The angel moved just enough for him to notice. A slight turn of their fingertips as if a string is attached to each, tugging softly. It wanted to be seen as human, but it could never be. The movement was too fluid, yet it was too heavy to be divine. 

The pretty angel boys were nothing but an afterthought. Now though? They are his worst nightmare. 

His nightmare was simply only a hum—low, constant, just under the skin. A pressure that made his teeth crack, his thoughts blur. He never _saw_ the source, only knew it was watching. Waiting. Shaping him into something unrecognizable. 

His skin peeled away like wallpaper, revealing wings made of smoke and bone. They were delicate, crumbling, not his. He couldn’t fly. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t move. Only sink, inch by inch, into an earth that didn’t want him. He would cry, bleed—but no one reacted. 

Not even the angel boys. 

They just smiled, like they didn’t know he existed, or worse, like they did and didn’t care. And their halos hung above him like nooses.

The angel’s fingers twitch again—more deliberate this time. Like it’s testing the air, or him. If it's him, though, why now? The words won’t climb up his throat. Not out of fear. Not awe either. It’s recognition, perhaps. 

Something creaks. The stadium? His bones? Or his voice—has it turned to glass? Brittle. Beautiful. Useless. 

The angel doesn’t blink. It never has. Its eyes are too still. Too clear. Too empty. Too loud. Too loud, but neither said a word. Neither moved an inch. 

The angel lifts a single hand, slowly, palms out—like it was remembering how. Was it a mockery of peace? Or an invitation?

He doesn’t accept it. His own hands have forgotten how to move. Staying in his lap like dead birds. 

Dead birds. 

Dead hands. 

Dead bones. 

Dead boy. 

Light slashes through the cracks in the roof. It bends unnaturally, as though it’s afraid to touch him. 

And then he remembers.

Not their names. Not their faces. Not their scents. Nothing that he would know is them. It’s only but a certain feeling. The exact sensation of falling while standing still. 

He looks at the angel. Unable to tell if it’s pity or cruelty in that stillness. Maybe it’s both. Maybe neither. Maybe that’s the horror of it all—there is no meaning. Just presence.

Just ruin.

And the angel still waits. Waits for him to slowly turn into a pretty angel boy—inch by inch. And slowly erode until breathless wind.