There is a certain stillness of mind prevalent upon finding something out of place when it has grown ingrained to a person to the point of muscle memory.

It leaves us quickly but shatters our routine.

Our autonomous parts of our mind conflicts with our conscious mind which is focused on the anomaly it had found.

Oscar twirled around looking around the floor of his room. A flush of panic grew as he felt a chill in his gut as if he was falling. He remembered the shell falling yesterday, clattering on the floor, but had not been in a mind to pay it any heed.

He hastily closed his medallion and clumsily jumbled it into his pocket as he combed the floor with his eyes.

‘It couldn’t have gotten far’ he thought to himself as he went to his knees.

Oscar crawled around and searched beneath the bed next to the window, but found nothing. Fear became prevalent as he hastily scampered next to the writing table to peer behind it, where a small gap was between the table and the half wall that turned into the sloped roof.

In his panic fuelled panic his knee struck the table's edge. Oscar hissed in pain as pain flickered in his knee and the table slightly inched closer to the wall upon impact.

He dragged him forward to the former gap while shaking his leg that numbed over.

Oscar dragged the table further away from the wall, revealing dust and a shell he had been looking for. He grasped it and looked it over carefully, fearing the table to have broken it upon drifting closer, but found only some scratches.

His upper body slumped against the wall in relief and he let himself slump against the wall, the sea shell tightly in his grasp as his back leaned against the wall in respite. Oscar's beating heart and mind calmed shortly after.

He stayed leaning against the wall for some time, allowing the calm to soothe him as he watched the shadows grow, soon dinner would be served. But for now, he remained idle.

He had been anxious these few days, weeks even if he thought back. It had gnawed and tore his mentality for a while now, cumulating in yesterday's outburst. So, he remained there, in a moment where nothing was wrong.

A calm he did not wish to shatter.

Finally he decided to bring the shell to his ear to bring an end to his inaction.

With closed eyes he listened in, anticipating the whispers.

But only silence followed. The shell was inert, for the first time in his possession. He opened his eyes and the now familiar world of white and black did not come.

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His heartbeat grew erratic once again as he took the shell and carefully inspected it for damage he might’ve missed.

He was stumped and felt panic rise again, as he tried again to listen.

Silence.

Oscar remained motionless keeping the shell to his ear, listening carefully but heard nothing, not even the echo of the sea.

‘It watches’

A whisper escaped from the shell. Barely audible.

It sounded lucid for the first time he had heard, shaking Oscar to the core, he jerked violently into attention and stayed completely still, continuing to listen fearful he had misheard.

‘it is looking’

Goosebumps flared over Oscar’s skin as the raspy wary voice continued. The voice sounded almost reverent, seemingly speaking to itself rather than Oscar.

‘it sees’

‘what have you -’

The voice in the shell died suddenly. A dissolving static screamed from the shell, causing Oscar to drop the shell from the sudden assault on his hearing.

The static was audible from afar from where it fell, near the window.

His window began to emit a glow in the now dusk-dark room, and he heard a commotion outside. He struggled up, avoiding his numb yet painful leg and limped to the window in an odd blank-like listless state.

Outside was brighter than it should be, with people on their windows looking. Up.

His eyes rose to meet the sight of gently dancing aurora borealis in the sky.

It covered the whole sky in its green hue.

Entranced by the suddenness, the shock of the events unfolding, Oscar watched the lights in the sky.

They began to slowly swirl, before feeling a presence in the happening. One familiar to him.

‘it’ the voice from the shell drifted over the static, garbled and distorted.

‘is’

‘Here’

A suffocating smell of overripe cherries washed over the room, impairing Oscar’s nose. He felt its presence.

From behind.

Heavy and in focus, on him. The indifferent gaze of… Something.

Slowly, nervously he began to turn. It felt like a lifetime, all the fears of expectations rushing through his mind.

His room had changed.

Where he was standing, next to the window was the same as before, but beyond it had expanded slowly from his location. Till his visitor was able to fit where it was.

Blankly Oscar looked.

A human, no a humanoid, with feminine figure, hovered in his attic room with wings of a dove unfolded. It felt off-putting despite its seeming beauty of ‘her’ lithe figure and flawless white skin. It felt, unrealistic. Too perfect for being real, in an almost alien way. Like it had created itself, to represent it in a way familiar to him but unable to fully grasp the ideas.

It had the figure, the skin, pure white long hair reaching its waist that slowly drifted in the air.

But the figure looked artificial, the muscles beneath the alabaster skin without flaws felt like they had no purpose beyond being there in the right places to give it form. No veins marred its body, and it was far too smooth.

Its body was covered in a dress of dull white light in physical form which edges acted more like mist than anything physical. It did not seem to truly fulfill any function as it was mostly seen through, leaving nothing up to imagination. More to mayhaps fulfill an afterthought of regarding human modesty as a concept.

It had a sex, modest growths of fat in the right places and labium, but despite seemingly flawless, seemed decorative in nature and more to give the entity its desired form.

A lithe face following the gold ratio to almost mathematical accuracy carried its drifting white hair, yet this was the place its otherworldliness manifested in truth, it’s face held no mouth, no eyes, nostrils or ears despite all the muscle, bone structure, cartilage and fat being in place giving it a perfect face with only skin covering where the parts of the face were supposed to be.

It felt like the entity did not truly understand the function these features were linked to it, as if the being observed the world completely differently than a human and failed to grasp the idea.

Oscar stared at the most beautiful entity he had seen in his life as it folded in its wings, shrinking the expansion anomaly in the room in the view of Oscar as it no longer needed the room to be expanded to fit its wings.

It descended to the floor gracefully, its feet gently touching the floor. The wood lines around her drew back from her upon contact before forming circles surrounding it.

Its slightly lowered face gently rose to regard Oscar.