It was a cold August, and the sky, where it showed through the white, was red in the wrong way. Ronkai was tottering through the thick, crunchy snow, the wind driving hard against his body and howling into his ears as he staggered back. He braced himself and forged forward. The fog was so impenetrable to Ronkai's eyes that it seemed impossible to enter, yet he pushed forward through it. Snow was billowing in curtains of white, and the cold was raw against his skin. The cold had drawn everything down to a lull: his limbs, his thoughts. And still he convulsed forward.
His eyes were sunken, which made him feel hollow. They were bleary enough that, from a distance, one may think he was one of them. Of course, that was just his appearance, though it was the sort of appearance which, if you saw him standing still in the fog doing nothing, might tempt you to shoot him before asking. A lot had happened. Not only had this world turned into a wretch, but some had the audacity to call it a hardened world for hardened people, as though the suffering were something to be proud of.
Ronkai's threadbare coat lashed against his skin. He forced his arm up to stop it. Even that small movement cost him. He let it drop. After a few hours of what felt like endless slowness (hours in which the act of staggering forward became its own kind of mindlessness) Ronkai faltered. He glanced up. In his line of sight, barely captured through the white, was a structure. He took small steps down the slope toward it. He stumbled again as he neared its shadow. A small weather-beaten cabin appeared, looking like it might tumble down at any second.
The wood was warped from moisture. The window panes were shattered. Ronkai moved toward the front, stepped onto the porch stoop, which groaned under his weight. His battled hands gripped the handle. It was icy, greasy. As the metal turned, it protested with a shriek. He sighed and threw his shoulder against the door. It held. He hit it again, grunting. Finally it snapped open and the air forced itself inside.
Once inside, he surveyed the space with the automatic thoroughness of someone who had learned that overlooking things got you killed. The floor appeared solid, or at least sections of it did. When he stepped on one of these sections there was a spongy give beneath his soles, as though the wood had rotted through from underneath. There were wide cracks between the boards. Dead insects were smeared across the wood in various stages of decay. A soggy wetness had soaked into everything, and it carried the stench of musk. To his right, in the corner, sat a pile of molded blankets. Pockmarked and flattened. They resembled a carrion nest more than anything meant for sleeping, but they would serve.
He closed the door behind him. Ahead was a small kitchen. It mirrored any other kitchen, but felt hollow. As abandoned things always did. The cabinets and metal sink were crusted with lime, stained with the remains of crushed vermin. He grabbed the faucet handle. Twisted. Nothing happened. The drain was clogged. Even if it weren't, nothing would have flowed. He had known this before he tried. He chuckled as he withdrew his hand, though it was the kind of laugh that had nothing to do with amusement. He looked up. Ragged holes in the ceiling. Gray light came through them, mixed with a piercing red, bleeding into the room. The walls were peeled. Damp. The laths exposed in parts like raw flesh.
He approached the flattened blankets and stared down at them for a moment, his face twisting, then let out a groan. He shrugged his backpack off, feeling the weight that had been crushing him finally release from his suffering back. He tossed the bag onto the bedding and placed his hands behind him; his spine popped, and he sighed in relief, slumping forward. He dropped onto the blankets with a wet squelch. Leaning against the wall, he found that every thought he tried to summon felt like a burden, so he forced his mind to go blank and stared into the gloom instead. It was easy enough. The mind, he had learned, would cooperate when asked to feel nothing.
The wind outside made the small cabin tremble, a sound almost soothing, yet it could cure nothing. He wrapped his arms around himself to find heat, sweeping the room for a fireplace, but there was none. Despite the embrace, it provided little warmth to his numb flesh. His head dipped low, his body slumped sideways into the moist blankets. The closing of his eyes felt like a luxury, something only a few could afford in this world, if they could obtain it at all.
***
The crunching from outside made Ronkai's eyes snap open. The world around him was blurry and jagged. He adjusted his vision and dug his hands into the blankets to push himself up. As he did, his thoughts felt stuck like honey; his eyes fluttered as he rubbed his forehead. Then the sound came again, and that was enough. He willed himself upright, stumbling before finding a messy balance.
He followed the noise to the front door. Nothing moved, yet Ronkai knew someone was there. The silence told him so; it had the pressure of someone on the other side of it. He descended to his knees and, with slow deliberate movements, tugged the zipper of his backpack open, keeping his gaze locked on the entrance as if looking away would leave him vulnerable. He rummaged until he felt the bite of cold metal, clutched it, and slid it out: a pistol. Still crouched, he crept toward the door. Every step forced a small creak from the floor, and each time he froze. He strangled the grip of the gun as his joints stiffened, his posture hunched and ready.
Upon reaching the entrance he stood tall, slowly lifting his arm until the pistol pointed directly at the wood. His muscles quivered. His heart thudded against his ribs. He reached for the handle, then stopped, his fingers curling away. No. He lowered the weapon instead, drew nearer, and pressed the side of his face against the cool wood. As he braced his hands against the frame (the gun clacking against the surface) he held his breath and listened. The only sound was the whistling of the wind.
The kick came without warning. The door slammed into Ronkai's chest with raw violence, blasting him backward, his body turning once before the floor came up. He crashed shoulder-first onto the floor, the rest of his weight following in a heap. He lay limp for a moment. Then he tried to move, and white-hot agony tore through his flesh. Clutching his teeth, trembling as he fought to rise, he found the pistol still in his hand, which seemed, under the circumstances, like a small miracle.
Gusts of snow and wind swirled inside, surrounding scattered wood shards. A figure stood in the frame, peering down at him. It strode inside. As the gust of white cleared, Ronkai could see the man more fully, still standing above him, near enough that his shadow fell across the floor. The newcomer was tall and broad, his large build enough to cover the entire door frame behind him. His face appeared hardened in the way of a seasonal man: weather-beaten eyes, middle-aged features etched with deep lines and furrowed skin that told of exposure rather than age alone.
He had a thick, brushy beard, full and dark brown, dusted with the whiteness of recent snow. Most notably, a slashing diagonal scar ran across the right side of his forehead, so deep that even from a distance one could see how cleanly it bisected his eyebrow. He wore dark winter clothes of thick fabric, high collar, attached hood. His movements were minimal, almost unworried, the way dangerous men's movements tend to be.
"What are you doing in my cabin.."
His voice was deep, the kind where you cannot tell if the tone is threatening or calm, and this uncertainty was not accidental.
Ronkai locked eyes with him, muscles tensing. He took a slow gulp.
"I—it looked empty. I didn't think—"
He stuttered, clutching his side. The stranger scanned his appearance and, with a low huff, strode past with heavy steps that made the floor protest. Ronkai gasped and glanced back. He planted his hands against the boards, tightened his muscles, and managed to lift himself, though the effort left him disoriented.
"Get out."
Ronkai's eyebrows shot up, his face drained of color. He was about to open his mouth but paused, sensing (correctly) that any response would be a waste.
"Didn't hear me? Out."
The stranger dropped a massive bag onto the kitchen floor. Ronkai's eyes went to the pack immediately, involuntarily, the way starving eyes always do. Thoughts of food and water began trembling through him. He gulped from pure hunger, and the stranger glanced back and caught it.
Ronkai tried to take steady breaths. He withdrew his gaze from the bag and forced the words out:
"Look, I just... food. That's all. Then I leave."
The man raised an eyebrow and spat on the floor.
"No. That's it."
His voice rose slightly; it didn't spark with anger, but it was commanding enough to shove Ronkai toward the exit all the same.
Ronkai clenched his hands, then sighed and let his arms go loose.
"...Fine."
With a tone of defeat he moved toward his backpack, slid the pistol inside, and zipped it shut. He slung it over his shoulder and felt the familiar weight, heavy enough that a person might assume it held something worth carrying, though it was merely expired food scattered within, the weight of appearances rather than of substance. He cast one last gaze around the cabin. At first, he hadn't minded the squalor. But the thought of walking back into the thick snow for days made his skin crawl, and squalor was, after all, still shelter. Even so, he headed for the exit while the man remained occupied with his own tasks, indifferent in the manner of someone who had evicted enough people to find it unremarkable.
Ronkai emerged into the cold. He felt the crunch of snow beneath his soles and the biting cold against his flesh. His coat flapped wildly. He gazed into the thick fog. Before he could take a single step away, he froze. A cracking sound echoed through the air. His body trembled at the familiarity of that noise; he whipped his head around, searching desperately for the source as he began backing toward the cabin. There was no need to think about what the noise meant. The body already knew.
His heart pumped uncontrollably. A wave of dread crashed over him and he hurled himself toward the shelter, his feet scrambling through the snow, a spray of white dusting his movements. His arms swung wildly, his breath came in jagged gasps, and he burst inside and slammed the door. The man turned, brow furrowed. He took one look at Ronkai's state (the wide eyes, the ragged breathing, the panic) and the realization settled over him.
"Mimicker?"
His tone was thick.
Ronkai's chest rose and fell in heaving cycles.
"Yeah. I—couldn't tell if it... saw."
The man sighed heavily and moved toward the door.
"Stay quiet."
He pressed close and listened. Footsteps could be heard from the porch (irregular, as if the thing outside lacked any sense of direction), as if it were feeling for something it could not quite name.
Ronkai stood frozen, eyes twitching toward every shadow and every shattered window pane. In contrast, the man remained perfectly still, a silent, unmovable object in the center of the room, the kind of stillness that is not calm so much as controlled. The cracking intensified as the porch began to groan under a shifting weight. A heavy, rasping breath emerged, a mixture of steam and biting cold hissing through the cracks. Each inhalation sounded harsh, a wet suction of air before it was vented back out, over and over.
The man tightened his fists. It was only then that Ronkai noticed the stranger had no weapon, and a slow, cold dread began to creep up his spine. He opened his mouth. The words died in his throat. The figure outside flicked a fist into the door. The wood snapped inward. The man stepped back just in time, arms up, as the debris slammed into his forearms before clattering to the floor. Ronkai gasped and stumbled backward.
A raised fist hung in the air for a heartbeat, then dropped. The creature lurched forward into the cabin with an unnatural, twisting motion, the kind of movement that the body instinctively recognizes as wrong before the mind has caught up. Ronkai's hands twitched uncontrollably. Up close, the details were agonizingly clear. Its skin was pitch black, bumpy and rough, with arms that stretched past its knees. Its legs were spider-like, the knees facing backward. The torso was visibly torn open, exposing a mess of pink flesh and organs above a bloated stomach, as though something inside had long ago given up trying to stay contained.
Its face was the most disturbing. The head was pulled upward, the forehead towering high. The eyes were mismatched: the right one stretched wide vertically, while the left was sunken deeply into the hollow of the skull. Its mouth was distended beyond its ears, revealing rotten teeth that looked far too perfectly human. At the corners of its lips, metal hooks forced a painful, permanent smile. Every movement it made produced a sickening crack. Every twitch of its mouth caused the metal to emit a piercing screech, a sound that had, by design or by accident, the quality of something almost like laughter.