This Is An Angel?! - 3. Chapter 3

I woke up from a rather ridiculous dream of all my co-workers turning into giant flesh orbs and breaking out into dance. Though honestly, that would be an improvement.

I got ready for work and went to sit on my overly stuffed sofa. Ginger stared at me with adoration, as she watched me eat a breakfast of far too-sugary cereal. Checking the time, I saw I would be running late if I didn’t hurry up, but I found myself not caring.

I looked around my cramped living room, the small ground-floor apartment having only one bedroom. I likely wouldn’t be able to find a new job in the area, and would probably have to move out, but I definitely wouldn’t miss this place.

I loved a cosy small place to live, but I hadn’t taken into account just how much room the furniture itself would take up. It was a little too cramped even for me. The landlord refused to let me change the threadbare carpet, and its dark green colouring was now yellowish in odd patches from where the thread had worn thin.

I often found myself daydreaming about a soft thick carpet to cushion my feet.

I’d tried getting rugs, but Ginger had decided she liked crawling underneath them, and when I’d fixed them down, she’d decided they made a great litter tray.

It would also be nice to have a bedroom that a double bed could comfortably fit in. Currently, my double bed took up most of the bedroom and I couldn’t even open the door fully without it hitting the bottom of it.

I’d spilt so many coffees when taking them into the bedroom and forgetting, in my sleepy state, that I couldn’t open the door fully. Thankfully there was built-in wardrobes, though it was them that stole most of the space.

I took my time eating before checking on the creature underneath the sink. Surely it had to be dead by now, and would no doubt look even more terrible. Maybe it had been dead all along and it just hadn’t realised from the shock, ‘firing synapse’ or something like that.

I headed into the bathroom, closing the door to stop Ginger as she tried to follow me inside, and sat down on the floor cross-legged to slide the box out. I lifted the towel up and immediately dropped it back down in horror.

Surely-Surely not...

There was no way I had just seen what I thought I had. I stared blankly at the towel, the small hairs on my arms prickled as Ginger scratched away at the door.

Slowly, I reached for the towel again and pulled it back, letting it drop to the side, so I wasn’t tempted to immediately cover it again.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck!”

The ball of flesh was no longer a ball and was shaped more like an overly stretched oval. There was a thick swatch of dark hair coming out of the top, and the wings shrunken in size.

Instead of the clear translucent membrane, it was now covered in a thin layer of pale white skin, the veins no longer red and purple but a light blue that was barely visible.

But I only glanced over all of that thanks to the most alarming part.

At the very bottom and on the left side of the creature was a skinny but perfectly formed human leg, the toes of the tiny foot wiggling in an over-the-top manner. There were three more lumps on the body, as if more were forming.

Seriously, what the fuck?

I laid the towel back over it and slid the box back into the cupboard. I pushed away the rushing questions in my head. At least it wasn’t dead, I guess.

~*~

I got ready for work, pulling on a pale blue shirt covered in minuscule purple flowers — and not coated in cat fur this time. I had to stop myself from pulling on a pair of light purple skinny jeans. The boss would definitely spot me from his little glass chamber he called his office and reprimand me for those.

Every time the image of the creature came into my head, I quickly drew up a blank wall. I needed time to deal with what I’d just seen. Maybe it had looked that way from the beginning and I hadn’t noticed, maybe I had just hadn’t fully woken and had dreamt it up and the leg didn’t exist at all.

I shook my head; I’d deal with it later. After work.

I gave Ginger a good head scratch before leaving and driving to the cafe, ordering a mocha in the busy shop and not caring that I would usually be at work right now.

My thoughts kept going back again and again to —or perhaps never really leaving— that limb and to those very human wiggling toes. No matter how much I tried to stop thinking about it, I couldn’t. It just kept popping into my head unprompted.

Had I come across some secret government experiment?

Anything seemed possible when what was currently locked in my house was the definition of impossible.

It wasn’t as late as I thought it would be when I got to work, but that didn’t stop the scowling faces. Melody looked more pissed off than usual. She had been the first to start the bullying when I rejected Logan, acting as if she had taken it as a personal attack. I was pretty sure she hadn’t liked me from the moment she saw me.

I placed my coffee on the table before slowly removing my coat as her eyes bore holes into me. I stretched my arms up in the air and let out an exaggerated yawn before sitting down.

Pulling off the coffee cup’s lid I was happy to see not all of the cream had melted.

A pink post-it note caught my eye. It was stuck to a pile of papers on my desk, the ones I’d left in the office last night.

Who?...

~You forgot these last night, so thought I’d leave them here for you... Logan~

A small heart was drawn underneath the elegantly written message. The writing was not what I expected from Logan, it was cursive with exaggerated looping lines. Though I could see him forcing himself to write that way.

What the hell was he up to?

He had better not be expecting me to thank him, because he was going to be sorely disappointed. He was definitely up to something.

I looked up to see Melody staring at me. Anna looked between us both like she was trying to work out what was going on. Or perhaps just waiting for some order from Melody.

I slowly peeled the note off the paper while keeping eye contact with her. Scrunching it up into a small ball before dropping it into the waste basket. She scowled harder, her teeth almost baring.

It seemed a certain gay man had an admirer. I couldn’t believe I had never noticed it before. It must be the reason he'd brought the papers here in the first place. So that she’d see it. He likely hoped she would get envious and make my work life resemble hell even more. If that was even possible without outright making her harassment obvious enough for me to make a complaint about.

Though it was unlikely I would anyway.

I sorted through the papers, spotting a small smear of gel on a corner of one of the pages. I couldn’t stop my top lip from curling.

Seriously, what was wrong with that guy?

He could lube up his hair as much as he wanted, but did he need to touch it all the time?

~*~

Lunch was nearing, and I was undecided between going hungry, or buying one of the awful cafeteria sandwiches when something was placed on my desk. It was a paper cup from the local —and my favourite— coffee shop and it was letting out a strong chocolate aroma.

I looked up to see Logan smiling down at me, holding up a pastry and muffin in one hand, their blue wrappers only slightly paler than his eyes. I stared at him in confusion, and he grinned.

“You like these both, right? Pecan plait and banana nut muffin? I wasn’t sure which you’d want so decided to get them both. I remember you telling me you like nuts,” he said with a wink before he pulled up a chair from the empty desk next to me and sat in it.

I was pretty sure I’d never told Logan what food I liked, and I most definitely hadn’t made any joke about nuts in his presence.

I ignored the innuendo and contemplated telling him I didn’t want them, but the delicious smell of the mocha kept my mouth closed. I was pretty sure I could smell some caramel in there too.

“Tha-,” I quickly stopped myself from thanking him and Logan smiled, obviously noticing.

“You got back with this quickly, breaks only just started,” I said instead, as I took the lid off the hot drink, the cream so full it was sticking to the underside.

“Yeah, I left early so I could make it before the cafe gets too busy,” he said.

“They don’t let me go out at all,” I replied.

He didn’t say anything, just blinked back at me. Making me wonder if he even realised that I was taking a dig at him. I’d never taken Logan to be stupid but who knew what he was really like.

Perhaps it was just me finally getting fed up with everything, but I wasn’t getting the same anxious feeling I usually got with him or people in general.

“Didn’t you get anything?” I asked him.

He shook his head, “Not feeling all that well today, maybe I caught whatever you had last night?”

“I don’t think it works that fast,” I replied.

“Oh... then maybe it’s something I ate last night,” he said, his voice getting quieter and trailing towards the end.

He scratched the back of his head, then looked at his fingers. He grimaced before smearing the gel-coated fingers into the palm of his other hand and then rubbing it on his grey trousers. It seemed even he didn’t like all that gel, but it was surprising that he didn’t seem fussed about staining his clothing.

The dark smudge at the top of his thigh looked rather inappropriate. Despite his attractiveness, I only felt disgust. I guess a rotten personality could make even the most attractive people repulsive. Perhaps he was a lot less vain than I had first thought if he didn’t care for the stain though. Maybe his hair was actually a huge insecurity of his if he needed to coat it in a product he seemed not to like. I couldn’t imagine why, it was a thick dark rich brown, and there were no signs of balding.

That didn’t change anything though, didn’t change how I had been treated by him and everyone else, all because I wasn’t attracted to him. He was the type that seemed to think his looks could get him everything and everyone, then threw a tantrum when they realised that wasn’t always the case. He was probably trying to get me to like him again in an attempt to heal his bruised ego.

Maybe I should play along. If it meant everyone stopped treating me like shit, I could go along with pretending to be friends with him. But if he expected something more, that wasn’t going to happen.

I saw Melody over his shoulder, a look of disgust on her face.

Yeah, even if I did become friendly with him again nothing would change. He wanted an ego boost, nothing more. If I let him get his way, I would likely end up regretting it. I was pretty sure he only pursued me in the beginning because I wasn’t drooling all over him immediately anyway. As much as he seemed to try convince himself otherwise.

This guy didn’t like me one bit. I was sure of it.

I took a sip of coffee, it probably wasn’t smart to take a drink from this guy, but no one had ever called me smart. And I was more than happy to enjoy the hot sweetness he paid for.

If any spitting had gone on, he was a fool to think I’d care. Having him breathe near me, having to see him, disgusted me far more. Maybe I was gross, but honestly, I couldn’t imagine him being that petty and pathetic despite his childishness.

I grabbed the pastry since it was at least sealed and nudged the muffin towards him, “You take it. For when you’re feeling better.”

He grabbed it and began to fiddle with the plastic wrapper. I wished he would just leave. This felt like the longest break I’d ever had and that sadly wasn’t a good thing.

He was quiet long enough that I thought he might stay that way until he left, but sadly, he began to speak, “So, I mentioned the ceiling to the boss. They’ll start fixing it this weekend. You should make sure to not send anything to your favourite printer.”

I nodded to show I was listening as I bit into the delicious pastry.

“I was wondering if you saw anything?” he asked, his hand going to swipe behind his ear as if he had hair long enough to sweep back.

He sounded way more awkward than he usually did, like he was struggling with how to speak to me. It was something I’d never seen from him before.

“Saw anything?” I replied, not caring how rude it was to speak with a mouth full of food.

Maybe if I full-on chomped he would leave.

“Yeah. The beams were pointed in… as if something fell through.”

“Well, yeah... the ceiling. What other way would it fall?”

His cheeks turned red, which seemed a strange reaction for Logan, “I don’t know. I thought maybe something might have fallen through. Other than the roof itself I mean.”

“Such as?”

“I dunno... a meteorite, maybe?” he said with an awkward shrug.

Ahhh, so that was it?

He was hoping he could sell some precious rock or something. He must have realised I’d been hiding something in my jumper.

“Nahhh, no meteorites. Just a dead bird, must have been nesting on the roof when it fell through. I ended up standing on one of the eggs and got it all over my shoe.”

I cringed, if I had done that there would have been remnants of a crushed shell. Hopefully he wasn’t that observant. I was a terrible liar, but despite the mistake, I was rather impressed with myself at how quickly I had come up with it.

“Well, it was worth asking,” he said with a laugh. I expected him to leave immediately or start acting like his usual self, but he sat there looking awkward, “you know-” he stopped abruptly and rolled his eyes before pulling his mobile out of his pocket, “Ugh, sorry. I got to take this... another time?”

I didn’t give him an answer, but he stared at me with hope in his pale eyes, before answering the phone and walking out of the room. I had assumed the meteorite thing was all he wanted, but I guess not.

Maybe he just didn’t believe me. I should take a picture of the thing and show him what had actually fallen through in case he persisted. Surely that would get him to leave me alone.

~*~

I walked in through my front door, already pulling my phone out of my pocket. I wasn’t going to let Logan start acting friendly with me again.

I refused to fall for it. Even if he did believe me maybe the grotesqueness of my new pet would cause him to keep a wide berth from me.

I froze. There were things scattered all over my living room floor, books, ornaments and even a now smashed cup I’d left on the table.

Ginger must have been in one of her moods while I was out. She was sitting on the sofa, staring at me with innocent wide yellow eyes, likely hoping I’d bought her some treats.

“Are you serious?” I asked her.

She let out a cute mewl, jumped off the sofa and rubbed herself against my leg before she walked off into the kitchen with her tail held high in greeting. She must have gotten mad about me locking her out of the bathroom since she was strange and often liked to lay in the bath or sink.

I walked to the bathroom and opened the door.

My stomach plummeted.

Laid on its side, its towels strewn across the floor ─ was the cardboard box.

The now empty cardboard box.

I crouched and looked further into the cupboard; it was empty but for an old bar of unopened soap that had been there since I moved in. Frantically I glanced around the bathroom floor, but there wasn’t anywhere it could hide.

Had Ginger eaten it?

No, she couldn’t have, the door had been closed, she was a smart and crafty cat, but she definitely couldn’t open doors. And there’d definitely be evidence left behind, everything was spotless. No splattering’s of blood or scattered feathers.

I remembered that fully formed leg and those forming lumps and shivered.

Had it walked out by itself?

I stood, bashing the top of my head painfully on the opened door of the top cupboard.

No way could that thing have reached so high...

Unless... no.

It had to have been Logan, he must have broken in and searched for what he thought was a meteorite. Maybe he took the creature with him for some bizarre reason. It could be rare and important for all I knew.

But I’d never told Logan where I lived.

I tiptoed out of the bathroom, feeling ridiculous as I bent slightly like some cartoon robber. But I was unable to bring myself to stand fully, my heart beating heavily in my chest.

I checked the kitchen and found all the cupboards and draws open there too, things dropped haphazardly all over.

Surely, he didn’t think I would have hidden something inside the fridge?

I gently closed it before tiptoeing over to my bedroom. I slowly opened the closed door and cringed when it made a gentle thump as it connected with the bottom of my bed. I peered around it, expecting an empty room in disarray like the rest of my apartment.

But that was not what I got. The first thing my eyes caught onto was a rather muscular bare backside.

The owner of the impressive ass was completely naked and laid out on his stomach on my plushy white bed, his skin so pale he almost blended in. He was tall and slender but well-muscled with hair so black it sheened blue.

I stared for a long moment before taking a picture. Well, I guess such a photo could also get Logan to leave me alone if he was planning on asking me out again. I clutched my phone tightly to my chest as I considered calling the police.

He had a back tattoo outlined in blue, the shape resembling a pair of wings.

It couldn’t be.

There was no way...

It was impossible that that thing could be this man.

Just because I had seen it grow a leg didn’t mean it could fully grow into a human man. No way could that be possible.

I shuffled into the room as quietly as I could and went to the side of the bed. I had never seen this man before. And honestly, I’d never seen someone so handsome before. He had a somewhat heart-shaped face that was angular, yet soft with an ethereal quality.

It shouldn’t mix but it did to the point of perfection. He had a defined Cupid’s bow, the colour of his lips such a pale pink they almost blended into his skin.

He looked like a flawless version of a Taiwanese actor I had crushed on as a teen, but instead of healthy brown skin that seemed to give off its own glow, his was strikingly white and seemed to soak in the light and reflect none.

I felt that if I touched him, I would be left with a dusting of white chalk on my fingers.

He was breathing gently, the rhythm the exact same as how the creature had breathed in my car when I had thought it was sleeping.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring when his eyes opened and I was met with eyes so dark they looked black, the iris looking too big for his eyes, taking up most of the eye white.

They were beautiful. Deep glossy pools of ebony. And unlike his skin, they reflected the light... maybe a little too much. His face broke into a scowl, as he slowly lifted his upper body from the bed, his eyes staring into my own, as his dark hair fell into his face.

“Uh... sorry,” I muttered, and ran from the room, closing the door behind me.

I leaned against the door, feeling confused as to why I had just left my own room as if it was I that was the intruder.

Who the hell was he?

He was beautiful but something wasn’t right about his appearance. Suddenly I was falling backwards as the door fell away. A large, open palm pressed into my back and pushed me back onto my feet.

I quickly spun around, to see the man giving me an unimpressed look.

He stepped through the door, and I took a couple of steps backwards.

My eyes cast down his naked body, noticing his face wasn’t the only striking thing about him. He was toned and tight, not too muscled but enough that I could clearly see each outline, soft and taut at the same time. Even his damn dick looked like it had been painted by a very dedicated artist.

No one had a right to be this gifted all over.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to form?” he asked me in a sleepy but irritated tone.

I quickly look back up at his face. His hair was short at the sides, the underneath shaved close to his scalp, while the top fell to the tips of his ears. His fringe was the longest part, falling between his eyes, creating an upside-down triangle shape, the longest part sitting just between straight sharp brows.

He couldn’t be that thing. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. No way, no how.

And if he was, how the hell did he manage to get such a perfect haircut?

I stared at him, my mouth refusing to open as my eyes refused to blink, even as I felt them begin to burn. He rolled his eyes and moved back through the door’s gap and started to walk back to the bed. I expected him to close the door, but he left it open, well as much as it could open.

“Wa- wait,” I stuttered out, finally blinking.

He turned back to me.

“What...?” I uttered, sounding moronic even to my own ears.

He scowled, “What do you mean what?”

“Everything,” I replied nervously.

He turned away from me and laid himself out on the bed, I followed after him trying to keep my eyes off of him but failing.

“You can’t be,” I told him.

He had laid out on his stomach again, his head rested on his forearm as he scowled at me.

“That thing, from the box. That can’t have been you,” I clarified.

“Well, sorry to tell you, but that ‘thing’ was definitely me.”

His voice was pleasant and slightly androgynous with a tinkling quality. Not exactly like jingling bells, but it did sound like he’d hidden one inside his throat. Which would explain the slight husky sound it also had.

Could he really have been that thing?

I tried to line up the questions in my head when I noticed his eyelids lowering, as if too heavy for him to keep open. He was clearly exhausted. And I watched him fight sleep for a few moments before he finally lost the battle.

I looked at his back tattoo of spread open wings, it was on his upper back, going no lower than the bottom of his shoulder blades. It was like a tribal tattoo, only with far more intricate and thinner lines. And despite it not being realistic, it did resemble the pretty wings of the grotesque creature. Even the blue colouring was the same.

I looked down at his left leg and foot as if expecting them to still look the same and strangely, it kind of did, just far bigger versions.

I quietly left the room and sat on the sofa in the living room, Ginger taking the opportunity to curl up on my lap. I opened my phone and just stared at the picture I had just taken.

I probably should have taken one that didn’t have his ass as the main focus point before I left. I tried to connect the man lying in my bed to the creature from the box. It was shocking to imagine something so monstrous could turn into someone so beautiful. But there was a strange quality to his appearance that told me it was the truth.

He didn’t look completely human, more like a picture that had been air airbrushed and photo-shopped to remove any kind of blemish. It was fascinating and creepy at the same time.

I swiped my finger across the phone screen to see the picture of the full blue moon that I had completely forgotten I’d taken.

Was there a connection?

Maybe this dude was some kind of were-creature?

Though a were-bird-blob was a lot less impressive than a werewolf.

Logan

My throat hurt. Sore enough that I wondered if I had swallowed sandpaper. And maybe I had, because I couldn’t remember much of the previous day. The only things that came to me were small snippets of fragmented images.

I knew I’d been to work and had spoken with Gills for more than the usual minute, and how his eyes —almost too cute for him to be my type— had looked at me with suspicion. I rubbed my temples in a circular motion, trying to clear my foggy head.

What had we talked about?

I’m sure I’d mentioned that hole in the ceiling, but I had no idea why I would care to talk about such a thing. I remembered holding a hot cup in my hand, the strong smell of chocolate coming from it as I placed it on Gills' desk.

Surely, I hadn’t bought him a drink?

My head gave a throb. What the fuck was wrong with me.

Had I really been nice to the guy?

The guy who’d rejected me. Humiliated me. He’d seemed so eager for my attention, and he was good-looking and seemed submissive enough that I thought he’d be worth it.

Yet, when I’d finally decided to ask him out, he had said no. He of all people had said ‘no’ to me. He’d been polite but that had only pissed me off more after the flash of disgust he had quickly tried to hide.

That girlish thing dared to be disgusted by me?

No, he was no doubt the type who liked the more forceful asking, but I refused to face the consequences of that again. I wasn’t going to chase him no matter how much he wanted it.

Why the fuck could I barely remember anything?

And why was it that the small parts I did, seemed as if they weren’t me at all?

As if I was sitting far back in my mind, staring out at the world through a straw. My head hurt, a strange throbbing that ran across my skull like faintly scratching claws.

Had I gotten drunk last night?

No, I couldn’t have. I hadn’t had any alcohol in the house since last weekend. Besides, I never got that drunk.

I awkwardly sat up from the tangled sheets and checked the time, seeing that there wasn’t much time left to get ready for work. There was also an unread message.

Unknown number: -call me IMMEDIATELY when you drop next time-.

When I drop?

It had to be scammers or something. I guess people were no longer falling for the rich Arabian prince shit. I deleted it before getting up to use the bathroom, stepping over scattered clothes as I went.

When washing my hands I saw my hair gel in the sink, the contents smeared around the basin as if someone had tried to wash it down. The stuff cost me half a week’s pay.

A memory came to me from when I’d come home yesterday. I’d immediately gone to the bathroom and poured the stuff into the sink. I had tried to wash it down with water and left a thick layer of it around the entire basin.

I remembered feeling annoyance and disgust at the gel I loved so much.

It made no sense.

Does this guy think all this shit makes him look suave or something?

What an overly groomed, overly-pressed suit-wearing prick.

What the fuck... This guy... Me? A memory an echo of something.

I shook my head trying to dislodge the strange thoughts, it felt like an echo of a memory. But I don’t remember anyone speaking about me in such a way.

I didn’t have much time, so I quickly changed before heading back into the bathroom to scrape up some of the gel. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste or those, ‘extracurricular activities’ with Keith would have been for nothing.

I looked in the mirror to style my hair and saw a slight dark mark on it like smeared mascara.

What the fuck?

I hadn’t worn any makeup in weeks. I reached to wipe it away, but it moved like smoke. I stared, frozen, as thin black tendrils enveloped in a dark mist twirled around my fingers. It stretched and billowed like a blanket in the wind.

I pulled my hand back and instead of staying in place or coming with my hand, it shot lightning-fast towards my face. A coolness flowed up into my nostril before I had time to stop it.

...

His nose felt awful as if he had breathed in water. I rubbed the sides of his nose, trying to remove the burning feeling before I went to get his phone. Wouldn’t want to have Qí Yuè call me in her strange calm rage again.