Miguel had always known something was different about him. Despite considering himself very excellent at his job as a Watcher, he didn't confide or rely on his own when he himself was a young kid.

Great people, they were. His peers were generally pleasant as well. They all did their best to be supportive, kind individuals. Lack of effort was never the issue.

Miguel, 14 years old, sat on the floor of his bedroom in concentration. His Watchers had long gone to bed and the locked door ensured none of his siblings would be barging into his room.

His eyes, normally a pretty dark hue of brown, begun to shine a chestnut color as he dug through the depths of his brain, searching for what felt like a box he knew but couldn't quite reach.

He'd been experimenting with astral projection for a few months now. It was mandated that all schools teach curriculum educating on the different experiences beings go through, and for Miguel, as an angel, he would be able to freely project different people, ideas, feelings, and memories once mastering his capabilities. But at this young age, it was considered very dangerous for him to explore the depths of his growing mind so deeply.

Miguel threw his head back, a sickly cracking sound reverberating from his neck as a grunt left his lips. Lips that quivered as his crossed legs convulsed uncontrollably.

His chestnut lit eyes suddenly burst open as a beam of darkness escaped his orbs. He tumbled backward until his shoulder painfully bumped into the bed as he stared at whatever being he'd just created.

Inhuman skin, black as lava rocks, sitting on top of exposed, deformed bones. Miguel could only see its back from this angle. Two gaping wounds were visible along each of its shoulder blades, blood leaking down and dripping onto the rug. It made a huffing sound as it turned around, sounding defeated and void of life.

"Who are you?" Miguel asked it, shakily standing up from the floor.

His temples sweat as their eyes connected. Slightly scared, Miguel couldn't help feeling like their meeting was meant to happen.

Its long, untamed hair hung down its back. It looked at Miguel for a moment, perhaps pondering how it wanted to proceed, before emitting a low snarling noise from the echoey chambers of its throat.

"I need to know," Miguel said more firmly. "You're inside me. I need to know who you are."

The angel's words stopped the creature from growling. It stared at him again, this time much more intensely. Reading him, feeding on his energy, contemplating its next move.

It took a step forward. Then it decided Miguel was worthy of responding to, finally answering his question.

"I'm exactly what you're afraid of, Mige."

The monster then unlatched its enormous jaw, bones breaking loudly and expanding nearly a foot with rows of spiky teeth to match, before chomping down inches away from Miguel's face.

Sickened, horrified, yet still quick on his feet, Miguel managed to evade the massive bite by jumping to the side, rolling onto the other side of the room as the projection snapped its head in his direction with an angry hiss.

Miguel looked it in its dead eyes. Chestnut.

"No," he whispered.

It unleashed his jaw again, tongue erupting from between its teeth as it wrapped around Miguel's ankle and tugged.

Without missing a beat, Miguel snatched his pocket knife out of his pants, swiftly opening it and slicing straight through the monster's thick tongue. It let out a screech of pain that Miguel could feel in his stomach. Blood, black as its skin spurted all over the room from the slice.

"Get out of my goddamn head!" Miguel spat at the beast as it scrambled to the corner in agony, wailing. "I wanted to talk and help each other, but you're a freak beyond fixing."

The monster continued to wail as it hid itself beneath the empty space under his bed. Sounding alien at first, it quickly begun to sound more and more like normal crying. Miguel cautiously walked around his bed, trying to get a peak at it while still preparing for a fight left unfinished.

"Please," a broken voice whispered, "I'm just afraid."

Miguel's heart dropped, bent down to see between the crevice under his bed. There, the "monster" laid, exposed and exhausted, crumbled in the corner as it sobbed.

It... looked human. As he stared at it— at them— he was in disbelief. They looked up at him, eyes watery and red. Chestnut eyes.

"I just want to protect myself," they cried with lips wet from tears and snot. "I'm not strong like you."

"I'm exactly what you're afraid of," Miguel said, never straying from their gaze.

Their face expressed a feeling of being understood as it softened a bit before nodding. They groaned again.

"My back hurts. It hurts so badly I can't think of anything but the pain."

Miguel noticed the same wounds on their back. It was the only element of the creature that had stayed the same.

"What happened to you?"

They whimpered, gazing up at him with eyes full of sorrow. "You didn't learn," he whispered.

"Didn't learn what?" Miguel leaned in closer.

Trembling, they clutched the rail beneath his bed for support as they both grew nearer to one another.

"Bones," they murmured, eyes wide as canisters, "can only break so many times before they turn to dust."

They gripped Miguel's shirt, tugging him face to face. "You've got no legs to lean on, anymore."

Then, that same treacherous jaw unlatched from its hinges alongside hundreds of pointed teeth. Miguel should've tried to flee, should've punched the monster in its deformed face or dodged its hungry gullet, but that same feeling returned in his gut.

He was meant to meet this monster. This monster was his home. This monster was him.

Moments later, its long tongue emerged and began to lick its canines dry, one of Miguel's detached, chestnut eyeballs neglected on the ground serving as the only evidence of his presence now gone. It had consumed him.

Or, rather, he'd find out, he'd consumed himself.