Midnight, and I lie awake staring at a cracked ceiling.

The cracks in the plaster form shapes to my weary eyes. Above my head I can see a screaming face, its mouth and eyes dropped in reaction to some unknowable horror, and towards the window I can see a pair of wings attached to a long, wavy crack that reaches all the way over to where the screaming face begins. I like the fact that they are attached to one another, bound in unity for my viewing pleasure every night as I lie in my bed, heart thumping, waiting for her to come to me.

The sky outside has finally faded to black; the familiar colours of blue fading to yellow fading to pink fading to purple have finally disappeared, taking all the memories of daylight with them. I am left in serene solitude that comes from complete emptiness as I lie here in the dark, my poisoned soul aching for the warmer familiarity of day. I sternly suppress its shaking sobs and turn expectantly to my window.

And she appears.

I remember the first time she came to me. I was lying just as I am now, my eyes turning over the meaningless objects that filled the room, filled my life. I turned in my bed, restless from endless hours of absolute nothingness, and came face to face with my own reflection in the mirror that hangs adjacent to my bed. She stared at me sadly, wistfully, her soft hazel eyes full of disappointment, her lips curled down in an eternal frown that forced that terrible, immovable ache deep down inside into one small facial expression, contained, almost concealed. And all I could think of was how I had let her down, how every last trace of her innocence had been torn from her, and how I would never again see my true reflection.

On that night, like every other, I closed my eyes tightly and pulled my pile of heavy blankets over my head, protecting me from the tormented creature that lay behind the mirror. I couldn’t stand to see her there every night, looking at me so accusingly, knowing that it was I who tore her from what she knew, what she loved.

As I felt the emotional wave about to wash over me, I heard the tinkling sound of my wind-chime, slightly muffled through the three layers of blankets, and I froze.

After waiting a few moments, I heard nothing more, and slowly pushed the covers down, looking over to where the wind-chime was still swaying. Standing in an aura of hazy moonlight was a ghostly pale creature, like nothing I had ever seen before. Standing there by my window and smiling, just smiling, while I struggled to sit up, my body suddenly heavier than I had ever felt it before. I eventually managed to slump against the headboard, my gaze unable to move from the feminine wisp of beauty that had fallen into my line of sight.

Completely immobile, I simply stared as she moved towards me with an unearthly grace, only vaguely registering the enormous wings that protruded from the back of her slender figure. As she came closer, I could see that these wings were unlike the feathery, soft wings of angels; her ‘feathers’ were strips of metal curled at the edges, each individual piece shining a dull rainbow of colour, making up the steely wings of my midnight visitor.

She stopped as she reached the end of my bed, and slowly raised her head to meet my transfixed gaze. Her eyes were vast depths of unfathomable darkness, and as I looked into them I felt an intense moment of pain, like something inside me had broken. I opened my mouth to cry out in pain, but a white translucent light came out instead. It hovered above me for a second, and then floated gently into the smiling figure, illuminating her completely with my pain, my thoughts, my essence. It radiated from her like a beacon of truth, and though I was frozen, my heart pulled, as if trying to reach out to her. She, not needing words to understand, climbed onto the bed beside me, her haunting smile never leaving her face.

I tried to speak but the words would not form in my slack, useless mouth. Her gaze rose from my quivering form and looked again into my eyes, and a slow, tingling warmth spread all over my body. Looking into those ethereal orbs, my pain intensified like never before; I craved her, with a fire that was burning everything on the inside.

In her silent understanding, she smiled tenderly, and lifted her porcelain hand. I followed it with hungry eyes as she brushed her finger softly along my forearm. Where her finger touched my skin, it cracked and blistered, and hot blood rushed to kiss the cool of the night air. I felt no pain, only tremendous release, and a tear fell unwilled down the side of my heated cheek.

Her hand moved over me again, and I felt her razorblade touch caressing my shoulder, slicing scarlet slits across them like an unfinished game of noughts and crosses. A single trickle of blood ran down my arm, and she propped herself up and leant over me, her enormous bladed wings furling around the two of us as her lips met the trickling drop of crimson. Each strand of her silky hair severed into my sides as it fell across my naked body, and her kiss seared into my arm as I shed another tear, inwardly breaking down at her acts of selfless love to me, the most undeserving of them all.

The next morning I awoke, blinded by the golden rays that fill my room with a light I never ask for. Then I remembered what miracle came to me in the night, and I slowly pulled myself from my bed, and faced the mirror I once dreaded. Slowly, I stretched out my arms as if they were wings, and raised myself onto my tiptoes; and for the first time in the longest while, I saw my true self. Cut after cut, burn after burn, I saw them all. The girl in the mirror smiled back at me as she saw what was given so freely in night, a dozen red reminders of the truest love there ever was.

She has become my reason for living; now all my days drift by in an idle haze, all my empty hours spent aching for her with a painful eagerness. Tears no longer fall, my lips no longer frown, and even though there is nobody to see me, I dress to conceal every gift she ever gave.

But when the day fades from purple to pink to yellow to blue, I undress and wait for the sky to fade to black, staring at the ceiling as I do now, doing no more than appreciating the fact that the screaming face and the pair of wings are bound together on my ceiling.