(Death- Len) Part 1

Wrongness. It was apparent in the way that the light of the city outside did not filter through the roman shades the way they did on every other night. That was irregular. This darkness in the room, this sheer, impenetrable black, meant something. Len was very quiet while he waited. He let the very tip of his tongue reach out between his teeth and touch his lip. Its soft swell reminded him of stones and milk, though their respective textures of silkiness were very different compared to skin. Very different…

Ah. Len saw now that his desk chair had been occupied during this time. It had taken him a moment to see the figure there. His computer was still on; he could hear its warm purr. He wondered why it was still on if the light from outside had been stopped. It was odd. Even odder than it should have been. Len waited. He knew instinctively that it was not his place to speak first. No. It was his job to reply.

As predicted, the creature spoke. Its face remained motionless, muscle structures quiet and bloodless. Yet words came from it, rumbling like the ground might during an avalanche, and Len listened.

You know that I have been here before.

Len nodded once. Yes, he knew that the way the dark had swirled in his room some nights was very different from anywhere else. It was irregular, and Len had felt that someone was there. The sense had made him turn around jumpily, searching, for many months now. After that time, Len had found himself accustomed to seeing half-formed men in the night. Odd that he would have adjusted so quickly. He hoped it would be a beneficial adaptation.

Your awareness does you credit, small human. Come. Walk with me.

Len felt very strange. It was as though someone had poured water over him, that he had been drowned and sunk through the floor with the water-logged weight of his own lungs. He felt calm, calm like black stone and cold mirrors. The creature held its hand against the back of Len’s neck and lifted him to a standing position. Len swayed, but the creature’s long fingers were iron bars that held up his spine. They walked from the room and as they ghosted through the wood of the door, his reflection caught the boy’s attention from the mirror on the opposite wall. It was shocking. Extremely irregular. Len’s eyes were solid black pits in his fine-boned face. He was dead, he thought. Dead and gone with no hope of return.

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