life on your own had its pros and cons. pros: you’ve got a big house that’s all yours, you call the shots on your daily routine, and nobody’s crowding you in the kitchen first thing in the morning (if you even bother getting up early). you stock the fridge ahead of time to fit your needs, you only do chores when they actually need doing… and so on.

cons: no one but you was looking after the place. and where there’s no constant presence — since you could disappear at work for days — you get unwelcome freeloaders. usually they’re rats chasing warmth, or some other rodents.

but it was unlikely that rats were raiding your fridge. you knew something was off when yet another portion of meat you’d prepped for dinner vanished. no animal could open the fridge, unlatch a container without leaving a trace, and then tuck it away in the very depth of the dishwasher — perfectly intact. rats, smart as they are, weren’t that clever.

maybe you were just exhausted. after all, if someone had been sneaking into your house and eating your food, they’d surely have taken something valuable, right? you didn’t own much in the way of luxuries, but what little you had remained untouched — casting serious doubt on the burglar theory. so was your memory to blame? you started keeping a log of everything you did each day, just to check. if it’s exhaustion, you’ll know and do something about it before you burn out completely, and that’s a great boost of your self-care routine, isn’t it?

unless, the food kept disappearing. and damn, it was getting creepy. you didn’t believe in ghosts, or any other kind of ghouls or undead — if monsters ever existed, they were long gone, replaced by people. but even if you did believe in them, they’d probably make some noise, right, somehow announce their presence to you? yet the house was always silent — except when you made noise yourself.

then you noticed something. under normal circumstances you might have ignored it, but when your dessert — your little consolation for a tough day — went missing, you snapped, and that irritation put you on edge. that’s when you spotted faint scuff marks on the floor, like someone had been hauling an attic ladder up and down. you hadn’t been up there in ages — no reason to. your blood ran cold: what if someone had been living in your attic this whole time, never leaving your house at the first place? that’s why the small camera you hid in the hallway never reacted to anyone coming in or out – except when you did – because no one left at all.

so, let me get this straight: here you are, just came back home, barely bothered to change, and now you had to drop the ladder down, almost flying up it. there, in the dim moonlight, two icy-blue eyes stared back at you.

you’d never known eyes could be that blue — or that cold. some brat, no older than fifteen, was curled in a corner, knees pressed to his chest. a damn kid had been in your house the whole time, and you had no clue. was he hiding from his parents? the police? you had no damn clue, and your thoughts were in a great mess — you almost tumbled down the ladder, but you held on.

then he spoke.

«I only took food — sorry about that. I didn’t want to cause trouble, but I needed a place to hide.»

you had more questions than answers, and you didn’t even know where to start. his voice was unnervingly calculating, his eyes so cold and nearly lifeless. and then there was the holster on his chest and two pistols tucked under his arms — that, for some reason, jumped out at you once your eyes adjusted to the dark. the kid obviously wasn’t squatting in your attic by choice, and credit where it’s due, he hadn’t caused any real trouble — apart from making you doubt your sanity.