Victim III: Fallen Angel

"What are you doing, you f*cking bag-boy?!"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Don't apologize, just get the customer's god damned bag out to them as soon as you can!"

"Yes sir."

"NOW!"

Michael did as he was told, his scrawny, blanched arms grasped desperately to the gargantuan bag of groceries, topped with a precariously wobbling stack of cans. He edged his way slowly across the floor and out the sliding doors, this time, without dropping the sack. When he made it to the customer's car, he examined it with silent envy. It must have cost a fortune, even though it was an older model bought used. The boy couldn't even imagine what that much money would look like.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, holding to bag higher to cover his frightened face while the customer fumbled with her keys. "I didn't mean to drop it."

"No, don't worry. I would have picked it up myself, but the manager just insisted..."

Silent, he loaded the back into the trunk of the car.

"Are you sure you're alright? He didn't yell at you too much, right? You look too young to be working; your parents must be really proud of you. But do they know that man's nearly abusing you? It can't be right to yell at a child that much!"

Still, he said nothing.

"Are you sure you're okay?" they asked. "Well, thank you for your help. You were so kind to take the groceries for me. Thank you."

Michael bore no expression as he turned swiftly, gracefully back towards the store.

When his shift was over, he wafted dourly out of the building, a petal borne on the wind. He wondered where he'd be sleeping that night. What place would be free of other people like himself? A passer-by had once called them 'lost angels'; children orphaned on the streets of the city, too young to get good jobs, too old to be cared about by people. When Michael's brothers—comrades, really, but they were as close as brothers—had been alive, it hadn't mattered to them where they'd spend the night. It was all the same, the city was, back then, for they had each other's presence to rely on. They had stuck together until the very end.

And now, Michael was alone.

He found himself, at last, curled up in the tunnel at Cement Park. Without knowing why, he always seemed to end up at that grim place. Staring at his old, dirty shoes upon the old, dirty ground, he realized that this was where he belonged: at the park. It and him weren't too different. It was the only thing left of the old city, before the city Enhancement Project. Everything it once knew was gone; it was a filthy, ancient place in the midst of clean, new skyscrapers. It had lost its friends. Just as Michael had.

Sighing, he rested his head on the hard, cold cement wall of the tunnel, looking out across the foul, barren park. Paper and broken bottles, moldy socks and torn shoes lay strewn about; scavenging crows darted about from their high perches on the crisscrossing wires overhead. The screeching of the brakes of the cars jammed in the intersections that surrounded Cement Park filled his ears. He covered them and tried to disappear. No one would care if he was just suddenly gone. He'd leave without a trace and no one would notice, no one would care.

Michael didn't hear it come up to him. It wasn't because he was boxing off his ears; the thing made no sound in its arrival, almost as if it had just suddenly been there with neither warning nor reason. When he looked up, it was just there.

"Come with me," it told him. "Come..."

Michael said nothing; sitting perfectly still, he panned up the thing's body—which was all bland and unremarkable—and stopped at its face: young but not childish. Its hair looked to once have been black or even dark brown, but now it was bleached by the sun through the smog to a dismal, unnamed hue between sallow and gray. When he noticed it staring at him, he quickly averted his eyes.

"Come with me, Michael," it begged, though no emotion was in its voice. "I have something for you. Please, come."

Still, the boy said nothing. He didn't even suspect it would trick him—for, who would try to kidnap a homeless child?—but he didn't yet give in to its wishes. There was just something about it, something that set it strangely out of place, though, he couldn't pinpoint the feeling.

"Michael," the voice whispered, "I have been watching you. I watched you while you worked, while you walked, while you slept. I've been there, always. I know all about you. I know how you've lied about your age to be able to work, how you put up with that man's abuse, how you lost your family. And, I have something for you that you will greatly enjoy. Come with me, Michael, and I will show it to you. Come..."

Without knowing why, he nodded and stood. Michael followed the thing, the phantom, hoping that wherever there destination was, was better than the park.

They arrived some minutes later in a very elderly, large house on a hill near the northern end of the city. The anachronistic architecture itself was foreboding; shingles topped its high, pitched roof, and long windows like that in a church gazed out over a gothic veranda. Inside, everything was covered with white sheets, as if to ward off the omnipresence of dust; however, it mattered not, for even the sheets were covered with it. Everywhere he looked, it was there in thin, filmy layers. On the floor, on the sheets, on the windows, on the walls, on the ceiling, and even on him now. Everywhere was dust. Everywhere.

Michael chased the phantom up many twisting and curving staircases, through dark antechambers, lounges and dens, down hallways and out balconies, in bedrooms and through secret passages in closets. Never once did he complain about his aching legs or his stinging cheek where he'd been hit at work. Not once did either of them mutter a word; for fear; because there was nothing to say—at least, until they entered the Play Room.

It gestured with its arm, opening the door and showing Michael the way in. "Come, you'll enjoy it."

It was then he noticed its voice was not human. It had sounded strange at first, but he had assumed it had been the cars or the crows obscuring its sound. Now, however, he could tell otherwise. The voice was static, as if it was coming through a bad phone connection, the words distorted and weird, sounding all but human. Though, somehow, this didn't surprise Michael, and neither did the fact that the voice began to sound stranger and stranger each time it was heard. For some reason, it all seemed to fit.

"Here is everything you'll need," it told him. "I've been watching you everywhere. You've had a sad life; you've always been controlled by someone or something. Always. Now, in this Play Room, you're the master."

Michael said nothing, uttered no 'thank you' or any sound whatsoever. He didn't know what to tell it.

"Look over there. That is a dollhouse. Isn't it pretty?"

"I see nothing but a shape. It's not a house."

"Make it a house. You can do anything with it that you wish. It can be a frog and the doll a fly; a school and the doll a student. It's all up to your imagination."

Michael nodded, but didn't make any further movement.

"Go on. Go on and try it. You don't have to use your hands; mold it with your mind. Just think at it and it will do your bidding."

The boy sauntered over to it. He passed a flock of clockwork angels flitting on buzzing mechanical wings, past marionette puppets chattering with porcelain baby-faces and frilly clothes, past little boxes full of ornate wonders, and chests caching away soft, warm things. He knelt on the ground, and looked at the shape. It didn't look like a house. It was vague and blurred and dark. As he continued to stare, he realized it looked as much like a house as the phantom a person. Both were merely shadows, afterimages of what their real form.

In his mind, he pictured a Japanese temple with sliding doors, a wooden floor, and a traditional garden surrounding it. The doll should be pretty, he decided, to have her fit with the house. Her hair should be as black as crows, her eyes gray as the cement and her kimono white as the sky.

"Very nice," commented the black shape, the phantom. "But who is she? Have you given her a name yet? Have you given her a history?"

"No."

"Once you do so, she can wake up. Don't worry, though, she won't remember anything from last time someone played with her—if there was a last time. Now, give her a story."

Michael thought for a moment, and then nodded. She would be a narcoleptic girl, who, when she was asleep and dreaming, took the persona of a ghost haunting a Shinto temple. She hated all other beings, thusly murdering her family. Their white robes matched the snow, but their red blood stained it and gave them away, so she buried them all underneath the cherry tree in the yard. However, their blood even turned its pure, white blossoms pink. He'd heard a few girls tell a legend about that when they passed him on the street one day; they'd said that the soldiers' blood soiled the perfection of the white petals with sins.

Looking down, he watched the doll. She moved about by herself in the finely-crafted world, and he moved objects to her convenience. She walked outside, examining the world around her. The phantom made itself small and moved about behind her to fix things that Michael missed. She noticed it a few times, but it always winked out just before she realized what it was. Mainly, it sat on the swing in the yard, as if enjoying the fake weather.

Though Michael was fully amused, something else in the room caught his attention. His mind wandered, and the house turned back into the equivocal shape it had formerly been, the doll falling asleep. "What are those?" He pointed to something hanging on the wall.

"Glass angel wings,"

"Can I see them?"

The phantom nodded, but made no attempt to get them. Standing back against the fall wall, its top hat and dark cloak obscured its body from view. Michael shivered when he saw it, when he saw that its cold, lifeless eyes were aimed right at him. Ignoring it—or trying to—he stroked the glass feathers of the wings. He marveled at their beauty and took them off the wall. They floated as if being held by invisible hands, attaching themselves to his shoulder-blades. He admired them in a cracked mirror. "Can I fly with these?"

It did not answer him, so he asked again, assuming it hadn't heard.

"Can I fly with these wings?"

Again, it was silent, and when he looked, it was no longer there. Scanning the room uneasily, he tried to find it. It made him apprehensive; he knew he wasn't supposed to be in the house, and he knew it wasn't supposed to be there either.

Michael made the doll explore the temple. She appeared confused, but he couldn't tell why. Slowly, the phantom came up behind him, though he hadn't heard breath or footsteps, standing like a tall tower in the night. "You neglected her. You were thinking of her, but you were not letting her move."

"What?"

"She'll get behind herself if you do that. Any time you think of her, she's still living, but if you're not willing her to do something, she won't, so another of her will be created, like a ghost, which she will see. It will do whatever she would do, but before her. You don't want that."

"But I didn't mean to..." Quickly, it disappeared. He began to wonder what its real intentions were. "If she hates and kills everyone besides herself, what if she sees the future projection of herself?"

The phantom didn't answer him, and he wasn't really expecting it to. He knew that he shouldn't neglect her, but the wings were so tantalizingly beautiful that he couldn't help but wonder if he could fly with them. He wished to try and ask again, but there was no one to ask but himself. It was as if the phantom was monitoring other people as well as him, as if it had to keep switching off between them.

Somehow, he made his way out of the Play Room and onto the roof. The sky was dark, the ground was dark, and even the moon, filtered through the smog, was dark. He felt the billowing wind rage through his hair like a pack of howling wolves and closed his eyes, letting the splendor of the moment consume him. He wished it could last forever. Holding his arms out straight, he breathed in the cold, winter air with a deep, fluid gasp. Michael was about to take his first step off the roof, but something caught him.

He was in the Play Room again when he regained consciousness, and the phantom was watching over him with its white eyes. He knew it was the thing that had stopped him, from flying, but he didn't hold any grudges; maybe it was just lonely and wanted him as a friend. Why would it want him as a friend? He turned his thoughts to the dollhouse; however, the doll was already awake. Startled, he closed his eyes and tried to see what she saw. The phantom was also there, but she didn't notice it. She was too busy running around in circles. For him, the phantom set down upon the ground a knife. Then, hastily, it phased out of sight again. He heard its voice, but he didn't think the girl did: "Those wings are turning your thoughts from her; if you gouge the out, you won't have to worry about it anymore."

Though he didn't understand, the doll picked up the knife before he even registered its words. He watched her, wondering what she was going to do.

Then he saw it.

There, ahead of her, was another one of her, the copy of herself in the future that was created when he had neglected her. She was hunting it down—or, more precisely, they were both hunting each other down—for both were blood-hungry ghosts. However, the one with the knife was not the real one, it was the phantom.

He watched as it lifted its arm, its white, trailing kimono sleeve flapping in the air like a dove's, the knife gleaming like the arrow that pierced it. His doll stood there, petrified, as if unsure that what she was watching was truly happening. Michael tried to tell her to move out of the way, but he could no longer control her. Once again, he was just a powerless bystander instead of an all-powerful god.

The knife came down, puncturing the girl's heart; red blood trickled down, staining her kimono pink and the blossoms red. The future-copy disappeared—for the version of her in the past was gone—and the world disappeared. However, though it was gone, Michael could still see her dilated pupils, her open mouth, her beauty gone to waste, soiled by cruel fate. He looked inquiringly up at the phantom. "Is she gone? Why did you let her die?"

"I didn't let her die. You did. For your whole life, you were controlled by someone. No, I let you be in control. It doesn't matter that she's gone, because you showed that girl what it's like to have your each and every move prescribed to you by a higher force. You got back society for what it did to you. Aren't you happy?"

"She was a real girl?"

"Yes. You made it that way. She was a normal girl, whom you made narcoleptic. Don't you remember? I let you pay back society."

"I killed her?!" he frantically screamed, tearing at his hair. "I just let her die like that?! How could you not have stopped it?! I didn't want anyone to die...!"

It didn't understand. "But all your life you've been controlled. Don't you want revenge?"

"'Revenge'? No, I just..."

The phantom didn't understand at all. Everything prior to this had made sense in its mind, and now the boy was telling it that it was wrong. It just couldn't comprehend this at all. How could there be anything else that Michael would want?

When the boy looked back, it was gone. It had vanished again, just as Michael had wanted to at the park, sudden and without a trace, leaving no bitter remembrances or reminders of the past. He fell to his knees, lost. He had killed someone. He, an insignificant 'lost angel' on the streets of the city, wishing to be dead, wishing to vanish. He had killed an innocent person he'd never met before. He let her die. He killed her.

Michael stood atop the tallest tower of the old, crooked house. The wings glistened like ice, sparkling like stars, so beautiful, so innocent, so heavenly.

"If I am truly innocent of the sin I just committed," he proclaimed aloud, to whomever was listening, "then when I fall, these wings will carry me not to the ground, but to the sky, and all of my sins will be stripped from my body as I purify into angelic light. It will really have been that thing's fault that she died, it's fault for controlling me.

"But if I was the one who was really responsible for her death, then I shall fall and these glass wings will break over me. I shall die to repent for my hideous deed."

He closed his eyes and stepped off.

Air rushed by him, causing his stomach to feel like it was being tossed about on the wings of a dove crashing into the fiery sea. Michael heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing, tasted nothing, and thought nothing. All his senses were blind, and everything was black.

Some days later, people came up to the antique house on the lone hill for the purpose of moving out all the old furniture. Still grieving for the loss of his only child and his work—though they had perished long ago—the middle-aged man who owned it had come with his contractors to see what could be done with it. They hadn't been expecting what they found on the ground. The men cringed, holding their hands over their mouths, tuning their faces away disgustedly, regretting ever coming up to the place. The middle-aged man stood with a look of shock on his face, unable to do or say anything. Watching from the top of the house, the phantom pulled its dark top hat over its face and turned away, its dark cloak swirling like a rose disgraced at opening at sunset.

None of them knew whom the mysterious boy had been. They couldn't find records of him anywhere, anyone who recognized him, or anyone who knew where he might have come from.

News of the mysterious death spread, but Michael was not known as a murderer; he was said to be a fallen angel.