The pigeons are crying again.

Louder at night. Always at night.

Like they’re right at my window, their black eyes watching. I pull the covers over my head, waiting for silence. But then—

God calls my name.

Lightning. A flicker through the dark. And He is there.

He speaks of the Devil. Of his plans. Hell, He says. The world will turn into Hell. But the pigeons are still crying, and His voice swims in and out—radio static. I catch only what matters.

He has chosen me.

_Me_.

Because I am the only one who can stop it. The only one who can set things right.

The demons are already here, He says. Six of them. Hiding in human skin. He tells me the first name.

My father.

_Charles Cortez_.

My heart hammers.

I have wanted to kill him for so long it aches. He has hated me for reasons I cannot name—reasons that stretch back to the night my mother left. My fifth birthday. Cake splattered on the floor, his voice ripping through the walls. And later, after she tucked me in, I saw her leaving. The suitcase. The silence.

I have always blamed him. He drove her away. He turned our house into a graveyard. It only makes sense, then, that he is one of them.

But what does that make me?

The child of a demon.

I do not sleep. The pigeons quiet before dawn. The sky melts into nutmeg and old bruises as I slip out of bed and into the kitchen. I am not real. My fingers curl around the dullest knife we own.

I tiptoe into his room. Step around the bottles. One still in his hand as he sleeps.

I stand over him. I stare for a long time.

Then—

The knife finds his stomach. Again. Again. _Again_.

The world spins too fast. A carousel I cannot escape. Blood is on my hands. So much blood.

A crack of lightning. I look up. God is waiting.

I ask Him if I have done it.

He smiles. Then He speaks the next name.

And the cold rushes in. Like Antarctica washing over the room.

_Charles Cortez Jr._

Me.

The knife trembles. My throat tightens.

“But I’ll make it to heaven, right?” I whisper.

“There’s enough room for everyone.” He says.

So I raise the knife. Press it to my skin. And I do what I have to.

Again. _Again_. Until I hit the floor. Until my hands are weak. Until I can’t do it anymore.

-

_Such a quiet place._

__

_Such an understanding pace._

_Such little hands, and_

_Such little fate._

__

_Such tears, such wait._

_Such blood, so quaint._

_Such evil, God so faint._

_Such little love, and_

__

_Such little fate._

__

_-_