Legend has it that The Bugaboo Bay was once the hiding place of all the… somethings.

  That when the Prayer Hotline was backed up, and when the graveyard shifts on Casket Row got a little too boring, those winged little somethings would sneak on through the gaps in the clouds, tiptoe their way down the Stairway, and come to rest in its quiet, shady groves.

  Rumor has it that they enjoyed millennia of secret getaways down there—bonfires out behind the Many Mansion, white-water-walking races to the Bayou and back. And nothing could beat the smug satisfaction they’d relish in, turning up to work a few days later with tans from the bit of sunlight the region was blessed with.

  It was heaven in Heaven. While it lasted, at least.

  One day, The Day, to be exact, their ducked off getaway was no more. And that was the day that fateful first snore ripped through the Heavens.

  On this day, everybody who was somebody was in The Bugaboo Bay. What often was a calm hangout was on this occasion a show-and-tell of custom lawn chairs imported (read as: likely smuggled) from God-knows-where, swimming trunks and bikinis fashioned from their extra robes, and the hottest goss’ on their side of the Greater Eternal Circuit.

  All was well—music pumping, laughs filling the room until.

  Honk-schoo!

  Instinctively, before they could even begin to comprehend the noise, the more seasoned half of the runaway somethings swapped their sunhats for their halos, dropped their (allegedly) virgin margaritas, and got the hell on.

  But the more naive somethings remained.

  They asked questions, like:

  “Was that a bird?”

  “Was that a plane?”

  Some stuttered through answers, others nibbled at their fingertips.

  But a particularly arrogant one waved a dismissive hand at his peers before adjusting his sleep mask. “Mm, keep it down, won’t you~? We all know that if the avians or the Homo sapiens created the technology necessary to get up here, I’d be the first to hear of it. Don’t we?”

  And.

  Fair.

  The group shrugged and mumbled thoughtfully to one another.

  It wasn’t until someone else gathered up his belongings, attracting ambivalent eyes, that the group fell silent again. “Oh, come on. You guys buy that shit?” He shook his head at the scene before him, muttering, “Idiots.”

  By the time the dust from the bottom of that wise something’s flip flops settled down, another half of the group had made their decision. Wordlessly, they disappeared.

  Not a second passed before the next snore blew through The Bugaboo Bay, but this time, its accompanying (nose)wind was so strong, so pointed, that it skated right above the little get-together, upsetting lawn chairs, tossing perfectly styled hair, and sending goosebumps up spines.

  The onslaught stopped; its job was done. There was enough fear in the air to send another half of them rushing up through the skies.

  Not all of them, though.

  Another something, one far too nonchalant for her own good, with her cheeks stuffed full of imported (read as: certainly smuggled) goodies, let a grin loose. She took a lap around the lawn, stacking up abandoned plates. “Whatever, more for me—”

  The final snore broke through the clouds, trapping her words in her throat. It sent her mountain of cakes and cookies flying all over The Bugaboo Bay, never to be seen again. It uprooted trees. It lurched the still body of the Bayou up into an arc that came crashing down on the three somethings that remained.

  A disoriented something that had been holed up in the treetops crawled from beneath the mess of fallen branches, only to find that just two of her peers remained.

  Those three—those poor, poor three—shared a silent, panicked look. They scrambled to their feet, shed their weekend attire, and flew up.

  And up, and up, and up.

  But no matter how many clouds they passed, how rapidly their wings crumbled into dust, and how desperately they pleaded for God to hear their pleas… they couldn’t ascend. They were trapped.

  Now, I’ll spare you the gory details of the how’s and the why’s. After all, this story is about one former-something, not three somethings-in-limbo.

  But I say all of this to say that that night in The Big House, Lucifer found himself at the threshold of… something. Something like a pastime that a something (or two…) (or three?) had drummed up in their exile…

  ...

  Legend also has it that that threshold was the backdoor of The Big House.

  And that to get there, Lucifer had to chase that wispy, purple haze up, up, up—up staircases that appeared out of thin air and through the doors that sat at the tops of them.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  And that he then had to go down, down, down—down through conveniently peeled up floorboards, burrowing through crawlspaces that surely should not have existed.

  And that by the time the sliver of something ran out of his sight for the last time, Lucifer was absolutely and completely whumphed*; doubled over, lungs working overtime, sweat dripping into his squinting eyes. But nonetheless, he stumbled on, following it around the corner.

  Around that corner was a door, and that door was worn and torn, hanging onto its hinges by thoughts and prayers. As Lucifer approached it, it slowly swung out toward the night, creaking with a teasing little moan, beckoning him out into the unknown.

  Then, just as he reached the doorway, hand outstretched to close the door back, the door abruptly slammed shut. It was a maneuver that Lucifer, were he born yesterday, might have dismissed as a work of the wind.

  But Lucifer, having been around the block a few times, just shook his head. With his arms crossed and eyebrow arched high, he turned around and leaned back against the door, ignoring the prompt jabs of the ‘wind’ beating against the wood.

  “Is this the best you’ve got?” He asked, blasé, but loud enough for that something to hear through the gaps in the wood. Lucifer tutted, flexing his hand to examine his nail beds. “A bit trite, if you ask me.”

  As if in reply, the door was ripped right out of the frame and up into the ether, exposing Lucifer’s back to the elements.

  But Lucifer, unperturbed, simply shrugged his arms into his tunic as a particularly oppressive gust of wind blasted against his skin. It froze every cell in the man’s body, but still, he locked his eyes on the wall ahead, spread his legs in a grounding stance, and called through his chattering teeth, “U-upping the ante, are we? That’s more l-like it.”

  And in no uncertain terms, its reply came in the form of a second punch of wind, this time, rushing from deep within The Big House, charging right into Lucifer’s chest. He was stun locked while the warring winds forced him this way then that, blowing his senses to the wayside as they did.

  What felt like a torturous hour wasn’t even a full minute; it was only a matter of seconds before the wind that was blowing him backwards won, sweeping him up and out to The Big House’s backyard, where he was tossed about like a tumbleweed.

  The wind proceeded to rough him up in the most angelic way possible. It blessed him with a new round of holes in his tunic (courtesy of the sharpened tips of the candy cane fencing), lavished him in a faceful of powderpuff flower fluff (which was more moisturizing than it had any right to be), and finally gifted him with a throat coated with cotton candy (“Cough cough!”).

  On and on he went, until—

  Slap!

  A deluge of… something splattered on him from above. It was thick, so heavy that it overpowered the force of the wind, immediately slamming Lucifer down to the ground. The substance slicked his hair to his face, completely obstructing his vision. It was alarmingly warm, oddly fragrant, and… Lucifer experimentally smacked his lips.

  Tangy?

  “What on earth?” Lucifer mumbled. He wiped his face clear (and may or may not have licked his fingers clean) then looked up to the skies to find the culprit.

  And.

  “What on earth?”

  Lucifer had to wipe his eyes again. Because unless they were deceiving him, there was a n-foot tall, golden mass of iridescent essence floating overhead, cloaked in the most luxurious gray-furred robe he’d seen in all of his days. And it was munching on a chicken wing absolutely slathered in barbecue sauce.

  It was humanoid from the neck down, with two arms and legs, and enough of a torso to support the luxurious gray-furred robe draped on its shoulders. But instead of a head, it boasted an eye the size of a head, which was rolling back in ecstasy, completely unaware of the mess it was causing down on the ground.

  But rather than gasp, start, or scream, our good ol’ Lucifer knew exactly what to do.

  He waited.

  He sat up against the fence, crossed his arms, and watched as the creature floated closer to The Big House. He leaned in as it descended into the garden, head tilting as its aura, decidedly not purple, vanished. There was a blinding flash of light, after which the figure reappeared, zapped down to his size.

  He figured then that the angel would turn around, hand held to its nonexistent mouth in feigned surprise. “Oh my! I didn’t see you there, dear human!” It would get closer, the tail ends of its essence would involuntarily curl up in interest. “Might I interest you in… an adventure?”

  Lucifer scoffed. He knew their type better than he knew himself. Any second now, he knew a bogus New Task notification would thwack him in the face, something along the lines of:

  [New Task!

  Objective: Retrieve Angel #23462’s Laundry

  Reward: 0.00007HP

  Do you accept?]

  But as it approached the doorway and no such message appeared.

  Could I be mistaken…? He gnawed on the inside of his cheek as it entered The Big House, tossing the chicken bone over its shoulder. No. Their kind are too depraved, too predictable. Surely, it’ll come running back this instant.

  But the instant passed. And it didn’t. Instead, it sauntered down the hallway, kicking a pair of flip flops off its feet as it did.

  Alright, 3… 2… and…

  Nothing.

  In fact, just as it hit the corner, Lucifer watched in disbelief as it began shrugging its robe off.

  But before the fur could hit the floor, Lucifer hauled himself to his feet, hollering, “Angel! Wait!”

  The robe froze in midair.

  The glowing hands tightened their grip around it, wrinkling the soft fabric. The haze surrounding its form slowly dimmed, rendering its skin a dull, sickly shade of yellow.

  Without skipping a beat, it pulled its robe back into position then backpedaled down the hallway. Its eye was wide open now, studying Lucifer. It quickly morphed into the back of a bald human head.

  Once the angel stepped out into the yard, it did an about-face, revealing its uncanny visage to Lucifer. Its eyes were too large, its nose too high up, and its lips looked like they would rip at the seams from how widely they were stretched across its face. It stuck its hand out from across the yard, and smiled at Lucifer.

  “Why, hello, my fellow Head Administrator… of The Manager’s Training Epoxy. Fancy seeing you here.”

  Lucifer blinked. The angel blinked back. It nervously clutched its robe closer to its 'skin.'

  “And, ‘angel,’ did you say? Haha, don’t call me angel; I’ll call HR on you!” It gave a stiff, straight-lipped laugh. “Aren’t you going to join the rest of our Head Armitan…er, the rest of our colleagues at The Bayou?”

  “No, not tonight, angel. Actually, if you don’t mind…”

  The angel stiffened. Lucifer paused, puzzled.

  “Angel, I implore you to relax. I’d like only to ask a favor of y—”

  But before he could get another word out, the figure completely disintegrated beneath the robe. The fur dropped immediately, right into the barbecue sauce. And what remained of the angel, just a thin whisper of golden mist, darted back and forth through the air, as if it were panicking.

  Lucifer put his hands up in surrender and slowly brought himself to his feet. “Easy, easy, angel,” he cautioned.

  But it was pointless. One footstep from Lucifer was the only cue the angel needed—in the span of a blink, that golden bit of angel dust darted out of the backyard and into the trees, leaving a dumbfounded Lucifer in its wake.