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He had apologized to Chayanne for this already, back in the bleak maze of andesite and quartz, unable to reach his son's treasured floatie:
"I'm sorry your dad's a fucking idiot, Chayanne."
And he was, wasn't he? Maybe not an idiot for failing to work through whatever puzzle was inside the maze—even Cellbit had seemed to hit a dead end—but certainly an idiot now, for allowing himself to be tricked so easily, for allowing himself to be led out here without a backup plan.
Shuddering sobs overcome every breath Phil tries to take until his lungs grow painfully tight with tears. Phil's knees slam against the smooth and shining quartz as his legs give out from underneath him, cracking painfully against the hard surface. His arms cross to wrap around his waist until they reach his folded wings underneath his black jacket, fingers curling into the clipped feathers there and tensing around the shafts.
"Enjoy the island, enjoy the... no, no, no, no," Phil repeats, like a mantra, though he's not sure whether he's pulling himself back from the brink of some regrettable action or if he's still in stark disbelief at his own foolishness. "My eggs... where are my eggs?"
Cucurucho's footsteps have long since disappeared, though Phil wouldn't be surprised if it was watching him even now. The thought of that makes his heart leap back into his throat, striking him with such sudden nausea that Phil leans his head against the floorboards, gagging as he still struggles to take a single breath. Unwinding from his wings, his palms press against the wooden walls in front of him, fingers digging into the wooden planks until splinters dig into his skin and split the callused flesh underneath his broken fingernails, sending rivulets of blood down the scarred skin of his arms. In a messy flourish, with a furious snarl that catches on another sob, Phil rips the constricting black jacket off his body before it can suffocate him. Its gold buttons clink together as Phil flings the bloody fabric across the room, wings bursting from the slits in his white undershirt and flaring out behind him in a painful over-extension of his muscles.
"Let me out!" he screeches, throat tearing with every word. His words travel up into the high ceilings, bouncing back down into his ringing ears. "Where are my eggs, you said they'd be here, you said—you fucking bastards, give me my eggs back!"
Not even sunlight filters into this space, the dark blocks in front of the reinforced door preventing any light from reaching Phil, let alone any hope of escape. When Phil's hands have finished their path down from the wall to the blood-slick quartz floor, he presses his burning hands against the cool, smooth surface. His freshly-bruised knees creak as he forces his legs to hold him up, listing as his aching wings try to send him crashing back down again.
Movement becomes easier with every step, until it's impossible to stop moving. Just in case, just to hold onto that one fluttering feather of hope that still drifts within Phil's empty chest. He screams the names of his children as he scales every floor of this birdhouse, checking every cage just in case there are two eggs buried somewhere underneath the piles upon piles of boxes.
"Chayanne, please, please." Pleas spill from Phil's lips in a looping chant of desperate prayer, lifting up the final cage despite already knowing from the weight that his kid isn't stuck inside. All of these cages are meant for hummingbirds, anyways. He had just hoped...
A feather breaks away from his ragged wings and drifts down, down, down, and takes the last of Phil's hope with it.
It feels like his chest is caving in, his soul a dying star that will continue to fold endlessly inward on itself and never reach the point of supernova. Fresh, furious tears bud in Phil's eyes as he screams and hurls the empty cage across the room, watching it slam against the opposite wall—such a small space, Phil can already feel his chest getting tighter the longer he stays trapped within these four walls—and tumble down to the ground, disrupting the hummingbirds further. The cage lands in front of the door, metal clattering against quartz with an awful piercing sound that makes Phil's ears ring even from where he stands all the way at the top.
There aren't any windows up here. He thought that the light might have been from the sunset, but from up here he sees that there are only ladders and boarded up spaces where windows used to be. Phil stretches trembling hands toward them, only for his bruised and bloody fingers to crumple against the wood as Phil fails to find anything to tear apart.
Wings stretching out, brushing against the walls and then the half-finished floors, Phil floats back down to the ground, boot landing on the open page of the book he had been left to read. He swipes his bloody thumb underneath the single line, wincing as the pressure stings the open wound. "A cage for a cage," he reads again, gripping the book so tightly that the paper crinkles and tears underneath his hands.
"Were you really that scared of me?" he asks quietly, to no one, to Cucurucho, to the Federation that is surely watching his every move. His throat burns with every syllable, cracking under the strain of his anger and his grief. "I've done hardly anything! I intentionally kept myself out of this kind of shit, for exactly this reason. I fucking hate you guys, but I did what you asked. I took care of my kids, my kids—"
Voice shattering, Phil looks up from the torn paper to the articles on either side of the chest. He gathers them both in his arms, holding them as close as he can get. It's their things, their actual things. Phil hadn't been able to tell with the floatie in the maze, had thought it looked too pristine, and this only gives him further heartbreaking confirmation. Chayanne's actual floatie is more than a little scuffed from all the time he's spent running around with it. It's stained with grease from cooking, and there are a few places where tape had to be layered on top of leaks to keep the toy from deflating. Tallulah's hat, too is clearly the one lifted straight from her bed. Strands of curly hair cover the inside of it, and it's stained with dirt and leaves from working on her gardens.
It's all he has left of his family, now. It's all that's left of his kids.
Tears slip off the end of Phil's nose, splashing on the dusty plastic he holds in his hands. The objects in his hands blur in his vision until they become nothing but smears of color. He sinks to the floor again, breath hitching in his throat as he tries to keep himself composed.
"You were that scared of me!" he repeats, this time flinging the words in a furious declaration. "I gave one warning, one small taste of retribution, and this is how you lot respond. You motherfuckers have no idea what I'm going to do to you after I get out, you have no fucking idea! Let me out. Let me out of here right now, and I'll show you what you've been so fucking scared of all along."
He can only hear humming in response to his anguished shouts as hummingbirds continue to flutter around him in their unintentional mockery. Phil realizes, then, that he can't hear a single sound beyond that. These thick wooden walls keep all sound trapped on either side; no one who stumbles upon this place will be able to hear his cries for help from inside this impenetrable cage.
"Just give them back," he begs the birds. Their humming has become a headache-inducing drone, impossible to tune out and impossible to seek comfort in their neverending song. Phil's head pulses with exhaustion, worn out by his own foolish hope, from the gliding and the running, from all the tears he's shed today. All the rage he wants to reach for so badly is draining from his body through the open wounds in his fingertips, a slowly congealing drip of blood and broken keratin.
He hugs what's left of his children close, wrapping what's left of his wings around them. "I swear I'll find you both, I swear," he croaks. "I'm getting us out of here, I'm getting us off this fucking island, Chayanne, Tallulah..."
He chants those words like a litany, like a prayer to a goddess who cannot hear him and children who cannot reach him. The hummingbirds sing to him in a droning choir, drowning out his pleas as Phil is drowned in his own despair.