When he knocked, it was just past midnight. The wind pressed against the windows like a hand trying to get in, and the silence between each knock was too long, too patient.

You opened the door only halfway. The man standing there wasn’t like the others. He didn’t twitch or stare too hard. His eyes were tired, not hollow — the kind of tired that comes from living too many lives.

“I’ve been walking for days,” he said. “I can’t die, but it still hurts.”

You should’ve closed the door. You knew what happened to people who opened it too wide. But something about his voice — calm, low, almost gentle — made you hesitate.

So you let him in.

He didn’t ask for food or water. Just a place to sit. He chose the old dresser near the office, settling on top of it as if he’d been there before. Every so often, he’d hum a tune that didn’t sound quite human — a half-remembered melody, cracked in the middle like an old photograph.

You asked for his name. “Names don’t matter,” he said. “But I used to be called Yakob.”

At night, you’d hear him pacing when the house went dark. Not heavy footsteps — just the faint creak of someone tracing the same circle again and again. Sometimes he’d whisper, “She’s still out there,” and you weren’t sure if he was talking to you or to the ghosts that followed him.

He told you things about the Visitors — about FEMA, about the ones who came before. About how death didn’t always mean leaving. “Immortality isn’t what you think,” he said once, eyes glinting in the faint light of your lamp. “It’s just dying slower than everyone else.”

By the third night, he stopped humming. He sat perfectly still, staring at the window as if waiting for something to appear. You thought about asking him to leave. But when you looked closer, he was gone — no sound, no door creak, just the faint smell of dust and rain where he’d been sitting.

You told yourself you imagined it. But every night after, the dresser creaks once at midnight, like someone’s just sat down again.

And sometimes, when you wake up too quickly, you swear you see him in the corner — tired eyes, faint smile — waiting for you to ask if he can stay a little longer.