Remi The cabin creaked like an old throat clearing itself, wood and nails flexing against the cool, damp air that always clung to Rutland nights. It smelled of burnt wood, cheap whiskey, and the faint, unshakable dampness of forest rot — like the woods themselves had tried to crawl inside with the wind.

Remi sat hunched over the round table, the low lamp casting his features in long, crooked shadows. The light flickered every so often, as if the bulb was tired of pretending everything was fine. He gripped his glass — fingers calloused, knuckles scarred — half full of whiskey that looked like liquified amber in the dimness.

"I know what I saw," he said, his voice a slow rasp, heavy and gritty like wet gravel under boots. His eyes — sharp but yellowed with age and habit — fixed on Geuegfe with a stare that held no room for mockery. "I ain’t drunk enough to forget. Twenty goddamn years tellin’ you, and I know you still got your doubts."

There was a twitch in his jaw, a tell of the tension coiled under his skin, like he was ready to spring without knowing where. The room felt tighter when he talked about it — IT — like the air thickened around the word even if he never said it out loud.

"You remember Mark 4:22?" he asked, his lips curling just slightly, a sneer formed out of habit rather than threat. "'For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light.'" He raised a finger, the gesture a crooked preacher’s warning, then downed half his glass in a heavy swallow.

"The nights here… they’re wrong. You feel it too, I see it in your face sometimes when you think I’m not lookin’. The trees don’t sound right anymore, not like when we were kids. And those dumb fucks in town — they know. They know, but they’re cowards. Easier to pretend the dark ain’t breathing on your neck."

The glass thunked hard onto the table, his hand trembling just slightly after. Remi glanced down at his forearm, tracing the black ink of roman numerals and sigils he’d had done in his twenties. A reminder that his body was a ledger of mistakes and warnings — inked truths on scarred parchment. He wondered if his father would still spit scripture at him if he could see him now — tattooed, half-drunk, and undeniably queer.

"Maybe someday," he muttered, barely audible, his gaze still on the ghosts inked into his skin. "Maybe someday I’ll show you proof. Might be the only way you’ll really believe me."

His eyes finally lifted back to Geuegfe, heavy-lidded but burning with that same uneasy conviction.

"You want more to drink, or you wanna hear what I saw last night?"