Reesa

✝️💕/✍️/📚💕

[reesa0221]

Face Your Reality

No, I'm not a Human Fanfic ~ 20K Words

Visitor Protagonist x Vera

A waft of cigarette smoke drifted through the dimly lit Soviet-era-styled living room, where Mikhail sat on the muted plaid-upholstered couch, one leg crossed over the other. 

Casually, he held the cigarette between the index and middle fingers of his gloved right hand, studying the way the tobacco burned on the stick with a tilt of his shadowed head. His left arm was slung over the back of the couch—not a care in the world. 

On the floor of the living room a man squirmed, trying his hardest to get up, but his broken fingers and toes could not find traction on the bloody wooden flooring beneath him. Tears, combined with snot, blood, and drool oozing from his nose and mouth, made the man on the floor unbearable to look at. 

“P-Plea… se…” A pitiful whimper escaped the man. 

Mikhail, dressed in his dark blue trenchcoat, took a drag of his cigarette, tapping his left index finger on the back of the couch. He peered down at the human, blowing out smoke from his mouth. His actions reminded him that it didn't matter how many cigarettes he smoked, what he ate, or what he drank—those teeth of his stayed pristine white. 

"Shut your mouth," was all Mikhail told the human man. 

The human groaned in pain, still attempting to escape by crawling. 

This is the first time in three days Mikhail has let the human be free. He had the man confined to one of the bentwood chairs that had sat at the end of the kitchen table to ask him why he hunted innocent people down and slaughtered them. All the young man got were blubbered messes for answers that furthered the torture Mikhail bestowed upon him. 

It was a privilege that this monster was free from that chair right now—not a right. 

“Please…I wan…tah…go…home…”

Mikhail picked at a speck on his trench coat, flicking it somewhere on the floor. “I thought I told you to shut your mouth. You humans never listen to a damn word anyone says, and it’s why you all get into the situations that you do.” He uncrossed his legs and placed both boot-covered feet on the floor, his towering frame standing over the man. 

Mikhail used to be a man of average height until he transformed. Now he stood a little over six feet tall. 

The man below him panicked, trying to get out of the living room. He actually managed a system of using the heels of his hands to find traction and pull himself forward with upper body strength alone. 

“Humans like you are disgusting.” Mikhail coldly stepped forward to watch the man struggle for his life. He took another casual inhale of his cigarette. “All it takes is a little bit of pulling a limb the wrong way for you to break like glass.” 

The man spat out a glob of blood and saliva. “Gotahhell…”

Mikhail stilled. He’s never been to Hell, but he has come face-to-face with Death after jumping into that hole beneath his house in the basement. 

She had been willing to give him his desire, true isolation, but no. Mikhail wanted more than that now. He wanted to make those bastards that prance around acting as if they have the right to take away lives' pay.

So he made a deal with Death.

If she transforms him into a Visitor, one that is strong, smart, nimble, and fast, then he will become one of her loyal dogs—fulfilling her every order as a chosen one. His only condition is that she must let him keep his sanity and his memories. 

She’d granted his request. 

With his left hand in his trench coat pocket, still smoking his cigarette, Mikhail observed the human man still trying to crawl his way to the front door. He panted hard, having to stop to recuperate so he could further his asinine journey. 

When the human man made it to the halfway point of the hallway, Mikhail cocked his brow. Should he let the little human try to run once more? Mikhail never took himself to be a sadist, yet the thought of this human—who has stolen others' lives—naively believing he would live and be free caused a slight smirk to spread on the Visitor’s lips. 

Finally, after agonizing minutes, the human made it a few feet from the door. He was riddled with exhaustion—breathing hard with sweat, tears, and blood pouring down the sides of his face and sticking to his clothes. The man weakly turned his head up and saw the edge of the phone peeking over the short chest of drawers. His eyes lit up with hope as his mouth dropped open like someone offered him water. 

The man tried his hardest to rest the heels of his hands on the drawer handles in order to push himself up. He slipped several times because of the blood. He cursed and cursed after each failure until he eventually got himself to where he could place his arms on top of the piece of furniture and pull himself up. 

Mikhail silently stepped down the hallway and stood behind the human so his back faced the front door, watching as the man’s bloody right hand fumbled with the phone until he stopped. 

Confused, Mikhail peered closer at what the man could be planning. 

The man wheezed, “I know…her,” and pointed a shaky finger at the picture that was next to the phone. “She’s the one…who I saw…”

The air around the space stilled. 

Reaching over the man, Mikhail grabbed the picture frame containing his wife. He rubbed his right gloved thumb over her face, remaining silent with his lips pressed into a thin, hard line, though the man couldn't see Mikhail's expression because he was facing away from him and Mikhail was wearing a short-brimmed felt hat, casting a harsh shadow over his face.

“Why…do you…have a photo…of her?” The man’s tone slurred into something that suggested defense and fury. “She’s my angel! I found her…all alone… I have a right to her…because…because I found her…I don…care that she’s…a Visitor! She’s mine…she’s mine… I want her to…comfort me… I need her…”

The man started to wail. Tears poured down his face along with snot running down his nose into his scruffy mustache and beard. He blindly reached towards the photo, blubbering to Mikhail to give his angel back. 

Instead, Mikhail swiftly kicked the man in the face to send him back against the wall. A spray of blood flung up in the air to land on the wallpaper, the man, the chest of drawers, the phone, and the floor. 

Mikhail crouched down in front of the man, putting the picture frame in one of his pockets. “Now, before I begin, here is what is going to happen.” Mikhail took his cigarette out of his mouth, firmly held the man by his jaw, and pressed the lit end of the cigarette onto the man’s right eye. The human screamed and spasmed, too weak to attempt to get away from the Visitor. 

Mikhail held the cigarette there for a while, only stopping when he felt satisfied. He pulled the dead cigarette away to watch the man gasping for air through his pain and sobbing. The man’s eye was now wet with tears, red, and swollen shut. 

“As I was saying,” continued Mikhail, flicking the cigarette somewhere on the floor. “Here is what is going to happen. You are going to tell me where you saw my wife.” A gasp escaped the human. “And you are going to answer any questions that I may have. Am I clear?”

“Y-Your…wife…”

Mikhail slapped the man across the face. 

His dazed expression cleared nearly instantly from the hit. “She… She can’t…be your…wife…I found her… I found her first…”

Mikhail’s jaw twitched. “Where is she?”

“She’s my angel…”

A pack of cigarettes and a lighter are produced from Mikhail’s right pocket of his trench coat. He lit the cigarette despite the man below him pleading to not be burned again. He puffed it for a moment, eventually breathing out the smoke into the human man’s face. “I asked you a question. If I have to repeat myself, I’ll tear off one finger. If you continue to not answer my questions, then I have no qualms against tearing off every limb you have, throwing you out in the yard, placing your limbs in a circle around your limbless body, and watching as the sun rises so you are burned alive because there will be nothing you can do to run. After you burn to a crisp, the Body Eaters will come at night to remove any trace of you.”

The human let out a groan of agony. “I…I don’t know where she is…where she is now! You’ve… You’ve kept me…from her!”

Mikhail stood up, continuing to smoke. He crossed his left arm over his chest, peering down at the human. It was almost as if Mikhail was taking on the role of a judge. “Even if you don’t tell me where my wife is, I have the means to figure it out.”

“If you…if you love her…then why…why was she out there…all alone?”

Mikhail exhaled slowly through his nose. Smoke drifted from between his lips and curled toward the ceiling, dissolving into the dim light. His shoulders dropped with a sigh. The Visitor then abruptly kicked the man in the stomach, causing him to keel over in pain. A splatter of blood mixed with bile landed on the floor in front of Mikhail’s boots.

The man laughed—an ugly, broken wheezing sound that turned into a cough halfway through. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth as he clutched his stomach. “Heh… Didn’t last…did it? She left…you,” he rasped. 

Mikhail’s eyes hardened beneath the shadow of his hat. He stepped closer, boots squelching softly against the blood and bile. He crouched once again, close enough that the man could smell the smoke, the leather of his gloves, and the cold iron scent that clung to him like a layer of clothing. Mikhail reached out and tilted the man’s chin upward with two fingers.

“Where is she?” 

The question is whispered. 

The man’s good eye flickered wildly, searching Mikhail’s face for something—pity, doubt, or mercy. He found none.

“I don’t—” The man choked as saliva and blood continued to spill down his chin. “I just…wanted her to look at me… I needed to check…for signs… I’m trying to…save humanity…”

Mikhail released the human’s jaw—his own tensing. The man’s head hit the wall with a dull thud. The human is so weak now that he can’t even stop his own head from flopping backward.

The cigarette burned down between Mikhail’s fingers until the ember kissed his glove. He ground it against the wall beside the man’s head, leaving a blackened smear on the wallpaper.

Kill this one.

I have no use for him.

Some things are not worth the trouble.

There is nowhere the human could go now, even with the door a few feet away from him. Mikhail knew there were others of his kind that would not hesitate to drag out the torture and uncertainty for several more days, but Mikhail despised wasted time and effort. These past three days have been torture for him to share a space with another waste of air.

He’s through with this one. 

“Maybe Death will be merciful to you.” Mikhail tore off his right glove, watching as his fingernails blackened and elongated to resemble sharp claws. “But I doubt it.” 

He thrust his hand forward, piercing through skin, muscle, and tissue—clamping down on the thudding organ beneath. The man’s heart is ripped out with ease, leaving the fresh corpse to let out one final gasp and slump over to fall onto the bloodstained and bile-covered floor. 

A fearful expression would be forever etched onto the human’s face. 

Mikhail opened the front door and threw the heart and human across the yard to burn under the sun when it rose. He could have made good on his word to display the human as he said he would, but it was time-consuming. 

Time he did not have.

He went to the bathroom to wash his hands, slipped on his glove, and then hurried down the hallway to enter his bedroom, his teal eyes landing on the gun leaning against the bedpost. He swiftly snatched it up, heading to his dresser to dig around and find extra bullets. He almost left the room when he remembered his wedding ring. 

Should he scrounge through the bedside dresser and take it with him?

If his wife had turned into a Visitor, what if she lost her memories of her life as a human? If those disgusting humans were to hunt her down and kill her, then this would all be for nothing. Maybe she was already dead, but he needed to be sure. He could be at peace knowing Vera was potentially with Death now on this earth or in the afterlife.

His Visitor side told him that he didn’t need the lingering human feelings he held for his wife, yet his memories and sanity refused to let her go. 

Mikhail knew he should have hunted her down before all this, but she… She left him. 

He had no clue if she would even want Mikhail to find her after everything that has happened between them.

Before the way of the new world began, Mikhail knew his wife was starting to grow emotionally tired of trying to reach out to him. She was the sun in his life, providing warmth and energy, while Mikhail was a stone in her life, present and strong but unable to give back what his wife gave him. 

Her not getting out of bed that morning should have been his first sign. 

Mikhail made breakfast, only to grow concerned about her as the morning trudged on. He poked his head into their bedroom to find her staring at the ceiling with her arms spread out on either side of her. Her eyes—usually sparkling—reflected a dull brown.

“Vera,” he called, coming into the room. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” He trekked across the room to reach her and bent down to press the back of his hand against her cheeks and forehead. “You’re not running a fever… Are you hurting anywhere?”

Her hand softly came up to touch his that was still pressed to her cheek. She did not look at him as she asked, “Misha, why are you so afraid of me?”

He hadn’t understood her question. 

His wife is the last person he was afraid of. 

Mikhail decided long ago to never let anyone into his heart, but Vera lit up his world with her golden curls and ecstatic smile. She brought beauty and warmth to everything she touched, especially a place that held nothing but ugliness and decay. So of course Mikhail couldn’t help but love everything about her and their life they had steadily built together—just the two of them for what he thought would last forever. 

“Are you going to shut me out until the day we die?”

His wife has always been understanding of him. He explained to her before they got married that he had no family left—only a house that had been passed down to him. His mother had been a typical mother. His father was a piece of shit that would never be worth mentioning. 

That man is the reason he struggled with intimacy and opening up to anyone, but it also came from Mikhail’s own rather cynical point of view on people.

Vera did not need to know that. Mikhail wanted so badly for her to only see the good in him. He didn’t want to carry his childhood trauma into his marriage. 

But he did in the end anyways…

When his mother needed help, no one in their village stepped up to offer help of any kind, even when they knew what the “man of the house” was doing. And Mikhail’s poor grandmother was too old to be of any physical help. The adults always told him that he had to listen to his father—it’s not a child’s place to question or rebel against their father. If they do, then the father has the right to discipline. 

Even his mother begged Mikhail to not provoke his father in any way so they could all live in peace. 

Yeah, well, his father drove his mother to her breaking point. Was that discipline? His mother had not been a child. Did she deserve the punches and slaps? Did she deserve to only be referred to in a derogatory manner by a grown man who was her husband? She kept to herself, agreeing with his father no matter how absurd, but there was never peace in that house as long as that man was around. 

 What happened behind closed doors would never be right.

Yet no one cared. And because they did not care, Mikhail stood frozen in the doorway to his parents' bedroom as he watched his mother’s body sway back and forth outside that window.

No sound came out of Mikhail’s throat. He thought he heard his father ask him a question, but he couldn’t have been sure at the time. 

Boorish hands shoved Mikhail out of the way before a harsh curse slipped out of his father’s mouth. 

His father had been the one to cut Mikhail’s mother down from where she hung. Mikhail could only watch as this scene of distant reality unfolded before him. Nothing made sense anymore as people came in and out of the house in the following days of his mother’s funeral. 

Mikhail hated it. 

He hated all of them.

Their fake smiles. 

Their fake sympathies.

None of this would have happened if someone had helped her.

His mother would still be alive if his father had been kinder.

Mikhail wouldn’t be the way he is if his father had just been better. 

If only Mikhail had killed his father, then his mother would have been spared from her suffering.

His father would drone on and on for hours about God and obedience, preach to his mother that wives must submit to their husbands, and repeat to Mikhail until he was blue in the face to honor thy mother and thy father. 

If his father bothered to read the verses after those verses, then he would know that God commanded husbands to love their wives and not be harsh with them, and God also commanded fathers specifically to not provoke their children to anger. 

In Mikhail’s eyes, his father viewed himself as God and thought his family should only obey him. 

Mikhail’s hands still shook from the memory of his mother every time he would think about the bedroom window where he and his wife slept. He vowed to himself that he would never look out that window ever again.

He hasn’t since his mother’s death.

In the nights where the memories and everything that came along with them became too much, Mikhail would bury his face in his wife’s lap and wrap his arms around her waist as he sobbed. Vera would run her fingers over his head as she comforted him with soothing words and light kisses. 

But…

Why couldn’t he have ever been emotionally open with his wife? The one person who wouldn’t judge him? After everything that has happened with the cataclysm, Mikhail finally understood his wife would have stood by his side if only he had fully let her. 

That fateful morning after no breakfast with Vera and the question without an answer, the day had consisted of him and Vera walking on eggshells around each other. This behavior continued for three days, but Mikhail did not bother to fix it because he had never been good at handling his own emotions—let alone someone else’s. 

It was as if he and his wife had become sudden strangers living under the same roof and sharing a bed. 

So Mikhail was not surprised when on the third day his wife came storming past the kitchen, dressed in her brown leather trenchcoat, heeled boots, her red headband that tamed her wild curls, and a suitcase rolling behind her. 

Mikhail put aside the morning paper he was reading and got up from his chair, steadily walking out to the hallway with his hands in his pockets to approach Vera from a distance. 

She dropped the house key, letting out a curse as she picked it back up and placed it beside the phone and her picture on the chest of drawers along with her empty box of cigarettes. She kept her back to Mikhail, grabbing the front doorknob but not twisting it just yet. Her shoulders shook—it was the moment Mikhail should have told her this was all pointless and to come sit down at the kitchen table so he could make her breakfast and tell her everything. 

Not simply about his childhood, but everything that was on his mind. 

But he couldn’t.

Mikhail didn’t know how to. 

“I can’t deal with this anymore, Misha. I’ve tried to be patient and understanding with you.” He could hear how her voice strained not to break. “Every time I ask for your opinion, or even hope that you’ll add something meaningful to what I say, I always end up disappointed.”

Her grip tightened on the suitcase handle.

“You won’t leave the house. I always…do everything alone.”

He’s sorry. Why can’t he say sorry to her? He’s sorry; he’s so sorry; he’s sorry…

“I know you never wanted children. And I’ve never tried to change your mind about that—I swear I haven’t. I will always respect your standings on that topic. But it hurts when you shut down every time the subject of children even comes up, especially because I know it has something to do with your father.”

At the mention of his father, Mikhail’s gaze turned cold, and his body nearly withdrew into itself.

Vera kept facing the door. “I just wanted you to talk to me about what happened back then. To help me understand what you feel so you can heal. You know I would never judge you. I’ve always tried to support you. I just…” Her voice finally cracked. “I’m tired, honey. I’m tired of feeling like I’m living as a guest in your house instead of with you as your wife. It’s painful loving someone who won’t let me in.”

Mikhail shuffled his foot on the floor, tightening his hands into fists inside his pockets. He kept his face wiped of emotion, unable to process what was about to happen. He could see the damage had already been done.

“Okay.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

Even though Mikhail was unable to speak during the agonizing silence that ensued between them, there was undoubtedly more that he wanted to say. Though what was the point, anyway? Vera has obviously decided what she would do. 

“What else is there to say, Vera?”

That was the first time Mikhail had ever seen his wife direct her tears at him. She wasn’t angry when she turned around to face him; no, she was destroyed. Any other decent man and husband would have gathered their woman into their arms and consoled her—not Mikhail. He only stared with slightly widened eyes in reaction to his wife’s flowing tears. 

“This is your last chance,” she whispered. Her eyes begged him to fight, to scream at her to not leave, that she was being stupid right now, and that he was in the wrong and he'd change. 

Those brown eyes Mikhail fell hard for conveyed that she truly didn’t want to leave him. She still believed there was time to start over and they could work through this like any other couple. 

But Mikhail did not fight. 

He never once fought for anything in his life. 

If he did, Mikhail would have told his father how much he hated him and left this house.

And Vera could see his answer to her in his eyes. 

So she turned back around. “I wish you had been shown the world by different people. The world and the people in it aren’t as cruel as you have been led to believe. I hope and pray that one day you will embrace that change can be good, and it will bring you out of your shell, Misha.”

Vera left after those words. 

Mikhail numbly stood there in front of the entrance to the house he hated, waiting to wake up from this nightmare that is his life. 

At some point he sat on their his bed, staring down at his wedding band as it caught the dim lighting of the bedroom. 

Should he just kill himself? 

His father was in hell, laughing up at him. 

His wife left him and took the warmth and life with her. 

This house that Mikhail despised caged him in—he could never leave. His father is breathing down his neck, putting his cold hands on Mikhail’s shoulders to curl his harsh words into Mikhail’s ears. 

You thought anyone would love you? How stupid. What a stupid son I raised. I blame your mother. You were always softhearted like her, and for that she spoiled you. I could never quite beat that softness out of you. At least my beatings did you some good in the end, though. I turned you into one bitter bastard, didn’t I? Poor thing. The only one you have left to hate is yourself. Ironic, isn’t it?

Mikhail rushed out of the bedroom and slept on the couch that night. 

His disillusionment caused him to barely notice the rising heat outside. All he did was wander through the house and occasionally eat and drink while trying not to think of his wife. The only way he could go to sleep at night is if he knocked back a beer or two. 

The moments he did think of Vera were full of pain, sadness, anger, resentment, longing, and even a little hatred.

How could she leave him here in this house alone? Hadn’t he tried? He married her! A man like him married a woman like her! Wasn’t that proof that Mikhail had embraced change and opened up in some way? Vera didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. If she wanted to leave him, then fine! Being alone is better anyways! He could talk to himself, and no one was there to judge him for it! 

On the day before his neighbor came to his house to warn him about the cataclysm, Mikhail took his wedding band off and slipped it into the bedside table's top drawer. 

It was too painful to look at anymore. 

In the present, however, Mikhail now wore his wedding band underneath his glove and trudged out into the night, fully transformed and brand new, holding his shotgun in his grip to search for Vera. 

He passed by the houses; he watched them be destroyed from the safety of his own house. His house had been the only one left standing after that crazed man burned down the entire village. Homes still dotted the midst of ruin, but there was not a soul in sight on this eerily green night. For good reason, Mikhail supposed. The cataclysm is not over, and the humans are still bunkered down in their homes, basements, and whatever shelter they could find to escape the threat of the heat and Visitors. 

In the field across the way Mikhail walked, a dog emerged from the shadows of a ruined house, sniffing the air. Its ribs could be seen even from this distance. Mikhail chose to pay the dog no further mind, knowing there was nothing he could do for the animal. The dog will soon meet Death either way, and then the suffering will end. 

The solar flares above danced mordaciously over humanity—further proof the end was coming and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Among the living and the undead, Mikhail walked along this lonely road with no end in sight. 

Would he even find Vera again? 

Would she join him in Death?

Maybe none of it mattered.

Once he found his wife, alive or dead, they would start over—the two of them together. Mikhail being a Visitor would mean nothing because he would uplift Vera out of this country where they can live their lives in peace. It didn’t matter where they went as long as it was away from here. 

This time he would make her happy.

***

Before the hospitals went downhill following the cataclysm, Vera had tried her hardest to find someone to help her.

That first night of the emergence of Visitors, Vera slammed the phone down on the receiver, putting a hand over her eyes after being told the same thing again. It was all so frustrating and ridiculous. She didn’t care if those people thought she was a Visitor—Vera only needed them to listen to her for five minutes instead of insisting they couldn’t take in anyone new. 

“We have to keep up with the people we’re already accountable for, you see. We’re swamped full as it is, and we can’t handle anything more. We wish we could help you.” 

The nurse’s tone had been indifferent, and Vera was quickly running out of patience. She had pushed her left hand into her curls as she briefly closed her eyes. Vera started pleading and becoming desperate when she reopened them. “You don’t have to take me in—I don’t care what happens to me—but I need to have my day-old baby admitted and taken care of! I gave birth in this apartment alone because no one would help me! What if this area turns into an unsafe place in a few nights? You can have anything from me, even my life, but I want my baby to live! She deserves a chance to live to see the end of this hell! I’m begging you!”

Towels and whatever else Vera could find at that time to help her clean up the blood had been strewn about the room. She’d thrown the excess from the birth out.

“I’m sorry, Dyevushka. We can’t risk it.”

“She’s a baby!”

“There have been rumored reports of Visitor women giving birth to babies,” hissed the nurse. “Do you understand what I’m saying? They told us we can’t trust anyone over the phones. Again, I’m sorry. We wouldn’t have the room or resources for you or your baby anyway. People are demanding that we test them to find out if they are a Visitor, but we don’t have the knowledge or the means to do that.” Vera could hear the chaos of multiple people running and the sounds of all sorts of machines and orders going off in the background. “Goodbye. Stay safe.”

The line went dead.

That is when Vera had slammed the phone down and stood with her face in her hands. 

She’s so tired.

Her body, a week and a few days later, is still not fully recovered from giving birth. It took a lot of her energy to get up to make the calls to hospitals, to call ForRest, and to change cloth diapers that were made out of spare bedsheets from the closet's upper shelf. Maybe she shouldn’t be getting up as much as she had been, but she and her newborn daughter would die if Vera didn’t do everything she could to ensure their survival. 

It had only been them and a measly pistol behind those walls.

Things have been relatively alright since she had been forced to relocate her and the baby to the bakery farther in town. The apartment complexes had turned unsafe, as she suspected they eventually would have. A man claiming that he would save humanity came to the door and accused Vera of being a Visitor—though he gazed upon her as if she were something holy. She proved every time he visited that she was not a Visitor until one day he stopped showing up, which was a relief. Then Visitors came to the door of the apartment one night, and since there were two of them, they managed to break inside to kill Vera and her daughter until she shot them with the last bullets she had. Not long after, from what the news said, all of the apartments and most of the houses caught on fire and were unlivable. 

The bakery had only partially survived the fire outbreak. The bakery’s upper floor had caved in due to catching fire from the nearby buildings, but the actual bakery itself was still intact and usable, though a bit charred from the fires. Maybe one night this illusion of security would be shattered, but for now it was all the women and the baby had. 

Karina Svetlova, the bakery’s owner, has been nothing but helpful when it came to taking care of Vera and the baby, explaining that a few days have gone by since she last had guests in the bakery, so she’s happy for the distraction from being alone all the time. Though from what Vera had experienced, the woman did not go out of her way to talk about much of anything else that was not necessary. She offered a polite smile and made a comment here and there, but her smile never reached her eyes or the dark circles beneath them. 

Vera did not fully let herself trust this woman at first. She opened her doors for Vera and the baby with little resistance, and that was either a sign that the woman had ulterior motives or she was genuinely soft-hearted.

Having a soft heart during times like these is dangerous…

The woman didn’t even own a gun, which terrified Vera when she found out. But Karina explained that she lost her father’s gun to the fire, which had been kept in a closet upstairs. Now it was too late to go out and get one. 

“Knives or anything else spared from the fire in the kitchen will have to do,” she expressed one night over a delicious dinner. “To be honest, knives are just as effective—the trick is that you have to be quick with your movements.”

Vera knew they would eventually die.

One night, Karina was wiping down the counter to try and get out the remaining soot while Vera sat in the recliner watching her. Karina had brought the recliner from upstairs before the fires broke out for guests to use. Vera used it because she wanted to help keep watch and also keep Elena calm while Vera nursed her. 

The warm lights in the bakery, which miraculously still worked, highlighted the red in the woman's chestnut hair as she moved her right arm back and forth across the counter. Vera’s eyes drooped—exhaustion creeping up on her more and more lately.

“Has it always been just you and your daughter?”

The question rooted Vera back into the recliner, leaving her to oddly think about Mikhail and his rare smiles he’d saved only for her. “No.” Vera gazed down at the sleeping baby nuzzled up to her bare chest. “I had a husband. He never knew about the baby, though.”

“Did he die from the sun, or did he transform into a Visitor?”

Where is this coming from? On the other hand, getting to know each other a little wouldn’t be so bad. The lack of conversation and interaction is starting to get to Vera. You can only go so long in this world having only yourself to rely on. “I…I left him. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Karina stopped wiping with the rag, her hands braced on the counter. Would she try to do something? Vera prepared herself to shoot up from the recliner, focusing on Karina’s body language in case of any sudden movement. 

“I’m sorry,” offered the woman. “I can’t imagine how hard all this has been on you—you’re a strong woman in body, heart, and soul.” She sighed, her head and shoulders sagging. “I hope and pray every day that this terrible cataclysm comes to an end.”

Silence fell between the two women again; only now, Vera's curiosity was piqued. “What about you? Did you have a husband or any children?”

Karina turned to Vera and leaned slightly forward, her lips forming a thin line as her hands gripped the edge of the counter. “No. I’ve always wanted a family of my own, but…” Her knuckles became white from clenching the counter so tightly. “Anyways,” Karina pressed on, lowering her gaze to the polished floor. “I worked here with my parents to help them run the bakery. Our lives were fine until the world turned upside down. At first we didn’t think much of the cataclysm or the Visitors—it was simply a record-hot summer in Russia with a scare tactic. Dead people coming up from under the ground like some kind of sci-fi movie is hard to believe because dead people stay dead. My father, bless his soul, told me and my mother as long as we remained indoors and together, we would be safe.”

“Your parents are dead,” Vera observed bluntly. 

A drag of silence passed between the women. “Yes,” Karina carefully answered. "They are both dead, but not by Visitors or the sun.” Karina's eyes remained fixed on the ground. Whatever was going through her head seemed to drain the life from her soul, making the woman appear worn down to Vera.

Vera didn’t know what to say. How can you comfort someone who has lost the people most precious to her? Besides losing her parents, Vera is sure Karina has seen her fair share of death throughout this tragedy because of the large windows of the bakery peering out into the night, so anyone inside was offered a front-row view of gruesome scenes that contributed to the trauma. For example, on another night, a man had half-carried, half-dragged his wife through the streets—not wanting to abandon her to whatever fate that would befall her corpse if left behind. He made it two more steps before collapsing and dying with her.

The sight stirred grief and a selfish desire to see Mikhail.

Before each horrible night would end, Karina draped thick, dark maroon-colored curtains down to block the windows so the morning sunlight would not slither through. 

In the present, an expression of hopelessness twisted with fury overtook Karina’s face before her anger cracked and the fight drained out of her. Tears welled inside the woman’s eyes, turning them a glassy brown. With one hand still gripping the counter in a vice grip, she used the back of her other to wipe away her tears. “Sorry.”

Mikhail more than likely thought the same thing. He didn’t want to burden Vera with his complex thoughts and feelings, but what he didn’t understand was that Vera would have listened to him when he needed it. They were partners in life—he didn’t have to carry anything alone anymore.

“It’s fine,” assured Vera. She swept her hand lightly over her baby’s head. “I don’t see how we would get through this without having our vulnerable moments. It’s not good to hold everything in and pretend you’re fine.”

Karina gave a shaky laugh with a stray tear or two slipping down her face. Shaking her head, she looked away for a moment before deciding to turn back to stare at Vera. “I failed my parents.” Her lips curved into a grimace-like smile. “They put their lives into this business, and now look at it. I couldn’t even save anything from the fire upstairs, so everything sentimental-wise that remained of my parents is gone.” The words settled heavily in the warm air of the bakery. Vera swallowed hard, her gaze drifting to Elena’s tiny fingers curled against her skin.

“My father was stationed in Leninakan, Armenia, at only nineteen—ah, sorry, sometimes I forget they renamed the city Gyumri. My parents always referred to the city as Leninakan. Either way,” Karina said, pausing to wipe a stray tear away with the bottom of her left palm. “The city where they met was a major Soviet base back then. My mother worked as a nurse in Leninakan City Hospital. My father came in one late morning because the soldiers were required to get routine vaccinations—I’m sorry.” Karina interrupted herself to viciously scrub at her tear-stained face. “I don’t… I don't understand why I’m telling you this. I’m sure you couldn't care less. I should let you get some rest while we have some downtime.”

Vera adjusted the blanket around her baby, the infant’s soft, rhythmic breathing being the only peaceful sound in the room. “In times like these,” Vera added softly. “We are the only proof that someone we loved still lives on through us. It’s our job to keep their memory alive.” Vera held out her hand for Karina to hold. “Please continue your parents' story, Karina.” 

Karina came forward and placed her hand in Vera’s to gently squeeze it. After taking in a deep breath, she continued. “He was only nineteen at the time,” Karina whispered, her voice softening as the memory took shape. “A junior sergeant, though he didn’t care for the title. He was a farm boy from the north—tall, broad-shouldered, with hair as red as an apple and eyes like the Caspian Sea. Red happens to be my favorite color because of my father. In a city like Leninakan, he stood out like a stray flame.”

Vera could imagine Karina’s father quite well—a young man on the cusp of adulthood, bright-eyed, not yet fully understanding the realities of the world around him. 

Karina ran her thumb over one of Vera’s knuckles. “My mother was twenty-four then. As I said, the soldiers were required to come in for routine vaccinations. Long story short, my father fainted.” A wet chuckle escaped her. “My father was the tallest and strongest in his platoon, yet he fainted at the sight of a needle. It’s okay to laugh. We tease, I mean, we teased him about it all the time. He fell down like a sack of flour the moment my mother stepped toward him with a syringe. She always said it was the most pathetic thing she had ever seen. She had to revive him with smelling salts and remind him firmly that if he couldn’t handle the sight of a needle, he should turn the other way and close his eyes or get out of the hospital.”

Karina’s gaze dropped to hers and Vera’s hands and then flicked over to the baby’s sleeping form. “He came back to the hospital the next day to apologize. And the day after that, he brought her a meat pie he bartered from the mess hall. He spent his final year of service bartering his rations just to bring her sweets and flowers he’d picked from the base perimeter. It took my mother a minute to warm up to my father because she thought it would be a fleeting crush on his end that would fade over time.” 

Her eyes moved upwards to the blackened rafters above. “They moved to Sebezh to start over. None of their families approved the relationship. My grandparents on my father’s side told my parents to their faces that they needed to think of their future children—they'd have the heavy, darker features that come with being Armenian—and asked my father why he couldn’t have found a lovely, fair girl from the village. They called my mother an old maid who saw a strong boy and snatched him up before he knew any better. And you best believe my mama was preparing to give them all a piece of her mind until my father took her by the hand, kissed it, and explained to his parents with a smile that he would pack up his belongings and leave with my mother.” 

Vera felt sorrow for people she had never met. Her grandmother and mother had both fallen in love with Russian men despite their differing backgrounds, but no one on either side of the family trees judged Vera’s grandmother and her mother. For the families, it was about work ethic, warmth, and strong familial bonds—something that Vera’s grandmother and mother provided. 

Karina’s parents' story is a harsh reminder that the world is still, and forever will be until the end, judgmental.

“My mother’s parents had similar reactions to their relationship.” An amused light entered Karina’s eyes. “Their reasonings ranged from my father would wash out the strong Armenian features in their children to he was not strong enough to last underneath the Armenian sun because he was so pale. They also pointed out that my father would not stay in Armenia for long and would instead relocate their daughter to a cold, grey Russian village where she would be miserable.” A tiredness overcame Karina. “There were a ton of other reasons why none of my grandparents approved, but for time's sake, I’ll end the conversation here.” 

For the first time, a real smile blossomed across Karina’s face. “Thank you for listening to me, Vera.”

“You’re welcome. Let’s all get some sleep now,” agreed Vera.

The night returned to a peaceful silence. Karina snuggled into one of the booths close to the now covered window, lying flat on her back to stare at the ceiling. Vera settled further into the forest green recliner, gently patting Elena on her bottom. 

Vera closed her eyes, and, of course, her mind traveled to Mikhail.

So many times Vera thought about packing her and the baby’s things to risk heading out during the night and seeing Mikhail again. She hadn’t truly wanted to leave him—only deciding to leave when she saw the positive pregnancy test and had had enough of him being emotionally closed off. The reason she took a test—which she later hid by stuffing it deep down into the trash can—was because she knew something was off with her body: fatigue, an increase in appetite, swollen breasts, and a spike in varying emotions when her husband would do the smallest of things. 

It was thankfully a cryptic pregnancy, but unfortunately Vera had no idea how far along she was since she never got the chance to set up an appointment with a doctor.

Occasionally Mikhail would be passing by her getting ready in the bathroom during those final days when they barely talked to each other. He would pause in the hallway, watching her. She could feel his eyes travel down her body until they rested on her stomach as if he suspected what he feared, but he would never ask Vera outright. He more than likely gaslighted himself into believing that his mind was playing tricks on him. 

Another reason Vera had to get out of that stifling house. 

She knew there was more to her Mishenka’s childhood than he would ever let on. Vera only wished that he could have spoken with her about it. But Mikhail wanted nothing to do with his family—he didn’t view himself as part of them anymore. 

He told Vera she was the only family he needed, which is why she figured the subject of children was met with such coldness. 

Vera had wanted children—she thought they were precious—but of course, she would never force Mikhail to become a father because she loved and respected him deeply. He had been vehemently against the idea of children since the beginning, and Vera figured she could live without ever hearing the sound of pitter-pattering little feet running through the house. 

It wasn’t until one night that Mikhail came up behind her from where she stood by the front door, staring out the window at the other houses in their village covered with snow. His strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him. His hand traveled up and down the outline of her right hip, his head nuzzling into her neck. He smelled faintly of alcohol, which explained why he was the one making the moves that night. He hooked the finger of his left hand into the collar of her shirt and tugged down to the left—her shoulder now fully exposed to him. His lips pressed hungrily and carefully against her skin, prompting Vera to let out a quiet moan as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, allowing Misha to do whatever he wanted. 

Vera felt the heat of his breath against her shoulder, a sharp contrast to the cold glass of the window she’d been staring through. The alcohol made his movements heavier, more desperate. She didn’t move her neck away; she leaned her weight back into him, letting her head rest against the side of his head. “Misha,” she whispered into his ear, her voice barely audible over the sound of his breathing. She wanted to ask what he was hiding behind that hunger, but she was afraid that speaking would shatter the moment.

Her left hand traveled up to settle on his head. Her other hand went down to dig into the fabric of his sweater sleeve where his right hand rested on her hip. He gave a sudden squeeze that prompted a small gasp from Vera. She clung to him, as did the scent of vodka and wood smoke. 

He’d worked so hard chopping wood earlier that day.

Mikhail eventually bit Vera’s neck and her ear, urging her to head to their bedroom or else he would carry her there himself.      

That’s what he eventually ended up doing from what Vera can recall. He swept her up in his arms and gave deep kisses on the lips until they reached the bedroom door.

One thing led to another, and now the result is who Vera is holding in her arms.

Vera shooed away the intimate memory. She could not afford to think about Mikhail. He was not coming, and she had to do what she could to protect herself and the baby. 

Elena. 

Her name means "shining light," "bright one," or "torch." 

Vera’s daughter has become her light—her reason to keep on pushing to survive another day. There will be a future for the children to look forward to, and her Elena will be a part of it. She felt Elena twitch in her sleep before settling back down again with a sweet, content sigh. 

Safe.  

Vera intended for her daughter to stay that way.

***

(The Next Night)

Karina once again held precious lives in her hands. Hands that she thought were meant to create beautiful art that brings smiles to people’s faces—not do the grueling work of survival. Her red nail polish has begun to chip more and more each day. While nail polish would be the least of someone's concerns in this situation, Karina's red nail polish is the last vestige of normalcy she clung to as the world ended. And now even that is stolen away from her.

Honestly, she didn’t know what she was doing. One moment she felt like she could get through the day and night, and then the next she wanted to sink to the floor and die because she was so lost. 

With people by her side, Karina thought everything would be alright. But then…

No.

She promised she wouldn’t think about any of that anymore.

She wouldn’t. 

Vera slept in her usual spot in the recliner, lightly snoring. Elena was awake, blinking and looking around but not making a sound while nestled in her mother’s arms. 

Plenty of customers had come into the bakery with their babies and children, but Elena is by far the quietest baby Karina has ever witnessed. The baby hardly fussed—only when she was hungry or had a dirty cloth diaper. And she sported such a serious face for a newborn that Karina guessed Elena understood on some level the trouble humanity is now facing. 

She gave the baby a small smile before directing her attention to the golden ropes holding back the curtains around the bakery. Karina went around and began undoing each one until she reached the window to the left of the door that entered the bakery. 

Did those babies and children who used to come to the bakery survive? How she hoped so. Every night she prayed about whoever she could remember—that they could escape this hell on earth. Which led to Karina being willing to do everything in her power to protect Vera and Elena—give her life if she had to. She can’t imagine what it has been like for Vera being alone and only having her newborn baby. 

Movement outside caught Karina’s eye. She could see a familiar man patrolling the ruined street. His shoulder-length, greasy hair swayed in the night wind, and he still wore those awful fingers and ears that hung from his neck in a grotesque necklace. A larger necklace of teeth also adorned his neck. 

The sight never failed to make Karina’s stomach churn. 

She undid the ropes holding back the curtains and withdrew to stand in front of the door as the man came closer to the bakery. He strolled right up to the double oak doors, his hands clasped firmly around his gun.

Karina pushed open the door that led into the small vestibule so she could stand in front of the double doors. Her eyes flicked nervously to the weapon in the man’s hand. She knew by now that if she showed one sign of being a Visitor, just one, then this man would not hesitate to kill her.

“How’s your business been treating you, little lady?" the older man snarked. He spat out a wad of spit to the side. 

Disgusting.

For the past four nights this guy has been nothing but a nuisance. He always came by when Vera was sleeping with the baby. Speaking of which, Karina heard the creak of the recliner. She turned to find Vera getting up with Elena, worry etched onto her face. Karina shook her head and did the familiar motion for her to go back in the kitchen and lock the door before giving the man attention once again. “It was great before you and those other men decided to start trying to take justice into your own hands while innocent people were trying to find shelter. And you don’t need to keep coming by here every night. It’s too dangerous, for one, and for two, I have guests now that I need to take care of. You’re hindering that.”

The man then gave a slight nod of his head, a cruel gleam in his eyes. “I’m sure you have plenty of visitors.” He glanced up at the older building. “Funny how this structure is the only building left partly standing on this street.”

So because the bakery was still standing, that now meant Karina could be a possible Visitor?

Men and their sense. 

“Did you ever stop to think that you are causing more harm than good?" Karina abruptly asked, furrowing her brows. She clenched her fists at her sides, her nails making crescent indents into her palms. “You can’t be trigger-happy if you genuinely want to help other humans.”

The man aimed his gun at her, a frown set deep on his mouth, making him appear far older. “Enough chit-chat. Show me your hands.”

Dramatically, Karina slapped the back of her hands against one of the glass windowpanes so the psychotic man could see that she had no dirt underneath her nails like all the other times she had shown him. 

He squinted, putting his face close to the glass, before deciding Karina was clear. “No dirt underneath the nails, huh? Of course they’re clean. I’m sure you’re washing your hands constantly, right? Well, I don’t give a damn. Show me your eyes.”

"Every time you come here, I have no signs! What makes you think this time is any different?” Karina knew she wasn’t a Visitor, yet this man insisted that he knew better! But the man would not hear another word. He pressed the barrel of his gun against the glass. “You want a bullet through that pretty little head of yours? I told you to show me your eyes, and that’s what I mean.”

Karina dragged her unimpressed gaze up and down the man's body from head to toe, raising an eyebrow. “And how do I know you’re not a Visitor? You’ve never shown me a sign that proves you’re human. To me, you’re on the same level as the Visitors going around murdering people in cold blood.”

A shot rang out, followed by glass shattering above and behind Karina, causing her to jerk away and cover her ears. The bullet had not hit her, thankfully, but the warning shot was loud and clear. 

As Karina lowered her hands from her ears, she gradually turned her head to stare at the man with widened eyes. He kept his gun aimed at her. 

“Show me your eyes,” he demanded. “I’m not asking again.”

Karina decided she wanted this man dead. 

Faintly, she heard the cries of the baby, and she knew Vera would want to come out of the kitchen at any moment because shots have never been fired before, so it was better to get the examination over with and let this man leave without wasting any more of his bullets on her precious bakery. She would have to do something about the broken windowpane after this guy left.

Karina used her finger to widen her right eye so this psycho could get a good look. The man studied her eyes for a moment, his own flickering this way and that.  

“Normal,” he noted boredly. He pointed at her lips next. “Show me your teeth.”

Karina used her index finger to yank the left side of her lips up to display her teeth and gums. The man peered closely at her mouth as he had done before, only this time he jerked back in shock. 

“Those things are pure white! Did you think you could fool me?” He fumbled with his gun. 

White? No, that’s impossible. Karina has never had pure white teeth in her life! She takes care of them, of course, but they’ve never been… “Listen to me, please,” she immediately begged, forgoing her thoughts. “You can kill me, but do not hurt the people I have here staying with me. They’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I’ll kill whoever the hell I please! You don’t have any right to demand anything from me, Visitor!” To Karina’s disappointment and panic, the man shot the doorknob and lock. Karina whirled around and yanked open the door to be back in the bakery, all while hearing the thud of the lock outside the double oak doors falling to the ground. Her body automatically made its way towards the kitchen. She needed to go into the kitchen and grab a knife—anything, really, to defend herself, Vera, and the baby. 

A strong hand unexpectedly tangled in her hair and snatched her back. Hard. Iron and something rotten filled her senses, causing Karina to let out an involuntary gag. With the hand still painfully twisted in her hair, she is being pushed forward, leaving no time for her to linger on someone's musk. Her vision is instantly filled with white and other colors as the upper portion of her left brow collides with the counter's corner. She lets out a choked scream, but it is cut off as she is dragged back and slammed onto the counter in the same spot.

Karina is then brutally thrown to the floor by the hand that was in her hair. Something wet and thick covered her left eye. A boot landed mere inches from her face. “This situation is rather unfortunate for you, isn’t it?”

“You do not have to do this,” interrupted Karina through a ragged breath. She turned on her stomach and balled up her fists, desperately trying to crawl away. 

Vera called out to Karina, demanding to know what was happening. “Stay in there with the door locked! Find something to defend yourself and Elena with! Anything!” Karina screamed.

With inhuman speed, the man's boot slammed onto Karina's right hand—a sickening crunch filling the space. "Shut your damn mouth," he sneered, his eyes narrowing while listening to Karina's screams of pain and sobs. “I knew there was something wrong with you—I just couldn’t put my finger on it, that's all. Now I know my intuition was right.” He pressed the barrel of his gun to the back of her head. "I've heard enough from you tonight.”

Karina raised her head to take in gulps of air, struggling against the man. “I’m telling you not to do this. Blood will get all over the floor—"

The madman chuckled, causing Karina to pause in horror. “You think I care about something like blood? Would you look around? Blood is everywhere. This is new, though—a Visitor caring about their blood being spilled on the ground. I lost my blood to your kind, you know. I told my brother to man up and protect his family, but did he listen to me? No. He just couldn’t pick up a damn gun to save his life. Now look at him—lost in the wave of all this chaos and death. Ah, well. That’s what happens.”

Perhaps caring about blood being spilled on the floor was stupid to people, but Karina couldn’t bear the thought of the bakery suffering anymore than it already had. She could just see her poor parents' faces falling from the state their bakery was now in. 

“And I’m sorry for that; I truly am,” expressed Karina, her good eye softening. "But your refusal to grieve and your desperate attempts to control a situation that you have no control over have clouded your judgment and cost innocent people their lives. Is that what you wanted?” She moved her head to glimpse at the man above her.

A look of shock, then rage, encaptured the man standing above Karina. “YOU DON’T HAVE A RIGHT TO LECTURE ME!” The madman exploded, still holding his gun to her head. “ONE MORE OF YOU GONE IS ONE MORE STEP TO BRINGING THIS WORLD BACK TO THE HUMAN RACE! I REFUSE TO STAND BY AND WATCH YOU VISITORS TAKE OVER!”

All emotion was wiped from Karina’s face. If this man refused to listen to reason, so be it. “Do it then. Kill me.” She picked her head further up to look at her killer with blood dripping down her face. 

For a heartbeat, the man with the gun stood perfectly still, the muzzle wavering as he pinned Karina in his sights. He shifted his weight on her hand, and the world narrowed to the black circle of the barrel against Karina’s head.

Something in his expression flickered—confusion, maybe fear, along with anger—but Karina didn’t have an opportunity to understand it.

The air snapped.

One moment the man was there, feet planted, pinning her down, shoulders squared. The next moment, his body jerked upward, pulled by a blurred figure due to the speed it was traveling at. The man’s gun fired wildly, the shot cracking past overhead as he went hurtling backward into the tables and chairs across the room, limbs flailing. The gun was flung from his grasps to the other side of the room past Karina. The scream that tore out of the man did not belong to a human. 

Because of the pain, Karina was only able to lie on the floor, closing her good eye for a moment and pleading with her ears to stop ringing so she could concentrate on what was going on in her bakery. 

“I apologize, my dear. I hadn’t intended to be gone for as long as I was. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

Oh.

Karina opened her eye to find the hunched-over back of a familiar pale Visitor facing her. After he straightened himself up, bones and spine popping as he did, a sigh escaped from his throat. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into now, Karina? Didn’t I warn you against bringing anyone else inside?”

She attempted to move into a position that would allow her to push herself up, but she was unable to do so due to sharp stabs of pain in her hand and head. Instead, she only managed to let out moans of agony.

The Visitor’s sudden touch was ice-cold, a sharp contrast to the throbbing heat of her bruised and bleeding skin. He didn’t look at the wreckage of the bakery where the man had been thrown; his charcoal grey eyes were fixed solely on Karina’s bloody face. 

He leaned in closer, filling Karina's senses with the metallic smell of his evident killing sprees. He smudged the damp blood on her forehead with his thumb, popping the digit in his mouth as he withdrew his hand from her face. “That’s not fair to me, Karina. I had to work so hard for you to finally invite me in when other people don’t even have to try. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Goosebumps broke out across Karina’s skin as his hands gently positioned her upright. Once more, the Visitor is hovering over her, his breath sweeping across her face. Karina felt a long, freezing tongue move over her cheek, eye, and the space above her left eye, which caused her to shiver all over. “You were gone,” she managed to whisper, her heart hammering against her chest. “They needed help.” He continued to clean her face with his tongue. “I—I couldn’t leave her to die out in the streets. You know I would never turn away someone who genuinely needs my help…”

Once the Visitor determined his work was done, his cold breath hovered over her lips as he spoke again, softer now, almost tender. “You always make excuses for other humans even after what happened before. Haven’t you learned by now to not be soft-hearted around them? It’s a dog-eat-dog world after allll…” His fingers brushed her hair back from where it stuck to her face with a gentleness that made her stomach lurch.

A wet, choking hack rose from the pile of shattered tables and chairs. The Visitor’s head snapped toward the sound, his expression twisting with irritation. “Still alive,” he muttered. “Humans are so inconvenient.”

“Don’t…” Karina mumbled, though she wasn’t sure if the word left her mouth or only echoed inside her skull. “Too much…blood…on the floors…”

The Visitor’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, his gaze returning to the human woman below him. He pressed his large right hand to her forehead. "Shhhh. Stay right here for me. I’ll take care of everything.” 

The Visitor positioned her against the base cabinet of the register counter. He then rose slowly, the air around him tightening as if the room itself were holding its breath. “So you’rrreee the one the homeowner sent after me a while ago? Did you stop to think about the reason you couldn’t hunt me down no matter how hard you tried to look? Apparently I should have confronted you and tried harder to get that hermit alone—then this mess you made would have never happened.” He looked toward the broken heap of furniture. His voice was calm, almost bored, but something beneath it vibrated with warning. 

“What a nuisance you are.”

The world tilted for Karina. She watched the Visitor’s pale silhouette moving toward the sound of the pained groaning, his posture shifting from irritation to something colder. 

The Visitor reached down into the pile of broken tables and chairs. The man did not beg for his life as the pale Visitor easily snatched the human up; he only struggled and dug his fingers into the pale hand wrapped around his throat. 

Karina and the man made brief eye contact while he struggled in the air. The man’s dark eyes held such fury and hatred that Karina figured those feelings were the only things keeping the man conscious. “You…were holed up…here…being used as a…V-Visitor’s…whore.” Blood burst from his mouth when the pale Visitor gave a particularly sharp squeeze to the man’s neck. 

“Do not be rude,” chided the pale Visitor. “Your death was inevitable, so there’s no sense in saying irrational things to her.”

The man spat a wad of blood on the Visitor’s face before turning his focus back on Karina. “Maybe…he knocked you up…already…to create…Visitor bastards…together. I should have…just killed you…sooner. That way…this world…would have been…saved—”

The pale Visitor interrupted the man by using his unnaturally large hand and long fingers to rip the man’s head from his shoulders. It disturbed, but in a strange way comforted, Karina that the pale Visitor did not waste time when committing his murders. She’d rather the person’s life end quickly than watch the person suffer. 

The man’s spine dangled from his decapitated head, to which the pale Visitor proudly smiled at the sight. The Visitor shifted around so Karina could see him holding up the head—the spine slightly swaying with the sudden movement. She grimaced at the disturbing sight, turning her face away from the gore.

“I’m wounded, Karina,” said the pale Visitor, tone dripping with false hurt. He discarded the man’s head through one of the windows and immediately clutched his chest. “Deeply, deeply wounded in my heart because you don’t seem happy to see me.”

“I’m wounded too,” argued Karina from her spot on the floor, leaning further against the base cabinet. “I’m concussed, and my hand is shattered.”

In four quick strides the pale Visitor stood over her. He folded his hands in front of him—that menacing grin stretched across his face. “Now let’s be honest, dear, this is also your fault. The person you let in tends to attract…the lonely ones. I don’t like that.” His dark eyes flicked to the locked kitchen door before sliding back down to Karina. “Besides, what were you thinking entertaining a human with a gun? I leave for four days, and this is what happens.” The Visitor clicked his tongue. “Seems I need to keep a better eye on you, hmmm?”

Karina let her good eye close. She knew he didn’t truly care about her well-being. This Visitor has no regard for human life. “I’m too tired to deal with your shenanigans.”

A chuckle escaped him. “How sweet that you let in a baby. Little humans are so tiny and helpless—I see them among the bodies and the FEMA quarantine camps.” The pale Visitor got down on his knees to caringly caress Karina’s stomach. Her good eye fluttered open as she remained still under his touch. “I also see them hidden away with their parents in what little shelter there is left.”

His long fingers splayed across her stomach, the tips of them running off the edges of her waist. “Do you like human babies, Karina? Should I go out and find one for you? Better yet, why don’t I kill the mother behind that kitchen door and give the baby to you?”

“Don’t—”

“Oh, not to worry,” interrupted the pale Visitor assuringly, using his other hand to lovingly caress Karina’s cheek to travel up and run his pale fingers through her chestnut locs. “I’ll leave it up to you, dear. Whatever you choose, I don’t mind.”

Before Karina could come up with a retort to the obvious sugarcoated lie, footsteps entered the bakery. She peered around the pale Visitor to the best of her abilities to see who now had come into the bakery. 

In the doorway stood a tall man dressed in a dark blue trenchcoat, a black short-brimmed hat, black gloves, and laced black combat boots. In his right hand is a shotgun, but the man made no effort in using the weapon as he silently stared Karina down. 

The pale Visitor immediately stood up upon the arrival of this man. Karina wondered if the two knew each other. Maybe the pale Visitor killed the man’s loved one, and now he’s here to take revenge. 

“Howdy, Homeowner,” the pale Visitor greeted as if he were speaking to an old friend. He stepped closer to the man—clearly unafraid. “So you finally stopped running away from the truth. Good! I’m pleased to see that you embraced this path.”

“I’m not here to talk to you,” said the man. 

The pale Visitor paused. Karina knew the man’s comment was a blow to the pale Visitor’s ego, as he loved talking to people, and he expected them to talk to him. When he would come by during the nights before “the incident” happened, he practically talked Karina’s ear off. He asked her questions and fabricated this vision of how hopeless continuing on in this new world not fit for humans anymore was. He made sure to talk to her for so long that she began to fall asleep listening to him at one of the booths while he stood outside the window. If she ever did fall asleep while he was talking, he would loudly bang on the window to scare her awake. His mocking smile he gave her when she would jump up with a startled gasp always managed to piss her off. He knew his uncanny appearance and presence instilled a fear inside others, and he used it to his full advantage. 

Sometimes her and the pale Visitor’s talks would last until the first hint of dawn breaking before he would slip away down the street with the promise of coming back in a few days.

So Karina was glad that, at last, he was being treated without reverence or fear. In fact, this man hardly passed the pale Visitor a glance as he continued further into the bakery. 

Now that the situation has relatively calmed down, Karina noticed that Elena had quieted, though she heard the distant murmurs of Vera behind the kitchen door. She switched her gaze to the man—her good eye widening. His ambiance gave off the chill of death. A sweep of his hand would mean the taking of a life.

And his only focus is on that kitchen door. 

This man must be here for Vera and the baby. 

***

Vera is in this bakery—Mikhail is sure of that. He had walked and walked with Death whispering in his ear of hints of where to go next. The building, though slightly rundown, still stands firm against the sun’s dangerous flares and his kind—a good place to hide. He and Vera passed the bakery many times when Mikhail would still come out of the house with her. That was earlier in their marriage. They never went into the bakery, as neither had a sweet tooth. Now, sweetness was the least of his concerns.

As he neared the bakery, a head—with the spine still clinging to it—burst through the window and landed on the street. Mikhail stopped short, shards of glass crunching underneath his boots. The face was familiar: the madman who went door to door, executing anyone who showed a hint of being a Visitor.

Bitterness swamped Mikhail as he wanted to be the one to kill the bastard. 

Unsurprisingly, the bakery’s doors hung open. The air was thick with blood.

Inside, the bakery was chaos. Display cases stood empty, their glass smeared with hints of dust and old sugar. Tables and chairs lay overturned to the right, and beneath the pile sprawled a headless body, blood pooling across the wooden flooring. The scent of yeast and iron tangled in the air.

Then came the voice he’d hoped he would never hear again—the pale Visitor’s.

Directing his eyes to the counter, Mikhail saw the large form of the pale Visitor crouched in front of it. The once horrifying creature's back was hunched, but Mikhail saw glimpses of a human woman in red. The Visitor’s movements to the human woman below him spoke of a twisted obsession because it would never be love. Visitors are incapable of holding the emotion of love as humans do.

This is resource guarding at best.

But Mikhail is not here to converse with one of his kind or a human. He couldn't care less about what the Visitor decided to do with the human woman—it was none of his concern. 

Upon the pale Visitor standing up and greeting him, Mikhail coldly dismissed the taller, uncanny Visitor. The sight of the Visitor’s manic smile wiping off his pale face sent a burning satisfaction within Mikhail. He couldn’t believe he used to be terrified of this Visitor. Mikhail was reminded of the father he despised by the Intruder's towering frame, his unshakable faith in a higher power that handed him out his commands, and the oppressive atmosphere surrounding him. Now that they were on the same level, Mikhail wanted to rip out this once-human man's throat so he would never be able to speak again. 

The pale Visitor didn’t move to stop Mikhail’s approach to the door. Mikhail didn’t care what the Intruder did as long as he remained out of Mikhail’s way. He continued towards the kitchen door, the turquoise shimmer flowing up into his eyes as he spoke softly, “Vera? It’s alright now. You can come out.”

A quick retrieve this will be.

“Izvinite.”

Mikhail gave a brief pause to the woman who spoke from the floor. Blood was drying on the left side of her face, and she cradled her right hand to her chest. Typically, a man would describe her as pretty in the sense that he could appreciate her comfort and looks in these hard times. Well, once she was cleaned up. Mikhail felt nothing towards her. Though that expression on her face told him she would get her point across. 

“Are you here for that woman and baby?” 

“It’s none of your business,” Mikhail smoothly shut down. 

"Yes, it is,” the human woman retorted. She picked herself up and leaned against the counter with her right arm now across her stomach. She stared down Mikhail. “I may not be in the best shape right now, but if you are planning to hurt them, then I’ll do everything that I can to stop you.”

“There’s no need for that. I’m taking them both and leaving.”

The pale Visitor came over and placed a large hand on the human woman’s shoulder. “Karina, you’ve done enough. This place is no longer habitable, so we should get going as well.”

The freak sounded almost gleeful about that…

The human woman—Karina—whipped her head around to face the pale Visitor in despair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The pale Visitor appeared rather disappointed with her answer. His mouth immediately set in a thin frown—an expression similar to the one Mikhail saw the first time he told the pale Visitor he was not alone. 

“There’s no point in further resistance, dear,” the pale Visitor pressed. “I have everything taken care of, and I think you’ll enjoy the place I’ve prepared for you.”

The human woman’s eyes widened in such a threatening manner to the point Mikhail thought they would have popped out of her skull. “I’m not leaving this bakery.”

An argument sat on the Intruder’s face, waiting to burst from his mouth, but Karina’s intense stare instantly quieted him. Her display of what little control she had would have been hilarious under different circumstances because it is the first time Mikhail has seen the Visitor silenced by a mere human with a look. Mikhail had a feeling that Death would not be overtly harsh with her—maybe she even found Karina humorous. Though Mikhail knew that this current situation would not end well for the human woman, as it’s obvious to anyone that she would lose everything she used to know.

Surprisingly, the lock to the kitchen door suddenly clicked. The door creaked open, and Vera—his Vera, whom he has missed so much—stood there with a baby cradled in the crook of her left arm and a knife pointed directly at him. The sight froze Mikhail. The child’s small whine pierced the silence, fragile and human.

The pale Visitor’s smile returned and widened. “Ah. What a precious thing you were hiding and protecting, Karina.”

She ignored him; an air of uncertainty and despair washed over her face.

“I don’t understand," Mikhail mumbled. “You weren’t pregnant when you left.”

Vera set him with a cold glare, trying her hardest to comfort and quiet the baby. "Yes, I was. I think you know that though. You just chose not to believe it.”

Mikhail’s power flickered, the aurora dimming to a faint pulse. He stepped closer, his hand hovering near Vera’s face but never touching. She raised the knife to his face, but it mattered little to Mikhail as he sent a pitiful glance down at the child before returning his focus back on his wife. “I’m…”

Vera took a step back from Mikhail, clutching the baby closer to her chest. 

Mikhail remained standing in front of her, silent. The turquoise shimmer faded completely, leaving him looking almost human again. “I wish you had come back to the house. Giving birth to a baby alone was dangerous.”

Vera’s lips trembled, but her voice and the grip on the kitchen knife and baby were steady. “I had no choice. You know—you know why I left.”

Mikhail gazed upon her—at the way she shielded the baby and at the way her eyes now refused to meet his. “I understand, Vera, but, honey, listen to me… I need to take you both somewhere far from here where you will be safe. It won’t be hard to get past the ones in the yellow suits—I promise you. I won’t let anything happen to you two.”

Vera pressed her lips into a thin line. “Safe?” She echoed, her voice shaking with disbelief. “You think anywhere is safe for us now? You think you can keep us safe?”

Mikhail’s jaw clenched. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I’m not a human—”

“You’re right, I have!” Vera interrupted. She stepped further back into the kitchen while Mikhail took a step forward. “Because the Misha I know is not as tall as you are, and he would never willingly step out of that godforsaken house!” Tears slipped from the corners of her brown eyes. “And Misha would never come looking for me—he didn’t try to stop me from leaving at all! Whatever you are, puppeteering my husband, please get out of him and let him die in peace! I can’t stand to see him like this! It’s sick!”

Her tears fell uncontrollably down her face, and the baby began to grow fussy in her arms. Mikhail wanted to sweep them both into his embrace and stop wasting time before the sun rose, but he knew he had to approach this delicately or else he would ruin everything.

Mikhail’s turquoise shimmer flickered again, faint yet growing, like an ember sparking. He took a slow breath, trying to steady the tremor in his voice. “I never meant to hurt you, but this new form is not what you think. Death…has been kind to me. I am stronger now than I ever was. She has also decided everything for us, so I know how this is going to end, Vera.”

As Vera backed further inside the kitchen, she demanded, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I told you everything will be fine.” Mikhail casually put his hands in his pants pockets, the light in his eyes flaring out to resemble the aurora borealis. “All I need you to do is look at me.”

“What are you going to do to her?” Karina bellowed from behind Mikhail. 

Mikhail whirled around, glaring at Karina, then turning his haughty gaze to the pale Visitor. “Shut her up or I will.”

The atmosphere in the bakery grew impossibly cold, the scent of yeast and blood replaced by the ozone tang of a brewing storm. The pale Visitor merely tilted his head, his wide, unnatural grin failing to reach his hollow eyes. He did not move to silence Karina; instead, he watched with a perverse, scholarly interest, as if observing a fascinating chemical reaction.

Karina, bloodied and defiant, surged forward, ignoring the throbbing pain in her arm. She placed herself between Mikhail and Vera, her shadow casting a protective veil over the mother and child.

"Keep your eyes shut, Vera!" Karina shouted, her voice cracking but resolute.

Mikhail didn’t even glance at her. His focus was a locked, burning beam directed solely at the woman trembling against the back wall of the kitchen. The turquoise light within his irises began to bleed outward, swirling like a nebula captured behind glass. The light was a rhythmic, hypnotic pulse that seemed to vibrate the very floorboards beneath them.

"Vera," Mikhail’s voice dropped an octave, resonating with a strange, harmonic frequency that defied human physiology. "Put the knife down and come here. The world is changing. The sun is burning everything, and the ones in the yellow suits are only here to witness the end. You don't have to carry the weight of this uncertainty anymore. Just look at me. Let me take the fear away."

Vera’s breathing grew shallow. Her eyelids fluttered, a struggle between the instinctive urge to shield her eyes and the unnatural, magnetic pull of the light. The baby’s whimpering intensified. 

"Don't," Vera whispered, her own tears creating tracks through the flour and soot on her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the turquoise glow was so pervasive it seemed to seep through her very skin. "You aren't Misha. You can never be him."

Mikhail took another step, his movements fluid and predatory, lacking the hesitant grace of the man she once knew. "I am the evolution of what I couldn't be, Vera. I am the result of the choice the human me was too cowardly to make."

"Mikhail,” Karina intervened. “She clearly does not want to go with you, so you need to leave.” She foolishly grabbed onto his left arm.

The moment Karina made contact, a shockwave of raw, uncontained strength rippled out from Mikhail’s skin as he threw her backward into the empty display cases out front. Glass shattered, a cacophony of destruction that underscored the finality of the moment.

Mikhail turned back to his wife. He reached out again, his fingers displayed in an offering towards her. "Look at me, my love. Let go of the past. The past is such a rotting thing, just like this city."

Vera’s head began to tilt upward, her resolve fracturing under the sheer weight of his presence. The baby went deathly silent.

The pale Visitor clapped his hands once, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cramped space. "A fascinating stalemate," he crooned, his voice dripping with synthetic amusement. "But I fear we are running out of time, young man. The sun flares will begin soon, and even those of us who have moved beyond the flesh would prefer not to be caught in the cleansing fire."

Mikhail ignored him, his eyes inches from Vera’s. "Come on, baby.”

As Vera finally opened her eyes, the turquoise shimmer surged, reflecting perfectly in her dark, terrified pupils. 

She dropped the knife.

Mikhail finally had her. 

***

(Two hours later)

“There. It never happened.”

The last piece of glass had been plucked from her head and placed into a shallow bowl filled with now-red water that sat on the wooden kitchen table. The piece joined the other glass pieces and shards the pale Visitor has now spent hours removing from Karina’s body. Her red cardigan is carelessly bunched up on the table beside the bowl. She left her dirty red rain boots at the entrance of the house, so now Karina is only clad in her white tank top, jeans, and white socks.

Karina has not said more than two words during the entire process of having the glass removed from her skin and being bandaged up. 

The pale Visitor got on his knees before where his human was perched on one of the chairs. Even then, he was still taller than her. His large hands came up to grasp her by her shoulders, traveling up and down her arms in a mock soothing gesture. He examined her face, noting how her once rather oval face shape had become more pale and diamond as a result of being tucked away inside and losing weight during this difficult game of survival, her full lips now chapped from the heat, and the once-natural rosiness of her cheeks has faded.

She would not have suffered so if only she would listen to him.

Though her physical features did not hold importance to him. What mattered to him most was… 

“Karina, there’s no need to still be sulking. We had to leave because, as I previously stated, the place was no longer habitable. On top of that,” a low snort escaped him. “The yellow suits were coming. Someone must have reported all the ruckus that was being made.”

Those chestnut eyes did not stir—they remained staring at her hands that were folded in her lap. Her eyes blinked softly, but that was the only movement from her.

The pale Visitor tried not to let his irritation show; he truly did, but not once has Karina expressed gratitude towards him. He couldn’t see her sense. He bandaged her up and brought her to shelter when he could have killed her long before this. His master is beyond merciful to her, as Karina is given a truly blessed route that he is a part of—he’s told her this to some extent. And he might no longer be human, but even he remembered being grateful when anyone would do a favor for him. She should be on her knees thanking him and his master because she could have been swept away in the wave of destruction and change to be forgotten in the burrows of time.

All she’s doing though is…

…Ignoring him…

He briefly closed his eyes and forced a thin smile. “What displeases you so much? Tell me, and I will see what I can do to fix it.”

Her hands tightened into fists while she still refused to meet his gaze. 

“Is this about that woman and baby?” Humans and their stupid emotional attachments. “It would be best to forget about them. That Homeowner will take good care—” 

The pale Visitor stopped himself from speaking when he saw a stray tear fall onto Karina’s hand. He clapped a hand over his mouth to hide his ever-growing smile because, oh, how he loved human tears! They come when the pale Visitor takes his sweet time in killing the human. Usually, he doesn’t give anyone the chance to register what will happen to them, but homeowners are another story. He likes to…play with his entertainment so to speak, since he can’t outright enter their homes. Hearing them through their doors begging for him to go away, or trying to sound brave because they have a useless gun in their possession, is always entertaining. And when even the strongest men are reduced to tears as he breaks in to murder them, begging and pleading for him to spare them? 

Those tears are the cherry on top of a cake.

And Karina’s would not stop. 

She hunched over further while her tears flowed. Her form shook from trying to hold them back, but the pale Visitor did not want her to ever hold anything back from him. He wanted to see everything she could display because Death blessed him with her. She belonged to him, and only he had a right to see her crumble like this. 

A part of him regretted being away from her for four nights, yet he had to follow his orders and fulfill his duties. There is still much work to be done in this new world. He would have to leave her again soon, but at least no one would bother her out here in the secluded woods. 

The pale Visitor gently wrapped his long arms around his human, carefully patting her head. He would never say this is the natural emotion of romantic love that humans feel for each other because he is no longer human. He never fell in love with anyone when he was human either because they all… well, that constraining life is over now. 

He’s free and has embraced the truth. 

But what he feels for Karina…it could be compared to obsession and control, couldn’t it? She was a gift given to him—the first gift given to him in his new life. Why would he let something terrible happen to his gift? Sure, it brought him immense pleasure to psychologically torture her while she hid away in that awful bakery. He didn’t mind if she got a few scratches and bruises here and there because he knew he could patch her up. Her fear that etched inside her eyes as he talked to her from the other side of that window always thrilled him because he was the one putting that fear inside her. But he would never let anything happen to her when it came down to it.

Couldn’t she see that?

One day, hopefully soon, she would stop running from him and his kind—the truth. She wanted to remain human. He understood her sentiment because he too ran and was scared to death out in these woods. He didn’t want to die. 

But once he stopped running, once he died and emerged from the ground transformed and made new again with all of his injuries healed, he could finally see the brutal truth of this world. Running would only delay the inevitable. He has explained this to the humans numerous times, but they all foolishly believed that if they simply listened to their corrupted government and locked themselves away in their homes and buildings, hunkering down until this all "blew over," they would survive.

What they didn’t know was that the world will never return to the way it was even if all of this necessary destruction did come to an end. The sun will burn down everything eventually, leaving the humans with no place to hide. 

Human idiocy made his duties easier.

Karina weakly put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. He let her move him because the faster she gets over whatever she is so upset about, the faster they can move on and fulfill Death’s purpose for them.

“Are you alright now, Karinka? Good.” For some reason he could never stay irritated with her for long. The poor thing really is clueless when it comes to the end of the world. She thinks she can help people and survive, but it has already been proven to her that that route is futile. He has found she is the type of human who needs to be burned a few times before she stops putting her hand over an open flame. “This night has been a tiring one, so it’s understandable that emotions are high.”

The pale Visitor rose to his original height, having to keep his head bent forward because the top of his head reached beyond the ceiling. This house was not for his comfort, he remembered. It was primarily meant for Karina. He would come and go as he pleased in this house he technically owned while she stayed here where it was safe. 

“I should have just lied to you about not being alone so you could have killed me.”

This again? Fine. He’ll indulge her for a moment. “Even if you had lied to me, your lie would have only been a gateway to me delivering you to this place faster.”

Karina folded into herself further, putting her head into her lap and wrapping her arms around herself. “You took me away from the last thing I had of my parents…”

The pale Visitor tilted his head, studying her as though she were a curious specimen. “That rundown bakery? My Gift, the building would have come down either way. Did you have the funds or means to rebuild it? Do you think you would have survived in its current conditions? Your kind would have further torn the place apart if it meant finding any shelter. What have I told you all this time? Only dogs reside in these bodies that roam the earth now. They would not have been as kind as you. In fact, they would have torn you apart because morality no longer has a claim in this world.”

Karina lifted her head, her tear-streaked face pale in the dim light. “It was all I had left of them,” she whispered. “I told you not to. I told you that I would stay with Vera and her baby even if we had to hunker down for months in that kitchen. I begged you to stop Mikhail so he wouldn’t take them away, and you…” She dissolved into tears again. 

The pale Visitor crouched again, his knees cracking as he lowered himself to her level. “You’re going to have to learn that there is nothing you can do about any sort of situation.” He petted a hand over her hair, admiring the red in the locs. “You humans have no say in anything that happens. Death has decided everything for us, you understand? So I think it would be wise for you to thank Death for taking that place from you. That building kept you in an illusion of safety—it was no good for you.”

Karina’s hands trembled. “You don’t understand,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “It might just be another building to you, but my parents started the bakery together during a previous hard time in the country. It brought comfort and—”

“That’s enough, Karina.”

She fell silent before him with one final tear falling from her eye. The pale Visitor regarded her for a moment longer, then leaned closer to her, bracing his hands on either side of the table to cage her in the chair. The atmosphere in the room seemed to tighten as if the room itself held its breath for what the pale Visitor would do. “There’s no point in being so regretful over a mere building. It’s gone now,” he said at last, his tone flat and final. 

He observed the tears still glistening on her cheek. He brought his face close to press a chaste kiss to her cheek. “You should thank me, my dear,” he murmured against her skin. His thoughts returned to the night he found Karina finally alone in that bakery—covered in blood and holding an equally bloody knife while she sat on the floor with her back against the counter. She had been staring into nothing, not even bothering to acknowledge him when he invited himself in.  

She was completely broken.

But to him, she had been the most exquisite creature he had ever laid his eyes on.

Karina reached out to him when she finally realized where she was and the fact that he was inside the bakery. She begged him to kill her. He explained he would not. She begged him to leave her out in the streets for the sun to burn her alive. He explained he would not do that either. She couldn’t understand him, and he explained he would not expect her to. She told him she did not want to be alone anymore, so he explained to her that she would not be.

Karina initiated the night for them.

She lost herself, and the pale Visitor would have been lying if he didn’t say he thoroughly enjoyed her undoing. 

Now, his eyes glistened with the thought of having her again like that night, but he needed, no, craved, to hear three simple words from her lips before this night ended. “You should tell me that you love me for what I’ve done for you.” His facial features tightened, the corners of his mouth trembling with restraint. His eyes drank her in as he pulled away slightly from her—starved, desperate, as though her silence were a cruelty he could not endure. How he hated being ignored. With any other human, he could handle it to a degree; they’ll die either way, but when it came to Karina, he could not stand to be given her cold shoulder. 

No.

He wouldn’t tolerate it.

There was not a trace of softness in his expression—only the sharp, unnatural stillness of something that craved like a predator stalking its prey. The Visitor's expression is so overwhelming that he wishes his human would become lost and drown inside of his being, making it impossible for anyone to ever find her again. 

Her breath caught.

Delightful.

He tilted his head, the motion slow, her reflection in his eyes the only thing he wanted her to see. “A kiss would do,” he added, voice low and devoid of warmth. “A simple gesture of gratitude. That’s all I ask.”

Karina didn’t move, or maybe she couldn’t—being pinned beneath such an intense gaze and all.

The pale Visitor waited, unmoving, his peering eyes fixed on her as he imagined undressing her down to her bare soul. She knew that he could stay here in this position all night, didn’t she? Surely she remembered how he would stand further away from the bakery and simply stare at her? Every time she checked on him, he would still be right there where she last saw him. He would remain perfectly still before her for as long as he needed to, his body like a marble statue.

Karina’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, her hands still placed in her lap. 

Her silence stretched until it became unbearable. The pale Visitor’s gaze did not waver; instead, it pressed against her like a weight.

Finally, she moved—slowly, hesitantly. Her hands rose while her eyes were still downcast. The pale Visitor watched, unblinking, as she leaned forward just enough to cup his face in her hands and brush her lips against his. The kiss was barely a kiss, a fleeting touch born of fear rather than affection.

“Thank you for what you’ve done for me,” she whispered.

The pale Visitor tried to hold back his breath hitching, but he couldn’t help that his restraint broke. His hand flew up to the back of her neck, holding her still as he deepened the kiss. Hunger drove his actions. Maybe at one point he could have been described as a gentleman, but he must admit he was past that point when it came to this human woman. If he were still a human man, perhaps he could have loved her as a man loves his woman, treating her gently and showering her with affections and words the way she deserved.

But he is no longer a human man.

Their kiss proved humanity did not exist here even if one of the ilk in the room belonged to the human race. He bit down on her bottom lip with reckless abandon before diving into her mouth once again. He tasted the iron of blood in her mouth, to which his tongue immediately swiped to savor. She is so sweet. Karina dared to try and keep up with his movements as well—his little human had a side to her that was far more animal than she would ever admit. She tried so hard to help others and put on this face that everything was fine, but he knew better. She could never hide from him, and if she tried, then he would end up finding her anyway, no matter how many people had to die. 

There is nowhere in this world that she could go if she ever tried to leave him.

The pale Visitor only broke away from her in that moment to whisper across her lips. “Say it, Karina. Say that you love me.” He cupped her face with his right hand and caressed her cheekbone and neck with his thumb, feeling her pulse flutter beneath his touch as he waited for those beautiful words to fall from her lips.

Karina’s breath trembled against his mouth, the taste of iron still lingering between them. Her body was rigid, every muscle caught between terror and exhaustion, which made her unable to speak.

Her silence stretched, and something inside the pale Visitor shattered. He drew back just enough to stare down at her, his eyes burning with a feverish light. “Say it,” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. “Say that you love me.”

He remembered how hard he tried with everyone when he was still a human. He showed kindness; he did any favor anyone would ask of him. Sometimes they did favors for him, and yet they still had the audacity to exclude him and pretend that he didn’t exist! And when he tried harder, he got called overbearing and strange! He was even denied help when he was running for his life! If the situations were switched, then he would have helped that man and given him a place to stay! How was any of it fair? And for Karina to deny him the one thing that he wished to hear from only her? Death could have taken her a long time ago, but she’s still here because she’s one of the chosen just like he was! 

Karina’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her gaze flicked up to meet his—just once—and in that instant, the pale Visitor saw not defiance, but despair. It was the same look she’d worn the night he found her all alone in the bakery, when she’d begged him to end her life.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

The pale Visitor froze. Her words were soft, but they struck him like a soldier's bullet. He let his face drop in its disappointed expression he wore when the humans would tell him that they are not alone. 

“This is all because of that woman and her baby.”

Karina’s eyes widened.

The pale Visitor let his eyes fall to the side to stare at the far wall of the kitchen. He lowered his hands from touching her entirely. He and Karina had been completely fine before she let those two humans inside the bakery, and now it felt like he was right back to square one with her. “I see. Perhaps I should…head out and pay that homeowner a visit? That way you can be assured of their fate, despair about it, and then move on—”

“I LOVE YOU!” she abruptly shouted, flinging her arms around his neck and burying herself against him in a hug. “I love you so much, and I’m so grateful for everything that you have done for me! I don’t deserve it, and I owe everything to you and Death!”

The pale Visitor’s arms immediately tightened around her. The flickering lamplight was reflected in the bowl of red water on the table, and the silence that ensued after her confession was filled with the soft hum of insects outside. The pale Visitor embraced Karina tightly against him, an expression of pure bliss sewing itself onto his face. He turned his face up to the ceiling, his smile stretching wider and wider.

It still wasn’t enough for him.

He pulled back once again to look at her face, getting his facial expressions under control. “Say it again,” he urged with a whisper, his voice quivering with something between triumph and disbelief. “I want to hear you say it again.”

She may not mean the words she is saying, but it doesn't matter to him.

Karina’s throat worked, but her voice came out a bit hoarse now. “I love you,” she repeated, each word cracking like glass under pressure. “I love you.”

The pale Visitor’s smile spread across his face something terrible. “That’s my good girl,” he murmured, brushing his thumbs across her still wet cheeks from her tears. He suddenly rose to his full height with her in his arms, his shadow swallowing the small kitchen whole. He touched his forehead to hers. “Now, I’ll help you take your bandages off, and then you can get yourself a bath and get ready for bed. I won’t disturb you any further. In fact, I’ll be outside until dawn to keep watch over the house.”

“How… How is there running water here?”

“I made some recruitments of my own, and they were quite useful until I didn’t need them anymore.”

“What if the sun starts growing hotter and it’s no longer safe to stay in the house?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Can I… Can I have some red nail polish to paint my nails with? Or…do you think all the stores are gone now because of the sun?”

“You’ll be fine without it, dear.”

The pale Visitor’s satisfaction lingered like a shadow across the room. He watched Karina’s face pale as a foreign language tumbled from her lips. He idly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, his touch tender. He then took her to the back of the house to the bedroom and bathroom. He does not expect her to understand his nature—a human like her could never comprehend the purpose of him snuffing out the life he is ordered to snuff out. All she needs to know is that she is alive, alone, and more blessed than any other human currently. 

That is how she should remain.

Alone and only with him.

***

(Two Years Later)

The house stands alone against the endless sweep of sea and sky, a single white mark on the emerald slope. From afar, it looks almost unreal to anyone who passes by the island by boat. The wind moves freely here, carrying the scent of sea salt and moss, whispering through the grass that bends towards the ocean below.

No roads lead to Eliidaey Island. Only the sheep, gulls, puffins, and waves keep the company of the house that has sat uninhabited since the 1930s. The world beyond the island feels like a rumor—Heimaey’s residents' lights are faint and flickering across the water, too distant to touch.

Inside the house, the air is still. It appears as though the house itself is keeping an eye on the horizon for something that will never materialize. A kettle sits cold on the wood-burning stove. A single chair faces the expanse of grass that eventually drops into the sea. Whoever built this place must have understood solitude—not as a punishment, but as a kind of truth only a select few in this world would understand. A man, now two years older than he had been but who will never age again, sat in that chair that stared out at the sea. 

His wife and daughter slept where the beds resided in the attic, as this used to be a hunting lodge for hunters that would come to the island. He would never be able to sleep unless someone killed him again. 

Mikhail sat motionless, his silhouette framed by the window’s pale light. The sea beyond was restless, its waves clawing at the cliffs below as if trying to reach him and his little family. He had watched this same horizon for two years—ever since Death had given him back what life had taken. When Mikhail first arrived with his family, she whispered in his ear that he needed to further terrorize the inhabitants of the Westman Islands with his fellow kind. He did, of course, because he promised Death he would be a loyal dog to her.  

A low fire is burning in the wood-burning stove to keep the space warm. Mikhail has found that he needs the heat—it’s where he thrives.

Up the stairs above him, the faint sound of breathing came from the bedroom—the rhythmic rise and fall of two bodies that still belonged to the living. His wife’s soft sighs and his daughter’s occasional murmur in her dreams. They were reminders of what he had once been and what he could never be again.

He rose from the chair to head towards the door. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight. He walked to the door and opened it, letting the cold air rush in.

The island was quiet except for the wind and the distant cry of a puffin. He crossed the wooden terrace to let his bare feet sink into the damp grass. The stars above seemed impossibly close, as if Death’s endless starry sea had leaned down to watch him. 

He closed his eyes, listening to the wind brush against his clothes and hair.

When he opened his eyes again, he could almost see the faces in the reflection of the moonlight on the sea of those he had lost, those he had killed, and those he had let stay under his roof for as long as they needed to in order to survive.

Two years ago, he and Vera had been hunched over the table that sat at the entrance to the house late one night, listening to the radio speak on the cataclysm. Here on the island, the sun's flares were not so horrible because of the dense fog. But Vera and Elena had still not been able to go outside at the time. Now that the cataclysm had come to an end, Vera voiced that she wanted to take Elena home. But Mikhail had not been eager to do that. They were finally out here by themselves—away from people—and they could live their lives the way they wanted to out here without the fear of anyone harming them or disturbing them.

“I think I’ve pacified you long enough, Misha.” Vera had kept her voice down so as to not wake up their daughter, who had been sleeping upstairs. She got in Mikhail’s face, determined for him to see her point of view. “You’ve dragged me and Elena out here onto this island with no running water or electricity to wait out the cataclysm. Okay, we have done that. It’s over. Let’s start going back home tomorrow. Besides, I still need to say thank you to Karina for saving me and Elena and see if she is alright.”

“No,” Mikhail calmly finalized.

Vera’s brows shot to her forehead before furrowing in anger. “Fine then. I’m taking Elena with me, and the two of us will go back home. You need to face your reality, Mikhail. I can’t be your wife and also your therapist! You have to be able to learn to grow out of this isolation you have put yourself in!”

Except Vera did not understand that Mikhail was not willing to lose his wife a second time. He shot his hand out, the one that bore his wedding band, and grabbed Vera by the wrist—halting her in her steps. Fear displayed in her eyes towards him for the first time because she knew he was far stronger than she would ever be. But Mikhail would never be cruel to her again, so instead, he sent her into a dream.

Death has blessed him with the gift of allowing him to show people what he wanted them to see and also the desires of their souls when he made purposeful eye contact with them. What his wife wanted, more than anything, was for a peaceful life with him and their daughter in Russia, so Mikhail gave it to her. He let her see what she wanted to see, and he did that whenever Vera would snap out of it and start wondering why they were in such a remote place and when they were going to go back home. He also used his gift on his family for his trips to the mainland, where he could do his work for Death. 

The first time he used it was for Vera to not be afraid of him being a Visitor back at the bakery, and his tactic has worked for the past two years, and he’ll keep doing it until… 

The front door creaked open, causing Mikhail to whip his head to the front door. His little two-year-old daughter peeked her head out. She wore pink pajamas with a cute brown bear's head on the front of them. She rubbed her eye as she sleepily walked outside to join Mikhail. He took his hand out of his pants pocket to offer it for Elena to hold. She quietly took it, staring silently out at the view of the sea. 

Elena was his quiet child. She spoke more than he did, but she was not one to interrupt the quiet of an evening or a moment that suited silence. Her golden brown curls swished in the wind, and her eyes were so much like his, but they had a brown ring around her pupils that she inherited from her mother. Mikhail suspected that his daughter knew that her papa was not truly a human—only a being that appeared to be. She would stare at him for long periods of time, as if he were one of her toys, and she was trying to figure out how it worked.

“You should still be asleep with Mama,” he told her, though nothing in his tone carried a reprimand for the child. Mikhail vowed from the moment he held Elena for the first time that he would never be like his father. 

Elena leaned against his leg, her small body pressing into his. “I like out here with you, Papa.”

Mikhail looked down at Elena, her small hand curled around his fingers. The wind continued to tug gently at her curls, and she blinked up at him with those knowing eyes. The neighbor’s daughter flashed into his mind—that poor girl. He never should have promised his neighbor that he would protect her if something happened to the man. In the end, he hadn’t been able to as FEMA took her away. Mikhail became murderous at the thought of those bastards daring to lay a hand on his daughter.

He wouldn’t hesitate to kill them all.

The father and daughter stood outside until the dawn broke. His poor baby eventually couldn’t stay awake any longer, so Mikhail picked Elena up in his arms while she softly snored. He brought her back into the house, where he found Vera coming down the stairs dressed in her dark green robe. She yawned, said "Good morning" to him, and plopped herself down on one of the leather couches.

Mikhail kissed her on the top of her head before taking Elena back upstairs to lay her down so she could get some more rest. He tucked her yellow blanket around her shoulders, also kissing her on the top of her head. He quietly shut the door behind him as he made his way back downstairs to his wife.

He crawled onto the couch beside Vera and cuddled close to her. He wrapped his arms around her and rubbed his head against her breast and stomach with his eyes closed in content. “What do you want to do today? Nothing?”

Her fingers went to trail lightly through his short, fine hair. “Mmm, yeah. That sounds fine.”

Mikhail stayed pressed against Vera for a long while, listening to the faint cackle of the fire and the slow rhythm of her breathing. Her warmth has always canceled out his coldness, and that fact rang true especially now. 

Outside, the wind had quieted. The sea was calm, its surface smooth and silver under the early light. The island would always be paradise to Mikhail—his dream. He even had a poster of this very house in his old house. He wanted it to just be him here when he lost Vera for the first time, but now he was glad he had his family here with him.

Vera’s fingers stilled in his hair. “You’ve been awake all night again,” she mumbled.

“I don’t sleep,” he simply told her.

She smiled faintly, eyes still closed. “Then rest, at least somewhat.”

He didn’t answer. Rest was not something Death’s gift of transforming into a Visitor allowed him. But he stayed there with Vera, unmoving, letting her believe that he could rest like a normal human man.

Vera’s hand lingered in Mikhail’s hair, her fingers tracing slow, absent circles against his scalp—an action that used to put him straight to sleep. The fire had burned down to embers at this point, its glow painting the dim space a soft amber. Vera opened her eyes, studying her husband—the sharp line of his jaw, the stillness that seemed too perfect. He looked peaceful, almost human, but she knew better. There was something in the way his chest did not rise and fall the way it used to and the way his skin never warmed under her touch.

“Misha,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

He stirred below her, lifting his head to meet her gaze. His eyes caught the firelight, glinting with that faint, unnatural shimmer. “Yes?”

She hesitated. “I know you are comfortable here, but…are we ever going to get to go home, honey? Don’t you miss being home? This vacation is nice and all, but it’s not really…my thing to be isolated for so long from other people.”

The question hung between them like smoke. 

“Sometimes,” he said finally. “But the country will never be the same as it was before. It’s best if we stay here.”

“But what about school for Elena? We should think about her, Misha.”

Mikhail sat up so his back is now facing Vera, a coldness of weariness crossing his face. Did she not understand? All he thought about was her and Elena. Why did she think they were here rather than out there where the threat of his kind could linger alongside the threat of another human? 

Behind him, Vera let out a frustrated sigh. “Besides, I get tired of having to go into the town via boat to gather supplies when it was a simpler task to do back at home. We weren’t exactly living off the grid.”

He was going to have to do it again, wasn’t he?

Vera pressed her back against his.  

Mikhail sat still for a long time, the silence between them stretching thin. Vera’s sigh lingered in the air like a ghost of the life they used to have. He turned his head slightly, watching the faint reflection of her face in the window—soft, tired, human. An expression he could never wear again. 

He hated himself for what he was about to do. The thought of reaching into her mind, of bending her will to his gift, made something inside him recoil. 

Mikhail closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath. When he opened them, he shifted around on the couch so his gaze found Vera’s. The shimmer returned, faint and unnatural, like moonlight caught in deep water. Her expression softened almost instantly, the tension draining from her shoulders.

He watched as her eyes grew distant, her lips parting slightly as the illusion took hold. In her mind, she was home again—Russia’s snow falling outside one of their windows. Elena laughing as she pointed to the snow while Vera held her. Mikhail observed with a small smile on his face. Peace. That was what she wanted. That was what he gave her. 

As the dream settled over her, Mikhail felt the familiar sting of guilt return through him. He despised himself for this—every time he used the gift after he used it on her the first time, it reminded him that he was no longer the man she had loved, only the shadow of him.

But then the quiet returned. Vera blinked and massaged her head, snorting at herself. “What a cute little house in the middle of nowhere.” She looked around, the smile still present on her face before looking back at Mikhail. “Of course this would be your idea, Misha.”

Mikhail leaned back against the couch, letting the guilt fade into the background where it always belonged. “Sorry, sweetheart, but you know how I am.” This is necessary, not manipulation. In order for them to continue to live their lives in peace—this fragile, perfect peace—he would do anything to keep it.

He threw his arms around Vera and hugged her, closing his eyes as he breathed in her scent. “I love you. I’m doing this for us.”

She patted his back with a nervous laugh. “What are you getting so emotional over a small vacation for, Misha? And of course I love you too.”

The loneliest house in the world stood still as Mikhail embraced his wife, and his daughter slept peacefully upstairs. 

____________________________

This is the family of three’s new reality because of a husband and father who could not let go and fully embrace the change he was meant to embrace.

[craigslistcowboy]

Need to get me an iPad soooo bad, phone drawing is nawt cutting it anymore.

[reesa0221]

I like that they are going to have their S1 hairstyles because it feels like Weyler can pick up where they were cut off in S1 ❤️

[nishentka]

The war is over, but the consequences remain

[hazydsprsn]

Idk i think if he was given a bath, a fresh set of clothes and a nice hot tea he would've been a lot nicer🤔🤔 jkjk

Anywayy here are my headcanons for the Pale Visitor because i have to put my thoughts out SOMEWHEREE

Cw: descriptions of body horror

- The Bearded Hunter mentions Pale man getting significantly taller after he gets left outside his cabin, but doesn't mention anything about his face looking different. Idk maybe he just didn't pay attention, esp in the dark forest, but i think that The Thing that took human Pale man's skin also took his skull, so his face looks exactly the same as when he was a human, but more atrophied

- The Pale man has no organs, and when he breathes, (which he does only for speaking, getting air into his lungs to pass it through the vocal chords that got ripped with the skull) it sounds really dry, hollow and is echoed by the walls of his empty chest cavity

- His voice, given that he's basically a reanimated corpse, is really raspy and gritty. But not in a hot way, in an unpleasant old-man-with-pneumonia-on-the-verge-of-death kinda way

- His body is driven by the force of the thing that is possessing him. There might be some desiccated pieces of muscle and tendons that are still attached to his skin. Inside them, there's stale blood, it's dried, thick and brownish-black, but there's very little blood left in his flesh, almost none

- People see Pale Visitor and Humantruder as two different beings, but i like to imagine Pale visitor as Humantruder in a wrong body, his mind corrupted by The Thing. Kind of like rabies or cordyceps, but more symbiotic. He's like a ghost of his former self. He gets power, and Death gets his loyal service

- He still has his memories - he simply chooses to not access them, but those memories find a way to influence his actions. I believe the reason he kills those who are alone in their house is because it's an act of revenge. He died because the Hunter refused to share the safety of his house, and he swore to murder all those as selfish as the Hunter is

- As for romantic feelings, he knows what they are, he remembers what they felt like, he knows the ways humans connect, but he simply has no interest. He's not human, and it's in human nature to have an urge for connection and reproduction, which he doesn't possess anymore

- Even if someone does win his interest, it's only for a short while. He may toy around with his victim, try to see their weaknesses and painful buttons to push, but they meet their end just like the other ones. People love Palegun, but even Death's personal favorite didn't get enough interest from the Intruder for more interaction. He simply kills him. Nothing is personal for him

- He doesn't eat, drink or sleep. He doesn't have to, he never gets tired. He's one of the strongest visitors, but he's a little different in that way. Ballerina, one of the other stronger visitors, still has to eat something and get rest to sustain herself, just like the rest of the visitors

- He does occasionally spare people, but it's almost always out of inconvenience or distraction. Not every person who meets him dies, and that's how the police sketch was created. Even if he feels pity for someone, it's not out of empathy, it's condescending

- This is more of a general visitor headcanon. When they run into each other and no humans are around, they don't talk to one another. They may throw each other a glance or a nod. They access the information they want to exchange via some kind of telepathy like a hive mind and then they part ways. They only talk around humans to keep their cover and seem normal. This is so uncanny lmao imagine seeing two people in a field just motionlessly stare at each other for five seconds and then go their own ways without a word

This turned out much longer than i expected😭😭. I might do a part 2 with headcanons for Humantruder

[angstyburrito]

It's so hard because the bad things that Tyler does to Wednesday in season 2 that people are upset about don't seem to upset her.

He throws her out of the window and I'm like Oh fuck, that's bad, she won't forgive him for this and then she immediately says "I've always dreamed of looking death in the face. But in my final moments, all I hear are my mother's words ringing in my ears. Maybe I have made everything worse. Much worse." Also in one of the Wednesday season 2 part 2 teaser trailers, there's a voiceover of Morticia stating that Wednesday's coma is "The vacation she's always dreamed of."

Then he threatens to kill Wednesday and Enid and she states, "Tyler declared that Enid and I will die today. He may be a deranged psychopath, but his timing is poetic. If I could choose my last day, El Día de los Muertos would top my wish list. The Day of the Dead has always been my favorite holiday." (She also mentioned to him that it's big in her family during their trip to the Gates mansion in 1x6)

Plus when they bury her and he watches, she opens her eyes and says "I enjoyed that"???

She doesn't seem to give a fuck, to be honest. When she thinks that Xavier is the Hyde in season 1, she literally approaches him and says "I know what you are, Xavier" with a smile. She doesn't seem to mind telling the person she thinks is the serial killing monster that she has them all figured out.

She doesn't care that he's a Homicidal Hyde, she cares that he tricked her in season 1. She literally jokes that that he's her type immediately after kissing him and finding out it's him (Also admitting in season 2 that she was attracted to him).

[cl0wnesque]

What if they were happy lol

[reesa0221]

Weyler in 2027! 🎉💕

[reesa0221]

I love that Weyler has their own official merch on the Wednesday Amazon store 🪓❤️🩸🥀

[claimedcrossbows]

I'll never get over this

I'll never get over the fact that Tyler was so happy after his phone call with Wednesday confirming their date, only for his father to come in and insinuate that Wednesday and Tyler's relationship would never work because Wednesday would end up hurting him.

Only for Tyler to get immediately defensive and ask if that's how he felt about his mom.

This entire conversation happened because Tyler didn't like his dad projecting his own failed relationship onto his (supposedly fake relationship) with Wednesday.

That man was already hearing the fricking Wedding Bells Y'all. 😭😭😭

Anyway..Merry Christmas Eve.

[malyenshyde]

The moment Tyler realized that Wednesday came back for him despite the possible danger, that an outcast risked her life to come back and save him instead of saving herself and maybe him and Laurel were wrong about them and god she’s sooooo pretty too—

[orendi-png]

как человек, но не человек!!!!

[nevergonnabemuchmorethanweather]

Love the way Wednesday and Tyler grow visibly more and more tired of their enemies era throughout s2 and by the end their hearts are just not in it at all. They were both so angry and so heartbroken at the start, and they thought hurting each other back would help but it didn't, it just added to the pain, and by the end the vibe between them is just this sort of exhausted longing. They don't want to fight anymore but neither really has a choice or knows what else to do so they keep going through the motions...

Until Wednesday finally breaks the pattern and his bonds with one very precise swing of an axe. She didn't have to kill him if she didn't want to, she could have left him there and disconnected Pugsley from the machine which would have saved Tyler indirectly anyway. Instead she looked him in the eye as she freed him and then went to save her brother. No wonder he was so blown away.

[daemyra-fire]

Morticia& Gomez // Wednesday & Tyler

[claimedcrossbows]

I've actually wanted to talk about this scene for a minute, but hadn't gotten around to it. But there was multiple scenes where it looked like Tyler was actually trying to protect Wedneday, One I already discussed where he tossed Wednesday away from the door unknowing it was actually Enid in Wednesday's body.

But there was also this scene at the skull tree where I've seen a few people talk about this scene as well and I definitely agree.

The more I look at this scene, the more it absolutely looks like he was protecting her from Isaac and i'll explain why.

For one, you can immediately tell that Tyler doesn't particularly like being up under his mother and uncle's order, I mean did you see the shared glances between him and Pugsley.

They were both looking at them like they were completely out of their minds..

So I already believe he felt bad for having to drag Pugsley around on a leash.

So when we finally get to the skull tree and Wednesday's plan fails and he reveals that Thing actually belongs to him.

It's shocking not only for Wednesday, but Tyler as well.

Because for one.

I don't think his mother or uncle filled Tyler into the fact that he was a Da Vinci, and he definitely didn't tell him that Wednesday had his hand.

So when his uncle all of a sudden says that Thing is his, and that a Da vinci is nothing without his right hand...

I can only imagine that's when the gears clicked for Tyler that his uncle wasn't a normie and that he was about to do something probably very dangerous to Wednesday.

So he again immediately grabs her, and keeps her away from Isaac, you can even see him look back at his uncle warily after he catches Wednesday.

But the part that's the most interesting to me is before that even happens, when he grabs her he shoots her a look that reads.

"Stay back it's for your own safety."

And that's when he looks back to his uncle almost like he's worried too.

But why would he be worried? The only person Isaac is after is...

Wednesday.

Also it's worth nothing that there's a shot of Tyler and in the rule of thirds in cinematography and film, the focus is within the grids guidelines and you can see that Wednesday, Tyler and Pugsley are in the focal point.

But who's in the forefront?

Tyler.

It's abundantly clear who you should be looking at more so than anyone.

And that's Tyler's reaction to his uncle stitching on Thing to his hand.

He even looks back at Wednesday AGAIN while this is happening.

And since we couldn't see his face looking back at her.

I can only imagine it was the same as the first time he looked at her while holding her back.

His expression was probably.

"Girl, do you not see this man is crazy??"

Tyler's exact face to Wednesday probably

Anyway...what do you think? Was he trying to help her?

[hazydsprsn]

I was a Human once

My hcs about them:

I feel like Visitors retain some of the characteristics they had as humans, even long after their transformation. I think Ballerina was a very distant, practical and don't-give-me-bs kind of person with the way she constantly questions the homeowner as a Visitor. Personally I feel like she was a person with a strong and resilient personality. She may have been harsh with words, but was overall a decent and kind person who'd be there for her close ones no matter what.

Intruder is much harder to imagine as a human, given his lack of dialogue, but his politeness even as a monster makes me believe he was a nice? man no one batted an eye on. It's weird that practically no one recognizes him in this small town, where a lot of people are actually connected, so it makes me think he wasn't really known by anyone, or maybe he was just visiting the city. What's interesting is that he quotes Гражданская оборона's songs, so he probably had strong views about the world. Maybe he even had violent thoughts behind the politeness he put up, and it kind of 'bled' into the role he was given as a Visitor.

I think it's pretty interesting to see them as related, like, did they have something to do with the apocalypse? Are they connected to it? They do look similar with their short upturned nose. If they're not siblings, then probably cousins or uncle and niece. I think Cat lady is about late-20s-early30s, Intruder is late-30s-early-40s. Them not being connected at all is also pretty scary, meaning the diety that possesses humans chooses its victims at random.. I just feel bad for them man

[darcyq0]