“Breaking news. Police are searching for Michele Berry, a high school girl believed to have been kidnapped yesterday. Police believe this case is related to the string of disappearances that started last month.”

“She’s last heard of in the evening when she told her parents that she’s going to sleepover on her friend’s house. When her parents called, her friend said she never arrived at her house. Any attempts to find or contact her through her friends and acquaintances have failed.”

“A taxi-driver claimed to have seen someone matching her description near the town-square at around seven last night, that was the last anyone seen of h-“ Bazt!

Rein turned off the TV. “What is happening to this city?” He threw his body to the backrest of the sofa and watched the dirty ceiling with his blank stare, thinking and pondering and daydreaming the most useless stuff...

He raised his body and leaned towards the table separating him from the TV. A book was sitting on it, 1200 pages of thermodynamics. With a pencil and paper in hand, he searched for a question or two he hasn’t tried to answer. But he found none. He had answered most of it, the rest he didn‘t know the answer. That’s what happened when you had nothing to do in your free time.

He closed the book. Seeing that he had prepared enough for the exam tomorrow, it was time to res- The doorbell rang.

The hand of the clock made him wonder, who would visit him eleven in the evening. It might be a misdelivered package, that happened often enough, but do they still deliver something this late? He thought there’s no harm in checking.

Putting his face on the peephole, Rein saw nothing on the front yard. Only a snow-covered lawn and a gray tombstone under the only tree there. No way someone pranking him this late in the night. Even if someone mistook his address and rang the bell, he should still be able to see them walking away.

Opening the latch and unlocking the door, he stepped to the front porch in the middle of a winter night. He searched his left and right and found nothing, not like he could see much in the darkness. The porch, lawn, and road barely had any light source. And the night was awfully silent. With nothing else to see, his focus drifted to the grave.

Before he realized it, he stood in front of the blank tombstone. There was nothing on it. No dates, no names, nothing. He couldn’t recall walking there but he didn’t fuss about it. It happened many times before.

“I’m sorry.” He kneeled and brushed the snow from the stone with his bare-hand. “I ... I-“ He felt something grabbing his left shoulder.

He clenched his fist before softly grabbing the small hand that rested on his shoulder. “Rein ... It’s your fault.” The voice of a pre-adolescent boy reached his ears. There’s no way he’d forget that voice.

“It’s my fault.” Closing his eyes, the memory came rushing back at him like it was only yesterday. His blood-soaked hand. The bodies. The smells of rotting flesh and disease that suffocated the room.

“Yes. It is your fault.” Another person raised his voice. It was a middle-aged woman. “Your fault.” An old man. “Because of you.” A teenager. “Your fault!” “Your fault!” “Your fault!”

”Rein.” A smooth voice called him from the side, different from the previous haunting voice. This time, it was real and present.

”Father.” A middle-aged priest stood not too far from the grave. He was still wearing his cassock - in fact, Rein couldn’t recall a single moment when father Constantine didn’t wear his cassock.

”You’re still awake. Isn’t there’s an important test tomorrow, t-ther-thermodynamic? You told me about it.”

”Yeah, the last one this semester. After that, I’ll get my long break. Can’t think of what to do then.”

”You should think of what to do after you’ve done your test.” Father Constantine walked towards him. He was a tall man, nearly two meters tall, but very thin and built like a stick. ”For now, you should rest.”

Rein looked back at the blank gravestone. ”You know I can’t, father. I’ve used the pills four times this week. My body’s not tired. I know that even if I can’t feel it.”

Father Constantine kneeled beside Rein and looked at the same gravestone. “Still feeling guilty?”

”It’s ... scary, father. It’s not only my senses but my heart too.” The cold winter wind swept his face with snow and ice, yet he felt only the smallest of cold. ”Numb. It’s numb. It’s getting worse. I’m… I’m afraid the day I won’t feel regret when I see this grave.”

”Stay strong, Rein. The Lord has… plans by giving you this sickness.”

Rein chuckled. ”You know I don’t believe that, father.”

”Well, I’m a priest, Rein, what else do you expect me to offer?”

Rein smiled. In this cold night he couldn’t feel or notice, at least there was warmth in his heart.

”Thanks, father.” Rein turned and looked at the man praying beside him. Constantine was his father. Not related by blood, but no one would believe that if they saw the two side-by-side. Thin to the bone, sunken cheek, sunken eyes, skin paler than snow, weak pulse and weak breath, and appearance that made a month-old corpse looks alive in comparison. ”I think I should go back inside. You should too, father. Checked the temperature earlier, apparently, tonight is really cold.”

Rein stood up and turned back. Empty. The smooth snow covering the grass was now littered with a hundred pair of footsteps. Teens, adults, babies. Beside the warmth, there was now needles in his heart.

He stretched his arms out and smelled his own body. “I should get a shower first.”

”Rein.” Father called again. ”I’m going away for a few days. Feel free to use the money on the drawer, the usual place. Should be more than enough. And uh… I don’t think I can answer any calls or messages during that time so… if anything happens when I’m away, don’t be afraid to ask your friends for help.” Rein simply nodded.

He entered the shower and turned the knob without reservation. The freezing water poured over his body but he couldn’t feel it. The cold reached his outer skin, but that was it. Under that was a vast sea of numbness and nothing else. And his body didn’t react to it. His hair didn’t stand and didn’t shiver.

He punched the shower with every ounce of his strength, enough to crack the tiles and bloody his fist. But there was barely any pain. “Goddamn it.” He knew he shouldn’t have tried. He knew it would only make him frustrated and angry. He knew he wouldn’t feel anything…

Warm.

The cold water turned warm. It felt heavy on his back and didn’t flow as easily as water should. It was greasy and dirty and salty on the lips. It was thick, sticky, and… red.

Torrent of blood poured from the shower and stung his eyes. He blinked and shook his head. Slowly opening his right eye…. Water, it was water again.

Him from a few years ago would have run naked in the middle of the night to nearby police station, but the current him knew it was just a vision. The vision used to occur every few months or few weeks, but it was getting more and more frequent and worse as he got older. Maybe the numbness was for the best, else he would have gone mad from the vision.

Washing his teeth on the sink, Rein noticed ‘her. A pitch-black humanoid creature with countless eyes and mouths all over her body. She clung to him, wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘She’ was the first anomaly in his life, long before the vision or haunting or numbness. She rarely showed herself before, but now, she’s always there when he looked at himself in the mirror. Watching and waiting and staring back at him from his shoulder. From her look, there was nothing that tells him she was a ‘her’. He just knew.

He turned the sink off and pulled himself up to his bedroom on the second floor. There were two bedrooms in the house, one for him and one for father Constantine, but father never used it anymore and spent his every night at the small chapel beside the house. For the past three years even, father hadn’t slept in the house.

Rein room was a rather spacious room, though empty and dull. The only thing of note was a table with his laptop and a decorative lamp he got for his birthday. Other than that, it was a plain bedroom with usual bedroom stuff. He was never the kind to have any particular hobby, and the likelihood he’ll find one decrease each day.

Rein threw himself on the bed and pulled the blanket. The cold didn’t bother him, but it was a normal thing normal people do, and so he did. He closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

Minutes passed without his consciousness getting anywhere. Then suddenly, his body was too tired to support his consciousness.