As the clock was ticking, I sat slumped and moping, eyelids heaving, gazing glassy, looking at the screen. The lore explainer kept explaining, the video kept playing, playing to an audience, uncaring what was seen.

It was in the last hour of that Hallow’s Eve, clock still ticking, no more treats and but scant tricking. There and then I sat defeated, hardly thinking, morosely at my phone still flicking

Yearning and mourning, ideas of holding that cherished one, holding my sweet Lenora, still stewing. Playing and poking, watching and binging attempting to quell the depression brewing.

But the possibility was all but gone, for me it was a joy never to be known. In the pitch dark I sat, the dreary room lit only, and only barely, by how the screens shone.

A knocking at the door sends a jolt through my being, breathing quick and shaking. “Just some children,” only myself reassuring, “but I have no candy for their taking.”

Yawning, frowning from the long torture of the day and more the last few hours was on my mind weighing, Though still that there’d be just one more hour in the day, for the long cruel day to continue, I found myself praying.

I fought and I fought, with all the wherewithal I could bear, even as slumber came for me creeping. My body tiring, but my mind was snarling. I did not feel content now sleeping,

What kept me waking, the taunting terror that I’d never have and hold the one I knew to be my fated wife. Even with hope grown dim, still if not before midnight then it would be for life.

My morose self pitying halted as there came another banging, banging at the door. With this new pounding the whole room trembled, artwork near tumbling to the floor.

“I have nothing for you!” I shouted out as if in self defense, over the back of my chair peering. A bitter wind howled back, even at my desk I took a chill. Unsure, I told myself, “I have nothing to be fearing…”

I stood from my seat, thinking and fretting what might be, with eyes peeled and spirit shaken, On alert, on my toes, gently stepping, my once slumping shoulders now awaken.

There again there was that knocking, was it real or just imagined, whichever it made my heart throb. My trepidation and curiosity spurred, slower, closer I stepped, until my palm came to rest on the knob.

My clammy hand resting on the cold brass, a lump forming in my throat, giving it a gentle turn… Inky blackness, uninterrupted and unshifting, greeted me, gusts of chill air, but suddenly there seems to be something to discern…

“About time! I was freezing my tailfeathers off! You know short shorts are part of the uniform at Pallas's Pizza Palace? You did order a pizza right?”
Right past me a shadow brushes, in the light I can see it as a raven dark as the night. A pizza box goes from his outstretched wing and onto the counter. Remembering that yes I had ordered a pizza I slowly nodded my head as the tightly wound springs of depression, fear, and longing all misfire.
“Hope you don’t mind if I come in for a sec, just gotta warm up a bit.”
He wraps his feathered hands around each slender arm and rubs vigorously. The sleeves of his black polo shirt just cover his shoulders, and clings to his equally tight body. I wanted to say something but it was my fault he was standing out in the frigid cold for so long. Plus the way his aforementioned khaki short shorts left so much of his shapely thighs exposed it seemed cruel to turn him away. Especially the way he was rubbing them together. “You’re probably my last delivery tonight anyway.” He uncovered his arm momentarily, bringing his watch almost to the tip of his beak. “Yup! After midnight, that’s it for me.” He let out a sigh and his posture relaxed as he announced the time.
“You lie! Midnight can’t have come and gone!” I felt myself snap, even my stance exploded forward with accusation.
“Uh yea it is. See?” He twisted his wrist to show the face of his digital watch. The display taunted me, the seconds kept ticking as it showed a minute and a half after midnight. The date display read NOV 1.
“No! Inequity of inequities!” My legs collapsed as did my psyche, it was now officially too late and that would be the death of me.
“Sorry is this like… about the pizza?” He took a step backward and put up his hands defensively, even as I crumpled to the floor. “Like technically it was made yesterday but… it’s not a big deal. Right? It’s still warm even. It would’ve been warmer if you answered the door sooner but…” Still I lay there, no attempt yet to collect myself, better that I stay in my pitiful heap. I had no reason to stand up anymore. “Oh cool, do you play Plutonian Shores too?” He noted the wall scrolls and promptly stepped past me and over to the desk where the lore video was still full screen. “I’ve watched these videos, pretty cool stuff right? Best story I’ve seen in a gacha game. Woah! Look at that! You’ve even got the limited run figure of Lenora!” His light steps brought him over to where it was displayed on my shelf. I could feel his piercing green eyes look back toward me, his question was enough to make me stop heaving but not yet stand back up. “Ooooooh, someone didn’t pull her before the Halloween event ended did they?” He stood there still in front of the shelf, a delicate noise drew my head from its place buried in the crook of my arm. “You didn’t pull her did you?” He had picked up the figure from the shelf and was passing it from hand to hand.
“N-no! Put her down! That's all I have!” I had raised my head, my impassioned cries directed right at him, neck straining from there on the floor. His face was smug and eyes contorted, taunting and laughing.
“You didn’t pull her, did youuuuu??” He approached me and was now waggling the figure in my face, her white and lace dress, her pouty lips, her voluminous bust, all of it was too haunting now.
“Monster! Put her down and get your feathers off her, get out back to the grim night that brought you!”
“O-okay… I’ll put it down, sorry.” He did as he said, stepped back to the place which he took her from, set it down gently, and adjusted her to be angled in the same way she had been. He gripped at his shoulder with a sheepish look on his face. A moment of silence lapsed as he seemed to let the cry reverberate in the now still walls. “Do you still want me to get out and stuff?”

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Pub: 31 Oct 2025 13:04 UTC

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