#deadwest

Didn’t remember how he’d gotten in.

Didn’t remember where he’d been going.

It felt as if he had always been here.

He opened his eyes. Not at once. Not on the first try.

First, the stirring of his lids, a barely perceptible flutter—as if his body were testing whether it was even possible. Then another. His eyelids unsealed themselves heavily, as if they had fused together, and the motion seemed excessive, unnecessary.

As if he had been sleeping.

And sleeping.

And sleeping.

Too long to wake up.

When his vision finally returned, he slowly swept his gaze across the room. Empty, quiet, still. This place had no feeling of life, yet neither did it look ruined.

The windows were intact. The glass was murky but not broken. The door stood in its frame, slightly crooked but closed. The building looked abandoned—not for a year or two. And yet there were no signs that anyone had visited it since.

It had simply been left.

And forgotten.

A fat black fly buzzed past, annoyingly persistent.

Its sound was too loud for this silence. Almost irritating.

Bo waved a lazy hand without lifting his head. His arm moved on its own, without effort, as if this were the only action that still made any sense.

The fly disappeared.

But not a minute passed before it came back with company. They circled slowly, heavily, as if the air itself held them in place. Now and then they landed—on the floor, on his clothes, on his skin—and took off again.

Bo no longer tried to shoo them away.

It didn’t seem to matter.

His clothes were dusty. Thin.

Pants of an indeterminate color—gray, faded, the kind of color everything becomes if left motionless for too long.

A shirt that might once have been white.

The fabric sagged, lost its shape. Clung to his body where it should have moved.

And there were no shoes, for some reason.

He didn’t remember why. Not that it mattered.

He must have stunk.

The thought came, but provoked no reaction.

He couldn’t smell anything.

Couldn’t feel anything at all.

Not the cold of the floor.

Not the hardness of the planks.

Not the weight of his own body.

It was as if sensation had been severed. The body remained—but everything that filled it had been removed.

It felt as if he could lie here forever.

Without moving.

Without thought.

Without purpose.

Gradually dissolve into that smell of dust and mildew that he couldn’t even perceive. Spread across the boards, become part of this floor. First just rot, then a dirty stain, then something indistinguishable from the rest of the decay that had been here before him.

Sprout into fungi.

Crawl into moss.

Become part of what had already been here before him.

What would remain after.

And stay.

Forever.

The thought didn’t frighten him.

There was nothing in it at all.

But somewhere deep inside—where something still remained—an itch began.

Faint at first.

Like a mild irritation. Like the bite of an insect you could ignore at first.

Then stronger.

More insistent.

Almost like those flies.

Something demanded.

Not in words. Not in conscious thought.

It demanded action.

To sit up.

To rise.

To move.

To shift one foot, then the other.

He didn’t know where.

Didn’t know why.

He just had to move.

To go.

This inner demand felt more real than anything else. The only thing not blurred, not empty.

Bo stirred slowly.

His body responded with a delay—as if the signal were taking too long. As if he were not here but somewhere to the side, merely operating what lay on the floor.

He sat up.

The motion took longer than it should have.

The world swayed slightly.

The flies scattered for a second.

Then returned.

He raised his head.

Then himself.

He stepped outside.

In the nocturnal gloom, just beyond the house, stood a horse.

Gray.

Too distinct against the darkness.

It wasn’t grazing.

Wasn’t shifting its weight.

Wasn’t tossing its head.

It wasn’t moving at all.

Just stood there.

Like a statue.

Like a stuffed animal.

Like something placed here and forgotten. As if it were part of the house itself.

Bo looked at it without blinking.

And at some point, a thought appeared.

Not formed. Not arrived.

Just emerged.

This is his horse.

He didn’t try to verify it. Didn’t compare. Didn’t seek confirmation.

He knew.

He had never owned such a horse before.

He would have remembered.

Probably.

But it didn’t matter.

Because this horse was his.

As surely as the darkness existed.

As surely as this place existed.