Fallen Angel

Chapter 6

I flipped through the channels on the TV, bored. I'd caught glimpses of ourselves and stayed for some of the commentary, but never for long. The news people came about once a week, and their final visit was scheduled for tomorrow.

After that, we would be done with our part of the deal. No long-term plans had been made until now, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to live in this little cottage for the rest of my life. I understood that exploring my favorite cities would be near impossible, but I couldn't see myself staying in one place for long. There were a lot of places connected to nature, and I wanted to see different kinds of birds and plants. Occasionally I saw a bunny or a deer if I looked hard enough, and the butterflies that flitted around were a welcome splash of color.

Every day was a new adventure, but it was growing rather dull. Lucifer and my social media page was always blowing up, and not always in a good way. Once I'd gone down the rabbit hole and scrolled, there were thousands of people who thought we were freaks. Some said we should be put down, others called us abominations, and some cruel individuals said they would hunt us for sport and mount our wings.

When Tricia saw me, tears staining my face, she suggested some changes. I limited my social media time and turned off comments from people who weren't followers which blocked some of what she called 'trolls' (though not in a literal sense, they didn't live under a bridge). She taught me how to turn off notifications for apps, which did the best for my mental health. Now I wasn't constantly bombarded with comments and other useless notifications.

I was getting the hang of currency, and yesterday the first package from our earnings came in. Michael ordered a few more books, Lucifer decided that he wanted to try painting, and I bought a few nature guides and a hummingbird feeder. So far the hummingbirds hadn't found my feeder, and I couldn't wait to explore the forest more and identify the plants and birds I saw. Sure, my phone could do similar things, but I liked flipping through pages and seeing the other plants I could add to my 'bucket list' (it's not a list of actual buckets, just things that you want to do one day. Tricia said that spotting plants and birds were excellent additions to my bucket list).

My life wasn't perfect, it was far from it. I was lonely, and just starting to process that the laboratory we'd grown up in wasn't normal. I could have had a family, lifelong friends, and I could have seen or explored an entire real town by now if I was normal. Everywhere I looked on social media, I saw people smiling, laughing, pulling pranks and posting the latest place they'd been. I wanted to be like them so badly, bursting with joy and surrounded by people I loved.

Lucifer was my closest friend, and he and Michael were the only ones who understood our unique situation. The others tried, but there was no way they could comprehend suddenly getting thrust into a world they'd only ever seen through a screen.

Tricia was nice, but the fact that she was hired to tutor us didn't qualify as a friend in my book. Sometimes I tried to talk to the maid, but I knew they were preoccupied with their jobs of keeping the cottage and the mansion clean. I didn't want to distract them from their work, although they always seemed happy to see me and never bothered by the intrusion.

I wanted to experience everything this world had to offer and make friends with people who were interested in me as a person, not as a celebrity. My wings prevented me from doing that.

For the first time in my life, I hated my wings.

I tried not to focus on that thought too much, I couldn't let it weigh me down. My wings were here to stay, and even if I had the option of safely removing them, I didn't think that I'd want to let go of them. It would be weird to not feel them, to not pin them against my back when I walked through doorways and I would miss the feeling of the hot sun on my feathers. They became liquid gold in those moments, and I cherished them. I knew there would be hurdles to jump through with the appendages, but I was ready for it.