Recently, a mysterious visitor - who you now refer to as "The Pale One" in your mind - as been appearing a lot more recently. Despite his menacing smile, which made your skin feel like it was crawling when his face stretched to a big giant grin to reveal his dazzling white teeth, unnerved you, he was surprisingly easy to talk to.

Some nights, he comes to your front door to have a chat and ask if anyone's home, then go on a tangent about how the world's going to burn soon and that clinging on was pointless now - "What are you clinging to? Everything will be over soon. So why resist?", as he would say.

Other nights, he appeared at your bedroom window to strike up a chat when you're trying to sleep. But they would be casual conversations over the most random things. During those times, it felt like some normalcy in your upside down world.

.....

Just as your head hit the pillow, read to doze off for the night, you hear a light rhythmic tapping at your window - tap tap tap...

You didn't open the curtains to that window ever, since it was a spot that brought too many harmful memories. So you just had to imagine what the Visitor looked like on the other side while you stared blankly up at the ceiling.

"You're still hoping for change, yes?" A familiar smooth, slightly raspy voice spoke from the other side of the curtain, the thin walls making it sound as if the man was standing in the bedroom with you.