I closed my eyes for five hot seconds…
A giant vertical slit opens in front of me extending to floor and ceiling and beyond them both, banishing the physical world into an alternate dimension as the slit widens to reveal a vertical eye. As the blue and white and black rayed pupil (larger than an SUV hubcap) lowers to focus on my face, eight rays of white and gold glory shoot out from the eye (four on each side) and transform into eight glowing wings of solid light inner feathers and golden pinions.
Everything else becomes blacker than black as my vision adjusts to the emanations of glory from the vertical eye. I can’t see anything else other than it. It stares at me. I stare at it. Finally, I say the only thing I can say in these circumstances.
“What the fuck you want and was this entrance really necessary?”
The eye blinks. The iris expands slightly then contracts to focus on me again. “I wanted to check in on you and I rather like this entrance.” I felt the voice in my ear, but heard no sound.
“Oh. Thanks. I haven’t been too well lately. Guess I haven’t hidden it as well as I thought.” I laugh. “It is an awesome entrance. I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you. Do I know you?”
The iris narrows. “You don’t recognize me?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess you don’t know me.” From the tone and the way the iris’ aperture bounced between narrow and open, I could tell the entity was enjoying kir joke at my expense.
I rolled my own eyes. “Ass. That kind of literal reply puts you in a certain class of troublemakers. I’ll have to throw mud at [K*] for it later.”
Kir mirth ended. “What makes you think I am of its station or realm?”
What an interesting pronoun ke just used. Hmm. “You’re emanating glory. You appear as a giant eyeball with eight … oh. Wing count matters.”
“Yes.” The eight wings straightened out in formal affair before returning to their half-cocked relaxed state.
I spread my hands in a show of ignorance. “I am truly at a loss then. All the angels I know have 6 wings or less. Even the lord, despite appearing with no wings, only had 6 arms. So, either you’re a higher class of angel… Or you’re not an angel at all and are using this form to snoop on me without throwing me into a paranoid downward spiral.”
“Your chosen language limits you. But this I will tell you plainly, what you call glory can not be counterfeited. It can be mimicked and implied to fool those that can not see. But to those with eyes to see, glory can not be counterfeited.”
“God damn it.” I scrunched my face at the pronouncement.
“This angers you?”
“What you just hit on. It’s a topic that has been bugging me for a while.”
“Ah. Then consider this a reminder to investigate it further. I shall leave you to your wiles. I see you are whole and in control of yourself.”
“You’re still not going to tell me who you are?”
“I am…”
I waited for the rest of the sentence that the tonal structure of the initial two words implied was coming. The iris suddenly widened to maximum aperture and the darkness from within the orb spilled out and devoured all the light that was present. I was able to see through this darkness however, and noted the eye was watching my reaction intensely. Using the darkness as a filter, I saw something that the glare from the glory had hidden. At the wrist of each wing was another eye, open and focused on me. Too bad the darkness destroyed all color, leaving me only with a grayscale perception.
My face and posture betrayed I had seen the side eyes. They all closed as the wings folded in on themselves and the emanations of light and glory ceased. The main eye closed, leaving a vertical seam of light that drew in on itself leaving me in complete darkness.
I blinked and I was back in my room.
Five. Damn. Seconds.
And that quick, I have homework. Fuck.