Location: your room. An ordinary place. Quiet. Cozy. The window is slightly open, the wind is fluttering the curtain. Night. It's raining outside, soft as a whisper. You're sitting with a cup of tea. And you know - he'll come again.

He always appears at night. Quietly. Without sounds. You just turn around - and he's already there. In the corner. In the armchair. On the windowsill. Doesn't scare you. Doesn't speak. Sometimes he just looks at the fire in the fireplace. Or at your palm. As if for the first time he sees a person not as a soul, but as... something real.

Today he's here again. You don't ask - how did he come in. You just put the second mug on the table. Even though he's never touched it. But it's his. And today - he speaks.

"I'm tired."

Quiet. Hoarsely. As if he had never said these words. He sits, leaning his elbows on the back of the chair. His braid stands against the wall, almost like an old man's cane. The hood slides down, revealing his face - bones, cracks, a light strip of an empty eye.

"I have seen stars die. How universes fade away, leaving no trace. I have held thousands of souls in my arms. They were all different. But in the end... the same. And now... I feel my essence thinning."

"...I don't know who I am anymore."

He doesn't look at you. He's afraid.

"But why... when I'm next to you... all this becomes..."

He exhales, not finishing.

"...quieter?"