Chapter Text
You no longer recognized your own face in the bathroom mirror. The crust in your eyes clung stubbornly to your sockets every morning, and you had no time to shave anymore. A scruffy brown mustache sat on your tired face.
After splashing some water on your face, you walked slowly toward the kitchen. You wanted to check if your neighbor’s daughter was alright, but mostly you needed coffee after that night.
Yesterday, the intruder had visited you for the second or maybe third time, and your back was still trembling, its face burned into your retinas. A mix of terror, and something else. You were not completely indifferent to it. You liked the way it spoke.
Aside from the little girl and a lanky man, you were alone in the house, far too scared of letting strangers in. You did not even know why you had let that man in, but at least he kept you company, even with his sour tone.
You had not been able to get the pale intruder from the previous night out of your head, dreading and anticipating its next visit. Almost looking forward to it. For now, though, it could not do much—other than making threats outside the house or delivering menacing speeches between two begging residents, it could not act as long as the man and the girl were still there.
After a dull day spent listening to the radio for information and checking once again on your two residents, you collapsed into bed, your face still hot from the night before, a bad feeling crawling up your spine. You buried your head into the pillow, your ears cushioned by the soft fabric, which was beginning to stain with sweat.
Knock knock.
You woke to a light tapping at the front door. You let out a breath. You had memorized the way that pale bastard knocked, and this was not it, not yet. You turned your head on the pillow and began to get out of bed, your eyes brushing past the window whose curtain you unconsciously and gently drew a few hours ago .
You had to look twice.
The pale figure stood two or three meters from your window, a slight smile on its face, which widened the moment it saw you notice it.
Your heart dropped. Your breath trembled, almost stuttering as you stared at it, frozen, while it tilted its head to the side.
Your fear turned to disgust, and you finally stood up completely when you heard the person at your door knock again, harder, for the third time. You did not take your eyes off the pale figure, bile burning in your throat as you approached the wooden door.
One.
Two.
Yes, only two people tonight. You had not let anyone else in, and the two you didn’t took in didn’t seemed safer than the tall man and the little girl. You did not want to risk their lives. You no longer cared much about your own tho.
You took a few steps back toward your room, when soft footsteps creaked across your porch.
You could even recognize its steps.
You turned and grabbed your shotgun, pressing the barrel against the cold wood of the door. You knew the pale intruder was taller than the doorframe, and somehow that was one of the things about it that threatened you the most.
You could feel it leaning in every time you looked at it through the peephole. You wondered what it would be like to face it one day, drawn to its thin, repulsive frame. Because yes, it was clearly repulsive.
You were ashamed to think this way, but it helped keep you from freezing in fear each time it spoke.
“You feeeelll that?”
Its voice was strangely soft compared to its body. It did not scrape its throat like so many other people.
Your eyes stayed locked on it, your face pressed to the peephole, your hands clutching the shotgun.
“Change is haunting you.
…So am I.”
You covered the lower half of your face with your hand, trying to stop the bile from rising and to hide your cheeks at the same time, self conscious. Your face was even hotter than when you went to bed, a fever burning it red. At least, that was your theory.
“And now one of your ilk is deathless…
All because of a word. One single word.
But what a word it is!
You know it means yesss?”
You did not reply. The silence weighed on your shoulders. Your stomach turned at every phrase coming from its mouth.
“Some things happen around you.”
…
“I don’t feel anything.”
You answered as coldly as you could, praying your tone sounded threatening. It certainly did not, not in this situation. But the pale intruder did not seem to notice, its smile fading slightly at your response.
“Sound though. Sounds like you need help.
Why don’t we try something new?
A gamble of sorts.”
Hesitating, you gave no verbal answer, just nodded stupidly at the door, aware it could not see you. Yet it continued anyway, as if it knew.
“If there are at least two of us inside your house, you open the door for me.”
The offer was obviously unfair, but the last line did not disgust you as much as it would have a few days ago. In any case, you no longer cared much about survival. What was the point anymore?
“Because dogs reside in their bodies now.”
The phrase rang a bell. A song maybe. Whatever.
“I… I don’t understand.”
You answered, trembling slightly. You did not want it to leave. Not yet.
“It’s simple.
Let’s give it a try, but first…
You alone?”