“The Traditional Unexpected Guest”

The familiar rattle of rain on the roof resounded through the darkened room as the girl lay awake in her unkempt bed. The skies were thundering ominously above her house, making the windows rattle in their panes and the timid red numbers on the face of her alarm clock, the only light on in the room, flicker anxiously. She shivered and pulled the cool sheets closer, wishing - no, willing herself to fall into a comfortable oblivion. Her body was slender and lean, almost perfectly defined by the thin sheet she had covering her, and her white arms stood out in stark contrast against the darkness of the room. Lightning illuminated it for a long second, and she froze with wide eyes as she made out a strange shadow within the white outline on the wall. She forced herself to look at the window, but now that darkness had returned the strange form was gone, and she chided herself for being so childish. Reluctantly accepting that she was unable to fall asleep with this storm going, she rolled onto her stomach and slid the curtains open a few inches to look out into the night.

A face stared plaintively back at hers.

She threw a hand to her mouth and reflexively jumped away from the window. She tried to cry out, and almost thought she had, but if so the noise had been swept away with the din of the storm. The face in the window continued to look at her silently, almost a pathetic image in the howling rain and wind of outdoors, if she could have forgotten for a moment that it was hovering outside her second story window. She stared at the vague form for a moment longer, her hand still covering her mouth, before something compelled her to ask in a low, trembling voice, "What do you want?"

It ran a dark tongue over its lips thoughtfully, considering. At length, it murmured “Let me in..?”

"Wh...what?" she stammered, leaning a little bit closer to it without being entirely aware of having done so. She could hardly hear it over the wind.

“Let me in,“ it repeated, its voice a tad stronger despite being barely above a whisper. This time it was not a question.

"No way,” she answered boldly, subconsciously grasping at the sheets still knotted in her hands. It inhaled; it appeared to be reflecting over this response the way a fine connoisseur considers a particularly fragrant wine.

At last it inquired, "Will you let me in if I ask nicely?"

"No."

After another pause, it asked, "Will you let me in if I promise not to harm you?"

Lightning flashed behind it and she saw its face clearly - well, more clearly than it had been. It was human in appearance, but the way it appeared to be clinging to the brick siding of her house suggested otherwise. “It” actually looked to be a boy somewhere in his teens, with pallid skin and long, dark hair. She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully; his expression seemed honest and imploring, but wasn’t this how millions of the trashiest type of horror novel opened?

"You promise?"

"Yesss...." he breathed, looking into her eyes dolefully. She swallowed, and, with a visible tremor, unlocked the window and pushed up on the frame. Before it was open even a few inches, he had slipped his hands underneath and was opening it himself, leaving her to wonder how he was maintaining his grip on the wall. She scooted to the end of the bed somewhat fearfully as he crawled into the room, shutting the window firmly behind him against the rain.

"What are you?" she inquired cautiously, fingers once again clenching the sheets.

"I don't know..." he admitted, looking down at his sodden pants. "I usssed to be a vampire..."

"U-used to be? A vampire?" She blinked, disbelief clouding her features.

"Yesss..." he said, chuckling to himself. "A vampire... hehehe..."

"Why are you here?" she interrupted, wrapping her arms around herself and feeling suddenly uncomfortable in her light pajamas. His eyes watched her movement with mild interest, flicking rapidly back and forth.

"It is raining outside," he said simply.

"But why are you here?" she asked again, growing somewhat impatient. He smirked.

"It is dry."

She asked about his purpose several more times and got the same simple, frustrating answers. In desperation she decided to revert to simple questions.

"What’s your name?"

"My name?"

"Yes, what is it?" Almost all traces of fear had been rinsed from her voice by his calm, almost meek manner. He considered the question carefully before answering as honestly as he could.

"I'm not sure."

Startled, she asked, "You don't know your own name?"

"I don't remember it just now." He looked so bedraggled at the moment that she suddenly became aware of his clothes slowly soaking her bed sheets and made a small sound, jumping to her feet. A blush of embarrassment tinged her face for taking so long to notice, and she moved hastily towards the door, mumbling apologies. He had risen immediately after her, and was now standing by her bed uneasily. "Where are you going?"

"To get you a towel. Stay here, okay?" He looked uncertain and seated himself on the bed again, obviously accepting her command without question. She opened her bedroom door slowly, trying to minimize the noise - the last thing she wanted was to wake her parents. She tiptoed to the linen closet and quickly grabbed some towels and, as an afterthought, a hairbrush from the bathroom. Her strange guest was right where she left him when she returned, looking at the door patiently.

He accepted the towels silently, drying his hair as well as he could and wrapping the largest around himself. His eyes followed her as she crossed the room and opened a chest of drawers, pulling out a black t-shirt several sizes larger than could possibly fit her.

"I'm not sure what we can do about pants..." she drawled, laying the shirt on the bed and contemplating. "You're taller than me, I think, so my pants probably won't fit you. We may just have to wait for your pants to dry.”

He nodded, looking more human than ever with his hair dried and brushed and out of his face. He had emerald green eyes that traced every movement in the room and reflected a certain intelligence she'd never seen before, set in a heart-shaped face that looked young and mature at the same time. His features were sharp and straight but softened with youthfulness and the creamy white color of his flesh. He was very thin, and there was something feral and somehow intelligent about his mannerisms and posture. He should have appeared weak, but he looked so alert and knowing, muscles taut and eyes glancing around him every few moments, that he seemed to her to be not only strong but somehow unnaturally so. He pulled his shirt over his head and began to dry himself off more thoroughly, dumping the sodden article on the floor by the bed. He was getting the place as wet as he was, but she found she didn’t really mind.

“My name’s Cassia,” she said hastily, willing herself to look away from his bare chest. She was blushing. “Cassia Halim. This is my house. Well, sort of.”

"You are very kind, Cassia," he responded, slipping into the dry shirt she had laid out for him and looking amused as he observed the glittery cartoon cat logo on the front. By now she had picked up that he had a tendency to draw out his “S’s” in a way that made them seem more pronounced without altering the speed or clarity of his speech. Far from being the pathetic impediment of cheesy snake-creatures on late night horror films, it appeared to her to be somewhat endearing - especially when it was her name he was saying.

"Thank you," she replied, still blushing. The bottom edge of the t-shirt was beginning to absorb the moisture of his pants, darkening the already black material. Cassia frowned. "Maybe I could find you a pair of my dad's pants,” she suggested, playing with the cuff of one of her sleeves. “There might be some in the laundry room. I'll go check, if you want."

He smiled at her gratefully and continued folding the towel he’d used on his hair. Remembering his lean form, Cassia suddenly had a thought. "Are you hungry at all?"

A beat. "Yesss..."

"I'll get you some food, then.” She smiled back, relieved she had thought of something to do for him. “Do you like chicken?"

"I don't know..." he replied with the same awkwardness as when she had first asked him his name. "I don‘t remember what it tastes like. I’ll try some.”

"A-alright," she stammered, wondering how anyone could not remember what something as simple as chicken tasted like. Moving into stealth mode, she silently slipped out of the room, trusting him to remain where he was, and snuck down the stairs.

*

She returned five minutes later with a chicken sandwich, a can of soda, and a pilfered pair of her father's jeans. When she entered the room, the strange boy was sitting comfortably on the bed, flipping through a book he’d apparently taken from her bookshelf. He put it down as she approached and she saw that it was Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein. It was fitting, in a way, although she found it a tad unnerving that out of rows and rows of more modern science fiction novels and fantasy tales, he had picked the one with the strongest element of horror.

"My name is Aneurin," he said simply, laying the book on the desk by her bed to free his hands. He accepted both the plate she offered and her startled expression silently.

"Ann-your-in?" She pronounced it carefully, putting the soda on her desk and setting the jeans down beside him.

"Yesss..." he affirmed, taking a small bite of the sandwich. After a moment of pensive chewing, he swallowed and said, "This is nice."

"It's just chicken and mayonnaise," she explained nervously. "I wasn't sure what else you'd like."

"This is nice," he repeated, taking a more confident bite.

"Okay..." she answered, sitting down as far from him as was possible on the single sized bed. Watching him eat, she decided that it might be wise to try for some more information.

"Where did you come from?"

He swallowed the food he had in his mouth and responded, "The trees."

"The trees?" She echoed, skepticism tingeing her expression.. "You mean the woods?"

"Yesss. Woods."

"What about beyond the woods?"

"Beyond that I don't remember."

"Oh." She fell silent as he finished his sandwich and licked the tips of his fingers one by one, before turning his attention to the can of soda - Coca Cola - that she had brought up for him. He seemed to be having difficulty in figuring out how to get it open, so she attempted to explain.

"Um, you just pop the tab there..." He gave her a blank look and she sighed, taking it from him gingerly and showing him how to open it. He watched with interest and followed her instructions, looking somewhat startled when he was rewarded by the hiss of the can being opened. Cassia bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh but unable to suppress a smile as he tentatively sipped at the fizzing liquid and wrinkled his nose.

"It's not very good," he said, making it seem more like an observation than a complaint.

"Sorry," she answered quickly, fidgeting with the cuffs of her pajamas again. "We have diet, if you'd prefer..."

"This will suffice," he interrupted, waving her silent and peering inside the can. "It's just very salty."

"Salty?" She raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Coca Cola is salty?”

"Yesss.. It makes my mouth dry. That is what salt does, is it not?" She gave him a strange look and he added, "I have... very sensitive taste buds, I think.”

"Oh," she responded quietly, watching as he downed the rest of the can despite his criticisms. He ran his tongue over his lips thoughtfully when he had finished, setting the empty can aside.

"Is there extra space here?" He inquired at length, leaning back on the bed.

"What do you mean?”

“Anywhere I can sleep.." He replied guiltily, studying his hands.

"Uhh.." She considered his question, flustered. "I guess we do, but my parents might not like you staying here.."

"Parentsss?" He sat up, suddenly alert again. "There are other people here?"

"Y-yes.." she stuttered. He hissed, making her cringe despite herself. "Why?"

"They will make me leave.." he muttered, frowning.

"Well, probably," she answered truthfully. "I mean, you could stay for the night, but they'll probably notice if you stay longer than that." He considered her offer.

"All right.." he concurred reluctantly, closing his eyes. "I will stay.. for tonight only.."

She smiled. "I'll show you to your room."

*

“His room” was actually the guest bedroom, and Cassia wasted no time in letting him know which parts of the house he was to steer clear of, at least until her parents left for work in the morning. After settling him in and pointing out the bathroom and location of the light switch in the hallway, she reluctantly left him to his own devices and went to return to her own room - it was, after all, very late. On the way back she paused by the door to her brother’s room, suddenly convinced that she had heard something from inside. When several minutes passed of nothing but noises from the storm outside, she finally conceded that she was imagining things and hurried into the sanctity of her own room, double-checking that the window was locked before crawling into bed. It was about then that she discovered that the place where Aneurin had been sitting was still wet, and tactfully decided to spend the rest of the night lying on a comforter on the floor.

*

Nerian Halim sat sourly in his bed, his back leaning against two propped pillows as he picked angrily at his fingernails. His younger sister had made it pretty obvious that she had a boy over - it was almost impossible not to have heard the conversation they had been having when his room was right next door to hers. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but whoever the boy was he didn’t talk much. When they’d moved to the room across the hall their voices had faded beneath the sounds of the storm outside and Rian had waited tensely for something to happen, but just as he’d reached the point of slamming open his door and confronting this creep, he’d heard Cassia go back to her room alone.

He was relieved that she was sensible enough to see that this “friend” of hers slept in a different room, but he still couldn’t help feeling irritated and a bit hurt. If she had a boyfriend, she damn well should have mentioned something of it to her family - besides, how would she know which creeps to steer clear of without her older brother’s guidance? It was obvious she’d been keeping him a secret, and that somehow wounded Rian more than her sneaking him into the house. Not that he and Cassia were overly close or anything; he was just used to knowing her circle of friends and teasing her whenever she showed the slightest amount of interest in a boy. The idea that she could hide something like this made him more than just a little upset.

But maybe the guy was just a friend from school who needed a place to spend the night, he reasoned. After all, they hadn’t talked for long and he had heard Cassia going downstairs. Yeah, maybe he was just a friend in need, and his sister was doing a nice deed and letting him stay in the guest bedroom. Either way, he mused, their parents weren’t likely to know about their “unexpected visitor” and it would be interesting to see how Cassia was going to keep it that way.

“The Morning After?”

It took Cassia awhile after she’d awoken to register that the thing precariously perched on her desk chair (which she’d thought had crawled straight out of her nightmares) was actually the strange spider-boy she’d taken in last night. He stared at her curiously for a moment, not making a sound, before that expression was replaced by one of bored indifference and his eyes began to roam around the room. From his position on the chair by her desk he was sitting right by where she’d spread her comforter, and his face was directly above hers. She flushed, sitting up, and hastily tried to smooth down her ruffled bed-head while doing her best to not look embarrassed.

“It’s awfully rude to just come into someone’s room while they’re sleeping,” she muttered with a frown, hoping her apparent annoyance would distract him from her less-than-graceful appearance. He didn’t answer, but instead leaned back in the chair, his hands firmly on either side, and turned his gaze towards her once more. He looked so casual and comfortable that she began to feel irked in earnest, and hugged a pillow to her chest in a subconscious gesture of defensiveness.

“How long have you been watching me sleep?” She inquired as nonchalantly as she could manage, having decided that perhaps it was better to play his game. He looked away.

“Awhile..” He mumbled vaguely, his voice almost a whisper. Its huskiness startled her; she had forgotten what a silky and serene voice he had in the short period since she last saw him. There followed a brief lull and, when she decided he wasn’t going to elaborate, she cleared her throat and spoke.

“Are you hungry?”

He nodded slowly and she sighed, deciding that the odds of pulling a conversation out of him were akin to those of winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

“My parents have probably both left for work already,” she informed him after glancing at the glowing green digits on her nightstand, “so I think it’s safe for you to go downstairs. Ri-” she paused, eliciting a slight cock of the head from her guest. “Er, my brother doesn’t normally get up before noon unless he has practice, so we should be okay.” His eyebrow arched slightly at the mention of a brother but he remained silent, and she fidgeted behind her pillow.

He was bent forward now, leaning on his knees, but he still had to tilt his head down to keep his gaze even with hers, causing the front parts of his hair to fall into his face. He had brushed it again since waking, obviously, and in the morning light it looked sleek and thin. When dry it fell midway between his shoulder blades and the small of his back and hung neatly, apparently perfectly straight and seemingly flawless, even when the strands were shifted. It made him seem rather Eastern, but his features didn’t look at all Oriental. It was difficult to place where he was from, actually; he seemed to have no definite heritage or accent to speak of. Cassia suddenly caught herself staring and blinked, her cheeks flushing once more.

“Um, would you mind going back to your room so I can get up?” She asked hesitantly, not even entirely sure where her sudden modesty had come from. She hadn’t thought about her attire last night when she led him to his room, or when she let him in, for that matter.

He made no comment, however, and only gave her a slight nod before rising fluidly and moving out of the room. She exhaled, allowing herself to fall back upon her comforter, and closed her eyes.

“Why am I all warm?” She wondered turgidly, unwilling to get up. Her cheeks were hot, certainly, but beyond that a sort of warm, sleepy feeling had taken over her, like a cozy weight settling in her stomach. She didn’t consider this for long, however, because within moments she had slipped back into a comfortable sleep, a slight smile on her face.

*

“So you’re one of Cassia’s friends, huh?”

Aneurin looked up to find a tall, athletic looking teenager leaning against the wall by the door. His hair was raven black and cut jaggedly, with a tendency to stick out at the sides, and judging by the vaguely-oriental shape of his eyes and the way his straight nose turned up at the end just so, he was the brother Cassia had mentioned earlier. He actually looked quite a bit like his sister, although his face wasn’t quite as round as hers, and they shared the same smooth complexion. The sleeves of his t-shirt were rolled up, exposing a ragged cross tattoo on his right arm, and his jeans were faded and had too many tears to count. Aneurin was unimpressed, but did his best to look as though he hadn’t heard the boy coming for the last two and a half minutes.

“I sssuppose...” He drawled silkily, his expression one of indifference tinged with mild suspicion.

“Mn.” The boy appeared to be looking him over; his eyes ran distastefully over the too-large pair of jeans he wore, pausing with obvious curiosity at the length of his hair. At length, apparently irritated by Aneurin’s seeming unwillingness to volunteer information, he pushed, “Do you know her from school or something?”

“No,” Aneurin responded simply, keeping his gaze locked with the taller boy’s. The maintained eye contact didn’t appear to intimidate him as easily as it had his sister, however, and his frown deepened in frustration.

“Well then, how do you know her?” He asked irritably, shifting his weight onto his other foot.

Aneurin opened his mouth to answer, although he had none, but the fates chose that moment to intervene and Cassia stumbled into the room behind her brother.