Anthony had never been scared of the dark. His family was in the mob, so while hitmen hiding in dark alleys were always a risk factor, he’d been taught not to fear it. Be vigilant, but never fearful.

That didn’t make him any less uncomfortable walking through the woods alone at night though. Especially not one that was rumoured to be haunted.

 

He’d gotten into a fight with his dad as they were driving toward their summer house, one that had resulted in him getting thrown out of it and told to walk the rest of the way. Having grown up going there, he knew that the shortest way there was through the forest. He’d never gone through it after dark, though. But he would save at least half an hour going through it rather than around it, even though the way around was paved, not gravel.

Don’t be chicken, he’d told himself as he hesitated at the forest edge. Nothing’ll happen.

 

He’d been walking for ten minutes, and everything had been fine. He’d gotten spooked by a couple of animals, but they’d been more scared of him than he had been of them.

Finally he was starting to relax. What was there to be scared of? Ghosts weren’t real.

 

Something moved out of the corner of his eye.

He flinched, head turning to see what animal it was this time, but he came up with nothing. Then, it happened again, in the opposite direction, then again.

“What the f-”

As he turned once more he nearly screamed.

 

There was something in front of him, something that was glowing, even as it swallowed all the light around it, however little moonlight could penetrate the trees. Was it… absorbing the light?

He wasn’t sure if it was a human, animal or beast. Whatever it was, it didn’t look like it belonged to this world.

 

As it came closer, Anthony took a step back, slipping on a rock, landing in the ditch with a yell.

Whatever the creature was leaned down close, floating in the air. His eyes darted around the creature’s form, his eyes trying to take it in, but something was stopping him from taking in the whole picture. He could only register it in parts; feathers, eyes, teeth, tails. A head shaped like a human’s, but with something eerie in the way its body moved, much more still than a human would. No breathing, no blinking. Nothing moving in the wind.

 

There were so many eyes.

 

He shrunk back, feeling the wet mud start to soak through his clothes, the way it stuck to his face where it had splashed all over him as he fell.

With his head spinning from looking at the creature in front of him, his heart racing and fear gripping his throat, he froze. A mouth parted, sharp teeth clicking together.

“Haven’t you been taught to stay out of the woods after dark, human?”

Anthony’s eyes widened.

He could hear the voice inside his head, reverberating in his skull. His mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water, his fingers digging into the mud-caked grass on the edge of the ditch.

“I… what?”

“Humans aren’t welcome here at night. The darkness is mine alone.”

“Sorry, but that sounds lonely as hell.”

 

Angel had to stop himself from slapping his hand over his mouth as he realised what he had just said. Maybe he shouldn’t patronise a monster.

The creature’s head tipped to the side, sharp teeth baring as it leaned closer.

“What the hell do you know?”

“I’m, I’m just sayin’, bein’ alone kinda sucks.”

 

The creature pulled back, and when it didn’t approach him again, he started to climb out of the ditch. It didn’t sound nearly as threatening when it was cursing the same way he did.

But he wasn’t lying. Being alone sucked. He’d been alone enough to know it first hand. His family hadn’t exactly treated him well after they found out that he was gay. They had blamed it on him spending too much time with his sister, separating them in an attempt to straighten him out, putting him on unimportant but gruesome jobs.

He might have enjoyed the violence, but that hadn’t made it less lonely.

 

Just as he was about to get back on his feet, the creature swooped in close again, making him fall back into the ditch with a loud splat. Did it do that on purpose?

“Don’t act like you know me, human. This is my forest, I like having it to myself. I don’t need you telling me I need more.”

Was… was the creature pouting? Anthony had the distinct feeling that it was.

 

“Look, I just wanted to go home, I didn’t mean to burst in on your me-time, no need to chew me out for it. I get enough’a that at home.”

He really shouldn’t antagonise the creature, but he’d always been too mouthy.

“I’ve never taken a single bite out of you. I don’t eat humans.”

Anthony stared at the creature, baffled. A startled laugh escaped his throat. Were they stupid? “No, that’s not, that’s not what that means. But uh. Good to know.”

The creature hissed, as if just realising it had revealed it might not be as big of a threat as it wanted you to think it to be.

Yeah, it sure seemed like they were kind of dumb.

 

“Hey, can I, uh, can I get up now without havin’ ya make me fall back into the mud? It’s gettin’ kinda cold and I reek worse than a three-day-old corpse.”

The creature stared at him for a long, tense moment, eyes unblinking. Then it moved closer, close enough that the only thing Anthony could see were large, bright eyes. He could see stars sparkle in their pits, even brighter than the rest of them. It was mesmerizing.

“Go back to being scared of me.”

“...Your eyes are pretty.”

 

For the first time, the creature blinked.

“What?”

“Look, creepy space alien or not, what’s pretty’s pretty. I’m not gonna lie about that.”

“I am not a fucking alien.”

Anthony shrugged. “I dunno, ya look way too weird to be a ghost, even if ya sound like a human when ya curse like that.”

The creature leaned in even closer, an invisible force around him pushing Angel deeper into the mud.

“Just because I don’t usually eat humans doesn’t mean I can’t.”

 

“You’re gonna eat a guy for hittin’ on ya? Rude much.”

“I don’t- don’t hit on me!”

Anthony lifted his hands, putting his thumbs against his pointer fingers as if to frame the creature. “Ya know, despite all the scary teeth you’re kinda handsome.”

Somehow, the creature managed to look flabbergasted, eyes even wider than before, mouths hanging open.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“A whole lotta things, thanks for askin’. Can I get outta this ditch now, or were ya plannin’ on joinin’ me down here?”

For a long moment, the creature seemed at a loss for words, before they seemed to realise that no, Anthony wasn’t going to go back to being scared of them. Finally, they backed up, allowing Anthony to crawl out of the ditch.

As Anthony started to try to wipe the worst of the mud off of himself, he watched the creature, sucking on the inside of his cheek as he thought.

He watched the creature’s eyes narrow.

“What?”

“I was just wonderin’, if you’re not an alien and you’re not a ghost, what exactly are you?”

“...I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Angel wiped his hands on the front of his shirt, about the only part of his clothes not caked in mud. He stared at the creature for a long while.

 

“So then, how’d ya know you’re not an alien?”

The creature averted their eyes. It seemed like they didn’t particularly enjoy discussing their existence that much.

“So ya don’t know what ya are, but what about a name?”

The creature shook their head. “I don’t remember. Not anymore.”

 

How long must it have been since anyone spoke their name if they’d forgotten even that? The more they spoke, Anthony felt like he’d been right in calling their existence lonely. He wasn’t sure how they hadn’t lost their mind from loneliness. But then again, maybe they had, and that is how they ended up like this, in this empty forest, with no one daring to step foot in it after dark to keep them company.

Maybe they were a god, long forgotten, losing themselves in the process. Maybe they’d been a regular human who got lost in the forest a long time ago. Anthony could only guess at that.

 

“Is there somethin’ I can call ya, then? Or do I get to pick somethin’?” He felt kind of weird keeping on referring to them as ’the creature’ now that he’d gone so far as to hit on them.

The creature stayed silent, seemingly unsure. He supposed if this was the first time they’d held a conversation with anyone in such a long time, it made sense to be a little bit lost.

“How ‘bout… Venus?”

Head tilting to the side, the creature seemed to contemplate it for a moment. Why?

“‘Cus your eyes are the brightest fuckin’ stars I’ve ever seen. Or maybe you’d like Luci. Ya kinda look like a Luci.” As the creature’s head tipped even more to the side, Anthony thought that if his head turned that far his neck would be broken. “Before ya ask, it’s cus of a really good swing performer I saw in Chicago a while back.”

What is swing?

“Amazin’s what it is. It’s music. Makes ya wanna grab the closest pretty boy and dance til’ your legs fall off.” Anthony felt his lips tug upwards. He remembered that night in South Side Chicago. He’d been sent to do a job, but had ended up stumbling into a gay bar instead. He’d gotten a lot of shit when he came back home, but honestly, it’d been well worth it.

“So, Venus or Luci? I can probably keep comin’ up with names if ya don’t like either, though.”

There was a melodic humming noise coming from the creature as they thought it over, almost spellbinding.

“Luci…”

“Alright, Luci.” Grin wide on his face, Anthony leaned in forward, entering Luci’s space. “I got a question for ya. Don’t eat me if the answer’s no.”

The slow blink was confused, and if they’d had eyebrows he was sure they’d be furrowed. As Luci stayed silent, he pushed forward.

“Can I kiss ya?”

 

If Luci had been confused before, it was nothing compared to now.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So I can say I’ve kissed a star. In more ways than one.”

It was a joke, yes, but if he imagined what a star in the shape of a living being would look like, maybe he’d imagine them looking a little bit like this. They certainly looked like they belonged somewhere far, far away. Maybe he’d imagined them to be taller, but that was just a minor detail.

 

“I…”

They hesitated. There was something in their eyes, a longing that it was obvious that they’d been pushing deep down for a very long time. Something that had been so easy to pinpoint once he cared to look.

It was a longing to not be so damn alone. For something more than to exist among nothing but wild animals, despite their earlier words of saying Anthony knew nothing.

“You… I won’t eat you.”

“‘S’at a ‘no’?”

“It’s an ‘I haven’t decided yet’.”

“So you’re thinkin’ about it.”

“If you rush me I’ll eat you.”

Anthony laughed, smile wide. “No ya won’t.”

His laughter continued as he heard Luci make a weird noise, one not inside his head this time. Were they grumbling? Mad that he’d managed to figure them out so fast, that no matter how much they threatened to eat him, they wouldn’t.

 

He choked on his spit as Luci suddenly appeared above him, face impossibly close to his. His eyes widened as he felt hands on his cheeks, on his neck, on his shoulders, all at once. They were cold, so cold, it made him feel the chill all the way to his bones.

As Luci pressed their lips to his, Angel felt his eyes slip shut. Their lips were as cold as their hands, the feeling of static electricity against them, shocking his senses for a brief moment before it settled into a buzzing in his soul.

He opened his mouth, felt it tingle as a tongue, no, two, three? pressed against his own. It felt strange, unlike any kiss he’d shared with anyone before, yet he couldn’t help but reach into it. He felt cold envelop his body, realising he was being lifted off the ground by an impossible number of hands.

The wind beat around him, and he could slowly feel his body grow colder.

 

As his eyes slipped back open, Luci pulling back, he looked into their eyes. They were so unbearably sad.

“Are ya goin’ to kill me now?” he asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

Luci’s hands were soft, despite the bite their coldness brought.

“I am.”

“Are ya Death?”

“No. I’m just greedy.”

 

He wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe Luci was keeping him to themselves, forever trapping him here in the forest with them. Perhaps he’d turn into a creature just like them, or maybe he’d turn into nothing. But he knew that dying didn’t feel quite as bad as he’d thought it would. He thought he’d be a lot more scared.

Anthony raised his hands, cradling Luci’s face, their eyes closing where his hands found space to rest.

His laugh was light, quiet.

“I do know a thing or two about greed.”

 

As he embraced Luci, wrapping his arms around their shoulders, slotting them in between their many wings, he felt Luci’s embrace envelop him. He could feel his heartbeat slow, could feel himself grow numb.

As his heartbeat finally came to a stop, he couldn’t help but smile as he felt Luci press their lips to his once more.

A final, cold, kiss of death.

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