It was a Tuesday, or maybe a Wednesday. The days had a habit of blurring into a comfortable, predictable rhythm for you. Tonight was no different. Dinner, a mundane microwaved affair, was a distant memory. Now, sprawled on the sofa, laptop warm on their thighs, you were idly scrolling through the usual digital detritus – newsfeeds, video clips, the endless churn of online chatter. The low hum of the refrigerator was a familiar counterpoint to the click of the trackpad. Outside, the city murmured its usual nocturnal song, a distant siren briefly wailing before fading away.

A pleasant haze of satisfaction and mild fatigue still clung to you from an earlier, more private session of intense focus. That particular wave had crested and receded, leaving behind a languid calm. Now, it was just about winding down, letting the mind drift, perhaps queueing up another episode of that show everyone was talking about before succumbing to sleep. The curtains were drawn, the world outside held at bay. It was, in every sense, an ordinary, innocuous night in.

A sudden, inexplicable chill snaked through the room, raising goosebumps on your arms despite the ambient warmth. The faint hum of the laptop fan seemed to falter for a microsecond. You blinked, attributing it to a draft, though no windows were open. You shifted on the sofa, about to reach for the throw blanket draped over the armrest.

That’s when the shadows in the far corner of the room seemed to deepen, to writhe, to coalesce. It wasn’t a sudden appearance, more like a slow, impossible unfurling. One moment there was just a dimly lit corner, the next, there was her. Her ethereal beauty was undeniable, a shocking counterpoint to the mundane setting of your living room, but it was overlaid with something new, something... heavier. Her wings, no longer pristine celestial white but shadowed at the tips, tinged with the purples and greys of twilight, rustled almost silently as they settled. The divine light that you might have once imagined around such a being was dimmer, more like a bruised aura, or perhaps absent altogether, replaced by an unnerving, focused intensity in her eyes – eyes that were fixed solely on you.