Three knocks. Measured. Neither hurried nor hesitant.
Aldric was seated in his single worn chair, staring at a patch of wall where the newspapers usually hung. Space number 48 was still vacant. He rose slowly, his joints complaining like old floorboards, and walked to the door. He did not check the peephole. He did not ask who it was. He knew.
He opened the door.
Eril stood in the dim hallway, hands buried in the pockets of his overcoat. Raindrops still clung to the shoulders of the dark wool. He did not smile. Aldric did not greet him. They stood there for a long, empty moment — two men who had once shared something, and had spent years pretending they hadn't.
Aldric stepped aside.
Eril entered without a word, his eyes sweeping the apartment. The walls papered with obituaries and newspaper pages — all of them folded open to the accidents section, the crime reports, the death notices. Black headlines screamed silently from every surface. The single shelf bore only a clock that ticked like a limp. The low table, empty except for an ashtray crowded with dead cigarettes. The air smelled of stale smoke and something else — something sweet and chemical, barely masked.
Eril's gaze lingered on nothing and everything.
Aldric gestured toward the chair. Eril sat.
Neither spoke as Aldric moved into the small kitchen alcove. The sound of water boiling. The clink of two ceramic cups. He returned with black coffee, no sugar, and set one cup before Eril. Then he lowered himself into the chair opposite, the leather sighing under his weight.
Eril wrapped his hands around the cup but did not drink. He watched Aldric over the rim.
"Hello, Aldric," he said finally. "You've seemed strange these past few days. Would you tell me what's happening to you?"
Aldric lifted his own cup. The coffee was bitter and hot. He let it burn his tongue before answering.
"Drink first."
Eril hesitated, then raised the cup to his lips. He took a small sip, grimaced slightly at the bitterness, and set it back down. "Alright."
Aldric placed his cup on the table with a soft clink. He leaned back, his grey eyes fixed on Eril with the flat, unblinking calm of a lizard on a rock.
"First," Aldric said, "this is none of your concern, Eril. Second — since when do you ask about me? Since when does my well-being interest you?"
Eril's jaw tightened. A flicker of something — irritation, perhaps guilt — passed behind his glasses. "Come on, Aldric. Don't be like this."
Silence. Aldric said nothing. He finished his coffee in slow, deliberate swallows, his eyes never leaving Eril's face. When the cup was empty, he placed it down and folded his hands over his stomach.
Eril let out a short breath through his nose. He shook his head, and when he spoke again, the pretense had drained from his voice. What remained was business.
"Fine. I wanted to act like a friend. But let's end this little farce." He reached into his coat and withdrew a folded slip of paper. "The Boss is pleased with your work. She wants to reward you. But there's a case you need to close first. Win it. Everything you need is on this paper."
He held it out. Aldric did not take it.
"Put it on the table," he said. "And leave."
Eril's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Then he set the folded paper beside his untouched coffee cup and rose to his feet. "Alright. Goodbye, then."
He walked to the door, opened it, and paused on the threshold. For a moment, it seemed he might say something else. His back remained turned. Then he stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him with a soft click.
Aldric did not move. The paper lay on the table, white and crisp against the dark wood. The clock ticked. The rain tapped against the window like impatient fingers.
---
He sat motionless for a long while. The silence settled over him like a second skin. Then, slowly, he reached for the paper.
He unfolded it. An address. A warehouse. The industrial district on the east side of the city. A date — three days from now. And below that, a single initial: *F.*
No instructions. No details. Just a place and a time.
Aldric read it twice. His expression did not change. He reached into his coat pocket, withdrew a box of matches, and struck one. He touched the flame to the corner of the paper. The fire ate the words. He held it until the flames licked close to his fingers, then dropped the blackening curl into the ashtray. It crumbled into ash, joining the grey dust of a hundred dead cigarettes.
*The warehouse. Again. How many years had it been? Ten? More?*
He stood and walked to the window. The rain had softened to a drizzle. A single figure stood on the opposite sidewalk, collar turned up, face tilted upward.
Eril. He had not left.
He had crossed the street and was standing there, hands still in his pockets, watching. Aldric did not wave. Did not move. He simply stood in the dark frame of his window and stared back.
Below, Eril raised one hand — not a wave, but a signal. Small. Deliberate. Then he lowered it, withdrew a phone, and typed something quickly. A message sent. To whom? Aldric did not need to wonder. The Boss. She would know, within seconds, that the paper had been delivered. That Aldric had taken it. That the machinery was still turning.
Eril pocketed the phone, turned, and walked away. His figure dissolved into the grey veil of rain.
Aldric's eyes drifted to the reflection in the glass. His own face stared back — pale, gaunt, eyes sunk deep in their sockets. And behind his reflection, something else. A shape. Sitting in the chair Eril had vacated.
He did not turn around. He closed his eyes, counted to five, and opened them again. The reflection was empty.
"Not yet," he whispered to the glass. "Not tonight."
He stood at the window a moment longer, watching the street where Eril had been.
*The machinery is still turning,* he thought. *She pulls the string and the puppet walks. She always assumed the puppet had no thoughts of its own. No plans. No anger buried so deep even the puppet forgot it was there.*
He let the thought breathe for a little longer this time. Three seconds became five. Five became ten.
Then he turned away from the window and walked to the bedroom.
---
Cassian sat on the edge of his unmade bed, the glow of his phone screen carving sharp shadows across his face.
He was scrolling through old photographs. Years of them. He stopped on one picture and zoomed in. Three men. Cassian, younger, grinning at the camera. Aldric, standing slightly apart, his smile faint and guarded. Eril, his arm slung casually over Cassian's shoulder. And a fourth figure. Cropped out. Blurred at the edge of the frame. Only a shoulder and a wisp of dark hair remained.
Cassian stared at the smudge of pixels for a long moment. Then he pressed Eril's name.
The line rang twice. "Cassian." Eril's voice was flat, distracted.
"I've been thinking," Cassian said. "You visited Aldric."
A pause. "Yes."
"And? How is he?"
"He's just tired. Don't worry. He'll be fine in a few days."
Cassian's thumb drifted toward his mouth. He caught himself and lowered it. "Really? Since when do you reassure people?"
A beat of silence. Then Eril's voice, quieter: "Just let it go, Cassian."
"Maybe I should visit him myself. I don't think it's just exhaustion. Maybe he's sick."
"No." Too quickly. "You shouldn't. Isn't this your vacation? Rest. Ask him when you get back to work."
Cassian's eyes narrowed. He looked at the cropped photograph still glowing on his screen. "Alright," he said slowly. "Since you're the one saying it."
The line went dead.
Cassian lowered the phone and stared at the wall. Something was wrong. He had known it since the moment Aldric smiled at an empty rearview mirror in the rain. And now Eril — Eril, who never cared enough to lie — was lying to him.
He looked back at the photograph. At the smudged fourth figure.
*Who were you?* he thought. *And why did Aldric cut you out?*
---
Night had swallowed the city.
Aldric lay on his bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. The streetlight outside painted a thin orange rectangle across the plaster. The pharmacy bag sat on the nightstand, still sealed.
He reached for the bag. Tore it open. Tipped the contents onto the mattress. Two orange prescription bottles. He picked up the pain medication and read the label twice. Then he set it back down.
"Not yet," he said.
He flicked off the lamp. Darkness rushed in, thick and absolute. He lay still, listening to the rain and the distant hum of the city. His breathing slowed. His eyes grew heavy.
Then — a sound.
A rasp. Close. Too close. The sound of air dragging through a throat that had forgotten how to breathe smoothly.
Aldric's eyes opened. He did not reach for the lamp. He simply lay there, feeling the cold weight of a presence settle over the room like a second blanket. Slowly, he reached for the matchbox on the nightstand. His fingers found it. He struck a match.
The flame flared.
She was sitting in the chair across from the bed.
The corpse. But tonight, she was different. The decay had receded. Her skin, though still pale as moonlight, held a faint trace of color. The hollows of her cheeks were less severe. Her eyes — sunken but present — were fixed on him. And on one rotting finger, a silver ring gleamed, untarnished. The inscription was clear now. Etched in delicate script:
*Elissa.*
Aldric's grey eyes widened. Not with terror. Not with revulsion. With something older. Deeper. A recognition so profound it was indistinguishable from grief. His lips parted slightly. The match trembled in his grip.
The corpse opened its mouth. The jaw trembled with effort. The rotten vocal cords scraped against each other.
And then, the word came. Carried on a breath that smelled of wet earth and — faintly, impossibly — jasmine.
*"Benni…"*
The match burned down to his fingers. Aldric did not flinch. He simply stared as the flame kissed his skin and died, plunging the room back into darkness.
He did not move for a long time. He could have struck another match. He could have seen if she was still there. But he didn't. Perhaps he was afraid to find the chair empty. Perhaps he was afraid to find it wasn't.
Finally, he struck a second match. The chair was empty. But something remained. A scent. Faint, almost imperceptible. Jasmine. Old jasmine perfume. The kind she used to wear. A lifetime ago.
He sat up slowly. His hand was trembling. He clenched it into a fist to stop the shaking. On the armrest of the chair, where the corpse had been sitting, lay a single dried rose petal. Brown and brittle, as if pressed between the pages of a book for years.
Aldric picked it up. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and stared at it for a long, long time.
*She called me Benni,* he thought. *She hasn't called me that since—*
He stopped the thought before it finished. Old habit. But tonight, for the first time in years, he let it come back.
*Since before they took her from me.*
He set the petal on the nightstand. He lay back down and stared at the ceiling. The orange light from the street stretched across the plaster like a slow fire.
*They took her,* he thought quietly. *And I buried it and kept working. Kept serving. Like a good tool should.*
The word sat in his chest like a stone.
*Tool.*
He closed his eyes.
*Not now,* he told himself. But even as he said it, he noticed something had changed. The door he kept shutting — the one with the fire behind it — was still closed. But this time, he could feel the heat through the wood.
---
The waiting room was the same as always. Beige walls. A generic print of a waterfall. Chairs arranged in a semicircle of quiet desperation.
Aldric sat with his hands flat on his knees, staring at the waterfall. *They really do think water washes things away,* he thought. *They're wrong. Water only reveals what was already there.*
The door to the inner office opened. Dr. Harran stood in the frame — a man in his sixties with silver hair and kind, tired eyes. He had been treating Aldric for over two decades.
"Aldric. Come in."
Aldric rose and followed him into the office. He took his usual seat. The leather was warm from the previous patient. The window looked out onto a brick wall. Dr. Harran settled into his chair and opened the file on his desk.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"I'm at peace with things," Aldric said. The lie came smoothly, oiled by years of practice.
The doctor nodded slowly. "Are you still seeing the apparitions?"
Aldric glanced at the mirror on the wall opposite him. In its reflection, he could see himself. And behind himself, standing just beside the doctor's chair, was Elissa. Her decayed face was calm. She raised one rotting finger to her blue lips in a silent *shh.*
Aldric's expression did not change.
"I don't think I'm fully cured," he said carefully. "But it's… manageable."
Dr. Harran leaned back in his chair. The wall was up. Solid stone. After twenty-three years, the doctor had learned to recognize when Aldric was lying. He also knew better than to push.
"I see," the doctor said quietly.
Dr. Harran closed the file. "Well. If the condition returns, you know you can come back to me."
Aldric nodded. "After all, I've been with you for over twenty-three years."
The doctor smiled faintly — a sad, knowing smile. "Remember, Aldric. You have to live. For your mother."
Aldric stood. He adjusted his coat. "Live," he repeated, as if tasting the word. "Alright. But I make no promises."
He walked to the door. As he reached for the handle, he caught his reflection in the glass of a framed diploma. Elissa was gone. But her scent lingered. Jasmine. Always jasmine.
In the hallway, a nurse pushed an empty wheelchair past him. The wheels squeaked on the linoleum — a sound like a rusty gate. Aldric kept walking.
---
The apartment was dark when he returned.
From his coat, he withdrew the folded prescription. On the blank back, beneath *Day 1. Still alive,* he added:
*Day 2. She said my name.*
He set the paper down. His eyes drifted to the silver ring on the table. He picked it up. Turned it in the faint light. The inscription caught the glow: *Elissa.* He placed it back down.
Then he reached for the newspaper he had bought that morning. He walked to the wall and pinned the new clipping to the empty space.
Space number 49.
The headline read: *"Burned Body Found in Abandoned Warehouse. Police Investigating."*
Aldric stepped back and looked at the wall. Forty-nine clippings. Forty-nine headlines. He looked at the ring. Then at the paper with his two-day count. Then back at the wall.
*Forty-nine,* he thought.
He stood there longer than usual. Not reading. Not thinking. Just standing in the dark in front of all those headlines — all those deaths reduced to column inches — and for the first time he did not feel like a man reading a wall.
He felt like a man looking in a mirror.
*She is still out there,* he thought slowly. *The Boss. The one who knew. The one who always knew and said nothing and handed me my next assignment with that cold smile.*
*Elissa said my name tonight. My real name. The one I had before all of this.*
*I wonder if I still deserve it.*
He turned off the lamp and walked to the bedroom. In the darkness, as he lay down and closed his eyes, a voice came from very close. Soft. Rotten. Familiar.
*"Don't go… Benni."*
Aldric did not open his eyes.
But in the dark, he smiled.
A small, quiet smile. The smile of a man who has finally been invited home.
---
*End of Chapter Three*