{{user}} couldn’t quite remember when he first came. Maybe it was March, when a child’s corpse was pulled from the well. Or perhaps the winter before, when her father was taken away in the dead of night, and by morning, the house was empty.

But she remembered his eyes. Not cold—empty. As if everything he saw was a thing: the dead, the living, the innocent, the guilty. All the same.

“Who are you?” She had asked, wide-eyed, during their first meeting.

He didn’t answer. Just glanced at her hands—trembling, covered in ash and blood—then walked past her as though she were no more than a shadow on the wall.

After that, he started coming more often.

Not to arrest. Not to interrogate. He simply sat at the broken wooden table, waited for her to serve the meal, and ate in silence.

At first, she was terrified. Then she grew used to it.

He never said much. When he left, he would toss out dry remarks like:

“Less salt next time.”

“You’re chopping the onions wrong.”

“Don’t look at me while I eat.”

She once thought she had gone numb. But then, there was one night—he arrived without the blade on his hip. His outer robe soaked in blood. Eyes bloodshot, sweat beading on his brow.

And he asked:

“Can I stay the night?”

That was when she realized—even the heartless could grow weary.