sky brighter. Was I saved or taken? Would death have been a better choice?
Below, Olympus stirred. The air shifted. I felt it in my spine. Alarms. Shouts. A sudden surge of light, which could be tied to Apollo. Storms and bursts in the pipes, churned into spirals, Poseidon’s panic that his advice was taken. But they were too late.
As the god of the sea has said, Fall free or do not fall at all.
The sun fractured above Icarus, bleeding light like a wound. He chose and soared into it, through it, his breath catching. Every muscle in his mortal body screamed.
But he laughed, fully ragged and from the heart. He laughed until it turned into tears.
Not from fear.
From grief.
Grief for his father. For the sky he never truly touched. For every dream they were punished for. For Icarus himself, and the choice he had to make just to feel alive one last time.
The sea rushed closer, gleaming like a memory. His life after his first fall, his quick save from death and the timeless life he lived under the water under Poseidon’s control. Apollo’s and Zeus’s fury of a mortal cheating death and having the help of another god.
The way he would immediately choose to die and suffer his first death because at least his father was there with him. He received another chance, but at what cost? His father’s, Ariadne, Phaedra, Theseus.. cursed and deceased. Now the world; the sky; the ocean; they cannot give him what he wants. What he chose over them: death.
And Icarus, son of Daedalus, who defied the gods and flew anyway, finally closed his eyes.
I am not theirs anymore. I’m only mine.
And with no more breaths to give to this world:
He went home.
The End.
Started March 17, 2022
Finished July 29, 2025
Author’s Note:
This epilogue from a book I wrote, ICARUS, was inspired by the mythological telling of the story with more creative liberties following Icarus’s death. I first started writing this story in the sixth grade after one of my closest friends passed in 2021, and I told myself that I would never finish the book until I fully accepted her death. Writing this means the world to me because of the four years of many scraped drafts, this is the one that came out alright. I finished writing the book March of 2025, I hope she’s proud of me.
Anniston Galang | 15 | New York, USA | @.solemnity_ on TikTok, @solicelcrest on Instagram, @kiyomarus on Youtube & Tumblr
