“How am I supposed to sleep?” Saber’s hair was still damp after wetting it in the sink. Ice cold drips fell from his bangs onto his cheeks. They carved a path across his cheekbones and down his chin before dripping onto his sleep shirt.

[Same way you always do I suppose…] 

Echo provided unhelpfully. 

Saber glared at the empty air around him, “I mean- When I close my eyes. It’s going to be all… wrong!” 

Echo hummed in acknowledgement. Saber could feel him considering the question. 

It was strange. Feeling someone else’s considerations rolling around your skull. It was almost as if Saber could feel the edges of Echo’s thoughts and emotions. Like a scent in the air Saber could catch if he stopped to breathe deeply. 

Why was it that Echo had full access to Saber’s mind but Saber himself had little to no understanding of the other man living- taken up residence in his brain? 

[I suppose you’ll just have to ignore it.] 

Before Saber could vocalize his furious indignation Echo spoke again. 

[I wish I had better advice, I really do. But I’ve been able to see this since I was a child. I just…] 

“Just what?” Saber whispered after Echo’s silence stretched unnaturally long. 

[I adapted] 

Echo said with finality. 

Saber wanted to ask more. Wanted to press for more concrete steps to take in order to ‘adapt’ as Echo put it. But something held his tongue.

‘Since I was a child’ 

That’s what Echo said. 

Saber thought through the horrifying things he’d witnessed in less than a day of having these abilities. He thought of a child being forced to see those things. His heart ached. 

If baby Echo could manage it then surely Saber could as well. With a shaky breath Saber closed his eyes. 

There was only one floor between Saber’s and the night sky. Unfortunately, neither the room nor the night sky were devoid of unspeakable horrors. 

A creature paced around the room above Saber.  He could see each time its feet came into contact with the floor. All four of its feet. The space between the feet was too large to be a pet. Not unless the non-pet-friendly hotel suddenly decided to make an exception for someone’s domesticated tiger. 

Each step rippled outwards hypnotically. Saber saw the creature carefully circle the area that must’ve been the bed if the room above mirrored Saber’s. The rippling prints reflected in the undulating night sky above. 

The sky wasn’t that different from what Saber was used to. At first, fully preoccupied by the four legged creature and veiny tendrils clinging to every other surface, Saber hadn’t even realized the sky was different. 

It was the stars. They were in the middle of the city. Light pollution was at an all time high. Saber shouldn’t have been able to see them at all. And since when had there been so many?

***

Cold seeped in. 

An endless pit stretching out beyond imagining. 

The surface rippled. Echoing out like a pond’s surface disturbed by falling petals. 

A ragged, panicked panting. 

Echoing in the skull of the listener as if being spoken by their tongue. But the echo was wrong, deeper, older, stronger, foreign. 

The empty pit reached up, hands devoid of form or reality grasping for the listener’s face. 

The cold emanating from them created cracks on the listener’s skin. 

Something shattered inside. 

Falling. 

Forever, eternal falling into that endless, cold, night. 

Saber awoke to his usual alarm. The jarring sound of chains rattling against each other. An audio byte from a performance of A Christmas Carol Saber was cast in as a child. 

He played the ghost of Christmas past. As he waited in the wings for his scene he always shivered at the sound of Jacob Marley’s chains. Something about it felt so heavy. Even to a child too young to comprehend mortality.

A perfect sound to shock Saber awake for his early morning gigs. 

Saber pawed at his phone and squinted his eyes against the morning light burning through the curtains. The moment Saber’s eyelids closed a sobering reminder of his new reality broke over him like a bucket of ice water. 

Sinuous vines crept in around the edges of the window. Saber could see buds twitching along them, no doubt harboring those disgusting eye blooms Saber saw in the security office. 

A low, keening cry vibrated in Saber’s throat. 

[Are you alright, Saber?] 

And this guy. Saber was stuck with him too. 

Maybe that wasn’t appropriate to think of the man who technically saved Saber’s life. But he couldn’t help it. 

[I’m sure my…intrusion is less than pleasant.] 

Understatement of the century. Having someone know your every thought was the kind of shit teenagers worried over when classes got too dull. Juvenile, banal, and unfortunately, Saber’s new reality. 

[I’ll try to take up as little space as possible…] 

Echo sounded…mournful? 

No. 

He sounded whiny! 

The sonnofabitch knew Saber couldn’t openly complain since he sacrificed himself for Saber. Even knowing that. Even knowing Echo could hear Saber’s entire thought process…

“Mi casa es tu casa or whatever,” Saber fought the desire to roll his eyes as he swung his feet off the hotel bed. 

He gripped the back of his t-shirt. Before he could pull over his head but paused as a thought crossed his mind, “Can you see me?” 

[...yes] 

“And how much of me can you see?” 

Silence lay heavy on Saber’s mind like a stuffy blanket on a shockingly warm summer’s night. 

“Just- First person or third?” 

[...third…] 

Unavoidable exhibitionism aside, Saber discovered a new dilemma as he stepped under the hotel shower’s pathetic drizzle. 

Muscle memory took over and Saber flipped his hair forward dunking his head into the stream. He didn’t consider that this action was something typically done with one’s eyes firmly closed. 

The moment his lids sealed he was thrust back into the unsettling world Echo had referred to as ‘the veil.’ The white tile of the shower floor was streaked white with blood. Blood that saturated Saber’s hair and dripped in syrupy droplets from the strands. 

Saber’s eyes shot open. 

Water ran into them, burning and forcing them to close again on instinct. 

Blood mixed with spongey, pulsating calk between the tiles of the shower. Tiny bubbles sprouted from the calk like those mollusks breathed out in wet sand. The fleshy tubes shifted with the bubbles they produced, giving it the illusion of life. 

Saber opened his eyes again. He bore the stinging as clear, non-blood water ran across his downturned face. 

“It’s not alive right?” 

In an attempt to maintain the air of privacy, Echo had been silent since Saber began to undress. 

[All you’re seeing are remnants of life. After effects, discard, scum that’s been sloughed off as souls pass through. So while it is not life, and can never return to life, it was once alive.]

Echo was a scholar in unhelpful and horrifying exposition. They’d love him at the Edgar Allen Poe live readings. Those freaks were always looking for men with deep voices and disquieting cadences. 

[Don’t assume that they can’t affect you just because they aren’t alive.] 

At Echo’s grave proclamation Saber peered once again under the veil. 

The veiny calking around Saber’s feet was climbing. Reaching up with fibrous tendrils and fusing with Saber’s skin. 

In an attempt to lift both of his feet simultaneously, Saber stumbled back against the glass shower door. It rattled as his body collided with it. 

Having caught himself and not learned any lessons whatsoever, Saber tried to hop on one foot. As he landed his foot— the only thing holding his weight —slipped out from under him. 

A dramatic cacophony of clattering and thudding echoed through the tiled room. Saber’s bare ass collided with the floor. His teeth knocked shut. Pain bloomed on Saber’s tongue and to make matters worse, the impact forced his eyes closed again. 

The veiny tendrils were more proactive this time around. Eager for their second taste plus the increased surface area. And now, Saber could feel them. It was an electric, tickling sensation. Like the itch before a static shock. Anticipatory and uncomfortable. 

Saber slammed his palm against the glass shower door. He threw it open and tumbled out the other side. 

“Echo! Echo! What-” Saber panted as he dragged himself away from the shower, “What do I- How do I- They’re, they’re trying to eat me!” 

[They’re not trying to eat you. They’re trying to attach to you…and then absorb your life essence which I suppose is a form of eating you… So yeah! They’re trying to eat you.] 

Saber wheezed and rubbed his closed fists under his eyes and across his cheekbones. He stared up at the bathroom light, let it fill and blur his vision. This was the closest he could get to peace. 

For a moment, Saber entertained the possibility of blinding himself. There were infinite methods to do so. Some of them wouldn’t even hurt that much. There were doctors that did it for you. 

What was that disorder? The one where you felt a strong desire to be disabled. Or hell, there were plenty of fetishists who got off on the idea. Surely the doctors that took them would be willing to help Saber if he offered proper compensation. 

As the light began to burn through Saber’s vision he was pulled from his little fantasy. The dark spots created perfect little windows into the veil. 

Death would be Saber’s only escape. From what Echo said he might end up stuck in between anyways. 

“What’s the afterlife like?” Saber’s voice was strained and soft. Almost as if he were whispering intimately to a lover. 

Echo cleared his throat. It sounded hollow and felt light in Saber’s chest. 

[I don’t know. I’m with you which isn’t um…typical. Why do you ask? You’re not thinking of doing anything drastic are you?]

“I guess not,” Saber laughed darkly. He looked up. Eyes searching as if he’d find his companion there, suspended in steam, “I’m living for two now.” 

Saber regained his footing and wrapped a towel around his waist. He smeared his hand across the fogged mirror and met the eyes of his reflection. 

“If I die, would you take over my body?” 

[No.] 

The answer was swift and firm. Spoken with conviction Saber hadn’t heard since Echo first barked orders to him as bullets pinged off the ceiling behind him. 

[Your lifeforce is yours. I’m only attached to it.] 

“I thought you didn’t know what you are?” 

[I’m a leech, I just don’t know what kind of leech I am.] 

Echo sounded almost guilty. 

“Are you hurting me? Are you feeding off my ‘life force’ like those…those,” Saber gestured to the shower lamely. 

[I don’t think so. I’m not growing. But I’m not fading either. I’m just…]

Saber waited (im)patiently for Echo to finish his thought. 

[I just am] 

Helpful…