TW: swearing, killing, eventual smut, Isaac has behavioural issues, slight AU? (everyone is in their early/mid-20s).
Isaac Night, genius extraordinaire, is certain about many things, but two stand above all: his latest invention will save his sister from her gruesome fate, and it will break every boundary known to Outcast and Normie science.
He can't fail; won't fail. He'd sooner give up his self-made heart than see Françoise live like a monster after she saved him from plunging into despair as a frail and terminally ill child. He wasn't weak anymore; he could finally protect her as she did him.
The child prodigy-turned-youngest-professor in Nevermore history was right about his creation breaking boundaries, less so about it working as intended. When testing it on a live subject for the first time, something goes terribly wrong: the test fails, and the explosion causes the barrier between realities to dissipate.
The tear only lasts a few moments, but it's enough for an unsuspecting woman from a world without Outcasts to cross the veil and end up in his version of Jericho. All very exciting for her, if only she didn't have a life-changing, can't-miss-or-she-will-regret-it event scheduled in a month.
Furious at his failure, Isaac couldn't care less about the Normie's complaints. Collateral damage is to be expected in great scientific endeavours, after all, and she is even dimmer than he first estimated if she believes he'd waste his precious time trying to send her back.
Unfortunately for him, she is nothing if not persistent. Competitive, as he is; loud and completely unaware of it; confident in that suicidal way only those who have never truly suffered are; naive; overly-friendly...he could go on for days. That's enough reason to despise her, but soon, she makes Françoise doubt his project. He'd kill her for that alone.
So what happens when her life gets so intertwined with his own that he doesn't want her to leave anymore? Why does he want her near when all she can do is drive a car like a madwoman and be his glorified chauffeur?
When two equally strong but opposite ideas of love and family clash, will the aftermath destroy the mechanical heart he so painstakingly built? And will it burn those closest to them?
heyyyy - I'm alive! I've been pretty inactive here (read, opened Tumblr twice in the last...month? Need to catch up on so many posts).
Had novel writing deadlines and why did I pick historical fiction? Because I'm a masochist. So here I am brushing up on my high school Latin to read og sources because I'm picky and don't like historical inaccuracy if it's not done on purpose, and the answers are, quite literally, written for me. (Maybe Isaac would appreciate, sigh).
I hope I can start bothering people with Isaac and the likes again soon enough, but. Can't promise anything atm.
anyway, hope y'all had a great November and I'm looking forward to catching up on all your juicy posts the next few daysssss
I'm at that point in the story where I struggle to write more chapters because I have to patch up so many incoherences in S2?! 💀
Like, what do you mean they sent a zombie to a mental facility? Wdym Isaac killed Stonehurst just for the fun of it? Just for the brain? I do NOT buy that. (Weren't they supposed to be close?) 👹👹👹
And why the HELL introduce the whole lore around Thing wanting to know more about himself and not use it once he is reunited with... HIMSELF? just gfy. I'm tired. (I do have a therory why tho 👀)
Anyway, more chaps are coming. Done correcting chapter 14 yesterday. And I'm working on chap 22 atm.
This is literally the pic that came to my mind when I tried to figure out why Isaac was in Willow Hill 💀
For real. S2 was good to switch your brain off and enjoy pretty gothic visuals and atmospheric music, but that storyline...it's got more stitches than Frankenstein's monster.
Which is sad because it introduced great characters that got zero development and depth or rushed endings, and Isaac was a victim of both. I miss shows that have a very small writers circle, sigh.
Thanks to you all fanfic writers making something good out of this season, it's hard work, but hugely appreciated.
“The history of villains is much more entertaining than that of heroes, because monsters are not born, they are created.
They do not emerge from emptiness or darkness of their own accord, but are shaped by circumstances, by the wounds of the world around them. They reflect the depths of human pain, rejection, loneliness and misunderstanding.
A hero is defined by acts of bravery, but a villain is the result of a heart that was once pure…
…and ended up corrupted.
Monsters, in their tragedy show us what could happen to us all, if the world were to turn its back on us.”
I like this little detail that Isaac, a man of science, made himself a mechanical heart that doesn't look like an anatomically correct heart, but like... just a heart. I don't know, I think it's cute. That's my romantic gothic boy.
Ok but there'd be something so heartbreaking (pun intended) about Isaac letting his lover grip his hands in a gentle vice as their bodies merge into one.
It strips Isaac of his prizes DaVinci ability, but for once, he isn't scared of the vulnerability that comes with it.
Because even though he may not openly admit it (yet) he trusts his partner with whatever is left of his body and soul.
So he gives himself to them, to a mercy he doesn't know he wants to deserve, warm fingers intertwined and eyes wide, beating heart against clicking one.
And for the first time, all spare parts and rusty emotions, he truly feels that he's enough.
It depends who the OC/Reader is and how receptive they are, but I can see it all starting with him being dominant then gets his hair pulled or ear scratched and kaboom! He's on his back. And loves it. And hates that he loves it ✌️
Plus I headcanon he is a virgin sooo. And does he come untouched? Yep.
Ok but there'd be something so heartbreaking (pun intended) about Isaac letting his lover grip his hands in a gentle vice as their bodies merge into one.
It strips Isaac of his prizes DaVinci ability, but for once, he isn't scared of the vulnerability that comes with it.
Because even though he may not openly admit it (yet) he trusts his partner with whatever is left of his body and soul.
So he gives himself to them, to a mercy he doesn't know he wants to deserve, warm fingers intertwined and eyes wide, beating heart against clicking one.
And for the first time, all spare parts and rusty emotions, he truly feels that he's enough.
Another track from Wednesday S2 that seems to fit/having been added for Issac Night is Zombie.
Now, I know the song is about the very real and deadly political violence in Ireland (IRA and whatnot), so it seems a bit reductive to say it matches a fictional characters so well, but it does (aside from him being an actually zombie, I get it).
"But you see, it's not me, it's not my family, in your head, in your head, they are fighting " -> to me, it could represent the grudge Isaac kept towards the Gomez and Morticia for ruining his original plan, and how it extended to their children. I feel if he had kept calm and asked them for help, explaining why he needed it, they would have found a way to support him (especially since Gomez saw him as a friend). But no, zombie boy decided to go on the offensive 100%, and why? These people had been only good to him until the end.
"In your head, in your head, they are dying" -> his own constant quarrel with death and the fear his sister will die soon, as well. He's in a loop, can't think about anything else, doesn't know how to function without Death looming over his shoulders.
"And the violence caused such silence, who are we, mistaken" -> he is so swept up in his mission to save Françoise at and cost that he doesn't even considered the possibility his actions may be misguided and lead to pain or violence. It's all perfectly justified, in his head.
"What's in your head, zombie?" -> ironic because yes, Isaac becomes a zombie, and that seems at odds with his character because zombies are often depicted as brainless killing machines, and he's not stupid. I would see him more as a ghost, but zombie is possibly a reference to how he obtuse and stubborn he can be.
Same TWs as the main story. Been super busy with work and life, so this is barely proofread and written in a rush, sorry! Next one will be better.
Now, time for the proper first meeting: black cat energy meets samoyed energy. Survival isn't guaranteed.
Nun
Hostia, this hotel needs to rethink its mattress supplier.
Nun's poor back crick-cracked loudly in the morning quiet. At least, she thought it was morning; she'd become used to being woken by Manuela's snoring during pre-race week, but the bedroom was eerily calm, save for an insistent shuffling from the other side of the door.
'Ohi, Olivia! Can you tone it down?' she whisper-yelled towards the noise.
Nun buried her head under the pillow and duvet, but they were so thin they didn't filter any of the commotion. What derelict kind of accommodation did their jefe book? He was stingy, as the wealthiest businessmen were with their employees, but he'd been happy enough to let the team rest in 4-star hotels since Nun's latest wins and the press's interest in her borderline-legal-yet-effective driving style.
'Mmgmgn…Oli, it's still too early for our jooooog!'
Olivia was always the first to open the practice when they worked at the funeral home. The habit stuck even after Nun turned fully pro and Oli became her manager.
The sun was only beginning to peek through the window. It must not have been 7 am yet, and Nun didn't want her roommate's sleep to be disturbed. An irritated co-driver could make dangerous mistakes; a grumpy Manuela would send their car down a ravine on purpose purely as payback.
Nun could already picture Pyotr's grin, stretched wide at the journalists, confirming that he told them so, that grave-digging girl was just a fluke, he was the real deal of the sport, just as his father and grandfather had been.
The noise became even louder, a cacophony of whispers and giggles. Maybe Papa had arrived? He always put everyone in a cheerful mood.
Right, Papa. He'd be disappointed to see her so downtrodden on the morning of her big race. He taught her so much, and a bad night's sleep was making her forget his wisdom.
'Vamos, Nun. Remember, "Either you run the day or the day runs you," Jim Rohn.'
Emerging from her cocoon of blankets, the woman flung her legs on the side of the bed and was surprised to see sneakers, but no slippers. Her legs were still wrapped in her workout joggers. Did she fall asleep without changing into PJs? She was still wearing her lucky Audioslave t-shirt, which confirmed she had gone to sleep fully dressed. A quick sniff of her armpits revealed that, thankfully, she didn't stink, but her short hair was tousled and knot-ridden.
She must have been exhausted.
'Manu, have you seen—oh.' The bed next to hers was empty. Unslept in. Had they been assigned separate rooms? Jefealways said sharing with your teammates was fundamental to building trust.
Spotting her mobile on the bedside table, Nun grabbed it to check for any messages that might explain where her friends and colleagues were, but the device had no signal. No 5G, no Wi-fi, no nothing. And only 5% battery. Grand.
'Right. It's alright, Nun. Get out, find Manu and Oli, have breakfast, go to the garage, get changed. Meditate. And you'll be grand. You will be. Today is the day you become a world champion. Vamos, campeona!'
Nun headed towards the door, strutting with satisfaction. She was manifesting so well, Papa would be proud of her. Today was the day—
As soon as she stepped into the hallway, a body collided with hers, and she fell on the floor with a thump.
'Oh no, I'm sorry! I didn't see you there!' a small voice apologised. Nun's vision was suddenly occupied by what looked like a school uniform; more precisely, a small teen girl donning a purple turban, a purple skirt and a matching blazer with an emblazoned crow design on the lapel. The teen extended her hand to help Nun back on her feet.
'Oof, thanks. Wait, what the…who are you? The daughter of the hotel owners?' she asked, dusting her clothes off. Olivia must have been freaking out the whole night with her germophobia. She probably booked herself another accommodation.
'What hotel?' the girl asked, confused. She held the strap of her book-filled satchel tightly.
'Well, this?' Nun gestured vaguely at the hallway they were standing in.
'You mean Nevermore Academy?'
'Academy?' Just then, a bloocurling scream travelled through the building, forcing Nun to cover her ears in pain. The teen was unfazed.
'Yes, like…a school? That was the 9 am bell. Banta the Banshee always screams louder right when classes are about to start. Honestly, she takes her job way too seriously for an old hag close to retirement.'
Nun did not mean to be rude, but she couldn't listen to the puzzled student anymore. That shout must have jolted something in her brain because the events of the previous night came rushing back like a tidal wave. The mist, the wolf, the crash, the tower, the unfriendly but helpful skinny man, and the friendly and helpful tall woman.
The girl studied Nun for a beat. 'You're not local, are you? Not saying that because of your accent, but you look very lost.'
'I…I think I am. Lost. A little. I need to get to Jericho, the town. Is it far?'
'Oh, not at all! Only a few miles, less than half an hour by car.'
'Car!' Nun smacked her forehead so loud the girl flinched. 'Shit, that was a sponsor loan, ahhh.' She prayed no concerned driver had called the police to have it impounded. Maybe the damage was fixable. If not, she'd have to beg someone from the academy to give her a lift to Jericho. She had to make it there by 11 am to be at the start line at 12 pm. Lateness might mean not being allowed to race, which could blow the team's first chance at greatness. Her jefe would be furious and run her over with his Audi, and she'd let him.
Nun sprinted towards the large marble staircase. 'Sorry, I have to go! Thank you—'
'Leonore!'
'Gracias, Leo! You've been so helpful!' Nun's shouted thanks grew more and more distant as she sped down the stairs, leaving Leonore alone in the corridor with pinked cheeks.
'What a strange woman. Must be one of those psychics…'
On the ground floor, Nun spotted a familiar figure busy sending straggling students to their respective classes with the skill of a traffic marshal at the busiest intersection in a blackout. Or a shepherd's dog with a stubborn flock of sheep.
'Larissa!'
'Ah, Ms Verdugo. I'm so pleased to see you awake and well.' Having shipped one last, recalcitrant pupil to his lesson, she straightened her emerald-green jacket and fixed her blue eyes on Nun. 'I didn't realise we were on a first-name basis. Have you slept well, I hope?'
'Of course, we are after last night. You saved me from sleeping under the stars with a wolf at my heels, Lari!'
Larissa inhaled in horror at the nickname. 'Lari?'
'And it was awful, the worst sleep of my life, but you know what?' Nun had to tiptoe to place her hand on the taller woman's shoulder. 'I lived to complain about it, and that's good enough for me. Today is a new day. A very important one! I need to get my car and go to Jericho as soon as possible.'
'I'm afraid that's not possible, Ms Verdugo. Your vehicle was taken into the academy grounds, but it had to be pulled by our van. The impact with the gate must have damaged it greatly. We're having it looked at, but we may not have the right equipment to fix a sports car like yours.'
Nun blanched at those words. Adíos, her beloved Subaru. The sponsor was going to kill her. This was the second time she had crashed one of their gifted cars – sure, she wasn't the one driving the previous time, but letting her unlicensed, 84-year-old Abuela take the wheel of a 271-horsepower beast had been a bad move on her part.
'Lari, I really need to reach Jericho in the next hour or so. Could you drive me there?'
'No,' Larissa replied with a smile. 'I have classes to teach at 10.'
Nun let out a whine of misery.
'However,' Larissa reflected, 'I am meeting Principal Orloff in five minutes. Come with me; he'll find a way to get you there on time.'
'Yes, ah! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew I could trust you!' Nun lunged with outstretched arms to hug Larissa, but the teacher took a step back, placing two elegant fingers on the shorter woman's forehead to keep her at bay.
'No need to kick up a fuss. Don't do that again. Now, follow me,' she offered – or ordered, Nun could not tell.
'Right, yes. You can call me Nun, though. First-name basis creates stronger, more productive bonds between people.'
_______________________________________
'Um…Lari?'
'What, Ms Verdugo?'
Nun gulped, willing the saliva to find the right path to her esophagus. She must be hallucinating. 'There's a wrinkly pickled head on a pedestal and it's looking at me,' she whispered.
'I may have lost my body, but I still have my ears, young lady. And they work fantastically well,' the head replied.
'Jesús!' Nun shouted. She had never thought herself very religious, but she could recognise when divine intervention was needed, so she swiftly made the Sign of the Cross. Abuela would have been proud. 'It talks!'
'He,' Larissa emphasised, 'is Nevermore's principal, Professor Orloff, and the man who allowed you to rest in our dorms. Excuse her, she had a rough night and does not appear to be familiar with Outcasts.'
'Out-what?'
'Oucasts, my dear.' The pickled head – the principal – explained, wheeling himself closer to Nun. 'People who don't fit the mold of conventional society and are born with or develop special abilities.'
'Oh. I have been called strange and developed a special ability. Am I an Outcast, too?'
'Dear girl, driving a car, albeit at impressive speed, into one of our gates doesn't make you one of us. I'm talking about gorgons, psychics, vampires, et cetera, et cetera.'
'Whoa,' Nun bent to face Principal Orloff, then she kneeled to check the apparatus he was perched on. Multiple spidery cable wires were wrapped into protective nets that tidily converged in a black box hooked to four steel poles. That must have been where the motor was. 'So your special skill is having a robot body?'
'Eh-ehm,' Larissa interjected. 'As I was telling Ms Verdugo, her vehicle is currently in unsuitable conditions for driving. She needs to return to Jericho in the next,' she glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the office, 'hour or so. I have class with the second years, but another teacher may be available?'
'I can call a taxi,' Nun interjected. 'I don't want to disturb anyone.'
'Impossible, dear girl. There is only one taxi, and he won't take passengers from Nevermore since the Accidental Petrification Incident of '89.'
'Of course. Accidental petrification. Could happen to anyone. What about Uber?'
'I am at a loss. Uber?'
'Ah. Small town problems, no access to transport apps and services still in 2025, right?'
'Apps?' '2025?' Larissa and Principal Orloff spoke simultaneously, staring as if she were the one floating in gherkin juice.
The scare from seeing a disembodied head had subsided, so Nun could appreciate how concerned the old head – man, the old man – was. 'Perhaps, it's best if we take you to the nurse for a check-up? You may have a concussion.'
Larissa engulfed Nun's hands in hers, looking every bit like a doctor about to deliver devastating information to a patient. Nun had lived through enough of those to recognise bad news when they were about to hit.'
'Dear, it's 1997. Don't you remember?'
Well. 1997. Me cago en la…
A sharp knock startled the swearing out of Nun. 'Professor Orloff? May I?' That voice felt oddly familiar despite the chaos.
'Ah-a!' The principal exclaimed; he would have snapped his fingers if he had had any. 'Isaac! Come in, come in. Just the person I wanted to see.'
A tall, lanky young man walked into the space, settling and stilling between Nun and Larissa while successfully ignoring them both, his entire attention on Orloff.
That's where that voice was from; the guy from the tower. In the daylight, Nun could spot how pale and gaunt he was, all sharp angles, jutting bones and deep-set eyes. She was nearly compelled to give a rendition of 'To be or not to be,' but nipped the intrusive thought at the root. He had led her to safety and shelter, so she'd be kind in return.
'Isaac, my boy, you mentioned picking up new supplies in Jericho in the afternoon? Why don't you head there now with Ms Verdugo—'
'Nun.'
'Nun. That way, you won't need to wait for Dr Stonehearst to finish his classes.'
'Professor, the car you had me examine is too damaged. It amounts to little more than a heap of metal. Thankfully, it is brand new, so I reckon I can put what's left of it to good use—'
'Say what?!'
Isaac remained unperturbed at her outburst, tilting his head and regarding her like one would a pesky mosquito.
'Are you hard of hearing, aside from being a lousy driver? Professor, I am going nowhere with her behind the wheel.'
'Excuse me?! I'm top three in the world, I'll have you know!'
One of the man's eyebrows shot up in surprise, disappearing behind locks of dark curls. 'According to whom? The Carwreck Driving School? Our gate begs to differ.'
Nun's belly twisted in guilt at that. 'A giant wolf was chasing me, and the weather was awful. Sorry if I slightly misjudged speed and distance.' She mumbled. 'I'll pay the damages. Just get me to town, please.'
'That was Harris, actually, principal. She is freshly wolfed out and managed to break out of the Lupin cages. All under control now,' Larissa explained, mostly unhelpfully.
Nun had not the energy to question what 'wolfed out' meant, so she let the others' voices dissolve into the background. A severe concussion, that's what she had; perhaps she was still unconscious in the driver's seat, and her mind was dreaming to alleviate the trauma of a crash. Her throat constricted. She had to get to the hotel and lie down. Try to sleep, and hopefully she'd wake up in the real world again.
'Look at her, she's one step from a panic attack. I will not sit in a moving vehicle with her.'
'Then why don't you drive it, since you have so many complaints about my skills, Isaac?' Nun spat and immediately regretted it. Rude, rude, rude.
'Why would I have to do so?'
'Because I'm a person in need?'
'I don't see what you being incapable of distinguishing left from right has to do with me.'
Nun gripped her hair at the roots and pulled hard. Then it dawned on her. 'Bless you. You don't know how to drive.'
That got Isaac to fully turn and take two steps towards her, his shadow drowning her shorter figure. Nun had always been taller than average for a woman, but the top of her head barely reached his chin.
'I cannot drive. There is a difference.'
'Is there?'
'Enough, you two.' Principal Orloff finally lost his patience. 'Nun, would you be alright to use the academy's van to get to Jericho? Isaac will show you where to park it. Judi can drive it back tomorrow.'
'Professor, I must—'
'On second thought, I'll walk it—'
'Enough. You will accompany our guest, Isaac, and ensure she gets to where she needs to be. In one piece. We may be Outcasts, but we are not without manners.' He fixed Nun and Isaac with a hard stare. 'And that's that. Now, off you go. Young lady, I wish you the best. Get that head of yours looked at, please. You don't want to end up like me.'
'Ah. I will. Thank you.' Nun had to rush through her goodbyes to run after Isaac, who, once again, had vanished after offering a horribly tight smile for Orloff and no word for either of the women.
Larissa offered a sympathetic nod.
Once outside, Nun gasped. In the darkness of the night, vacant and silent, the inner courtyard had seemed like a Cluedo-borne murder scene. In the late morning light, it was a thing of beauty. Students laughed and ran to and from their classes, sat chatting under the sun or in the shade of stony gargoyle guardians. The academy grounds stretched past a stone archway, into green fields and, further in the distance, woods.
'What is this place?'
'Come! I don't have all day. Or will run into a wall on foot, too?' Isaac called, already halfway through the courtyard.
'You know,' Nun huffed when she reached him. He didn't look athletic in the slightest but had freakishly long legs and knew where he was going, so she had to run to catch up with him. 'I know we have met under unusual circumstances, but I think it would be good to start from scratch with the right attitude.' She cleared her throat and extended her hand. 'Pleasure to meet you, Isaac. I'm Nun Verdugo Zalas. Thank you for last night. I owe you one.'
Isaac glanced at Nun's hand, then at her as one would at an overly clingy child covered in muck. 'Fine,' he conceded. 'Get me to Jericho alive and well, and I'll consider your debt sorted. And it's Professor Night for you.'
He dangled a set of rusty keys in front of her face.
'Now, shall we?'
Taglist (there were others but I forgot, sorry!): @zackgba
another banger from you. i feel blessed. i love how character-driven it is. you have such beautiful and vivid writing, i love how well it aligns with nun as a character and reflects her inner machinations so well. every line just flows well and is so full of personality.
nun is so endearing, i love her little mannerisms and her giving nicknames right off the bat omg i’m so charmed (even if lari is not 😂). she’s so irreverent but like in a really fun way. everything feels naturally placed, even her spanish interjections don’t feel out of place. i think most people struggle with this when writing esl characters 😭
‘Bless you. You don’t know how to drive.’ LMFAOOO GET HIS ASS. he is so easy to ragebait sometimes, i’m in tears. AND I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE HIM. that whole exchange had me grinning like an idiot. the banter is perfection.
he’s lucky he’s in a car with nun bcs if he was in a car with me, i’d crash it. now everybody mad.
this was such a good chapter, i love how characters were utilized in this. the worldbuilding is deft. you fold exposition into dialogue and reaction so smoothly that the reader never feels pulled out of scene. i’m soo excited for the next one 🖤💖
Thank youuu, you had me grinning like an idiot with this amazing feedback, I'm so so so happy you liked this chapter because it was written in a rush and barely proofread (I was too tired, I would have made it worse if I had edited it properly).
Nun is full of good intentions and awful ideas, unfortunately for everyone around her. ☠️ But she is an excellent pro driver (she's actually based off a real woman who was a rally legend in the 70s and 80s). I'll get into her background more in the future, because it'll be relevant to the story and how she interacts with Isaac and Françoise.
I'm glad the Spanish didn't feel overdone. I'm an ESL speaker myself, and still prefer to say some words (especially swear words) in my native language despite having lived in the UK for over a decade lol. They just feel punchier.
Isaac is so freaking easy to rage bait, the fun thing is, she's not even trying, that "bless you" was 100% honest, because cars are her joy and passion and she can't imagine life without one.
Are you sure he's lucky being in a car with her? We'll see next chapter if his heart can take it or needs an upgrade 😂 that woman grew up in a funeral home, she's got no fear of death whatsoever.
Again, thank you so much for reading and the lovely feedback 😭🫶
Same TWs as the main story. Been super busy with work and life, so this is barely proofread and written in a rush, sorry! Next one will be better.
Now, time for the proper first meeting: black cat energy meets samoyed energy. Survival isn't guaranteed.
Nun
Hostia, this hotel needs to rethink its mattress supplier.
Nun's poor back crick-cracked loudly in the morning quiet. At least, she thought it was morning; she'd become used to being woken by Manuela's snoring during pre-race week, but the bedroom was eerily calm, save for an insistent shuffling from the other side of the door.
'Ohi, Olivia! Can you tone it down?' she whisper-yelled towards the noise.
Nun buried her head under the pillow and duvet, but they were so thin they didn't filter any of the commotion. What derelict kind of accommodation did their jefe book? He was stingy, as the wealthiest businessmen were with their employees, but he'd been happy enough to let the team rest in 4-star hotels since Nun's latest wins and the press's interest in her borderline-legal-yet-effective driving style.
'Mmgmgn…Oli, it's still too early for our jooooog!'
Olivia was always the first to open the practice when they worked at the funeral home. The habit stuck even after Nun turned fully pro and Oli became her manager.
The sun was only beginning to peek through the window. It must not have been 7 am yet, and Nun didn't want her roommate's sleep to be disturbed. An irritated co-driver could make dangerous mistakes; a grumpy Manuela would send their car down a ravine on purpose purely as payback.
Nun could already picture Pyotr's grin, stretched wide at the journalists, confirming that he told them so, that grave-digging girl was just a fluke, he was the real deal of the sport, just as his father and grandfather had been.
The noise became even louder, a cacophony of whispers and giggles. Maybe Papa had arrived? He always put everyone in a cheerful mood.
Right, Papa. He'd be disappointed to see her so downtrodden on the morning of her big race. He taught her so much, and a bad night's sleep was making her forget his wisdom.
'Vamos, Nun. Remember, "Either you run the day or the day runs you," Jim Rohn.'
Emerging from her cocoon of blankets, the woman flung her legs on the side of the bed and was surprised to see sneakers, but no slippers. Her legs were still wrapped in her workout joggers. Did she fall asleep without changing into PJs? She was still wearing her lucky Audioslave t-shirt, which confirmed she had gone to sleep fully dressed. A quick sniff of her armpits revealed that, thankfully, she didn't stink, but her short hair was tousled and knot-ridden.
She must have been exhausted.
'Manu, have you seen—oh.' The bed next to hers was empty. Unslept in. Had they been assigned separate rooms? Jefealways said sharing with your teammates was fundamental to building trust.
Spotting her mobile on the bedside table, Nun grabbed it to check for any messages that might explain where her friends and colleagues were, but the device had no signal. No 5G, no Wi-fi, no nothing. And only 5% battery. Grand.
'Right. It's alright, Nun. Get out, find Manu and Oli, have breakfast, go to the garage, get changed. Meditate. And you'll be grand. You will be. Today is the day you become a world champion. Vamos, campeona!'
Nun headed towards the door, strutting with satisfaction. She was manifesting so well, Papa would be proud of her. Today was the day—
As soon as she stepped into the hallway, a body collided with hers, and she fell on the floor with a thump.
'Oh no, I'm sorry! I didn't see you there!' a small voice apologised. Nun's vision was suddenly occupied by what looked like a school uniform; more precisely, a small teen girl donning a purple turban, a purple skirt and a matching blazer with an emblazoned crow design on the lapel. The teen extended her hand to help Nun back on her feet.
'Oof, thanks. Wait, what the…who are you? The daughter of the hotel owners?' she asked, dusting her clothes off. Olivia must have been freaking out the whole night with her germophobia. She probably booked herself another accommodation.
'What hotel?' the girl asked, confused. She held the strap of her book-filled satchel tightly.
'Well, this?' Nun gestured vaguely at the hallway they were standing in.
'You mean Nevermore Academy?'
'Academy?' Just then, a bloocurling scream travelled through the building, forcing Nun to cover her ears in pain. The teen was unfazed.
'Yes, like…a school? That was the 9 am bell. Banta the Banshee always screams louder right when classes are about to start. Honestly, she takes her job way too seriously for an old hag close to retirement.'
Nun did not mean to be rude, but she couldn't listen to the puzzled student anymore. That shout must have jolted something in her brain because the events of the previous night came rushing back like a tidal wave. The mist, the wolf, the crash, the tower, the unfriendly but helpful skinny man, and the friendly and helpful tall woman.
The girl studied Nun for a beat. 'You're not local, are you? Not saying that because of your accent, but you look very lost.'
'I…I think I am. Lost. A little. I need to get to Jericho, the town. Is it far?'
'Oh, not at all! Only a few miles, less than half an hour by car.'
'Car!' Nun smacked her forehead so loud the girl flinched. 'Shit, that was a sponsor loan, ahhh.' She prayed no concerned driver had called the police to have it impounded. Maybe the damage was fixable. If not, she'd have to beg someone from the academy to give her a lift to Jericho. She had to make it there by 11 am to be at the start line at 12 pm. Lateness might mean not being allowed to race, which could blow the team's first chance at greatness. Her jefe would be furious and run her over with his Audi, and she'd let him.
Nun sprinted towards the large marble staircase. 'Sorry, I have to go! Thank you—'
'Leonore!'
'Gracias, Leo! You've been so helpful!' Nun's shouted thanks grew more and more distant as she sped down the stairs, leaving Leonore alone in the corridor with pinked cheeks.
'What a strange woman. Must be one of those psychics…'
On the ground floor, Nun spotted a familiar figure busy sending straggling students to their respective classes with the skill of a traffic marshal at the busiest intersection in a blackout. Or a shepherd's dog with a stubborn flock of sheep.
'Larissa!'
'Ah, Ms Verdugo. I'm so pleased to see you awake and well.' Having shipped one last, recalcitrant pupil to his lesson, she straightened her emerald-green jacket and fixed her blue eyes on Nun. 'I didn't realise we were on a first-name basis. Have you slept well, I hope?'
'Of course, we are after last night. You saved me from sleeping under the stars with a wolf at my heels, Lari!'
Larissa inhaled in horror at the nickname. 'Lari?'
'And it was awful, the worst sleep of my life, but you know what?' Nun had to tiptoe to place her hand on the taller woman's shoulder. 'I lived to complain about it, and that's good enough for me. Today is a new day. A very important one! I need to get my car and go to Jericho as soon as possible.'
'I'm afraid that's not possible, Ms Verdugo. Your vehicle was taken into the academy grounds, but it had to be pulled by our van. The impact with the gate must have damaged it greatly. We're having it looked at, but we may not have the right equipment to fix a sports car like yours.'
Nun blanched at those words. Adíos, her beloved Subaru. The sponsor was going to kill her. This was the second time she had crashed one of their gifted cars – sure, she wasn't the one driving the previous time, but letting her unlicensed, 84-year-old Abuela take the wheel of a 271-horsepower beast had been a bad move on her part.
'Lari, I really need to reach Jericho in the next hour or so. Could you drive me there?'
'No,' Larissa replied with a smile. 'I have classes to teach at 10.'
Nun let out a whine of misery.
'However,' Larissa reflected, 'I am meeting Principal Orloff in five minutes. Come with me; he'll find a way to get you there on time.'
'Yes, ah! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew I could trust you!' Nun lunged with outstretched arms to hug Larissa, but the teacher took a step back, placing two elegant fingers on the shorter woman's forehead to keep her at bay.
'No need to kick up a fuss. Don't do that again. Now, follow me,' she offered – or ordered, Nun could not tell.
'Right, yes. You can call me Nun, though. First-name basis creates stronger, more productive bonds between people.'
_______________________________________
'Um…Lari?'
'What, Ms Verdugo?'
Nun gulped, willing the saliva to find the right path to her esophagus. She must be hallucinating. 'There's a wrinkly pickled head on a pedestal and it's looking at me,' she whispered.
'I may have lost my body, but I still have my ears, young lady. And they work fantastically well,' the head replied.
'Jesús!' Nun shouted. She had never thought herself very religious, but she could recognise when divine intervention was needed, so she swiftly made the Sign of the Cross. Abuela would have been proud. 'It talks!'
'He,' Larissa emphasised, 'is Nevermore's principal, Professor Orloff, and the man who allowed you to rest in our dorms. Excuse her, she had a rough night and does not appear to be familiar with Outcasts.'
'Out-what?'
'Oucasts, my dear.' The pickled head – the principal – explained, wheeling himself closer to Nun. 'People who don't fit the mold of conventional society and are born with or develop special abilities.'
'Oh. I have been called strange and developed a special ability. Am I an Outcast, too?'
'Dear girl, driving a car, albeit at impressive speed, into one of our gates doesn't make you one of us. I'm talking about gorgons, psychics, vampires, et cetera, et cetera.'
'Whoa,' Nun bent to face Principal Orloff, then she kneeled to check the apparatus he was perched on. Multiple spidery cable wires were wrapped into protective nets that tidily converged in a black box hooked to four steel poles. That must have been where the motor was. 'So your special skill is having a robot body?'
'Eh-ehm,' Larissa interjected. 'As I was telling Ms Verdugo, her vehicle is currently in unsuitable conditions for driving. She needs to return to Jericho in the next,' she glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the office, 'hour or so. I have class with the second years, but another teacher may be available?'
'I can call a taxi,' Nun interjected. 'I don't want to disturb anyone.'
'Impossible, dear girl. There is only one taxi, and he won't take passengers from Nevermore since the Accidental Petrification Incident of '89.'
'Of course. Accidental petrification. Could happen to anyone. What about Uber?'
'I am at a loss. Uber?'
'Ah. Small town problems, no access to transport apps and services still in 2025, right?'
'Apps?' '2025?' Larissa and Principal Orloff spoke simultaneously, staring as if she were the one floating in gherkin juice.
The scare from seeing a disembodied head had subsided, so Nun could appreciate how concerned the old head – man, the old man – was. 'Perhaps, it's best if we take you to the nurse for a check-up? You may have a concussion.'
Larissa engulfed Nun's hands in hers, looking every bit like a doctor about to deliver devastating information to a patient. Nun had lived through enough of those to recognise bad news when they were about to hit.'
'Dear, it's 1997. Don't you remember?'
Well. 1997. Me cago en la…
A sharp knock startled the swearing out of Nun. 'Professor Orloff? May I?' That voice felt oddly familiar despite the chaos.
'Ah-a!' The principal exclaimed; he would have snapped his fingers if he had had any. 'Isaac! Come in, come in. Just the person I wanted to see.'
A tall, lanky young man walked into the space, settling and stilling between Nun and Larissa while successfully ignoring them both, his entire attention on Orloff.
That's where that voice was from; the guy from the tower. In the daylight, Nun could spot how pale and gaunt he was, all sharp angles, jutting bones and deep-set eyes. She was nearly compelled to give a rendition of 'To be or not to be,' but nipped the intrusive thought at the root. He had led her to safety and shelter, so she'd be kind in return.
'Isaac, my boy, you mentioned picking up new supplies in Jericho in the afternoon? Why don't you head there now with Ms Verdugo—'
'Nun.'
'Nun. That way, you won't need to wait for Dr Stonehearst to finish his classes.'
'Professor, the car you had me examine is too damaged. It amounts to little more than a heap of metal. Thankfully, it is brand new, so I reckon I can put what's left of it to good use—'
'Say what?!'
Isaac remained unperturbed at her outburst, tilting his head and regarding her like one would a pesky mosquito.
'Are you hard of hearing, aside from being a lousy driver? Professor, I am going nowhere with her behind the wheel.'
'Excuse me?! I'm top three in the world, I'll have you know!'
One of the man's eyebrows shot up in surprise, disappearing behind locks of dark curls. 'According to whom? The Carwreck Driving School? Our gate begs to differ.'
Nun's belly twisted in guilt at that. 'A giant wolf was chasing me, and the weather was awful. Sorry if I slightly misjudged speed and distance.' She mumbled. 'I'll pay the damages. Just get me to town, please.'
'That was Harris, actually, principal. She is freshly wolfed out and managed to break out of the Lupin cages. All under control now,' Larissa explained, mostly unhelpfully.
Nun had not the energy to question what 'wolfed out' meant, so she let the others' voices dissolve into the background. A severe concussion, that's what she had; perhaps she was still unconscious in the driver's seat, and her mind was dreaming to alleviate the trauma of a crash. Her throat constricted. She had to get to the hotel and lie down. Try to sleep, and hopefully she'd wake up in the real world again.
'Look at her, she's one step from a panic attack. I will not sit in a moving vehicle with her.'
'Then why don't you drive it, since you have so many complaints about my skills, Isaac?' Nun spat and immediately regretted it. Rude, rude, rude.
'Why would I have to do so?'
'Because I'm a person in need?'
'I don't see what you being incapable of distinguishing left from right has to do with me.'
Nun gripped her hair at the roots and pulled hard. Then it dawned on her. 'Bless you. You don't know how to drive.'
That got Isaac to fully turn and take two steps towards her, his shadow drowning her shorter figure. Nun had always been taller than average for a woman, but the top of her head barely reached his chin.
'I cannot drive. There is a difference.'
'Is there?'
'Enough, you two.' Principal Orloff finally lost his patience. 'Nun, would you be alright to use the academy's van to get to Jericho? Isaac will show you where to park it. Judi can drive it back tomorrow.'
'Professor, I must—'
'On second thought, I'll walk it—'
'Enough. You will accompany our guest, Isaac, and ensure she gets to where she needs to be. In one piece. We may be Outcasts, but we are not without manners.' He fixed Nun and Isaac with a hard stare. 'And that's that. Now, off you go. Young lady, I wish you the best. Get that head of yours looked at, please. You don't want to end up like me.'
'Ah. I will. Thank you.' Nun had to rush through her goodbyes to run after Isaac, who, once again, had vanished after offering a horribly tight smile for Orloff and no word for either of the women.
Larissa offered a sympathetic nod.
Once outside, Nun gasped. In the darkness of the night, vacant and silent, the inner courtyard had seemed like a Cluedo-borne murder scene. In the late morning light, it was a thing of beauty. Students laughed and ran to and from their classes, sat chatting under the sun or in the shade of stony gargoyle guardians. The academy grounds stretched past a stone archway, into green fields and, further in the distance, woods.
'What is this place?'
'Come! I don't have all day. Or will run into a wall on foot, too?' Isaac called, already halfway through the courtyard.
'You know,' Nun huffed when she reached him. He didn't look athletic in the slightest but had freakishly long legs and knew where he was going, so she had to run to catch up with him. 'I know we have met under unusual circumstances, but I think it would be good to start from scratch with the right attitude.' She cleared her throat and extended her hand. 'Pleasure to meet you, Isaac. I'm Nun Verdugo Zalas. Thank you for last night. I owe you one.'
Isaac glanced at Nun's hand, then at her as one would at an overly clingy child covered in muck. 'Fine,' he conceded. 'Get me to Jericho alive and well, and I'll consider your debt sorted. And it's Professor Night for you.'
He dangled a set of rusty keys in front of her face.
'Now, shall we?'
Taglist (there were others but I forgot, sorry!): @zackgba
contents: disjointed narrative, smut (consensual), hand kink, vaginal fingering, spit kink, references to depression/grief, allusions to past sa, ghost isaac precedes zombie isaac, possessive behavior, elements of psychological horror
note: (stumbling out of docs covered in blood 3 weeks later) it’s alive. every red flag is ignored. this fic is a result of fragmented thoughts and if we were to read it from isaac’s pov we would be institutionalizing ourselves. ily and thank you for sticking with me for this long, i know i’m a slow writer. there’s potentially a few tonal issues and mistakes but we move bcs i wrote most of this in a state of exhaustion.
word count: 19k (my bad)
preview: Your ghost is a man, all sharp angles, hollow‑eyed, gaunt in the way you’d expect a corpse to be. A scientist, by the look of the white lab coat fastened all the way up. He studies you the way someone would examine a specimen: with a curiosity so intent it feels invasive. Then he blinks, and all that interest evanesces, leaving only a cold, almost bureaucratic shrewdness in his vacant eyes.
[...]
A ghost who wants to be alive. A human who wants nothing. Between them, a house that remembers too much.
You haul the rest of your belongings into the house, fully conscious that this has all the makings of a bad decision only white people seem constitutionally equipped to make. You hadn’t properly vetted the place, there hadn’t been time, you got the job offer and the price had done the heavy lifting of persuasion. The agent — realtor? Property wrangler? Whatever linguistic legerdemain her title implied — had promised that if anything went awry, she was “just a call away!” She’d said it with the kind of cheery urgency you use to conceal panic. You’d clocked the desperation fast, that brittle, over-eager plastered smile of someone unburdening herself of a cursed heirloom. It was a red flag but you’d decided to squint until it resembled opportunity. The deposit was indecently low for a house this size, and at the time you’d chosen to interpret that as luck rather than premonition.
Now, standing in the narrow foyer, you can smell a faint tang of varnish and dust, as though the air itself had been sealed off for years. The walls bear that slightly jaundiced veneer that no amount of paint ever abrogates, and the floorboards complain underfoot with the indignation of the long neglected. Still, it’s your space and that counts for something.
The area seems decent enough. Quiet, sparse in neighbors, the closest ones live a good distance away from you. The house stands on its own, close enough to town that you can fetch milk without a trek and a half, yet far enough that silence thickens by dusk. You tell yourself this is peace. You tell yourself you prefer it that way.
Every person hides the same secret wish: to escape. To leave behind the familiar, the pain, the smallness and find freedom. To start again.
You were no exception.
The very first thing you did was strip the bedroom to its bones. The house came fully furnished, though “furnished” in the distinctly vintage sense: sleek veneer, pine everywhere, and curtains that matched the lampshades. None of it was in bad shape, just a little tacky. You stacked the surplus furniture in the hallway, feeling moderately guilty, as though you’d just demoted someone’s nostalgia.
Everything else could wait. The drive to Vermont had been long enough to rearrange your spine, and you weren’t about to start redecorating on an empty stomach and no sleep. You told yourself you’d earned one evening of doing nothing.
Once the bedding’s changed, you collapse onto the mattress, drag your phone from your pocket, and swipe it awake. A quick FaceTime call to mollify your nerves.
Your brother answers first. “Yo, you still alive?”
“Yeah, bitch. If I ever die, I’m haunting your ugly ass.”
A new icon flickers up: your sister, joining the call from what looks like her car, you can hear a bag rustling in the background. Probably on her lunch break.
“Only ‘cause you got nothing better to do,” he says.
“Where you going?” you ask your sister, ignoring the pest that is your brother.
“Got my food. Need to make a stop at the gas station and then go back to work.” She squints at the screen. “Hold up— is that my shirt?”
“No.” You shift out of view. It most definitely is.
“Mm-hm.”
“Mind your business,” you say, grinning despite yourself.
“Broke as hell,” your brother mutters.
“I know you not talking,” you volley back. “Found a job yet?”
“Man, fuck you.”
You roll your eyes, but it feels good, the banter swells, crude and affectionate, filling the room like a heart until the air thickens with company. The house, long made dormant, pulses with life; the jaundiced lighting, once sallow, now passes for homely. You spend a little longer talking, laughter tapering into quiet. “I gotta go, I need to finish unpacking.”
The silence no longer feels punitive. It sits beside you like an old friend. You move through the house with ease, sweeping in alcoves. Dust lifts in fine swirls, disturbed by your hands and fingers tracing edges, corners, seams. The curtains come down first: heavy fabric, faded and pleated, bearing the residue of someone else’s days. You fold them with exaggerated care and box them away. Anything unsalvageable goes to the trash, discarded without ceremony, and the house exhales a little with each removal.
The light begins to change, dipping into that viscous late-afternoon amber that flatters surfaces. You circle the house, checking corners, pushing aside furniture, noting the minute betrayals of time: veneer chipped, wallpaper curling. There’s a satisfaction in subtraction, in the act of making space your own. The air grows lighter with each discarded thing, less stale, less prepossessed by memory.
At last, there is the final door: the one you’ve left closed all day. It sits at the end of the hallway, narrow and blistered, innocuous yet stubborn, as though guarding a secret. You approach it slowly, hand pausing on the cold brass knob, feeling the varnish stick faintly to your fingers. The hinges sigh as you turn it, and the door opens with a brittle creak.
A gust of cold air lashes your skin, a contrast to the rest of the house that is warmed with heating. You glance for the window. Tightly shut. No drafts. The room carries a different bearing than the rest of the house, closer to a study than a bedroom, reticent and contained. The wallpaper peels where the skirting meets the wall, curling in on itself. A faint trace of mildew clings to the corners, and beneath it rises another scent: metallic, subtle, curling into your awareness. You shiver, tugging your sleeves down. The chill sinks into your bones, insistent, leaving the room waiting.
You step further in. The room accepts you, indifferent but watchful. Your breath becomes visible in the air, a ghost of heat escaping into the stillness. You glance back down the hall: boxes, bags, evidence of your arrival. Everything seems accounted for.
The shadows have shifted slightly, or perhaps your eyes are playing tricks. The corners feel just a fraction too dark. There is a dilation in the walls, faint but steady, almost like the ticking of a clockwork. Your own heart quickens in response. You want to tell yourself it’s imagination, the residue of exhaustion and travel, but the cold persists.
Maybe the heating in this room doesn’t work.
You take a deep breath and reach for the window again, pressing a hand against the glass. Solid. No give. You step back, unease knitting along your spine, and notice for the first time the small details you had overlooked: the baseboards marred with tiny scratches, the wallpaper’s curling edges trembling slightly, the air too crisp to be natural.
The room waits.
You realize the house has changed since you first arrived. It was yours then, yours only in a provisional sense. Now it belongs to something else as well, something that has learned to inhabit its corners, its air, its pauses. You do not yet see it, but the house does, and it is aware of you.
And then the silence thickens.
You suppress the urge to call out, like one of those horror‑movie idiots you and your siblings heckle from the couch, yelling don’t go in there! through mouthfuls of popcorn.
Weariness seeps into you all at once, pooling in your limbs until every movement feels superfluous. You collapse onto the bed, and the mattress exhales a cloud of dust that catches the light, motes drifting like tiny suspended spectres. Just a few minutes, you tell yourself, but the minutes stretch, unspooling, dissolving into the hush of the room along with the dust. Your eyes grow heavy. You make out, just barely, the paraphernalia scattered across the wooden desk, wondering, fleetingly, who it belonged to.
Your limbs loosen, your spine sags into the curve of the bed. Thoughts unravel; the edges of consciousness fray. The peeling wallpaper, the shadows gathering in corners, the faint hum in the air, all recede behind the curtain of slumber. And then, finally, you are gone, carried into the seamless, tender dark.
-
Your eyes are bleary when you awaken, or, more succinctly, roused from sleep by… Bach? You’re certain you hadn’t cued a playlist, and the notion that your evening had made a quiet migration from whatever familiar noise you’d usually fall asleep to, toward the crystalline order of a Brandenburg Concerto, seems implausible. The notes linger in the air like someone had chosen them.
Your nose is congested, an entirely predictable penalty for surrendering to the dusty sheets.
What occupies the center is the suspicion, not born this morning, but from the uneasy recesses of last night, that something has shifted. You’d talked yourself out of it then, rationalizing the vague disquiet as the cheap theatrics of an exhausted mind. But now the room has taken on the brittle clarity of evidence.
“Who’s here?” you call out. The words don’t come with the reckoning force you’d imagined; instead, they land like an inquiry made in the wrong room at the wrong time as though you are the trespasser.
The music begins to warp. It wobbles, falters, distorts.
Your heart drops.
For a moment, the urge to crawl into the bed becomes overwhelming. Not out of any real hope it might protect you but because it seems like the thing one is supposed to do when frightened. As if the act itself is talismanic. For a moment, you're five years old again, gripped by the childish instinct to dive under the covers, as if a threadbare blanket could shield you from whatever darkness is waiting out there.
Back then, you’d scurried into your siblings’ rooms at night, your tiny arms wrapping around their reluctant bodies until they grunted in annoyance and tried to shove you off. Only when they noticed the tears pooling silently did they relent.
You’re never staying up to watch horror movies with us again, they’d mutter. And you’d nod frantically, agree in earnest — no, never again. Then a week later, they’d let you stay up anyway, because it was easier than sending you to bed at your delegated time.
You can’t do that now.
The stark reminder that you’re all alone is enough to drive you mad.
You need to get out. You need to—
Your body moves before your mind can reason, it no longer possesses the ability to think rationally. Panic seizes you by the spine and propels you forward. You stumble through the hallway, each step louder than it should be, the walls narrowing around you.
Down the stairs — too fast — your hand barely catches the railing. Your heart is loud enough to drown out thought.
And then you’re outside, gasping.
The night greets you with open jaws. The hadean sky is starless, but the air is cold and sharp and real. Out here, in the vast dark, you feel safer than you ever did in that house.
You need to distance yourself from the house. You need space. You need the openness.
Your thoughts return in disarray, one by one. They come back like a timid stray cat at a doorstep, half-afraid to be noticed. For a while, there’s only the sound of your breath, and the wide, empty air pressing around you.
Your phone. Your wallet. The keys to your car, sitting on the dresser by the window. All of it — back at the house. You’ve left parts of yourself behind.
You could turn back, of course. People do that all the time — realize their folly, retrace their steps. But you don’t. Whatever waits in that house has already outstayed its welcome. So you keep walking, absurdly coatless, absurdly visible, a lone figure on an indifferent pavement. The street is empty; no one to witness your little episode.
The collision comes from nowhere — a blur, a breath, then impact. A shoulder slams into yours hard enough to twist you half around. Your balance deserts you, your heart convulses, and the absurd thought flits through your mind that this, too, is punishment.
He staggers back, equally startled, which should make you suspicious but doesn’t. You’re too busy being grateful that someone else exists.
“Hey, do you- do you have a phone?” The words spill out, graceless and urgent.
He hesitates, and you can already see the refusal forming, so you cut him off. “Please. I don’t have anything on me.”
That seems to rearrange his priorities. His eyes flicker over you: the dishevelment, the thin veneer of composure. You force your body to relax, though every muscle screams the opposite.
“Uh… yeah.” He scratches at his nose, unwilling to meet your gaze, and produces a phone like a guilty offering. “Here.”
You take it from him with unsteady fingers, the phone slick in your grip. You type your sister’s number — muscle memory doing what your mind can’t. It rings. Once. Twice. Then the sterile click of voicemail.
Your lip trembles. You swallow, as if you can force composure back down your throat. The screen’s blue glare washes over your face, throws your own reflection back at you — a ghost, flattened and warped in the glass.
You glance at him. Reflex. Human reflex. He’s watching, not quite meeting your eyes, gaze hovering somewhere near your mouth as if unsure what expression you’ll choose next. He’s polite enough to look awkward about it.
“Didn’t answer?” he says. Casual tone, but there’s an edge… or maybe that’s you, inventing edges where there are none.
You shake your head. “Voicemail.”
He nods, as though that explains everything. You wait for him to say something else, something adult and reassuring — You’ll get through, Want me to call someone for you? — but he doesn’t. He just stands there, hands buried deep in his pockets, the very image of someone hoping this moment ends soon.
The street is silent again, your breathing loud against the stillness. A car passes somewhere far off, too far to matter. The sound folds back into quiet.
“Sorry,” you manage. “I didn’t mean to—” You don’t finish the sentence, because you have no idea what you meant. You didn’t mean to exist here, maybe. To make a scene. To need anything.
He shrugs. “It’s fine.” The words feel perfunctory, like he doesn’t know what else to say.
You force a small, humourless laugh. “I’m not usually—” But again, language deserts you halfway. Whatever you usually are, this isn’t it. You know that. So does he.
A gust of wind slides between you, carrying the faint, metallic smell of rain. You realise you’re still holding the phone, the call window open, your sister’s number glowing uselessly on the screen.
He glances at it, then back at you. “Battery’s low,” he says, and you can’t tell if it’s a warning or an accusation.
You hand it back to him. Your fingers brush his — a dry, human contact that should comfort but doesn’t. Something about the warmth of his skin feels unearned.
There’s an awkward pause, as though the offer embarrassed him on contact. You nod too quickly, grateful and suspicious at once. Gratitude wins only because you’re tired.
“Thanks,” you say again, the word thinning under repetition.
“Tyler,” he adds, as if handing you a fact that might later prove useful.
You echo it. “Tyler.” The name sits in your mouth like something you’ll need to remember if this goes wrong.
He gestures down the street. You follow, because the alternative is turning back toward the house.
-
If Tyler is nervous beneath your constant scrutiny, he conceals it well. He’s taken you to a place called the Weathervane, a coffee shop that smells of burnt beans and damp wood, and is now arranging whatever apparatus constitutes his morning ritual. You, with no prescribed role, do what you do best: watch. It’s not like you have anything better to do.
“You start early,” you remark, the comment more placeholder than curiosity.
“Only sometimes.” He doesn’t look up. “I was out for a run, so I usually just… come straight here.”
There’s a hesitation that twitches across his face.
“What?” you prompt.
“You’re new,” he blurts, then, seeing your reaction, clarifies, “I mean, it’s a small town. People tend to… notice new arrivals.”
“Oh, yeah.” You nod, as if that explains anything. “Got a job on the outskirts. Couldn’t find anything affordable closer in, but I got lucky.”
You hear yourself say lucky and almost laugh. The word sounds unconvincing even to your own ears.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, a note of disbelief threading through his voice. “You’re the one who moved into that house?”
“That house?” you echo, the question, rhetorical. You already know why his tone carries incredulity. Why the very mention of it seems to recoil from his mouth.
He exhales, a sharp, incredulous puff. “I—uh… I didn’t think anyone would actually take it. I mean, that place…” He gestures vaguely in the direction you came from, though the gesture seems inadequate. “It’s not… normal. Not even the Outcasts want it.”
“Outcasts?” you parrot, a tad defensive. “What do you mean by that?”
His disbelief only exacerbates with your question. “You’ve moved to a town full of the supernatural.”
“Supernatural.” You repeat it, the word scraping against your teeth like grit in your mouth. You’re starting to feel like a broken record, though it’s not repetition that unnerves you, it’s the creeping realization that the world you thought you understood has already begun to slip away.
“Like, vampires, sirens. That kinda stuff.”
A dissonant scrape of a chair punctuates your standing, a noise too loud, too deliberate, as though the place itself is mocking your incredulity. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not joking,” Tyler asserts. “There’s a school for them not far from here.”
You want to interrogate him, to dig for the absurdities and loopholes in his claim, but the effort feels physically burdensome. Your body still hums with the residual adrenaline from the house. After that experience, after the way the walls seemed to watch and the shadows thickened in corners, you do believe him, more readily than you would have in any other context.
Belief settles uncomfortably in your chest, a leaden weight pressing between ribs and lungs. Your exhaustion amplifies it, tiredness always renders one more credulous, more willing to accept strange truths rather than battle the world for rationality. You swallow, tasting the bitterness of your own acquiescence, and feel the thin pulse of unease thread itself through the quiet moments between words.
“Whatever.”
He eyes you for a moment, as if testing whether you’re mocking him. “What… is that- is that it?”
“What?” you ask, jaded. “Do you want me to argue with you?”
He smiles wryly. “No. I mean… you accepted that pretty fast.”
You did. The admission hangs there, unspoken, before you fill the gap with the only truth that feels remotely solid. “I think my house is haunted,” you blurt out.
He huffs out a laugh. “That’s what they say.”
“Okay.” You look outside to see the sunrise. “I’m gonna go back.”
“Go back,” he repeats slowly, dubiously.
“You said this town was full of the supernatural, so it doesn’t make a difference where I stay. There’s always gonna be something.” It sounds crazy when you say it out loud.
“But—“”
“It’s the cheapest place here,” you say resolutely.
“For a good reason,” he returns.
“Tyler.” There’s a desperate tinge to your voice.
He sighs. “Fine. Your funeral.”
-
The doors creak in the dead hour, their groans unraveling the silence like mournful soliloquies whispered beneath a bloodless moon. The lights falter, its ancient timbers protesting the intrusion of time and unseen occupants alike. You grant yourself the mercy of believing it all to be the decrepitude of a home long surrendered to disorder, rather than the spectral tenant that prowls its shadowed hallways.
It has not yet deigned to announce itself.
You sink into the embrace of a timeworn armchair, the fabric cool beneath your fingertips, and bury your attention in the brittle pages of a book you have chosen with both care and resolve. The lights relinquish their glow in reluctant waves until the room is consumed entirely by darkness, and your irritation swells—not fear—at the suffocating loss of illumination. You are prepared, after all. With the practiced grace of a seasoned conjurer, you cradle a match and light a candle.
Resettling, you turn a page when a sudden, frigid gust tears through the chamber, snuffing the candle’s fragile flame with a breath colder than any winter wind. The temperature plummets, and the air itself seems to thicken, as if the room inhales in anticipation.
“Reading by candlelight,” the voice murmurs, a silk thread weaving through the darkness, “how quaint.” It lingers, a slow and knowing caress against your senses. “But I assure you, the stories here are far more… unsettling.”
Your stomach turns to lead.
There is no visible source, no form, only the intangible presence, wrapping around you like a velvet shroud.
You open your mouth but no words come out.
“Cat got your tongue?” The question drips with theatrical languor, as if savoring the moment before unveiling its full menace. “Good,” it purrs. “I hate being upstaged.”
Great. A ghost with a sense of humor.
“You think you’re funny?”
A voice that is undeniably your sister’s, cadenced with a maternal reprimanding even in memory hisses at the hinterland of thought, to stop fucking provoking that ghost. You disregard her entirely. You’re tired of being scared of things that aren’t there and derision is the sole implement still obedient to your will. “Need to work on your scare tactics, I’ve seen better work from little kids.”
There’s a sensation that isn’t different from lead seeping into your muscles, a slow, sullen occupation. Control slides out of reach, as though your body’s signed a private contract with an unseen authority. You issue commands: move, breathe, resist. But nothing obeys. The limbs still respond, just not to you. Once again you are present for your expropriation.
The familiarity of helplessness makes you nauseous.
Because you’ve been here before, haven’t you? Your body is a stage for someone else’s will. The same internal screaming, the same paralysis. It’s your fault. It’s always your fault. You’d thought you’d built fortifications since then, a carapace protecting you but you were wrong.
It keeps you like this for what feels like forever. To scare you. To prove a point. To educate you in the language of subjugation. When it finally releases its grip, your body sags back into ownership, too offended to feel the relief. The wildness in your eyes survives the ordeal, but the hue is no longer panicked. It’s metamorphosed into anger. You lash out blindly at the air. You make contact with nothing. There is nothing there.
There never is.
“Are you done?” it asks, bored.
“Fuck you,” you seethe. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here.”
The words reverberate, endless. They ricochet off the walls, splinter into corners, you can’t tell if they’re outside or inside your head. Every echo lands a fraction too late, as if the room itself is struggling to keep up with the sound. You turn toward the voice, but it’s already behind you. Then beside you. Then nowhere at all.
You get the sense it won’t appear anytime soon. Even now, it thinks of itself as more than a mere specter: more than you. Every word, every pause, every carefully timed creak is meant to unsettle, to frighten. And yet, there’s a rhythm to it, a flourish too human, too clever; it believes it’s terrifying, but the theatrics betray it as something living, something mischievous, something… entirely present.
The silence drapes itself over you again, smugly. It wants you to flinch first.
“Bach?” you question derisively, out of the blue. “What’s next, serenading me with Vivaldi? I’ll offer you some pointers, if you need ‘em.”
“If I recall correctly,” it starts, very pleased with itself, and a tiny, satisfied spark flares in your chest. That’s it. It’s petty, indulgent, so alive… so full of itself. “You were petrified, blindly stumbling through the halls, only to crawl back at dawn.”
“But I came back.”
“There’s nothing stopping me from getting rid of you. Permanently.”
The words come out before you even consider them: “So do it.” You pause, almost curious which of you sounds more convincing. “Do it, and you’ll never be rid of me. I’ll be in your house forever. But…” You exhale, aware of the absurdity: bargaining with a ghost. “I’ll leave on my own eventually. A year, maybe two.”
“Better for me that you’re gone now.” But you can tell by the tone that he’s already acquiesced.
There’s a disturbance in the air, the delineation of something translucent cohering into form. Then… you see him. Your ghost is a man, all sharp angles, hollow‑eyed, gaunt in the way you’d expect a corpse to be. A scientist, by the look of the white lab coat fastened all the way up. He studies you the way someone would examine a specimen: with a curiosity so intent it feels invasive. Then he blinks, and all that interest evanesces, leaving only a cold, almost bureaucratic shrewdness in his vacant eyes.
-
He does not leave you alone.
The hauntings are petty, irritable — small inconveniences that are huge to you, your most loved book nudged off the shelf and onto the floor, a leaky faucet that is going to take a toll on your bank account when the water bill comes in. Things that make your teeth grind, your patience threadbare. You storm through the house, shouting into empty spaces, fully aware that he hears you, even if he deigns not to respond.
“Yo, what is your problem?!” You barge into what you assume is his room. It’s a room you’ve been skirting for days, a self-imposed truce of civility, not wanting to encroach upon his space and yet he hasn’t reciprocated. Courtesy given, but not returned.
He manifests in front of you, materializing with the flair of someone announcing a coup d’état. Fingers pinched together, he gestures like a professor correcting a particularly dim pupil. “This,” he intones, “this is my room.”
“Yeah, and you’re always in my room flinging my shit around.”
“I don’t need to be anywhere near your room to do that.”
You consider this for a moment, feel the argument prickling at the edges, and swerve. “Why are you dressed like you’re about to perform an autopsy?”
His eyes drop to his clothes, then return, flat and unsparing. He looks annoyed that you pointed it out. “It’s not as if I had the luxury of changing after I died.”
You blink. “Right.” Somehow, you had forgotten he died. The words taste strange as you say them, and before you can stop yourself, “How did you die?”
He ignores that, drifting toward the shelves you’d rearranged, gliding along the narrow aisle with a faintly imperious air, as though you’ve dared to insult him simply by occupying the same square footage. His eyes flit from spine to spine, lingering here and there, tracing the gilded letters or the nicks and scuffs of years well‑used. You can’t tell if he approves or if he’s judging you, but you figure he’d be the first to announce any deficiency with as much bluntness as possible.
“What’s your name?”
He pauses. “Isaac.”
“How did you die?” you ask again.
“Freak accident,” he answers finally. Vaguely. Very ominous.
You give him a once over. “Yeah, that checks out.”
He gives you a dry look then goes back to your book shelves.
You walk over to where he’s stood, gesturing to your books. “Do you read?”
“Only what’s worth remembering.”
“Do you want to borrow one?”
“I already have.”
You blink. “Without asking me.”
“Did you ask me before intruding?”
“Technically, you’re the one intruding. I moved here for work.”
“Work,” he regurgitates, rolling the word around his tongue as if testing its authenticity, His assessing gaze follows you, trying to understand why someone like you would even consider living here. “Vermont… a land of endless prospects. Practically a goldmine of opportunities,” he remarks dryly.
You ignore him, turning your attention to the shelf, scanning the uneven jumble of spines, trying to find some clue to what he might have chosen. What would a pretentious ghost want to read? You picture him hovering over some arcane treatise on alchemy, or perhaps a book so old it smells of dust and regret. There is no order to your collection. The shelves are crammed with whatever fits, sometimes piled atop one another, some titles sideways, some upside down, the occasional makeshift book nook wedged in to keep a rogue paperback from toppling. You like aesthetics but your book shelf is practical, a system only you can navigate. So discerning which book drew his attention is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Your curiosity grips at you with leather-gloved hands. Not just about the book but also about him. About whether a ghost has substance, if anything of him can be apprehended by your fingers. It is irrational, but compelling. You inch closer, letting your hand drift toward the shelf, calculating how to make your reach seem natural. You extend it slowly, a tentative mimicry of coincidence, like you were simply reaching for the same book he is.
Then, your hands ghost his own clad in gloves. Your pulse lurches in response, and you almost retract your hand, embarrassed by your own need to feel what shouldn’t exist. You jerk your hand back, heart hammering, and stare at the shelf as if the books themselves might provide some explanation. But the spines remain inert, their titles mocking in their ordinary specificity, utterly mundane: a treatise on horticulture, a collection of Victorian short stories, a dog-eared edition of Kant you had long forgotten you owned.
He doesn’t comment, doesn’t shift his position, but the air feels different.
Your gaze flits from his slight, poised form to the shelf, as if the gap might reveal some secret about him, or even about yourself. You imagine the ghost rifling through the pages, the faintest trace of amusement in the curl of a sentence, a whisper of recognition for something only he could appreciate. You want to ask, but the words feel immature and unnecessary. Instead, you draw a slow breath, trying to quiet the rush of your pulse. You remind yourself how improbable all of this is: alone in a house that feels sentient, arguing with something that shouldn't exist, aching to touch a presence your mind warns you against, as it might warn you from reaching toward an open flame.
Isaac pauses but doesn’t recoil. He tilts his head, the faintest crease forming between his brows, and fixes you with an almost clinical scrutiny. “What are you doing?” His voice is calm, carrying a smidgeon of incredulity rather than the irritation you were expecting. There’s a thread of curiosity woven through it, that resembles something reserved for anomalies that deserve closer examination.
You pull your hand back slowly, though the ghostly chill clings to your skin, searing memory into your fingertips. Your pulse is uneven, your chest suddenly too warm, too aware of the small, strange intimacy of the act. You think about lying, and then you don’t. “I just wanted to see,” you murmur. “If a ghost feels like anything.”
He hums softly, an odd, almost indulgent sound. “And do I?”
“You feel colder the closer I get,” you say, your voice a fragile veneer over a deeper truth you dare not utter: that your fingers brushed only supple leather. To speak aloud of this absence would be to beckon the stripping away of that last barrier, to invite the skin beneath the glove, and with it, the revelation of what lurks beneath.
“Get used to it.”
-
You didn’t realize you had neighbours. The discovery feels almost intimate, the way their lives bleed faintly into yours through the paper-thin walls.. Morning light pilfers through the blinds. You sit still, listening to the muffled shouting of children next door, their laughter and indignation muddled together in the way only siblings can manage.
For a moment, you let yourself believe in the comfort of it — the clatter of breakfast dishes, the shriek of a slammed door, the chorus of living. It reminds you of when everything was full and nothing was empty.
You don’t know what they look like, these voices that sound like sunlight, but you picture them anyway, filling in the details without meaning to: scuffed knees, jam-smeared mouths, a mother calling from the kitchen, someone rolling their eyes and pretending not to listen. A scene you once inhabited, long ago, and now observe from behind the frosted glass of another life.
Someone knocks at your door.
You get up from the kitchen and answer it.
There’s a woman, beaming at you, a child shyly peeking from behind her legs. They look startlingly similar to how your mind had conjured them, the same rich skin that drinks in the sunlight, the same easy grace that feels like home. The woman’s smile is wide, luminous in that particular way only certain people manage, as if she’s laughing at something you said a long time ago and just now remembered. The child tilts their head, wary but curious, fingers curled around their mother’s leg.
There’s something familiar and warm about them, the sort of warmth that makes your throat tighten. There’s something distant about them.
“Hello!”
“Hi,” you reply. “Can I help you?”
“We just came over to say hi, didn’t we?” She looks at her daughter. “And bring along breakfast. Hope you like pancakes.”
You’re caught off-guard by the smell: sweet, buttery, the faintest trace of cinnamon. The foil-wrapped plate radiates a soft heat between her hands. For a moment, it’s disarming, this neighborly gesture that feels plucked from a life you’d once had.
“That’s- that’s really nice of you,” you say, the words small, fumbling.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Her smile widens like someone used to hosting. “You’re new here. We figured we’d say welcome properly.”
The little girl giggles, eyes darting to the plate in your hands. “Mama makes the best ones,” she declares, proud, the lisp in her voice so soft it almost makes your chest ache.
You return the smile. “I bet she does.”
The woman adjusts the little girl’s hair, smoothing down an errant curl. The gesture is so familiar it aches. You think of your mother’s hands, the same tenderness as scolding. For one dizzying second, the two women seem to blur.
You blink, swallow. “I’ll bring the plate back once I’ve eaten.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” she says lightly. “We’ve got plenty more.”
Your smile wavers. “Thanks.”
-
The kitchen hums with its small, domestic orchestra — the hiss of oil, the impatient spatter of sauce, the knife tapping against the cutting board with a rhythm that almost borders on celebration. You move quickly, too quickly, as though motion itself might preserve the strange levity that’s taken you. Steam curls against the windows; your reflection swims in the glass like someone half-remembered.
It feels dizzying, almost illicit, this happiness, a thing so fragile you fear the act of noticing it might shatter it. You stir, taste, hum something tuneless. For the first time in months, the walls don’t lean in.
“You’re in a good mood,” Isaac observes
The words cut through the hum like a scalpel, startling you even though you had always known he was there. He leans in the doorway, shoulder pressed to the frame, a faint shadow of a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips — never fully committing, as if he has secrets folded into the angles of his expression.
“Surprised you can even recognize what a good mood is,” you chirp, brandishing the spoon like a weapon.
“Recognition is easy,” he says mildly, tilting his head. “Replication… that’s the tricky part. Hard to pull off when you insist on being here.”
You ignore him, plating the food with deliberate care, two perfect portions as though this were a formal ritual rather than a moment stolen from the world. You slide a plate toward him.
He studies the plate, lips barely twitching. “And here I thought I knew what to expect.”
“Dinner,” you say, too bright, almost laughing. “People eat it.”
“People,” he echoes, like it should answer everything for you.
You sit, fork in hand, and eat quickly, determined, as though the act itself proves something. The food is hot, too hot, but you chew anyway. “It’s good,” you say, cheek distended. “You’d know if you touched yours.”
He doesn’t move.
“Do you not like it?”
His eyes lift slowly, meeting yours with a calm intensity that unnerves. “You know I’m hardly one to answer.”
Your smile falters; the fork hesitates midair before lowering soundlessly to the plate. The sauce pools and runs, thin and red, catching the light like something too alive. “I forget sometimes,” you murmur. “You’re just— you feel like a human.”
’He watches you a moment longer, as if waiting for you to take it back. Then, without a word, he reaches for the fork. The movement is unhurried, almost graceful. A gesture of a man performing a role he once knew by heart.
He lifts the bite to his mouth and eats.
For a moment, you can almost believe in the illusion: the scrape of metal against porcelain, the quiet chew, the swallow that shouldn’t exist. It’s absurd, the sight of something dead mimicking the living so perfectly that your chest aches with it.
You watch, unable to breathe. He does not look away.
When he sets the fork down, the sound is very soft, and his expression remains unchanged — no mockery, no warmth, only the faintest trace of something unreadable. He could almost pass for alive in this light, and that, somehow, is worse.
-
After work you decide on revenge. Belated, maybe, but the fright that once tightened your throat has loosened into something useful. Not the melodramatic kind that gets written up in police reports or makes for late‑night anecdotes. You think of what he had done to you. How you were pinned, helpless, and he had known it. You cannot replicate that. You would if you could — would have loved nothing more than to make him feel what you felt but Isaac is a ghost. What you possess in the functional present is petty agency: the ability to make the small domestic world disagree with his tastes.
The speaker is an ugly little thing of black plastic and blue LEDs, impulse bought on an app that’s pricing is ridiculously cheap. It looks absurd on the mantel, it’s nothing like the one you have back home. You press play with a foxlike pleasure. The first notes spill forth, abrasive and unbearably loud, a riotous myriad of tones you would never voluntarily endure: radio slop, pop production engineered to assault the ears of anyone with an iota of taste. You feel a fleeting thrill at the audacity of it, the absurdity of a human wielding noise as a weapon against a ghost who has spent years stewing in the quiet. The room - Isaac - registers the intrusion after a few minutes: the light above you wobbles, offended, the brass of the fireplace groans in protest.
A thousand tiny abrasions instead of a single break.
Isaac materialises through the door, crosses the threshold with the deliberation of someone stepping into a lecture hall. He inhales once, and for a man with no lungs it is startlingly expressive.
“Planning on butchering your own hearing?” he says, in that dry, unimpressed drawl that suggests he’s long abandoned hope for the entire human race.
“I’m just listening to some music,” you say, casual in a way that is meant to disarm.
He looks at you then, part amusement, part affront. “You don’t even like this,” he points out.
You turn the volume up. It’s childish, and it’s satisfying. “You don’t know what I like, you don’t know me. I love it.”
He exhales, a small disbelieving laugh. Not the reaction you want. “Since when?”
“Since right now.”
“And this has nothing to do with the first night?”
You don’t look at him. “Nope.”
He studies you a moment longer than necessary, as though trying to locate the point at which this became about something else. Then he extends a hand in the direction of the speaker. You half expect him to blow it up; instead he hovers there, reconsidering.
“Well,” he says finally, hand flopping down to his side. “Enjoy it. Turn it louder.”
“What?”
“If you’re intent on developing tinnitus, let it not be me who stops you.”
You lower the volume yourself. The pop chorus recedes, a soft wash of sound over the room. He watches with a smile that does not reach his eyes.
You are petulant and obstinate and undeniably alive.
-
Your neighbor returns with her son.
The memory arrives before the words, curling around the edges of your mouth like smoke rising from a long-forgotten fire. They return, as they always do, with the boy at their side, the smaller version of your brother with that tongue-in-cheek expression that once belonged only to him.
They always make you your favorite.
It is in the way the boy tilts his head, how the neighbor smiles with that lovingly chagrined manner, how the plate is set in front of you exactly as you remember it: the small curve of the dish, the careful arrangement, the way the light falls across the surface just so. You remember thinking, years ago, that something so simple could never feel like this.
The first bite surprises you in the same way it always does. It tastes like something you had as a child, then again in adulthood, something you purchase and discard when it fails to live up to the memory of it. And yet, here it is again, better than memory, more vivid than anything you ever hoped to recreate. The flavor unfurls across your tongue like a secret letter written directly to the part of you that has always been hungry, the part of you that remembers small pleasures more acutely than any grand joy. Sweet, soft, familiar. The taste brings a warmth that spreads slowly through your chest, curling around your ribs like a ray of light.
You glance at the boy again. His eyes sparkle with a mischievous curiosity that is somehow deeply familiar. He fidgets a little, the way your brother did, shifting from foot to foot, as if daring you to notice how perfectly he mirrors your past. You smile at him, and he grins back, unabashed.
The neighbor watches, never rushes, never hurries the moment along; instead, she allows it to stretch, to breathe. Her presence is alleviating, all the small fears and anxieties you carry could dissolve if you simply let yourself sink into the moment.
You take another bite, slower this time, letting the flavor linger, letting the warmth seep into the spaces of you that have long been cautious, long been guarded. It is an intimate thing, this simple act of eating, this unspoken ritual shared between you and the neighbors who understand every hidden corner of your heart. It is a feeling so rare it almost startles you, this sense of being perfectly known without having to explain, without having to justify, without having to ask for permission to exist exactly as you are.
The boy edges closer now, shyly, almost imperceptibly, and you notice the small details that make him real: the slight curve of his ears, the way he watches you with genuine interest in each delicate expression your face offers. He reaches out just enough to brush against your hand, and the gesture feels natural, inevitable, as if it has always been part of the rhythm of your life. You cannot help but let your heart respond.
When the plate is empty and the boy curls into a new position at the doorway, resting his chin on his knees, you feel a strange fullness, as if the warmth of the moment has seeped into the marrow of your bones. There is no urgency here, no pressure to move on, to leave, to perform.
And as they rise to leave, the familiar weight of absence does not sting. You savor the memory even as it settles into the recesses of your mind, knowing that warmth, once given, never truly leaves you.
-
The music box hangs listlessly from your hands, its weight both slight and unbearable. You gently cradle it like your mother had and her mother before that, the lacquer still gleams in places where her fingers used to rest, small ovals of shine preserved like ghosts of touch. You imagine her fingerprints lingering there, pressed into the blue surface as if time might have forgotten to carry them away. When you set your own fingers over them, it feels so overwhelming that your breath begins to stutter unevenly. You can feel yourself start to hyperventilate, not with the release of crying, but with the failure of it. It’s what happens when the tears won’t come: your body revolts. It doesn’t understand your restraint and your chest tightens , ribs constricting as though they mean to splinter.
You try to focus on the box.
It’s beautiful, in that cruel, deliberate way that beauty sometimes is: shellacked in a deep, enamelled blue, the kind of blue that doesn’t exist in real life but only limned in children’s storybooks or dreamscapes, a shade too rich to be real. Gilded filigree twines along its edges, tiny, twisting vines of gold that catch the light and wink at you.
You can’t fix it.
You’ve tried, of course. For weeks, your evenings have been subsumed by this futile, meticulous routine. The mechanics inside are the problem.
The temperature drops. The air folds around you, denser, quieter. You sigh, already weary of the prelude. “Not now.”
A pause, then his voice, jarring: “You’ve been at that thing for hours. I’d almost think you were trying to bore me to death.”
You don’t look up. “Good thing you’re already dead. You should go away if it’s so boring.”
“That’s the tragedy of the thing,” Isaac says, his tone bright with self-satisfaction. “Something so simple, and yet you manage to complicate it. Truly, it’s a rare talent to fail this artfully.”
You scratch your temple, annoyed by the fact that he just keeps on talking.
"I'm gonna throw this at your head."
"You can't. I'm incorporeal." He's enjoying this way too much. "Give it here."
“Why would you want to fix it?”
“Why persist in error, when the solution is so obviously within reach. But I can be of use. You should be flattered and make the most of it.”
You hesitate. He curls his hands, beckoning, as if the box is owed to him.
You concede.
He uses one hand, and for a second you think he’s doing it on purpose. Showing off. But when you spend too long lingering on his right hand, he just says, “I only have the one,” in such a dry tone it sounds like he’s tasted something bad.
“Hand?” you murmur, startled.
“Yes. You seem… fixated,” he replies, a faint edge of amusement threading his words. “One hand is enough—more than you could manage with two, I imagine.”
And then he works. The delicate pins and cogs click under his fingers, a rhythmic, muted percussion. The cylinder spins, the comb is aligned, and for a moment the music box is alive only in his hand. You can almost hear the notes as they wait, trapped inside, fragile and patient, ready to bloom. Each movement is exact, effortless, a choreography of control that contrasts with the fumbling hours you spent trying in vain.
Five minutes pass. The air is taut, electric, as he smooths his eyebrows into that infuriatingly smug expression and hands it back to you. Your first impulse is indignation, a desire to scold the conceit that radiates from him. But the instant the lid opens and the mellifluous tune spills into the room, the impulse dies.
Your heart seizes, caught in the melody, in the history woven into the music, a mother, a past, a grief you cannot cage. The notes waft in the air like mist, and for a moment, the world contracts to this fragile, perfect, living music box and the single, infuriatingly competent hand that restored it.
Your hands tremble as the tune plays, a sound both achingly beautiful and impossibly cruel, and all you can do is hold the box, overwhelmed.
-
It wasn’t that you had not expected it to work. The situation had a sense of levity to it when you were conducting it: cheap scented candles, thrift-store incense, a whisper of his name with his face at the forefront of your mind pitched more for irony than invocation because really, if you wanted to see him, you could just call. And yes, it would take a couple of tries, the furniture would rattle in what you always suspected was performative irritation, and then he’d materialise, exhaling a perforated, put-upon “What?”
Yet when the air folds in on itself, and the window shudders without wind, you knew immediately: you’d done something wrong.
He doesn’t appear as half an apparition but corporeal, no gradual solidification and full of resentment.
Nobody likes to be dragged against their will.
Then: a tug, subtle but inexorable, somewhere beneath the breastbone, and the world inclines, slides off its axis. You are not falling; you are being opened.
He’s inside.
There’s no head-spinning theatrics like they show in the movies. No deepening of the voice. He siphons his soul into you. You blink, and the blink isn’t yours. You breathe, and the breath feels borrowed. For one terrible instant you understand that Isaac isn’t just inside your body — he’s seeing you. Seeing everything.
The bad memories spread like a contagion: uninvited, unstoppable. He feels them as you do: the hands, the noise, the heat under the skin that doesn’t wash off. You can feel him testing the boundaries of your body, tentative, the way you’d press an old wound to see if it still hurts. His confusion mixes with yours. Then he feels what’s there, what you’ve kept buried: the cold floor, the smell, the hand on your arm you pretended not to feel.
It’s like someone else is wading through your past, stirring the silt.
Then he wrenches himself free, sudden and brutal, expunging some intolerable poison from his body. A violent recoil from something he does not have to endure.
The silence that follows is no solace but a remorseless expanse. Then it erupts: a sharp, barking laugh, tearing from the throat, splintering in the chest, rattling ribs, jerking spine and lungs in reckless disarray. It stutters, it stumbles, it ricochets through the skull, claws at sinew, spikes marrow, tangles with the blood, and you cannot stop it, cannot name it, cannot hold it, cannot draw a breath without carrying it along. It thrashes itself free of sense, of thought, of reason, a thing ungovernable and alive.
And then the body yields. The chest convulses, riven with terrible insistence; the laughter collapses into sobs, ragged, heaving, tearing through muscle and bone alike. Salt and iron coat the tongue; shame coils about the ribs, living tendrils that constrict and clutch.
You sense him watching, and you cannot bear to meet his eyes.
-
He finds you, of course he does, as if the house itself has been complicit in tracking your movements, whispering them through the walls, sending him signals in the rustle of the radiator or the faint tremor of the floorboards. You hear him before you see him: the muffled drag of his boots on the hallway rug, you find it odd that he hadn’t materialized right before you and at the doorway of the room.
You’re sitting in the armchair downstairs, legs folded beneath you, the spine of a book slack in your hand. You’ve been staring at the same paragraph for half an hour, rereading the same sentence, unable to make it mean anything. The fire in the grate has died to a dull orange core. The house feels watchful, all its noises pitched toward him.
When he comes to you, he doesn’t loom over you like the specter he is like you expect. He lowers himself onto his haunches at your feet, measured motion that somehow manages to be both deferential and predatory. He tilts his head up, studying you, his face lit by the dying hearth. You think you see a light sweat along his temple, a shimmer that makes him look feverish.
“I can help you,” he breathes out, as if it’s an offering.
You don’t answer. There’s something fervent, manic even, in the way his voice pitches into a reverential whisper. It unsettles you. You get the distinct, crawling sense that he isn’t looking at you but through you, at what he thinks he can remake. You are not a person but a project.
“What?” you say finally, your voice flat, the word dragged through fatigue and dubiety.
“I can excise all that you don’t want,” he says, leaning in as though conspiratorial. “Extricate it from your brain… bit by bit.”
You stare at him. For a moment you think he’s joking. The phrasing is absurdly unequivocal, grotesquely tender. You let out a dry, brittle laugh.
“Sounds like you’re planning a lobotomy,” you say, trying for levity. “So, I’m gonna have to pass on that.”
He doesn’t laugh, but there is a simulation of what he thinks is meant to be a comforting smile. In any other situation it might have been plausible, but here? It feels off. Instead, he clasps your hand and the movement is firm, but gentle and untelegraphed. You jolt, instinctive, endeavoring to pull your hand back.
“I can get rid of it for you. Don’t you want that?”
You wrench your hand away, taking umbrage at his bizarre offer, the softness of his self righteousness. He slowly retracts his hand, the leather sighs as his fingers close into a fist. He does not look offended but perplexed, his brows twitching as if you’re the strange one.
“I don’t want that,” you spit out. “I want— I want to feel it all. If I don’t, I’ll forget how it made me feel. Before, during and after.”
He blinks once, twice as though you’ve said something in a language he almost understands but refuses to translate.
“You’d keep it.” he states. “You’d want to?”
“Yes.” The word comes out hard, almost cruel. “Because it’s mine. Someone else took everything else, and this—” you gesture, vague and trembling “—is what’s left. You’d scrape it out so I’m easier for you to possess, softer to swallow? No. I’ll keep the bloody mess. The anger’s mine. Keep your little freak tools away from me. I won’t make this easy for you.”
Isaac doesn’t say anything. He just stares, long enough that the silence starts to press against your ears. You can almost see him thinking, the faint flicker of muscle in his jaw, as if your words have entered him physically and he’s rolling them around in his mind, ruminating, before deciding what to do with them.
He rises from the ground in one fluid motion, and when he looks down at you, there’s nothing left behind his eyes. No injury, no spark of curiosity. Just a vacuous black hole that bores into you.
And then he’s gone. Dissipates, the way a dream (or nightmare) unravels the moment you try to recall it. One second he’s solid, too close, and the next there’s only the faint distortion of air where he stood.
You exhale a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding. It shudders out of you, shaky. You’re left staring at the space he’d occupied, as if it might reassemble itself into his outline. It doesn’t.
What the fuck was that?
The room remains frigid long after he’s gone. Only, he hasn’t. The cold gives him away, gathering at the nape of your neck like breath.
-
You wake to the sound of your own breath.
The ceiling swims above you in the half-light, a pale expanse trembling with shadow. You try to sit up, but the command dissolves somewhere between thought and body. Your limbs won’t obey. You are awake yet the body below the mind is inert, useless, nailed down by something unseen.
Then you register the weight.
A pressure, as if someone is lowering themselves onto your chest, vertebra by vertebra. You can feel it in the bones, the soft cartilage between ribs groaning under it. You try to draw in air, and what comes is shallow and thin, like breathing through cloth.
There’s someone here.
At first, it’s only a denser patch of darkness at the far end of the room, but it thickens, gains edges. Shoulders. A face, or something imitating one. The shape wavers in the low light: human and not. You can’t turn your face to look at it properly; it’s more terrifying at the edge of your periphery, where your mind completes what the eye refuses.
The pressure on your chest tightens, pins you to the mattress. Your lungs seize in shallow jerks, each breath a negotiation. You try to scream, to move a hand, anything. But your body remains mutinous, heavy, a vessel filled with stone. Tears spill hot down your temples, the band of your bonnet impeding them, your body’s last act of defiance.
It moves, noiselessly, though the space between you distends with pressure, the kind that makes the body remember fear even before the mind can name it. It halts beside the bed, and somehow you know its height, its stance, the weight of its attention. You have known it before. Not here. Somewhere else, before here.
Your mind, that habitual saboteur, supplies the missing details. A face. The blunt force of a hand. Skin. Breath. All of it, unbidden, memory-logged.
The weight intensifies. Darkness seeps inward from the edges, an ink unfurling in water. You are certain that it’s going to crush you, to pin you into the mattress until nothing distinguishable remains.
Faintly, you hear a voice. Somewhere beyond the wall. Isaac’s. The cadence even, almost conversational, as though engaged in dialogue with an unseen presence. The words are indistinct, yet the timbre is enough: human, articulate, real. The smallest fissure opens in the terror’s surface.
And in that instant, the room exhales.
The corner is empty again. For a long time you sit upright, waiting for your mind to reassert its dominion over your flesh, and for reason to explain what the body already knows.
Then you haul yourself out of bed with a conviction you have not felt in a while.
Clutching your silk-encased pillow, you drag it along with you, a quiet protest trailing behind in the hush of fabric. When the doorknob refuses to turn, locked and immovable, your patience abandons you entirely, mouth hardening. You don’t so much knock as drive the side of your fist into the door, over and over again, your frustration and impatience reverberating through the wood.
“Open the fucking door!” you demand.
When you don’t get an immediate response, you start again. “Isaac!”
He appears half-made when the door concedes to your pounding, a sketch of a man rendered in fading graphite definition lost to some spectral imprecision. Not quite opaque, not quite gone. His presence unsettles the certainty of vision itself, as though the act of looking has become unreliable. Yet his expression, incongruously, is unmistakably corporeal: pure, bone-weary irritation.
“What,” he says. The word is a blunt instrument, curiosity-shorn, the verbal tantamount to a drawer being slammed.
You push past him before he can dissolve into whatever liminal state he calls retreat, dragging your silk-encased pillow like a protest banner. “I’m sleeping here.”
He blinks once, a man reacquainting himself with the absurdity of the living. “You’re—” He cuts himself short, thumb pressing into the outer corner of his eye like he’s developing a migraine. An affectation, one of those human gestures he performs out of vestigial habit. “No.”
“I can,” you counter, staking claim to the corner of the room where the air feels least possessed. “And before you open your mouth—something-” You skewer him with a pointed look. “-was in my room.”
He slowly repeats the word, as if handling it under glass. “Something.”
“I mean someone.” You face him fully now, pulse still stuttering against your ribs. “Standing over me. Watching me. If you’re going to play tricks on me when I’m sleeping then I’ll just come bother you every single time.”
He studies you with the detachment of a clinician. His silence extends until it’s clear he’s not pausing to think but to decide whether you warrant thought at all. “You’re hallucinating,” he says at last, tone brisk with certainty. “Sleep paralysis. Common among the overtired and the suggestible.”
“Then I’m overtired and suggestible,” you bite out. “Congrats on your hypothesis. I’m still not going back there.”
“Well, you won’t find being here any more peaceful,” he asserts curtly.
“No,” you concede, tucking the pillow beneath your arm with a finality that brooks no further argument. “But I can keep an eye on you here. Besides, you don’t even sleep.”
He studies you for an interval uncomfortably protracted with the abstracted disquiet of someone assessing a malfunction in machinery they rely upon yet disdain to understand. His silence thickens; you can almost hear him auditing your presence, measuring its disruption against whatever private arithmetic governs his composure.
Finally, he says, “You can stay. For now.”
You hesitate. You had not expected concession, certainly not from him. “Here?”
His mouth twitches. “The rest of the house isn’t fit for habitation. This room at least has doors that shut.”
You resist the urge to point out that the house is not short of doors. You have the sense he would only relish dismantling your observation on technical grounds.
“Don’t look so relieved,” he adds, too swiftly, as if startled by the sound of his own concession. “It’s pragmatic, not charitable. You’re already attracting the wrong kind of attention. Whatever’s moving—”
The wrong kind of attention.
The phrase detonates inwardly, though you contrive not to flinch. Your throat constricts; your eyes drop, fastening on some arbitrary detail: the fissure in the skirting board, the slant of lamplight on the floorboards. Anything that is not him.
He notices. There’s a fractional pause, a soft catch in the air between syllables. Then, deliberately, he continues — “...moving through the halls, it isn’t me. I’d rather it doesn’t get to you before I’ve understood why it wants to.”
You should be offended, probably. But you know the despotic nature in how he talks and this feels more like comfort.
He turns from you, the discussion concluded, yet as you traverse to the bed — his bed, you perceive rather than see him still oriented toward you. The air carries a weight as if his attention has mass, bending the space between you. You tell yourself it is suspicion, after you had brandished your anger at him.
(It isn’t.)
When sleep overtakes you, it’s with a mercy so sudden it feels medicinal, an opiate for your overthinking mind. You haven’t slept this deeply in weeks. In that liminal slip between waking and oblivion, you think you hear Isaac speaking—his voice low, excited. A word surfaces through sleep-skewed fog, deliberate, impossible.
Resurrection.
A ghost who wants to be alive.
A human who wants nothing.
Between them, a house that remembers too much.
From that night onward, you claim his room as your own. His voice is emphatic, swelling in crescendos as though he’s conducting an orchestra no one else can hear, and yet it lulls you. His soliloquies, elaborate and unpunctuated, carry the pulse his body forgot to. Sometimes he talks to you until you’re humming absentmindedly, absorbing the information overload like you can comprehend what it means, his sentences looping like a feedback circuit. It’s his insistence, not his tenderness, that sedates you, the conviction, a lullaby.
Life is a little more bearable like this.
-
The room is crepuscular, almost oppressively so. Shadows cling to the corners, pooling like spilled ink, only the faintest sliver of light creeps through somewhere overhead, a line sharp enough to hurt your eyes but too thin to illuminate more than the edge of the floorboards. In that pinprick of visibility, you see him: a small boy, pale, curls dark and tangled across his forehead, moving in sudden, restless jerks. He is alive, impossibly alive, but his energy is wrong. Too brittle, too frantic, like a creature that has been kept away from sunlight too long. His laughter escapes in uneven bursts, striking the walls as though they were some grim herald of a thing yet to be wrested away.
Then it happens. A sudden, stabbing constriction in his chest, sharp enough that your own lungs tighten. You feel it echo in your own body, as if your ribs are pressing inward in tandem with his. He stumbles, fingers clawing at the floor, nails raking against wood in a sound too raw, too immediate. You reach, instinctively, and your hands pass through him. He is flesh, he is bone, he is here—and yet utterly unattainable.
His knees buckle first. You feel the motion reverberate through you as though gravity is claiming both of you. Then his torso folds in on itself, reluctant, slow, as if his body is negotiating with something vast and unseen. A cough tears from him, short and strangled, and his face, once round and flushed with life, drains to the color of worn parchment. You feel a corresponding pang in your chest, as though your heart is mimicking his failure.
You lunge, desperate to hold him, to stop what is happening, but your hands pass through again. The room seems to press closer, shadows creeping along the walls, swallowing the faint light. You can almost feel the air thickening around him, wrapping around your own chest, making each breath an effort, a cruel mimicry of the suffocation you imagine he feels.
His hands claw at the floor, searching desperately for purchase. Fingers splay and flex in tiny arcs of panic, brushing the edges of the rug, the base of a chair. Dark curls fall into his eyes, which flutter like trapped insects, wide and frantic, trying to understand a body that refuses to obey. You feel the panic radiating from him, hot and insistent, coursing through your own veins until it is indistinguishable from your own terror.
Every sound in the dark room is magnified. The tick of a distant clock, the faint hum of the ceiling, even the whisper of air across the floorboards. You feel it all, every tremor, every falter, every heartbeat of the boy as though your own body were betraying itself in perfect synchrony. The terror is intimate, inescapable, coursing in waves that make your stomach twist and your limbs tremble.
His chest rises once, then twice, each uneven motion echoing in your own body, a cruel reflection of life hanging by a fragile thread. Then stillness begins. The shadows seem to lean closer, pressing down, folding the air into thick, suffocating blankets. You are not merely witnessing this; you are experiencing it. His collapse, his helplessness, his panic. They are yours as well, mirrored in every fiber of your being.
His gaze finds yours. Wide, frantic, imploring. And you see your own reflection in him: the same terror, the same disbelieving horror, mirrored and amplified. You feel it in your chest, in your throat, in the tremor that runs down your arms. You are not separate from him; you are him, small and fragile, suspended on the edge of comprehension and failure.
The tremors in his chest fade, one by one, leaving only a quivering stillness that presses down so heavily it seems to fill the room entirely. Every shadow, every edge of the floor, every beam of faint light feels oppressive, suffocating, as though the darkness itself has swallowed the room whole. And through it all, you remain trapped in empathy, feeling the boy’s panic as your own, your body mimicking his helplessness with each shallow breath, each stuttering heartbeat.
He lies there, curls plastered to his forehead, eyes wide but unfocused, and the impossibility of touching him, of holding him, weighs down your limbs, your lungs, your mind. The darkness is complete, yet within it, his terror pulses like a living thing, and you know you will never shake the sensation: every quiver, every tremor, every flutter of his lashes burned into you, as though you are both suspended together, small and utterly powerless, in a room that is alive with fear.
-
The smell reaches you first, sharp, acrid, almost sweet in a way that makes your stomach lurch. You notice your hand, hovering too close to the edge of the stove, and yet there is no ownership, no alarm. Time has gone soft around the edges. Your thoughts are distant, flickering like shadows.
Then you see him — a face full with baby fat, dark curls falling into wide, unblinking eyes. For a suspended instant, your mind cracks. He is the little boy again — the one you couldn’t reach, trapped, helpless and alive.
“Careful.”
The voice cuts through like a splinter. Isaac. The world rushes back in fragments, and with it, the sharp scent of burnt flesh, the sting crawling up your arm. You’re startled by yourself, by the way your wrist feels raw and alive under the faint heat.
He reaches for your arm, rolling up your sleeve with brisk efficiency. You stare, not fully seeing him as Isaac, but as the boy again — small, trembling, clawing for life — and panic curls through your stomach like smoke. Your pulse is uneven, flaring.
“Hold still.”
The cold rush of water hits your skin when he guides your wrist beneath the faucet, shocking you into the present. The pain blooms, furious and hot, but beneath it there is a strange relief, the simple certainty of the water dragging you back into your own body.
“You weren’t even looking,” Isaac mutters, irritation undercutting concern.
You blink at him, mouth dry, and the world bends again. He is too solid, too human, too immovable. And yet the unease in his voice, his restrained annoyance — it mirrors the boy. The boy’s helplessness, the tiny, futile movements, all replay in your mind and you can’t separate them. You want to scream, to push him away, to claw at the floor like that child did.
Isaac’s hand is steady on yours, pressing just above the darkening bloom. You stare, trying to reconcile him with the child, and a tremor of vertigo passes through you. He sighs, low and almost weary, exasperated, and finally lets go. The water continues to run over your skin, hissing softly, drawing out your attention, mooring you.
“Next time, pay attention,” he says brusquely. “I’d rather not deal with this again.”
You watch him, unmoving and for a brief, unbearable moment, he is both the boy and Isaac, the past and the present, and you feel that same helpless pulse rising in your chest, small and trapped, the terror mirrored in your own body.
The room quiets. Steam curls upward, curling around your fingers, lifting the scent of burnt metal into the dim light. Pain is fully there now, but so is the strange, tethered relief of being back in your body. And yet, when you look at Isaac, you still see the boy you failed to save, and the memory grips you like a tiny clawed hand, leaving your chest hollow and raw.
-
“What are you doing?” he asks, in the midst of collating notes mid-air. The papers twist and turn with effortless precision, fluttering like startled birds, yet none escape his command. It’s strange, in a way, that he has begun asking about you. Sometimes you think he feels sorry for you and it makes you bristle, but then he never softens any of his words, never stops to consider the lack of tact. He has always wanted to know everything. If you did not offer it, he would uncover it anyway, by some quiet, relentless method of his own, one you suspected was only slightly less intrusive than telepathy.
Your fingers drift over the Joy-Con as if guided by habit alone, not thought, not intention. A villager waddles past the screen, gibbering high-pitched dialogue that spills into the room. “Chillin’. I have a day off,” you say, the words soft, almost casual, though in your chest a small defiance hums. Then, as an addendum, “I’m kicking out the ugly villagers and plucking out weeds.”
He pauses, the scritch of pencil halting mid-stroke, suspended over the paper as though time itself hesitated to see his reaction. Then, finally, he speaks. “Your idea of relaxation,” he says, a tilt of his head, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly, “is… exiling cartoon animals.”
His gaze lingers, somewhere between curiosity and incredulity, and you imagine he’s weighing the necessity of intervention against the sheer absurdity of the task. There is no judgment, not really. Just an interest that hums in the air between you, like a soft, invisible current. You realize, suddenly, that he is enjoying this almost as much as you are.
Instead, his pencil resumes its slow, deliberate dance across the paper. Yet there is a subtle shift in the air—he watches you with attention sharpened, not by obligation but by the rare, gentle delight of observing someone wholly themselves. You catch yourself glancing up, meeting his gaze, and you think for a fraction of a second that the world has grown inexplicably lighter.
“You have a very particular way of spending a day off.” The words are dry, but the amusement hangs there anyway, like sunlight caught in a corner of the room.
“I need to turn my brain off.”
“An unconventional form of mental repose.”
“Oh yeah, and how do you relax?”
“I create and rebuild.”
“Oh, the same thing I’m doing then.”
His mouth twitches, a refutation hovering on the tip of his tongue but the playful tilt of your grin arrests him. He lets the objection die on his tongue. He lets it pass, the faintest twitch at the corner of his lips betraying a reluctant delight.
You return to your game, fingers coaxing your tiny avatar through the pixelated fields. Isaac resumes his work across the room, pencil hovering mid-air. The faint scratch of graphite punctuates the room. And yet, whether by accident or conscious design, the sound of his voice as he speaks to the empty air drifts toward you. It wreathes its way into your consciousness.
Sleep still drapes your limbs in soft haze, blurring edges of perception and sharpening whimsy,, and soon the high-pitched chatter of your in-game villagers merges, in your mind, with his steady, cohesive rambling.
An absurd thought takes root. What if you could capture him here, in miniature, in this absurd digital village? You fail to bite back a smile, allowing it to linger, a private indulgence. With nimble fingers, you navigate the character customization, adjusting hair and eyes and posture, until there he stands: a perfect miniature Isaac, arrogant, playful, serious, slightly disdainful even in the limited gestures the game allows.
The pixelated Isaac waddles across the field, and the sight is ridiculous enough to provoke a suppressed laugh. There is something tender in the act: a small homage, an acknowledgement of his presence without ever needing to voice it.
For a moment, you glance up, half-expecting him to notice. He does not. But what you do see knocks the air from your lungs, leaving your mouth dry. He’s standing now, the little device raised toward the light, examining it with an exultant air, eyes lit with that particular strain of fervor that borders on mania.
The thing crackles faintly in his hands, a delicate corona of blue crawling along its edge, alive beneath his touch. When he takes the glove between his teeth to pull it free, the movement is thoughtless. Your gaze snags there, treacherously, tracing the slow reveal of his hand: the long, articulate fingers, the geometry of tendon and vein, the slender metacarpi flexing with unselfconscious grace. They reverentally cradle the fragile thing with the same attention one might give to a living creature.
You glance back to your console, to the miniature simulacrum of him waddling through your pixelated fields, but it’s too late. The image of him, standing in that pale light with his invention trembling between his hands, has already impressed itself somewhere indelibly behind your ribs.
When he adjusts the device and a fine blue spark jumps between its edges, you flinch, though he doesn’t. When you look up again, he’s still studying the device, a faint crease between his brows and then, as if sensing your gaze, he glances over. For an instant, he looks almost humanly pleased, as though sharing the triumph with you.
-
The question had been fermenting for months, corrosive and unspoken, ripening in the darker folds of your mind. From the first day in the house it had waited, disguised as patience, biding its time. Now, having finally persuaded yourself that you might, in some improbable way, matter to him, you let it slip.
“Are you leaving?”
Isaac’s pause is not the startled kind. It carries no trace of guilt or surprise, only deliberation, as if he is weighing the cost of a simple truth. “I thought that much was obvious.”
“Why haven’t you left already?”
His brows shift, a minute, involuntary movement that suggests confusion more than irritation. It is as though the question exposes a thought he has avoided considering. “I don’t know.”
The honesty in it unsettles you. It feels like standing too close to an open flame. You hear yourself say, “I’m scared of this house.”
“I know.” He says it with such ease that it sounds like reassurance, though there is none in it. Then, quieter, “Why are you still here?”
You hesitate. The answer forms before you can stop it. “Because sometimes,” you begin, and then the truth completes itself, “I feel happier here than I have in months.”
He exhales slowly, the sound small and human, still as a winter’s pond. It is not quite a sigh, but something nearer to resignation. Neither of you moves to break it. The quiet holds, dense and absolute, as though the house itself is listening.
-
“You really like hearing yourself talk, don’t you?”
“Auditory feedback enhances cognitive retention. You should try it.”
“Aw, is that you saying you want to hear my voice more?”
“I don’t know about that… I’d never get a word in.” He grins.
The grin that accompanies it is insolent, all teeth and knowingness. You gape at him in performative outrage and grab the nearest pillow. “That’ll be the day.”
When you raise your arms to strike, the pillow feels like it’s been suspended by an unseen force above you. Your toes ghost the floor and you blink, startled. For one vertiginous second, your body misremembers: muscles contract, pulse jumps, the ghost-memory of helplessness prickles along your skin. You think he’s done it again: that subtle invasion, that rearrangement of physics that makes you question where you end and he begins.
But then you notice: it’s only the pillow. You are untouched.
The realisation comes in a rush, absurd and exhilarating and when you grin, Isaac’s eyes gleam with the same sentiment and elevates you higher. You kick your legs in the air, as if to test your autonomy, and the movement feels so ridiculous that you can’t help yourself — you giggle. The sound bursts from you, pure, unfiltered, and it fills the room in a way even his power can’t contain.
“Isaac!”
“What?” He looks indecently pleased with himself.
“You— put me down!”
“Gladly.” He maneuvers you to the bed so that you’re hovering over it and then slyly grins at you.
“Don’t you d—“ you shriek as he drops you onto it.
You land on it with a few bounces and laugh.
He’s still standing where he was, half in shadow, the grin on his face both wide and astonishingly sincere. There’s a vitality about him, the kind that can’t be faked or taught, a brightness that seems to hum just under the skin, as if he’s brimming with a surplus of something you can’t quite name. It’s disarming, that energy; it makes you want to step closer, but also to laugh again, just to release the pressure of being looked at like that.
When you turn your face in his direction your giggles subside and you’re left smiling at him.
“Isaac?”
“Hm?”
“Kiss me.”
It’s all the invitation he needs, as though some invisible sluice has given way within him, like a dam has broken and he crosses the room in two deliberate strides.
Startled by the swiftness of his advance, you rise, though not in alarm. Rather, your movement bears the quiet composure of one who has long awaited such inevitability. His hand, broad and unhesitating, finds the small of your back, splaying there with proprietary tenderness. The glacial bite of his palm bleeds through glove and cloth alike, and before thought can intercede, he draws you near you can scarcely tell where breath ends and breath begins and at last, at last, his lips find yours.
You smile into the kiss and when he pulls back to look at you, your smile widens into something playful. “Be useful.”
Isaac laughs and you know that you’ll hear it echoed in the house for days to come. It is so uncharacteristically bright and unguarded, that for a moment you scarcely recognize him. You want to hear it again, and again, until it threads itself through the rhythm of your own pulse, closer to you than the blood that travels through your veins. You would cup it in your palms if you could, catch it before it fades, and stopper it like perfume in those stupid little vials he has, so that, on some barren and hopeless day, you might unseal it and breathe it in again, and remember that once, he laughed like that, and the sound belonged to you.
His lips find yours again, but this time it’s slower. The kiss lengthens until it stops being a question and becomes an answer neither of you had intended to give. He tastes faintly of rain and something metallic, like air before a storm, and when his thumb grazes your jaw, the contact is maddening in its restraint.
You exhale against his mouth, a soft, involuntary sound and he catches it, deepening the kiss in response. There’s nothing ghostly about him now; his presence feels dense, immediate, real enough to bend the air around you.
When he pulls back just enough to look at you, his expression has lost all trace of mockery. His voice, when it comes, is quieter than you expect.
“Careful what you ask for.”
“Who’s asking?” you murmur.
He doesn’t press, doesn’t push further; he just studies you and then, with a faint, unreadable smile, he brushes his thumb once more along your jaw. “When?”
You know what he means and the real answer comes to you straight away. You just can’t say it. Not out loud. So you pretend to misunderstand.
“It was the night you finished the invention,” you say. “You held it in your hand.”
Isaac holds out his left hand to you, and you twine your fingers with his as he clasps down. Then you remove his glove.
“The other one too,” you say.
He shakes his head. “There’s nothing to see. Just an open wound, frozen in time, bleeding as it did before death. It doesn’t stop. And you… you wouldn’t want to witness it.”
“What happened?”
His lips curl into a snarl, the memory of it incendiary. “It was cut off.” He pauses, jaw tightening, then exhales and softens. “But that doesn’t matter right now.”
You let it go, the question, the objection, the impulse to demand. Instead, your fingers trace a careful path along the pale expanse of his wrist, hesitating just at the joint where the tendons shift beneath skin like live cords. Then, you lift his left hand and bring it to your lips. Your mouth closes around two fingers, warm and unflinching, your gaze locked on him as though the world outside this room no longer exists.
You are seized by an aberrant compulsion: to pierce, to bruise, to fasten your teeth upon the slender architecture of his bones. Instead you let them wander, grazing the phantasmal length of his fingers. The contact draws from him a soundless convulsion of breath, less an exhalation than a tremor unspooling through the cage of his ribs, as though the ghost of sensation itself had been startled into being. His mouth opens, tongue flicks once inside his mouth in an unconscious rhythm, as though the simplest gestures of human speech have abandoned him.
Your mouth closes around them with a soft, wet pressure, sucking gently, then with deliberate insistence, coaxing a subtle tremor from him. You let your lips slide along each length, linger at the joints, teasing, tasting.
Isaac’s eyes, dark and luminous despite the pallor of his form, fix upon you with an intensity that makes the room feel smaller. He raises his own fingers to his mouth, tasting the trace of you that lingers, the slight warmth from your lips bleeding into the winter of his being.
A molten desire coils inside you, wet and urgent, aroused by the paradox of sensation, the warmth of your own flesh pressed against the cold of him. Your lips curve into a smile, amusement imbuing the ache. “If you wanted a taste,” you murmur, voice honeyed, “I could have given it to you directly.”
“Then let me have it. Every drop of it.”
You shuffle forward, shifting your weight carefully, inclining your head in a silent invitation. Your fingers trace a slow path along the pale column of his throat, feeling the subtle give of muscle and skin beneath, lingering on the hollow at the base of his jaw. You pause, thumb brushing the edge of his lips, then gently pry them apart.
A warm, wet bead of your spit slips into his mouth.
Isaac swallows, unhurried, and you notice the way his jaw flexes, the faint pulse of his throat.
Your thumb rests against the hollow of his throat. One soft lick slides into his mouth, sharp and startling, like the bite of salt from a shot glass. A low shiver pervades through him; he gasps into your mouth and his hand moves to cup your elbow.
Isaac, watching the subtle tension start to enter your body, murmurs, voice low: “Keep yourself steady. I’ll be your shadow.”
He wavers at the edge of visibility, a figure made of mist and half-light. His outline trembles against the air as though existence itself resists him. His form thins, tinctured with a spectral blue, less solid, less imposing, but the moment his fingers touch you, it floods your senses. They slip past the bounds of ordinary flesh, sliding inside with a wet, gliding ease that sets your nerves alight. Every brush, every subtle curl of him inside you draws a shiver, a moan that escapes before you can think to stop it.
“You can still feel me,” he whispers, low and intimate, the sound vibrating against the curve of your neck. “Less flesh, maybe, but real enough.”
Isaac hovers at the periphery of the tangible, a spectral presence whose form quivers like smoke caught in a shaft of winter light. When his fingers brush against you, it is not flesh meeting flesh but an intimate invocation of sensation that threads through your body as though he has found the hidden conduits of your nerves—those secret, uncharted passages that no mortal hand could ever navigate.
A tremor arcs through you, electric and inexorable, and moisture gathers with a deliberate, almost sentient insistence, slick pooling and running in eager tributaries along the curve of your thighs. Each movement of him is ineffably precise, gliding and curling against the tender, concealed ridges of your clit, evoking a fullness and heat that borders on the impossible. It is not merely touch—it is an orchestration of desire, a symphony played upon the otherwise silent strings of your body.
Your hips tilt, unconsciously obedient to the ghostly rhythm, every nerve ignited in a slow, swelling crescendo. The wetness collects, thick and unrestrained, drawn from your depths by the impossibility of his presence. A low, stifled gasp escapes your lips, caught in the exquisite tension between surrender and the delicious defiance of control.
“You can feel me,” he murmurs, the sound threading through the hollows of your neck, reverberating along the planes of your body that he alone seems able to reach. “Not as flesh allows… no one can ever make you feel like this.”
Each glide of his incorporeal fingers teases deeper, curling into the caverns of your sensation with a delicacy that borders on cruelty. Your cunt quivers around him, in him, soaking with want, slick collecting in a warm sheen, a testament to the impossible intimacy that binds you. The sensation is disorienting, pressure without weight, yet full enough to leave you trembling and undone.
He leans closer in voice and intent, whispering into the tapestry of your nerves: “So... How does a ghost feel?”
You arch into him, yielding to the relentless insistence of his ministrations. Your body answers without thought, slick pooling and running, drenching you. Each shiver, each moan, is proof of the impossible, of the full-bodied thrill that only Isaac can bring about, leaving you trembling and sated in ways both familiar and utterly alien.
A hot pulse gathers in your belly, flooding outward, mixing with the wet slickness he leaves behind. His fingers move with deliberate, teasing insistence, curling, gliding, slipping in ways impossible for any living hand, coating you in sensation that is messy, deep, insistent. You guide him, arching, pressing, coaxing him to follow your rhythm, every shift of your hips leaving a trace of friction, a slick resonance that hums through both of you.
He is both absent and insistent, less a body than a series of pressures and caresses that leave nothing untouched. Every nerve ending seems magnified, every brush of phantom flesh sending waves through the marrow of your bones.
Time stretches thin and sticky around you. You shiver again, the intensity pooling deep in your belly, spreading outward in a slow, viscous bloom.
“Fuck… it’s— it’s not enough,” you gasp, your voice trembling, urgent. “Need you to feel it too.”
His eyes are atramentous with hunger. “It’s there. I feel it, all of it, just as you do.”
Your eyes flutter closed, trying to gather the scattered fragments of sensation, your breath a fragile gossamer filament between gasps. One hand curls around his wrist and your soft lips part. “I want you to feel how wet I am… need you inside, pressing into me. I wanna cum all over your hand.”
A low, sonorous vibration unfurled from him, a dark resonance threading along your skin, felt more than heard. The room seemed to contract around his sudden presence as he solidified, hands finding you with deliberate, possessive intent. Fingers glided over the swollen folds of your sex, tracing and kneading the soft, quivering flesh with slow, reverent insistence. Heat pooled beneath his touch, thick and urgent, coaxing your hips to tilt, your body responding to the ghostly weight of him. Every subtle press, every curling graze, sent tremors through you, setting your nerves alight with a tender, unyielding insistence.
“I can feel how much you want it… how much you need me.”
Slick gathers between your thighs, thick and glistening, coating his fingers as they massage the skin. He presses into every hollow, kneading your wet, sensitive flesh with a devotion so intimate it leaves you trembling and dizzy. Each sweep of his hands drags more of your arousal with it, leaving streaks of sheen that glisten in the half-light, a testament to your surrender.
His thumbs roll across your sensitive ridges, kneading until your body convulses, every nerve alight. Fingers delve deeper, finding every secret hollow, every hidden curve, coaxing your wetness to pool, dribble, and cling. It slicks his palms and drips down the slope of his wrist, warm and sticky, a messy, unrestrained testament to your need and his relentless touch.
Your breath comes in ragged gasps, hitching against his fingers. Hips rise to meet the kneading, thighs parting instinctively, welcoming the slow, inexorable push and press of his hands. Each touch, each curl and press, leaves your body quivering, slickness trailing in thin, glistening rivulets down his fingers, over your sensitive mound, and pooling at the base of your thighs.
“Everything you give me. I’ll drink it all in. Don’t hold back.”
He presses two fingers inside of you, not with a thrust, but with a slow, inexorable push that made you feel every millimeter of his intrusion.
And then he stops, buried knuckle-deep inside you.
“Full, feels so full,” you gasp.
“Don’t run from it.”
He doesn't piston his fingers, but works them deep inside you with a slow, corkscrewing motion, a relentless internal massage that seeks out every secret, clenching nerve. You can feel the slick, hot glide of him against your inner walls, a frictionless pressure that coils your spine into a tight arch. His thumb is a steady, maddening counter-rhythm on your clit, and the pleasure isn't building-it's flooding, a levee breaking deep within you.
Each slow, probing curl of his fingers inside you draws forth another ounce of your coherence, until you are nothing but a vessel for the wet heat he's stirring. You can feel the slickness welling up, past the point of containment, a hot slickness that coats his fingers, his palm, the coarse hair on his wrist. You are a thing of seepage and spill, and the consistent pressure of his thumb on your clit is the spark threatening to boil you over.
"I can't—" you gasp, your body tensing, trying to hold onto a solid form.
"Let it happen," he commands, his voice rough with awe. "Look at what you're doing to my hand. Give me all of it."
And you do. You come apart in a hot, gushing wave, your body clamping down on his hand only to release a fresh flood of wetness. He works you through it, his movements becoming even more deliberate, milking the sensation until you're keening against him. Only then does he slowly withdraw his hand, and it emerges soaked, dripping with you, it glistens, utterly drenched, your arousal shining from his fingertips to his wrist. He turns his hand, watching the way the light catches on the slick, glossy evidence of your pleasure.
Isaac doesn't wipe it away; he simply looks at it and then laps it up like it’s the only thing that’s worth tasting.
-
You don’t leave the house much. The alarm on your phone still infernally blares in the mornings, shrill, dutiful, unheeded, and from somewhere in the house he listens, waiting for the usual shuffle of movement that never comes. The sound should worry him; instead something in him loosens, a small peace unfurling in the silence you leave untouched.
You’re only tired, the world presses too hard sometimes. He wants you to be well, of course he does, yet the thought of you walking out into daylight unsettles him. The idea of your face in other people’s sight, your voice caught by air that doesn’t belong to this house, scrapes at him: a disbelief that the world could ever deserve your company.
So he stays near, listening as the house breathes around you: the faint click of the radiator, the hiss of the kettle that you’ll forget to pour and he’ll have to come take over and then chide you for it. Your stillness becomes his atmosphere, and his concern, sincere as it is, folds beneath a gentler truth: he likes you here.
You had asked him why he hadn’t left.
He has so many things he needs to do, a surplus of restless energy spilling from him in defiance of death. So many things he can accomplish. Even as a ghost, his mind works in a lattice, endlessly intersecting, folding, and calculating without reprieve. And yet he remains. Not out of hesitation or indecision, but because your presence is the variable that outweighs all others.
The house warps around the notion until it is almost a thing in itself. A soured geometry where corners crowd and doorways narrow, where the wallpaper seems to draw closer like a skin tightening over bone and in that narrowing an absurd, obscene thought arrives: the idea of killing you. It is a misfired gust of logic, a brittle, cold ciphering in which the simplest solution to the intolerable possibility of your absence is the impossibility of further absence.
For a breath he imagines the thought dislodged from him, as if the house itself, resentful of your inertia, had conjured a remedy through the only agency it possesses: suggestion.
‘Do it, and you’ll never be rid of me. I’ll be in your house forever,’ you had said when you first met. He recalls it now with fondness, a smile pressed thin by the absurdity of memory. He wants nothing more than that promise, though not here, not in this house he neither chose nor loves.
He recognizes that the warmth of you is a private climate he would rather seal than share. There is no malice in it, only the startled awe of something discovered too late.
So he does nothing. He folds the thought into his quiet archive of unfulfilled impulses, a moth pinned beneath glass, observed, contained, pitied. And then, he does the ordinary thing. He makes you tea in the traditional way you prefer, finds the chipped mug your insipid brother had bought you for your birthday, and places it in your hands as though it were a tenuous treaty against the madness of being alive.
And waits for you to drink.
-
The cake sits on the small table between you, its frosting glinting in the morning light. You’ve carried it home like a trophy, the bag still warm, its faint scent of sugar and buttercream frosting permeating the kitchen. A raise, a tangible acknowledgment that the months of grinding had yielded fruit. Not that anyone else in town would care, really, but it matters here, matters enough to warrant the indulgence of a morning cake.
“I wish I could eat cake every day,” you mumble, stabbing at the cake.
“You can,” he points out.
Isaac doesn’t reach for it immediately. He sits across from you, his gaze folding over the surface of the cake like he’s trying to measure its significance.
“First time I’ve seen you eat breakfast,” he says. His voice is neutral, but there’s a subtle weight to it. The way he always notices things that others let slip.
You glance at him, fork in hand, because you do eat every day. Of course you do. The neighbors make sure of it. They hover, murmuring encouragement, stirring coffee that you don’t actually drink. They smile when you eat; they tell you you’re doing well. It’s always like this.
“I eat every day,” you say with a roll of your eyes.
Isaac tilts his head. He watches you, the way he always does when he’s trying to understand, but not quite pushing for the answer. “You sit here,” he gestures to the chair near the window, “and you look outside. Through that window.”
You imagine the neighbors leaning in from the yard, arms full of morning warmth and platefuls of pancakes and orange juice. Their voices are low and steady, approving. You lift a bite of cake and pretend they’re watching, nodding. The sunlight spills over your shoulder, warm, and for a moment it feels like they are real.
He follows your gaze, as if seeing the yard could explain something. It doesn’t, and he turns back to you. “You do it every day for an hour.”
You blink, fork paused midair, and scoff. “Right,” you say.
Isaac doesn’t argue. He just studies you, gloved fingers tapping lightly on the table like he’s contemplating something. His eyes linger on the rise and fall of your shoulders, the faint tension in your jaw, the way your hand grips the fork like a tether, like you don’t want him here.
As though some part of you blames him for the silence beyond the glass, for the way the house forgets how to dream when he is near.
-
Your sister’s arrival perturbs you in a way you can’t immediately name. You’d grown used to silence and now here she is, pounding on the door as though she means to resurrect the dead. The very insistence of her knock feels like an invasion, a breach of some fragile ecosystem you’ve cultivated within these four walls. She had given no warning, no text, no call — only the abrupt percussion of her fists against the wood.
“Open this fucking door before I knock it down!”
Isaac, ever the spectator to mortal theatrics, comments from somewhere behind you. “One of yours, I assume. She has your irascibility.”
“Shut up and hide,” you hiss, though you know the futility of the command.
He looks at you and drawls, “She won’t be able to see me.”
You hesitate. Then, with the fatalism of one lifting a coffin lid, you unlock the door.
She storms in at once, a whirlwind of a perfume of yours that had disappeared under suspicious circumstances, frustration, and familial righteousness. “Girl, what the hell are you still doing here?”
You blink, disoriented. “I live here.”
“Don’t play with me. You freaked me the fuck out sending me that text!”
You open your mouth to retort, then close it again. The air in the room seems to contract. You haven’t texted her. You haven’t texted anyone. For weeks you’ve been perfectly content to let the outside world recede into abstraction.
“I didn’t send you a text,” you say at last, the words tasting uncertain even to your own ears.
A pause, elastic and dreadful.
Then, from the air itself, Isaac’s voice, smug as ever: “No. I did.”
You turn toward the sound, “What? Why would you do that?”
Your sister edges toward you, confusion breaking into panic. “You’re talking to— there’s nobody there.” She grips your arm, her nails biting through the thin fabric of your sleeve. “When you said you had a job. I thought- I don’t know, that you were getting better.”
The words land like acid. Help. As though you are defective, unspooling, some pitiable relic of a life that once made sense. Her concern feels less like love than intrusion, a trespass into the fragile equilibrium you and Isaac have stitched together in the ruins.
“Don’t touch her,” Isaac says, and though his tone remains low, the air changes. The temperature drops, a minute but measurable degree, the way pressure shifts before a storm. You sense it first in your bones, a static crawl beneath the skin.
Your sister recoils, her eyes darting to the window where his outline still quivers faintly in the half-light. “What was that?” she whispers, her gasp threading the stale air like a discordant violin.
The doorframe seems suddenly narrower, the threshold of domestic space reconfigured by her presence, by her insistence, by the violent insistence of that text. There is something almost brutal in her immediacy, a refusal to consider the fragile quietude you had carefully curated, the boundaries you had quietly constructed around your life in this odd, breathing structure.
Isaac is there before you can articulate a thought, standing near the window. His outline is faint, as though the light itself hesitates to claim him, and yet the presence is complete, immediate, inescapable. His expression hovers between irritation and concession, the latter far more discomfiting than the former. “I presumed subtlety was necessary,” he says, the words smooth, but edged with something sharper, a predatory ease that makes the pulse in your throat hitch. “You’ve grown distressingly acclimated to this place.”
Your sister’s eyes widen in terror.
“Why would you—” you start again, but he interrupts, the vehemence in his voice startling enough to make the floorboards seem less solid, as though the house itself had taken note of your hesitation.
“Because it’s eating you.” The words land crisp, low, clinical, and with that curl of his nose, that subtle snarl at the prospect of belated registration. “I realized it too late.”
The house hums softly around you, vibrating, tilting underfoot in ways that should not exist, and yet they do. Shadows pool along corners, leaning into angles that cannot exist outside your perception, and the air smells faintly of sun-warmed wood and old rain. A memory unfurls suddenly, sweet and blinding: a summer picnic long past, laughter spilling across the lawn, a brother’s hand brushing yours in joy. The moment dissolves instantly, twisted by a slam of a door, the sting of an unheeded scolding. The house does not distinguish joy from trauma; it only mirrors, magnifies, and amplifies whatever it encounters.
“You should leave,” Isaac says to your sister, voice sharp in contrast to the room’s subtle oscillations, his own tone that familiar line between mockery and command. “Take your recalcitrant sister with you.” He does not look at her. She exists only insofar as her presence necessitates action on your behalf. She blinks, mouth opening, then falters, uncomprehending, but he does not acknowledge her. She is peripheral, irrelevant, a variable tolerated for your safety… and already too slow.
He sniffs, faintly, impatient at her delay. “I’ve packed everything already,” he says, and the statement is for you.
He looks back at you then, arrogance gone, replaced by a quiet urgency rarer than honesty. “You need to leave.”
Your sister says your name as a demand, a torrent of questions coming from her, but they all hang unanswered, the room swallowing it whole. Isaac exhales as if he is tired of human imbecility, yet when his eyes find yours, there is something almost tender, a warmth that belies the chill of the house. “The only one here not trying to kill you,” he spits out.
You take his face into your hands, ignoring her incredulous mutterings, feeling the impossible cold of him, the solidity against the uncertain, shifting angles around you. “Come with us,” you urge. His hands find your wrists, a delicate capture, a tethering that leaves no room for argument. He presses his cheek into your palm, and the world tilts, not just the house, but the axis of your heart.
“You know I can’t,” he murmurs, low and irreducible, the words heavy with inevitability.
“Then I’ll stay,” you decide, voice firm against the tremor of dizziness brought on by the house’s caprice.
“No,” he says sharply, a single syllable that stops you cold. There is no room for negotiation here. And yet, you feel it, the quiet insistence beneath the refusal, the possessive reasoning: he moves only because your life is at stake.
The house shifts again, unbidden. Memory fractures along the walls: laughter, humiliation, sorrow, elation. It offers delight and despair in equal measure. You reel, suspended between recollection and presence, caught in the strange gravity of a place that cannot discern joy from pain. And through it all, Isaac is constant. He is an immovable presence anchoring you against the indifferent chaos, his proximity both shield and declaration.
Your sister murmurs something under her breath, a palpable consternation, but he does not flinch, does not glance. She exists only as a necessary obstacle, and every motion she makes sharpens his focus on you, the one variable that matters here, the one constant he will defend.
You notice the slight flare of his nostrils when she steps closer again, a twitch of irritation, the faintest tightening of his jaw. It is a predator displeased, constrained only by the necessity of practical action. The house, twisting shadows and bending light, responds to her intrusion with subtle dissonance, tilting corridors ever so slightly, flickering shadows across corners she will not notice, amplifying the tension that surrounds you.
When Isaac realizes you refuse to move, his countenance shifts to one you haven’t seen in a long while. Vacant. The kind of vacancy that isn’t emptiness but concentration stripped of empathy, that strange, absolute stillness he retreats into when everything else fails him. His eyes, once all comprehension and careful irony, flatten into something opaque, utilitarian. “I can always make you.”
Your jaw sets. The words strike some ancient nerve, some half-forgotten humiliation you thought you’d outgrown. Anger floods you, at the thought of being managed.
His eyes spark with recognition.
For a moment, something passes between you. Not thought, not speech, but recollection. You see him as he was the first time: the precise tilt of his head, the unreadable patience masking the ache beneath. It occurs to you that he remembers it too — the same scene replayed in some dim, eternal theatre of his own making.
But this time he says nothing. The brittle silence stretches on. He holds your gaze as though sound itself would undo whatever fragile resolve he’s mustered. His restraint feels heavier than force.
The house creaks softly, as if restless under the weight of unspoken things. Shadows slide along the wall, bending toward him, or perhaps toward you; it’s impossible to tell. His expression does not change, but you feel the effort of it, the trembling control behind the vacancy.
He could speak. God knows he’s never been at a loss before. But he doesn’t. He withholds, shrewd even now. He knows the peril of words, the gravity they exert. If he speaks, you’ll listen. And if you listen, you’ll stay.
So before you can ruminate on it any further, before the weight of his silence burrows deeper, you seize your sister’s hand and step into the outside, leaving the house — leaving him — behind.
Regret strikes immediately, sharp and unwelcome. You turn, compelled by some impossible gravity, to see him, to measure the cost of your defiance. But the door slams shut before your eyes can focus. He does not allow you even this, the faintest glance, the smallest reckoning and a part of you is glad for it. You would never have left.
The door closes, final and resolute. A final performance.
Your sister's hand is a vise around yours, drawing you forward with the inexorable momentum of one who has made a decision on your behalf and will not brook opposition. You permit yourself to be led, across the yard where the grass has grown wild and accusing, toward the car that idles at the curb like a getaway vehicle, engine thrumming with the promise of escape you're not sure you want.
-
The house will wait for you, holding its breath until your return. Isaac stands within it, a solitary figure in the hollow your absence has carved, the air around him thick with the memory of your presence. It is not emptiness; it is a wound, wide and aching. His hand brushes against the window frame, fingertips grazing the cold wood to anchor himself to something that is slipping irretrievably away. Outside, the taillights blur, twin rubies receding down the street, carrying you from him.
Isaac remains motionless. He waits, held between despair and anticipation. The air presses against his chest, coils low in his belly. His jaw tightens. His eyes are dark, sharp, a single edge of calculation and desire. He steps toward the workbench with careful deliberation. Each movement is precise. Each breath carries purpose. He approaches the device as if it were sacred, every inch a quiet vow.
His hands move with reverent precision, fingers dancing across the apparatus as if they could coax life itself from its components. The light blooms, spilling across his face, carving sharp angles of obsession, need, and relentless purpose. This is no abstract experiment.
There is work to be done.
Because if death will not release him, he will release himself. If the laws of nature will not permit reunion, he will rewrite the laws. If the distance between the living and the dead cannot be crossed, he will build a bridge of his own devising, bolt by bolt, theorem by theorem, until he stands before you again: solid, warm, as alive as you made him out to be.
Ok this was absolutely masterful. One of the most lyrical fics I've ever read. There were so many good lines (the "night welcomes her in it's open jaws"?? Are you kidding? The lattice that mirrors Isaac??? Gosh. Your brain is amazing and your skill is astonishing.)
He fits the ghost life so well. And you kept him so in-character in this AU that it felt like a spinoff of the show. He's so prissy and uptight, but caring in his own tyrannical way, which is not healthy for everyone, but it's probably what this reader needed after what happened to her.
I love how you handled that, too, making understandable without making it too overt.
The smut was also tender in a uniquely Isaac's way. I can see him getting off knowing he can get his partner off. It's almost a little challenge he has with himself.
And he made her leave to protect her at the end, omg. So him, he's the only one to call the shots and will only acquiesce if he agrees with you in the first place.
I need part 2 whenever, if ever, you feel ready. Thank you for such a wonderful read 🙏🫶
I hate first chapters, so I apologise for the shitty quality.
Isaac
The rat sat quietly in its cage, observing its surroundings with little concern. It cared not for the neon lights flickering above its head, nor for the thunderstorm it could smell approaching through the open window, signalling the arrival of fall. Instead, its tiny paws grabbed the cheese and bread strewn across the cage's floor, avidly bringing them to its mouth like a toddler with their favourite sweets.
The food was clearly from a school canteen, mediocre but nutritious, courtesy of the lab-coated man pacing in tight steps next to a monstrous metallic apparatus. So many buttons; the rat itched to run across the floorboards and press them all, feel the smooth texture under its paws, see what they'd do. But alas, it was confined in a miniature jail with the strange human's mutterings as its only company.
The man checked every lever and screen on a console over, and over, and over again, darting between them as if staying still caused him physical pain. Eventually, he strode to the metal table where the cage was, to ensure its unusual glass panels were sealed. His dark eyes, wide and alert, stared at the rat as if it held the key to the universe's secrets.
'Are you ready, friend?' he enquired with a manic whisper. 'I'm sorry for putting you in here, but I can't have you turn into a fly and escape. You matter too much to me, tonight.' Stray lighting illuminated his wide smile, revealing that he was not sorry at all, but humans rarely were, and his excitement seemed genuine, almost contagious. A gloved finger affectionately tapped the glass of the cage.
'Enjoy the meal. I want you to conserve your energy for what's to come.' The rodent's shoulders lifted into a shrug; whatever it was, cheese and bread were involved, and that was good enough.
The old wooden stairs creaked, interrupting the unusual exchange, and a second man entered the room. This one was much older than the rat's captor, but they greeted each other as equals.
'Dr Stonehearst. Finally,' said the younger one, spinning on his heels to face the newcomer. 'What took so long?'
'Patience, Isaac. There was an issue with a group of first years. You know how busy September gets. I hope you weren't about to commence without me.'
Isaac grimaced in a way that said he had, in fact, thought about it. His long legs took him back to the console in a few strides, body humming with an impatience that bordered on violent. 'Are you saying administrative matters take precedence over this? The work of a decade?'
Dr Stonehearts ignored him. His small eyes took in the state of the room before settling on the glass prison and its occupant. The rat's fur puffed up his stiffened body, food forgotten. 'So, which one is this?'
'Shapeshifter. It can turn into a few different animals.'
'Extraordinary. An insignificant creature blessed with such…power. It makes you wonder what it did to deserve it.' As the old doctor inched closer, the rat bared its pointy teeth and hissed. That made him take a step back. 'You realise, Isaac, that shapeshifter genetic code is one of the most intricate to modify? Why have it as your first live test subject?'
'Because we are running out of time, and Orloff did not approve of my list of human subjects. He doesn't understand my vision, not like you, Doctor. This was the first Outcast animal I could find.'
Stoneharst let the insolence fly. He needed his prodigy focused on the experiments, and for the experiment to work, no matter how obnoxious the boy was.
'I suggest you sit near me, doctor. I don't know what effect the rays could have on a Normie. Here.' A stack of scribbled papers levitated to reveal a dusty chair, the only other piece of furniture allowed, aside from the steel table the rat was on. Iago Tower's rotting floor was already working overtime due to the heavy machinery it had to sustain. Such was the weight of progress. Once Stonehearst retreated next to Isaac, an invisible force pulled four levers at once, generating a cacophony of whirrs and thuds that set the animal even more on edge.
Its squeaks almost drowned the thunderstorm raging outside. It transformed into a wasp, then an ant, then a mosquito, but the cage was secured to perfection. Above it, artificial lighting emanating from the metal appendages mirrored their natural counterpart in a show of dazzling light.
Isaac's index finger crooked, and a pair of protective goggles levitated straight into Dr Stoneheart's lap. The older man studied them with longing before putting them on.
'Tonight, I keep my promise.'
'Very well. I'm looking forward to this grand new achievement, Professor Night.'
Isaac pressed a final button, and everything—the odd trio, the machine, even the storm—stilled, waiting for something, anything. For a moment, all was still, and the rodent nearly sighed in relief. Too soon. The air stirred with years of desperate expectations as the rays hit the cage, engulfing it in a wall of scorching light, as blinding as the sun. Then, darkness shrouded the Tower.
'-you thereee, liiiike a stone! I'll wait for you there, aloooone!'
Nun's shrill voice – possibly the reason behind the many bats deciding death-by-windscreen was a valid choice – ricocheted in the blue Subaru's interior. Being tone-deaf never deterred her from singing her lungs out whenever life became too overwhelming, a habit she picked up from Papa. Such a coping mechanism had already scared off two boyfriends, five colleagues, and ten customers, back when she was the chauffeur at her family's funeraria. It had eventually earned her an official reprimand from her abuela—and boss.
'Nun! Dios mio, you sound like a dying swan! Keep it private!' Nun mimicked her mother's clipped tone and pursed lips, remembering how embarrassed she was when she chose to perform at her high school recital, so much so that she faked a sudden flu to escape the theatre and the humiliation. Papa had brought her flowers and said her energy in My Heart Will Go On was unmatched.
The young woman glanced at the handmade car air freshener he and Abuela had gifted her, a tiny, pine-smelling silver coffin with the logo of the family's funeral home. Rally races, deadly as they were, were a trove of potential clients; it was wise to keep a business card of sorts nearby.
She was so glad they'd be there to cheer her on in her big moment, tomorrow.
Still mumbling, Nun admired the dense woods and rolling hills of Vermont surrounding her. She popped a licorice candy in her mouth, at peace. The pressures of the championship, the expectations, forgotten in the silvery night. Alone, her love for driving could flourish as it had since she was 10.
Nun's gifted Subaru was a quick thing as she pondered. Practicing once more would be good, but driving at race speed was risky when there could still be civilian vehicles around. On the other hand, it was nearly 1 a.m., and she'd be able to spot any other car easily thanks to the full moon shining like a celestial torch in the dark sky.
'Good enough.' She pressed the accelerator.
100 km/h.
120 km/h.
180 km/h and climbing.
Nun groped the glove compartment for another candy.
There was a sense of unbridled weightlessness that always came with high speeds, possibly similar to what astronauts felt in floating in space, untethered. Nun whooped as joys and worries blurred, suspended between life and death, the dense forest and immense sky.
The accelerometer climbed close to 200km/h when her phone's sharp ringtone cut through her little haven.
GPS found. Turn right in 500 metres.
Civilisation was back.
She picked up the phone. 'Olivia, buenas noches. Jet lag?'
'Nun, did you read the notes…what's this noise? Are you driving? Why are you driving? The race is tomorrow, you shouldn't be driving, you should be resting!'
'Come on, Oli, you know I like to retrace the track the night before.'
'And you're talking on the phone while driving! Why?!'
'Eh…because you called me?'
'Hang up, hang up! What if you crash?! Then it'd be my fault, the police will come for me, I'm a foreigner and I work for you, I'll lose my visa and my job!' A hiccup of a cry. 'And I'd miss you terribly, of course.'
'I appreciate how much you worry about your friend's wellbeing, tia,' Nun laughed. 'I'm getting to the junction near the abandoned college now, so I shouldn't be too far from the town.'
Nun slowed the car down to a more public road-friendly speed, squinting her eyes to spot the 'Jericho' sign; the last thing she wanted was to take a wrong turn and add to her manager's worries. While busy being scolded, visibility had dropped. The moonlight was gone, replaced by a white fog that swirled and stretched from the woods like a living thing.
Even after turning the fog lights on, Nun could barely see a metre or two ahead of her. Not good. She tore through another liquorice string with her teeth.
'How much longer do you think you'll be? Your dad's flight—' Olivia's complaints drowned in static noise.
'Olivia? I can't hear you. Agh, Dios!' A pothole—fifth right, she should have remembered—jolted the car, causing Nun's phone to slip and drop under the passenger seat.
By now, she was driving in white-out conditions, inching forward at a pace she hadn't kept since she was ten and fresh behind the wheel of the family's hearse. Even then, Nano, the official driver of the funeral home, had called her a snail.
Without fully stopping, she bent sideways, touching blindly around for her mobile, trying to follow the buzzing sound of the intermittent line. 'Nun? Where are you, gillipollas? Your dad's—'
'Wait! Come on, come on…oh, almost there!'
If she hadn't been so lost in her search, Nun would have seen the wave of tarry darkness charging towards and through her, blanketing the woods and hills for a long moment. 'Yes! There you are, ahgh!' She pressed the brakes right in time to avoid a metal pole.
Well. She found a junction, but was it the right one? She could see the pole and a split in the road, but the fog made it difficult to read the actual lettering on the sign.
'Olivia, can you hear me—Coño!'
Something large and heavy landed on the front of the car, cracking the windscreen and sliding off as suddenly as it had come. Before Nun had time to react, the car jolted heavily, as if a boulder had hit its right side. A landslide? Another strong hit on the left side this time, followed by a low growl, closer to the driver's seat. Nun dared to turn towards the sound only to be greeted by a pair of glowing, hypnotising yellow orbs seemingly floating into the night. She dropped her eyes to spot a drooling, fanged mouth.
A wolf. Hungry-looking one, at that.
'Nah, fuck this.'
Nun pressed the accelerator flat out, praying she was following the correct sign and cursing at the rally organisers for not telling the teams that wolves were roaming in the area. When another hit came from behind, she realised the oversized canine was following suit, somehow matching her speed. It would have managed to jump on the trunk if the hairpin turn Nun knew hadn't thrown it off.
'Shit. Ok, no panic, no panic. Crisis is but a type of opportunity.' Driving was what Nun did best; she wasn't so confident in her wolf-taming skills. So, faster she drove, trying to recall the layout of the road, every curve and bend, but her mind was scrambled and everything seemed distorted, wrong. Which is why, scanning for her pursuer in the rearview mirror, she missed a turn and crashed into an iron gate.
An enormous gate Nun was fairly certain was not there on the previous eight times she recce'd this stage. Not that it mattered when it was all that stood between safety and being torn to shreds by a rabid animal. Whispering a quick apology at the car and kissing its leather steering wheel, Nun sprinted out of her seat, climbing on the unceremoniously crumpled bonnet to reach for the top rail of the gate. Pieces of stray metal and rust pierced the skin of her hands as she hauled one leg over just as the beast launched itself at the bars. The impact made was so violent that Nun soon hit the ground bottom-first—mercifully, on the opposite side from her attacker.
'Ah! In your face!' Her elation was short-lived. The wolf stood on his hind legs—could they do that?!—and began pounding at the gate with such force that the top left hinge fell off at the second swoop, rolling on the dirt at Nun's feet.
Shit, she wasn't as good at this whole motivational manifesting thing as Papa was. Turning around, she spotted a hazy light high up at the end of an otherwise unlit path—people!—and ran towards it. The overgrown branches of colossal maple and oak trees enveloped her in a leafy hug, holding her like in an oppressive handshake. Rogue roots almost made her trip headfirst, but the incessant howling at her back was motivation enough to keep moving towards what she now saw was a decrepit tower.
She only hoped Rapunzel was home.
As she got closer, a human silhouette emerged from it, hurriedly heading in the direction opposite hers.
Still, the door was left ajar, so she could barricade herself inside and wait for the morning. Nun breathed a sigh of relief. Pif, paf, problem solved; surely a wolf couldn't pick locks or turn handles. However, the moment she threw herself at the entrance, the door swung open, and instead of hardened wood, her clammy palms met with air. Out of balance, Nun sped past a white-clad figure and straight into the wall, nearly flattening her nose and landing at the bottom of a rickety staircase.
A sharp pain shot through her left arm. 'Mierda!' Her complaints were cut by someone hauling her up by force and throwing her back outside, past the threshold.
A pair of dark, crazed eyes met hers.
The man was standing between Nun and the building, right arm outstretched, with a glare that told her she was the most undesirable element in an already miserable evening. He must have been stronger than his tall, lanky frame suggested to forcibly lift her like that. Training had left her quite muscled up.
'Who are you and what are you doing in my tower?' The seething rage in his words nearly made Nun recoil until she remembered there was a threat more tangible than a silly misunderstanding with an irritable guy.
Words tumbled out of her in a jumbled mess. 'Wolf! In the…on the road! It followed me—'
'Speak. Properly.'
'A wolf is chasing me. Big one. It came from the woods, I think I lost it at the gate, but it was trying to get through it!'
The man considered her words for a moment, then lowered his arm and pinched the bridge of his long nose with his thumb and forefinger so hard the skin reddened in that spot. A sharp sigh rippled through his shaking body.
'Ehm…are you alright? You don't look too good.'
His head snapped up at that, and somehow, fighting a hungry wolf seemed less daunting than facing his badly-restrained anger.
'Imbecilic mutts,' he murmured, spinning around, lab coat floating around him like a halo, and heading in the same direction the other figure had minutes prior. The heavy tower door shut as soon as he crossed the threshold.
Impressive—automated doors. They must be renovating the building.
When she turned, her companion was already walking down a new path that was better lit than the one she had taken previously. Nun scrambled behind him.
'Wait! What are you going to do with that thing? Is there someone we can call? Rangers or police?' she scampered to his side.
The man turned his head, regarding her as if she were a monkey who failed its one circus trick. 'Nonsense.' He kept walking. 'Are you coming? Or do you want her to eat you?'
Her?
'N-no, coming. Where to?'
No response.
They strode past two sets of smaller gates until the forest opened to reveal a grandiose grey-slated castle, standing tall against the now clear full moon.
Nun was told by the locals that there used to be an ancient building near Jericho, but it and the college it housed had been abandoned many decades prior due to lack of funds and left to rot.
'Whoa. Beautiful.'
She slowed to take in the view, but was soon pulled forward by her shirt's collar. She glanced around, ready to point out that it was rude to manhandle people when they don't ask for it, but she was alone. Her dispondent companion was a good few metres ahead of her, already disappearing through an archway. She must have stumbled and not noticed.
'Wait here,' he ordered once they were both in the inner courtyard.
'But the wolf—' Nun pointed behind her.
'Not for you to worry about. Once she's back in her cage, you can be off on your merry way.' He entered the building and closed the door on her face.
'Right. Thank you? See, the thing is, I crashed my car into your gate while running away from it, and now it's kaput, so I don't think I can make it back to Jericho tonight.'
The man scoffed as if she were the direct cause of all his life's problems. 'Of course.' He disappeared into the castle and shut the door behind him, leaving Nun alone in the empty courtyard.
'Well…all right, I'll wait here! On these benches. Alone, at night. With the full moon for company! Nothing better for some pre-race self-reflection, I say! Thank you, kind stranger!'
'Kind isn't a word I'd associate with Isaac Night. Effective and efficient, more so.'
Nun screamed at the voice behind her, spinning on her heels to come face to face with a torso clothed in bright green silk pyjama and a brown nightgown. Nun had to crane her neck to properly look at the woman's face.
So tall.
She was at least three times taller than Abuela.
'Larissa Weems,' the blonde smiled. 'Welcome to Nevermore. Please, follow me.'
i wanted to get my thoughts out as efficiently as possible, but honestly, i’m in awe of your writing. the way you’ve structured this is just incredible. i love the restless way you’ve written isaac—because that’s exactly how i see him too 😭 using stonehearst here is such a fun choice, i love how you explore that strange relationship, esp when there’s so little to go on.
i love nun, she feels so real already. the way you’ve woven culture into your oc makes her come alive. i can picture her so clearly as a real person. the role you’ve given isaac raises the stakes bcs he suddenly he has more to lose, and he has to work harder to hide how unhinged he really is
Oh wow, thank you so so much for the amazing words!!! I really appreciate you took time to read through this 🫶
Yesss, Stonehearst will play a big role in the story, so I'm happy you found him interesting! He's mostly a blank slate since he doesn't have much characterisation in the series, but I hope I make him justice.
Isaac is a fidgety man or he stays still as a statue, nothing in-between. At least, that's my hc, it's good to know it's not only me thinking that!
And I'm so freaked happy you like Nun! I am no good writing reader fics and coming up with OCs is one of my favourite things, so I'm really pleased it resonated with you! She's meant to be Spanish, so she and Gomez will become bffs soon.
I hope I can post the next chapter soon, work has been mad ☠️ and please tag me whenever you post your next fic!
thinking about dragging isaac into a photobooth and him absolutely refusing to participate, so all you're photos are of him frowning, expect for the last two where you're kissing him and the last where you pull apart and there's a faint smile on his lips <3
Like Fallen Leaves @justanotherundead - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
