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Sigil had been stuck in this house for the better part of a year now. The news had stopped broadcasting around a month ago, and he had spent a week attempting to fix his TV, to somehow grasp the small part of humanity left, but no luck. Now his TV was a broken piece of machinery and he had burnt a small hole in his carpet.
He rarely answered the door anymore, roaming around his house like a deadbeat, venturing out at night for cigarettes and beer before returning home.
He had found that he didn’t feel the need to eat anymore, surviving off of smoke and the everlasting sense of grief for a world for a world that no longer welcomed him nor existed.
Sigil stood up from his bed, his hand automatically reaching to his bedside table to grab the pack and stuff it into his back pocket, his joints cracking as his arm retreats back, his footsteps heavy as he walks to his porch. He looks out his peephole, more out of habit than courtesy, but is met with a shadowed figure, one he doesn't recognize.
The man, as far as Sigil can see, is around his height, if not shorter, wearing a yellowed button down, his arms coming forward to lean against the wall of his house.
“Do you have any space in there for a drifter, My good man?” The man said, and Sigil squinted– no weapons, but no sign of supplies either.
“Yes. Opinions on sleeping on a couch?”
The man’s body sags with presumably relief, and he says “A place to sleep is already well enough, I promise.”
Sigil unlocks the door, sliding the deadbolt out of place as he twists the doorknob, the warm night air slipping into the shut up house, and Sigil comes face to face with the man.
It’s as much as a surprise to Sigil as the man, whose high cheekbones and sunken eyes draw in Sigil like a scavenger to a fresh kill.
The man stares back into Sigil’s eyes, shadow somehow engulfing his face in the light of the moon, but the man seems to shake it off. Reasoning that it would be better to chance it with the creepy homeowner rather than the scorching sun.
Sigil steps back, brushing his shoulderblades to the wall behind him, letting the man into his home, closing the door, and while he’s giddy at the man’s presence, he silently mourns his nightly smoke, vowing to return later once he gets the man settled.
Sigil motions the man to the kitchen, “Do you drink?”
The man startles when Sigil’s mouth opens. Like shadow itself personified. But he smiles softly, like a memory, and nods, matching Sigil’s pace easily.
“You smell like smoke.” The man remarks, but more as a question than an observation, “Do you mind if I take a trip outside later?”
“You’re not confined here.” Sigil rebukes, but adds, “I may join you. Dinner and a beer, first?”
The man nods, and they make their way to the kitchen, and Sigil cracks his knuckles in anticipation. He hasn’t cooked in a while, but none of the food here seems to rot, nothing molding or going stale. Confusing, but certainly not a downside.
Sigil opens the fridge, grabbing a beer for the man and an energy drink for himself. He doesn’t need the caffeine, and honestly, he just enjoyed the taste. “Anything in particular? Must’a’ve been a long trip to my slice of nowhere.”
The man makes a noncomital noise as he sits down at Sigil’s table, dwarfing the chair, “Anything you can spare. In all honesty I’m not that hungry.”
Sigil nods, and opens the fridge, wide enough for the man to see, “I have some meat, greens, and some leftovers.” He closes the door to the fridge, “I don’t eat.” Sigil realizes his mistake, and corrects himself, “I mean, I don’t eat all that much.”
The man nods, “I’ll grab myself something later.” Sigil feels the weight of having to choose someone else’s meal to leave him, and he resists the urge to smile.
Sigil sits across from the man, “I have a large library, and I take regular trips to the city.” He grabs a small note pad from the counter near him, and the man doesn't flinch and Sigil's arm stretches further than any human’s should. Sigil slides the notepad to the man, “Write down anything you’d like, your preferred brand of drink and smokes for starters.”
The man blinks, “That’s…unexpected. Kind. Thank you.”
Sigil doesn’t respond, and opens his drink, taking a small sip, the carbonation making him scrunch his face.
The man wrote and Sigil made an effort not to stare, before the man stopped, placing the pencil down, looking up at Sigil, not with fear, but with curiosity.
“Would you want to go to the porch now? Before the heat starts to pick up, I mean.”
Sigil nods, and stands, hunching slightly to stay eye level with the man, not wanting to seem like he’s posturing.
Exiting to the porch, Sigil and the man both seem to loosen now that the low ceilings of the house aren’t threatening them.
Sigil takes out his pack, and the man mirrors him, and Sigil sees the glint of an engraved lighter, ridges crudely carved, most likely with a needle or a push pin. Sigil practically melts into the dark, placing a cigarette between his chapped lips, lighting it, letting his finger linger on the flick, the flame dancing before his eyes.
The man blows smoke away from them, and the motion catches Sigil’s eye, and he lets the flame go out, repocketing his lighter.
The pale night sky cradles the house, the trees creating a smattering leading to a cross roads, every light in the city has gone out, even the automated streetlamps.
Fog swirls around the snow, dimming the gleam from the moon. The trees are suffocating.
The man looks over after the moment of silence, “Tell me if this is rude to ask…” The man pauses, considering, but continues, “Are you a Visitor?”
Sigil looks over, calmer than a person should be being asked the question, “I don’t know. I think so.”
The man seems puzzled, “How do you ‘not know’?”
Sigil takes the cigarette from his mouth, watching the embers trickle onto the porch, “I didn’t get my confirmation letter.”
The man chuckles, blowing smoke into the air, “I can make peace with it. You’re a gracious host.”
Sigil smiles, looking away.
It had become a mundane routine: wake up, make food for the man, read, smoke, go to bed, wake, repeat.
The man had slowly become more acclimated to Sigil’s mannerisms, He would look away one the rare occasion Sigil would eat, allowing him privacy, doing the same when they would smoke.
It disturbed Sigil.
Not disgusted, though. It was just. Odd.
Who, when invited into a monster’s home, allows such civil things as respect.
Stupid, idiotic, and utterly kind.
This morning, Sigil walked into the kitchen to find the man reading at the table. Sigil craned his neck down, and the man looks up at the crack of stiff cartilage.
“Goodmorning.”
Before the man can look away, Sigil opens his mouth, shadow and smoke seeming to leave his mouth as he says, “‘Morning.”
The man doesn’t flinch, to Sigil’s surprise, instead raises an eyebrow, and he puts the book down.
“That’s neat.”
Neat? Sigil wishes he still had eyebrows to raise one, but instead tilts his head.
The man motions for Sigil to sit down next to him, and he does so, like a trained dog. He feels a ping of shame in his heart.
The man looks closer into the swirling void of Sigil’s face, “Intresting.” He’s uncomfortably close to Sigil, their faces a breath apart, and Sigil inspects the man’s face. He finds no cruelty in his gaze, only tender curiosity.
“Could you open your mouth again, My good man?”
Sigil does as told, and he thanks whatever stroke of bad luck had afflicted him to become a visitor, eliminating his ability to blush.
The smoke swirls softly out of his mouth, like steam from a kettle.
The man looks closer, into where the void merges with his esophagus, shadow to flesh, the deepest black to red.
The man leans back, and sigil closes his mouth, the shadows reforming, making it look seamless.
“Is it painful?”
“No.” Sigil answers, “Numb. Like Ice.”
Sigil was running out of supplies. He would have to make a trip to the dead city soon, he knew that. But he pushed it off, for longer than he should have.
He scribbles a note out on one of the old note pads he had laying around his room, and as he goes to the kitchen to place it on the table, The man meets him in the hallway, leaving his ‘room’.
Sigil pauses, and puts the note in his pocket, “I’m going on a supply run.”
The man’s face contorts through three different emotions at once, astonishment, worry, and then understanding.
The man nods, and waves Sigil off like he’s saying farewell and giving permission at the same time.