the underground.

But that was decades ago. Centuries, or maybe months. Her metamorphosis had occurred quickly, and just as quick she had become used to it. As if she had settled into a new skin, Eve had made herself wary of the way her feet brushed against the floors, how her skin almost sizzled - pleasantly so, now that it was winter - in the direct sun. All this had become commonplace, mere inconveniences that filled her lonely days and made them a bit lonelier. It seemed as if she basked in that feeling, a chilly wash covering her shoulders and the top of her head, pooling at her ankles until she couldn't ignore it - until she kicked it away with all her force, until her body ached for company, for laughter, for shared existence. 

She lived alone; not by choice, but because it was the only way for her to live. Because she lived alone, her house was full of trinkets, a personality or two other than her own, to mimic the presence of another. Her home also changed with the seasons,    with the years,   with the decades. She swapped her furniture often until she decided not to, and her home - still drafty, still almost - crowded, still made of her and her alone - became an amalgamation of the past: here was a grandfather clock that no longer ticked, its hands stuck at midnight; here, the couch a store she had visited in the early 60s late at night. Her furniture remained in pristine condition as she took care of it; in truth, she had become unnerved by the changing of time, something she could and would no longer keep up with and continue. Her face had remained the same as it was seventy years ago. The skin of her hands did not wrinkle with age, and her body kept itself from hunching over. Her house remained the same, stuck in the past in definite ways. 

She collected chairs and tables as if she were constantly awaiting guests, filling the corners of her rooms with activities, as if these imagined guests were in need of ever-changing entertainment. Music played constantly: in the living room, a brassy Armstrong; in the spare bedroom, a bit of Tchaikovsky; in the kitchen, an old, crackling recording of something muffled from long, long ago. But the music was faint with nothing to drown it out, her own voice not loud enough to cause any noticeable confusion on who was singing who. Eve would tell herself, it's okay, this loneliness. To be lonely is to be safe from the outside, and in some ways she was correct. To be trapped in this home was to be safe from the stares of others, the way mothers held their children close whenever Eve smiled down on them, the way eyebrows raised when her skin began to sizzle like bacon underneath the sun. The way threats were threaded in the words of the mailman who still, still, delivered any packages to her - "I carry knives with me, just in case," or "watch out - I might slip and hurt someone with this box” - despite knowing who she was - what she was, his eyes trained on her when she took boxes from his grasp as if he expected, or wanted, her to lunge at him. As if he were hungry for violence from her, hungry to commit violence unto her.