You might wonder why I drift like this. Aimlessly. On tired wings over broken cities.
    If it were a Saturday, I might be sleeping, leaving vacant skies to their own designs—Sunday, and I'd be feeding on skin-scraps and cartilage for energy. But since it's Tuesday, you've found me hovering outside your bedroom window.
    Tuesday is a weeknight, and on weeknights, I fly.
    I bet you think it's a good thing, to fly. I did too, in my former life—before I knew better. When the curse was new and fresh, I revelled in the fever-dream feeling of flight, of the rushing wind in my throat, all smoke and dancing ash. Now my wings are tired and torn, the edges charred like burnt feather-dusters, flapping and failing as I scour dead landscapes.
    And still, She sends me out to hunt.
    Every weeknight, I dread to hear the words. Cringe at the thought of the journey ahead. Pray that if something exists that is greater than Her, more powerful, less malevolent, that it might hear my plea and free me of this curse. But no such being exists, because from Monday to Friday, when the moon looms high and the candle burns low, She calls to me.
    "I am ravenous, Ferdie. See what breathes amongst the deadlands, daaarling."
    And I hate being called Ferdie (I was Ferdinand in my previous life) but the way She says it—that purr, that sweet curl of the lip, half-threatening, half-helpless—is like earthworms and dead leaves churning, and it wins me over every time. And so, I fly.
    I fly over blackened homes, and cracked earth. Over rivers, scorched and hollow, and trees that pray to empty skies with dead and twisted hands. I fly until I find the scent—the one I have been cursed to find—the smell of the living. The fresh.
    But I didn't expect to find you, fresh-blood—I'll be honest about that. I thought I'd caught the last of them. Of us. The way I used to be before she damned me with the gift of flight, of sight, of smell. I thought I'd tracked them all down, delivered them to her in their fleshy meat-sacks, trembling and squealing. Watched as she devoured them. Every last one of them—
    Except you.
    You managed to survive.
    Somehow, you knew to disguise your scent with talcum-powder and goats-milk soap and sidestep deliverance… and, as I hover here with talons extended, peering into your fractured sixth-storey window, I wonder if that means something. If all the nights of praying have been answered by some benevolent entity, who sees fit to end my curse.
    You look at me through the broken glass. Unafraid, and reeking of familiarity.
    "I'm supposed to take you," I whisper, but you don't seem concerned. 
    I wonder if you know your veins hold crimson oil. That your bones are ripe with calcium and marrow, and new cells that slow-burn on Her tongue like spiced rum. That your grey matter is filled with fear and mashed up memories, that She loves to take her time with.
    You smile. Hold out your arms. No, I don't think you do.
    "If I take you, she'll eat you," I say.
    She eats everything. Every animal, and plant, every bacterium and squirmy little virus particle. A consumer of all things. A devourer of life. I have fed Her the population of nations since She arrived and dubbed me helper—ravaged forests for flesh, dredged oceans, so She could suck the fish spines dry—and still She is hungry. And when there is no life left here, She will move on to the next world, and keep right on eating.
    But only on weekdays. On weekends She rolls herself deep into a web, spindles it around herself like a spider-cocoon, and I stand down from the hunt. Allow life to fight back a little. Until now, I thought the battle had been lost.
    You don't seem lost though. Nor do you fear me. You move towards the window, with your arms outstretched, and I can't smell your blood at all, just baby powder and memories. Bitter-bitter-sweet memories.
    "If I take you, She will eat you," I repeat, but still you keep coming, and as I hover, I see the photograph on your bedside table—a portrait of you and your parents, carefully framed and placed lovingly beside your crib. Of you, and your Mommy, and...
    "Daddy," you say, and my wings falter. You couldn't talk the last time I was here.

    You step towards the window—a big girl now—and I am suddenly hearing lullabies that your mother used to sing to you. “Our little Rosie,” she would say. “She has rosy cheeks like yours, Ferdinand. Come, see!” And I would tell her it was a weekday, that I had to work, that I was far too busy to squeeze your face or sing silly songs.
    And I long to reach out to you now, but my wings are charred, and my talons are sharp, and I don't want you to remember me this way. The creature that I have become. So, I leave your fractured window. Turn, as you touch the glass with hands that have grown so much.
    Fly away.
                                                                     ***
    When I return, She asks me, "Tell me, Ferdie, daaaarling—is there any life left in the deadlands?"
    "No," I lie.
    Her purr turns to a snarl, lip half-curled and dangerous, teeth gummy with dead earth. "Then you know what this means, Ferdie."
    Yes. It means it's time for Her to move on—to find another world that's brimming with life and chaos, and all the delicacies of humanity. But first She must complete her feast here. Eat the very last of the living.
    "I do," I reply. "And for the record, my name is Ferdinand."
    I prepare for my final landing—one last flap of tired wings that were never meant to fly this long—and think of you.