Si Inday

3:54am

Blood trickled down Inday's forearm as she took a moment to catch her breath.

The chilly morning air made inhaling sting a little bit with every passing beat. The warehouse she found herself in had little to no insulation. Cold metal and rusted poles surrounded her, and the walls offered barely any kind of support that would withstand any sort of minor hurricane. Some parts of the warehouse floor were tiled, but the blood seeped into the open ground to the soil and grass anyway.

The sun was yet to show itself and the warmth it brought with it, but that didn't mean people wouldn't be getting up for bed at all. Life tends to continue, even in the absence of light.

In this part of the land, most people get up after getting an hour or two of sleep. Mothers, fathers, elder siblings, couldn't afford wasting any kind of light of day if they wanted to be able to afford anything good on the table. And eating was one of the only pleasures of life they could afford themselves, so they weren't going to skimp on that.

Inday understood that last bit - the one about eating. She thought about how early the bakery down the street would be opening their doors to sell pandesal today. "I should get some to go with coffee today," she thought, as she slurped down her meal for the night. It stopped squirming, at least.

Blood wasn't Inday's favorite part of the meal, but she wouldn't let anything go to waste. She was too practical for that.

If you asked her, and if she was feeling particularly talkative for that day, she would admit to you that the Liver was actually her favorite part. But she doesn't tell anyone things like that often. In fact, she would opt not telling you that specific bit so she can avoid getting judged for it, maybe. Not a lot of people like liver, you see.

Usually, any cook would gravitate towards the easy parts: the dark meat, the fat, the bone marrow. And while Inday thinks those parts definitely have their merits, she still prefers the nutty and sometimes buttery taste of the liver.

She thought of how versatile it is as an ingredient too - for sauces, pastes, toast, - and she thought of how cheap they price for in the market - you can get a kilo for 70Php. Liver is underrated.

Her meal made a gurgling sound. It was the the muscles settling in. She had to eat faster if she wanted to enjoy her meal a little bit more, although a chewier texture never bothered her. This was purely from a point of luxury. Monsters like her didn't have to pretend they didn't enjoy their meats a bit on the softer side.

When she'd had enough of her meal that was salvageable - she could have the bones, if she were in a pinch. But if she were honest she never really cared for bones much. Inday inspected her clothes for any damages.

She didn't know if other monsters like her had any special tips and tricks, but Inday found that wearing a muted red was more inconspicuous. She used to wear a lot of T-shirts, white ones even, but a friend she knew from her time at the Kampanaryo - the Church organization in the city of Maharlika that homed her for a couple of months - suggested that it would be more practical for Inday to start shifting to halter tops instead.

Inday thought of this as she dusted herself off and wiped her face. "Tala was right about the halter tops," Inday stood from what was left of her meal. She made a circular motion with her right arm, as if stretching her shoulders before the beginning of a workout.

A gust of wind enveloped the inside of the old warehouse. Stray pieces of plywood, and litter, bounced off the yero walls of the building. Inday's skin felt colder as the morning air moved around her. She lengthened the span of her wings, testing its extent. The haze of the newly arrived sunlight seeped through a hole in the roof of the building.

This light was suddenly shrouded by her wings' rubbery, almost see-through skin, giving the inside of the warehouse a pink hue. Inday took a few inhales as she adjusted each wing, kind of like putting on a new glove and bending your fingers a few times to see how well it fits.

In her hurry to get back before the townsfolk fully woke up, she almost missed the brown, tattered, wallet on the floor. It was easy to miss since it's owner was thrown around so casually when Inday had her meal. Dust stuck onto the wallet's exterior, along with blood that had partially seeped into its faux leathery fabric.

You see, Inday was hungry. This was true. And she initially came here for a meal, which she already got.

But Inday also wasn't the kind of person to let things go to waste. People who didn't grow up with much understand that hunger talks in a different language, and she wasn't going to pretend she had the moral high ground for anything. She did just murder a man, after all. And now, she was also taking the cash from his wallet.

There wasn't much going on inside, really. Crumpled up receipts from convenience stores for LIGHT cigarettes, about 750Php in cash, a picture cut-out of a sexy lady from a magazine, a rewards card for a popular mall chain, and receipts for an ATM card that surprisingly amounted to 300,000Php in savings.

Inday tried not to look at the graduation photo of a kid that she found hidden behind one of the rewards cards.

"Hopefully he set up his bank account properly," she thought as she pocketed the cash for herself. She wasn't going to touch the ATM card, although she did make sure the code for it wasn't written on a scrap piece of paper anywhere in the wallet. When she didn't find anything, she threw the wallet back onto the ground, and took one last look at the mess she made. When some of the townsfolk inevitably find this scene later, the first witness would mutter a prayer after the initial shock sets in. But for now, as Inday makes her way to leave, all she offers is a half-felt apology.

The pathetic excuse for walls that the warehouse had shook at the strides her wings took. By now, the chill of the morning air was combatted by the warmth of the light of the morning sun.

Inday lifted her frame off the muddy floor with the same amount of force someone her stature would need for one push-up, but faster and with the intention of never touching the ground at all.

The fragile-looking, and almost see-through taut part of the skin of her wings, betrayed the amount of muscle mass it made up in each appendage. The stickiness Inday felt on her clothes was immediately dried out by the breeze she caused, and the dim shade offered by the warehouse she was in was drown out by the now unobstructed harsh sun.

The world was now awake. It was time to pretend she just woke up with it.