There was only the wind—cold, relentless, threading through feathers that had once been white as cloud-light. Now they were dusted gray, broken at the edge, bent at angles that screamed wrongness when they moved.

The alley smelled of rain and old brick. Somewhere, a cat yowled. A car hummed past. Human noises. Unfamiliar. Terrifying.

Y/n pressed deeper into the shadows, wings folding tight—or trying to. The right one dragged. The wing was broken, the bones grinding with every breath, and the pain was a bright, sharp thing that refused to fade. Heaven did not hurt. Heaven was light and endless song and the weight of grace beneath one's feet.

This place was not Heaven. This place smelled like rust and rot, and every human sound made Y/n's pulse stutter with the certainty of discovery.

A door creaked open somewhere down the alley.

Footsteps. Steady. Unhurried. Coming closer.

Y/n tried to move, to crawl deeper into the dark, but the wing caught on a chain-link fence and a sob tore free—soft, wounded, completely human.

The footsteps stopped.

Then a voice, low and warm, floated through the dark: