Cassie's Corpse

Chapter 3

If there was anything I hated more than eating, it was going to the bathroom. Disgusting food forced down my throat only to come out later, and to what end? Logically I knew that humans had to eat, but Nicolai  told me that most of them didn't eat healthy, whatever that meant. So I decided to not eat and just tell people that I did. No food in, no food out.
  As little as I liked humanity, I liked Heaven even less. Humanity, at least, had its lows (eating, urination, horrid noise,) and highs (books, music, family). Angels were unthinking, unfeeling, nothing between the lines. They were programmed for a decisive, single purpose, and what did I do? Rewired their God-damned circuit boards, and now Heaven was in a whole festering shit pile of trouble. (Excuse the language. Nicolai taught me. He said humans used it to 'spice up' their words. Why did words need spices? I thought they spiced food. And how would one salt and pepper a sentence, anyway? But I digress.)
  I read Cassie's journals, which lead me to believe that she suffered from some type of mental disorder. She seemed hopeless, sad, and utterly alone. Ha. And look at me. Maybe I could do a better job of playing her than I thought. One of her poems reads:
I dream of broken butterflies
Whose wings are torn and plain
I wait in my bed each night
Until they come again
Because these broken butterflies
You see
So lost and colors grayed
Remind what it is again
To have to face the day.
  I didn't really understand it, but I didn't have to. Digging through her memories, however clouded they were, taught me the three things that writing, according to her, needed:
Warmth, conflict, and humanity. The warmth and conflict I could do. Humanity, not so much.
  I pulled out a blank journal from the stack of used ones and flipped to the first page.
Entry 1
I guess this is my journal now. Cassie's memories tell me that it is very private. Maybe I shouldn't have read her journals.
.............
What do I do now? Maybe this can be like prayer. I can talk to God. Not actual God, of course, because at this point I don't think anything out there is listening, but my God. The all-powerful, kind, universe-personified deity, the one who was so real before he wasn't. Before I killed him for lying. It's worth something, right?
...........
Father, I haven't seen you in a while.
It's getting harder.
When will the tears drown out my smile?
I fell down here,
So very far,
Burned through the atmosphere.
Father, please forgive me.
Can you even hear me up there?
Or am I all alone now,
In a world so heavy?
Father, are we any better,
Than the demons whispering to me?

  I reread my writing and laughed half-heartedly, leaning back in my desk chair. Hello, my name is Varielle. I am a timeless multidimensional celestial life-form and I write cheesy poetry.
  Tucking the journal away in a drawer, I flicked off the lamp light and crawled up to the bed. Reese was listening to music on her phone, and it was turned up so loud I could hear the faint strings of Eleanor Rigby singing through the speakers.
  That music lulled me to sleep and I drifted, in that serene state between conscious and something else, when a loud noise startled me from my dreams.
  Shooting to a sitting position, I swung my gaze around the pitch-black room. The only source of light was coming from the foggy window, and with mounting horror I noticed a handprint on the glass. A thin handprint, with long spindly fingers that dragged down the glass and water drops dripping along the edge.
  I willed my heart to stop pounding, but it's not as easy as humans seem to think. Taking a breath, I slowly cocooned myself in my blanket and lay there for what seemed like hours, terrified to stillness.
  I didn't hear it again, but in my head I felt a scratching. 
  Laughing.