章 226: Chapter 226
Mr. Burges had never been invited. He just appeared, like an unwelcome visitor, slipping into the cracks of the house as though he belonged there. And for all of Ahmed's attempts to keep him out, it was clear now that Mr. Burges did. No one in the village knew him. No one had ever heard of him. But that didn't matter. Mr. Burges was here, and he wasn't leaving.
The house, a simple structure built from corrugated tin and wood, had been Ahmed's refuge for years. After all the deaths and the suffering, it was the one place where he could hide. The village had no time for him anymore, not after the accident with the truck. So he sat alone in the place he called home, buried in the sweat and warmth of his own flesh, eating the leftovers of his old life. The stench of oil and dust clung to him. The walls, painted a sickly yellow, seemed to breathe with the heat of the day.
He could hear the slow buzz of insects outside, but inside the house, it was always still.
Then Mr. Burges came.
The first night, it was a presence. Something dark that moved in the corner of his eye, something that wasn't quite there. It made the shadows stretch longer than they should, twisting unnaturally, curling in a way that seemed to mock the calm of the room. Ahmed had tried to sleep through it. Tried to ignore the feeling that something was wrong. But it wasn't long before he noticed the scent.
It wasn't the stale, oppressive smell of his own body that clung to the room. No, this was something different, something bitter, metallic, like rust. It started at the edges of his vision, a creeping presence in the darkest corners. At first, it was just a flicker of movement—a hand that wasn't his own or a footstep that didn't match his.
But then the laughter came.
It was soft at first, a low and distant sound. Too far away to pin down, too faint to understand. Ahmed had tried to convince himself it was the wind, maybe the scraping of a door or a creaking beam. But the laughter grew louder as the days passed. At night, it was unmistakable, lingering in the air like a bad smell.
Ahmed began to avoid the corners of the room. He'd keep his back to the wall at all times. He couldn't trust the space anymore. The shadows were wrong. The house felt wrong. He noticed his skin growing tighter, his breath heavier, as if something was pressing down on him. He tried to ignore it. But every time he looked away from the corner, Mr. Burges was there.
The name came one morning, when he woke up to the room smelling like rot. His eyes had barely opened before he saw the figure standing by the window. Tall, thin, with a wide face that was pale—too pale—and expressionless. Mr. Burges.
The man didn't speak, didn't move. But his presence was unmistakable. And for a while, Ahmed couldn't breathe. His heart beat faster than it should, pounding in his chest like something was clawing to get out.
"Who are you?" Ahmed had asked. His voice trembled. He didn't know why, but he needed to know. He needed to break the silence.
But Mr. Burges didn't answer. He didn't need to. His gaze was enough.
Day after day, the presence continued to haunt Ahmed's home. It wasn't just at night anymore. Mr. Burges was there in the mornings, in the afternoons, his form barely noticeable until you looked directly at it. Each time, the air grew heavier, more oppressive. The buzzing insects grew louder, drowning out everything else. The laughter, though, never stopped. It echoed inside Ahmed's skull, like a persistent tapping in his brain, a rhythm he couldn't escape.
It was a week before Ahmed noticed the changes. Small things. The cracks in the walls seemed to grow wider. The floorboards groaned under his weight more than usual. The tin roof rattled even when the wind didn't blow. And the smell, the rot—it didn't go away. It only got worse.
He was trapped.
His attempts to leave were futile. Each time he opened the door to the outside, the world beyond was nothing more than an endless field of dark, oppressive emptiness. The village seemed so far away. The paths had vanished. There was only the house now. The house, and Mr. Burges.
Ahmed tried to reach out. He didn't know who to talk to—no one would believe him anyway—but he thought maybe, just maybe, the village elders might have an answer. When he walked to the edge of the village, though, something inside him pulled him back. The street seemed endless, the roads stretched away into a void. It was as though he was walking in place, never getting any closer to his destination. The world itself seemed to shift, to turn around him, making him dizzy. The laughter in his ears grew louder.
He returned home that night, crawling into his bed as if that could protect him. But Mr. Burges didn't wait. He wasn't an ordinary thing. There was no escape.
The figure was there every time Ahmed looked. Standing, sitting, always watching. No words. No expression. Just the growing, gnawing certainty that it would never leave.
But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst came one morning, when Ahmed woke up to find that the walls had closed in.
It wasn't just the house that was too small now. It was him. His skin had tightened, stretched to its limit, and he could feel the weight of it. The flesh, heavy and suffocating, pulled at him like chains. His breath was labored, his heart barely able to keep up. He stumbled around, trying to find an answer, but the pain in his chest was unbearable.
Mr. Burges stood by the window, just as he always had. But now the figure wasn't alone.
It was there, in the reflection of the glass, standing behind him. A second figure, just as tall, just as thin, a mirror of Mr. Burges. But it wasn't a reflection.
No, it was worse than that.
The figure's face was too pale, too lifeless, but it was smiling. A twisted grin that stretched wide, mocking him. And then, something horrifying happened. The figure began to stretch, its arms elongating, wrapping around Ahmed's body like ropes. They squeezed tighter, pulling him back. He couldn't breathe. His skin felt like it was splitting open, like the weight of his body was too much for him to bear. He reached out, his fingers trembling, but the air around him was too thick. He couldn't move.
And then, Mr. Burges spoke. It wasn't a voice that came from a mouth, but a voice that seemed to vibrate in his bones.
"Flesh is fragile," it said. "Your hunger is your prison."
Ahmed's legs buckled beneath him. The pain in his chest exploded, his flesh tearing apart as he was pulled towards the figure in the mirror.
His last thought was of the village—the people he had failed. The family he had lost.
But it was too late.
Mr. Burges took him. And the house was still.
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