I didn’t know how long it was I stayed in the bathroom shaking and crying. The more I tried to get myself to calm down, the more frantic I became. It got increasingly worse each time I heard the slightest sound outside the bathroom door. My hands shook too much for me to take my phone from my pocket, to do something. I hadn’t quite gotten my mind to form thoughts outside of the skin crawling scene I witnessed. I knew I needed to calm myself, as the flight or fight response started to wean, allowing more complex thought. I wasn’t even sure if I had wet myself or not in my fear, a remnant from a need for survival long gone. I didn’t want to check, either. I had enough to worry about without the embarrassment of doing so.

Throughout my stay in the bathroom, Malachai would come by to apologize, to ask me if I wanted any food or water. His voice only made my trembling worse. I knew in some form, it wasn’t his voice that scared me, but the sound he had made. The inhuman…something. I didn’t know how to describe it, it wasn’t quite a scream or a hiss or a growl. It was a sound no human should have been able to make, that I was sure about. The sound of bones cracking like glowsticks echoed in my head at every step that was a little too loud. Humans needed to exert their entire body weight to fracture ribs, and he…he could snap them as if they were twigs. If he really wanted to, he could break every bone in my body with just the strength in his hands.

Hours must have gone by when the shaking stopped. The crying followed soon after, leaving me dry heaving and hyperventilating, the sounds and scenes replaying in my head. I needed to come out of the bathroom, it had to happen at some point. I swallowed, inching my way to the door. I listened for him on the other side, looked under the crack of the door to make sure he wasn’t there waiting. I peeked through a crack in the door, blood thumping in my ears. A glimpse of pink hair was enough to send me on edge, slamming the door shut and locking it once more. I tried to take deep breaths, to get myself back to a bravery level that allowed me to leave the bathroom. I still felt shaky, even without any sort of trembling.

I opened the door, sticking to the walls as I made my way to…I hadn’t really figured out where it was I’d go. Was I to have him explain himself at a distance? Or was it better to leave quietly before he lost himself? I paused, having tapped something with my foot. Broken, blue glass littered the floor, leading a trail to the table. Malachai sat the table with a small circular hat, the body gone, like it had never been there in the first place. He bowed slightly, raised a bottle of wine and sipping from it at random intervals. He said something loudly, a word that used a guttural sound. It startled me, and before I realized it, I was on the floor, shrinking into myself.

He picked his head up, looking around, looking for me. Gripping the wine bottle by the neck, he stood some ways from me, staring down at me. His eyes were wide, glasses slipping down his nose which he made no move to fix, his face slightly flushed. “August…do you hate me?” He looked away from me. “It’s okay to hate me. I scared you, and I'm sorry.” He took a swig of the wine. “I wouldn’t…wouldn’t do the same things to you until you said so…I don’t…I don’t want to…Maybe…Maybe…” He pushed his glasses up. “It’s because my mind hasn’t made sense since you came to me for help…or maybe I was too afraid…because I’ve been thinking…” His eyes caught my face once more. “I’ve been ruminating on…repenting on the words of Abraham…of Jacob and Moses…of Elijah and David and Solomon and I…I can never be what HaShem wants of me. Do you hate me August?” He asked again. “I don’t hate you…I think I…lo…like you a lot.” He took a step closer, and I felt myself begin to shake again, tears at the corners of my eyes; this time I was pretty confident I had wet myself. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He held his hand up as if to calm me. “I won’t touch you, I promised you I wouldn’t.” He crouched down, setting his bottle down and picking up the broken glass. “You can leave if you want…and I won’t ever bother you again…I’d…I’d have to learn to let go of things at some point.”

He was patient with me while I got my muscles to relax, got through a storm of stuttering. “I-I-I-I don’t-don’t ha-ha-hate-hate you,” I said. At this point in my fear induced state, I couldn’t discern what was truth and what was being said to keep me alive. “I’m-I’m-I’m-I’m-I’m…” I wiped my eyes, pressing down on the opening of my sinuses. “I’m…ter-teri-terified.”

I heard him place a glass down. “Have some water.” I moved my hands to see a glass of water halfway between us. He was sitting cross-legged now, the wine bottle and pieces of glass gone. “I know you’re scared…but…but I wouldn’t do what I did to Mr. Blaga to…you…I…” He bit his nails, I held the glass of water tighter. “When I eat you…I want to savor you. I want you to enjoy it just as much as I will…if not more.”

I coughed on water, he started to reach a hand to me, pausing as he remembered his words. “What…What hap-hap-happened to his-his body?”

“The lilithim,” he said. “I never…I’ve never seen it happened…they gave him a new heart…carried him out…” I asked what the lilithim were, what he meant by them giving him a new heart. “The night creatures.” He scratched at the laminated wood floor. “They don’t…They don’t have a real form…not quite like the Lilim…no, the Children of Lilith are different…but they’re not…they’re like…smokey.”

“I still…don’t…I don’t…und-understand.” I was beginning to hiccup, adding more to my stress.

“It’s okay,” his voice was soft, “I can explain it all later. If…If you want to stay, still. I won’t touch you, I’ll keep my distance until…until you say so.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. I told him, quietly and through hiccups, that I wanted to shower and change into clean clothes before I decided anything. Staying in wet underwear, leaving smelling like urine wasn’t any better than remaining in his apartment. “Go-Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be at the table…praying…if-if you need anything.”

He returned to the table, back to bowing and sipping wine. I stayed huddled on the floor until the hiccups subsided. I retraced my steps, hugging the wall, walking slowly to the bathroom. I thought about ripping the piercings out, snapping the only physical connection I had to Malachai. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, though. I was afraid of him, my body going into shock at the mere sight or sound of him. Yet I knew this was what I had agreed to at the very end of this all. He was going to eat me, devour me, and I couldn’t quite convince myself that I didn’t hate the thought. And if I left, where would I go? Back to my dorm, avoiding people until I disappeared for good? Or to Naddy’s, struggling to convey just how grateful I was for her until she drove me to the airport, never to see her again? There was Dr. Chase who I knew would let me stay with her for as long as I needed, and I knew she would be forming silent thoughts about my entanglement with Malachai.

Was there really any other place I could go that wouldn’t fill me with guilt before returning to Kisankoku? I turned the water off, drawing a blank. It was better to stay, I could get over my fear in stages. My soiled clothes were missing, clean ones had been folded and placed on the counter. He had snuck in, unnoticed in my own head. He was still taking care of me, that was evidently clear. He gave me the hoodie I practically lived in when I started growing horns. He had noticed how much it gave me a small sense of comfort. I pulled the hood over my head, feeling a slight security come back to me. He was still at the table, acting as if he hadn’t cleaned the spot on the floor where I had been sitting.

There was a plate of food on the table, as far from him as it could possibly be, obviously meant for me. I edged closer to the plate, fear digging into my gut. I stopped when it got too much, retreating to a safe distance, it dissipating from my stomach. I toyed with the drawstrings of my hoodie, listening to him mumble in a foreign language as he read from a large book. I took a single step outside of my zone of comfort, all I could manage at this time. It would be awhile before I could stand next to him again. I felt like a child, too scared to wake up my mother, but even more afraid to go back to my dark room. I was waiting for him to notice me, my voice stuck in my throat even if I did know what it was I wanted to say.

He turned the page, holding the paper gently, setting it down with care. He smoothed the page and placed a ribbon in the crease. “Are you going to stay?” He finally looked at me. I nodded and he sighed in relief. “D-Do you want to sit?” He gestured at the empty seat in front of the plate. I stuttered out that I couldn’t get myself to move any closer. He immediately got up from his seat, creating a greater distance between us, just enough to let me sit and pick at the cheese filled crepe on the plate. He stood, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater, looking between me and the floor. “Do you think…you’ll heal? Get over it? I don’t…I don’t know how to phrase it.”

I licked a bit of the sweet cheese filling from my finger. “If I-I-I t-take it one st-st-step at a t-t-time…I-I-I-I ho-ho-hope so.” I had him take a step closer to me, giving me the beginning thread of fear, something I could manage.

At my request, I had him talk to me about anything he wanted. I needed to desensitize myself to his voice. I listened to him talk about the things he likes to knits, for the first time I could recall, he was animated. The little yarn animals he creates from nothing brought him unbridled joy, and he felt motivated to continue from reviews on his online store. He enjoyed making large animals like elephants and giraffes into adorable pocket-sized friends. With his hands moving as he spoke, he froze, letting them fall to his sides and apologized for something that must be boring me. I shook my head if anything it was keeping my mind from recreating the brutal murder. He pushed his glasses up, looking at the ground, and told me if I had a request he’d be happy to make me an animal companion. “Oh! I actually have one made,” he said in response to me. He walked past me quickly to a storage chest in the living room. He returned, staying at a distance with a crocheted whale shark outstretched. “I made it a while ago…it’s yours, if you want it.”

He tossed it to me, and I held the soft stuffed animal in my hands. It smelled oddly of him, the wooden chest’s scent not overtaking it. A slight smell of honeysuckle clung to it. “Tha-Than-Thank you,” I said, staring at its black yarn eyes. Maybe if I pretended it was Malachai, I could get over the fear that strangled me sooner.

He gave me space as I moved around the apartment, hyperaware of my being. And as night came, I took his couch, unable to sleep from the images flashing in my head again. I took my laptop out, watching anything, listening to anything to keep my mind from working while cuddling with the whale shark. It had been awhile since I hadn’t slept at all.