???

As you leave your friend's apartment, you see an envelope taped to the front of her door. You carefully tear it off, wondering if it is for your friend. There is no address, and only a folded note inside, smoothly folded but hastily torn out of the notebook it was presumably written in.

However, as you begin to read the note, you become aware of It. Or is it Them? However many there are, they are watching you. You can't tell what it is- an icy stare meant to deter you? Perhaps a curious stare, like a child watching a cat play?

You can't be sure. You open the note.

It would not be right to call them monsters. "Monster" implies that it is their lot in life to hurt humans. Yet it would not be right to call them "humans", either. They are decidedly not. They are not even "people". I do not mean that they are lesser than what I do consider "people"- rather, that they are different, and perhaps higher than "people". So I call them "angels"- they who watch.

I do not know their purpose, but I know that I am sensitive to the presence of angels. They stalk the halls of humanity, blending in with the humans here. They intermingle with humans almost exclusively. However, their goal always seems to be to socially isolate them, among packs of other angels. Like a pack of wolves surrounding its prey, but not yet tearing into it. Or perhaps, like a cult who alters a person's very being.

Whenever any large number of them are bunched up, they always have a human with them. It seems they'll even work together, in groups of as many as ten, to isolate a human.

And it seems lately, that their watching eyes have found me. Surely I can't be the only person who knows about the angels.

...

To be fair, this might just be a grudge. I had a close friend, who I moved to the city with. I didn't want to be his everything, but I wanted to remain in his life. He was such a kind person. I felt lucky to be his friend. But ever since she came into his life, all of the time we spent together was suddenly replaced with her. She demanded all of his attention. When I asked if I could spend time with them together, as friends, he claimed that she would get mad about it. When I finally met her, she was cold to me, as though I was some kind of threat. And now he and I barely ever speak.

She was an angel. And as I observed more and more, I saw other angels do the same.

I don't think I'm angry enough to kill her. Though, if I learned that she'd ever hurt him, I might do something that cruel. Maybe I just want to learn the truth.

You pocket the note. Perhaps it's for your friend living in the apartment, but for some reason you don't want to give it to her.