Fyn's apartment was lopsided - as in - it tilted at a precarious angle.

His few scattered pictures hung at a steep slant like a plumbline, and his table and chair - the sole furniture he owned – were wedged against the wall at the bottom of the slope like rubble from a landslide.

In days gone, this building would have been condemned. But people had bigger worries than increasing the number of homeless on the streets, and Fyn couldn't afford an apartment that had solid foundations, so here he was.

The room was barren, in a gloomy way that resembled a solitary confinement cell. Aside from a few empty cans and dirty pots and pans on the kitchen counter, it was impossible to tell that anyone lived there. In fact, it looked like whoever used to live here left in a hurry, taking anything worth anything with them.

As far as the smell went, it wasn't great. His food bin hadn't been emptied since he left and now stunk to high heavens of rotting vegetables and synthetic meat - which had a much faster expiration date than the traditional stuff.

There was nothing wooden in his apartment. People stopped using anything timber when termites grew to the size of cockroaches. At best, it was a liability. At worst, bait.

His room sat on floor sixteen of an old apartment block designed with function in mind. Everything about it, from the rough, blocky exterior to the narrow windows and miserable residents, screamed the bare minimum. It was the sort of place you might keep men in stripy shirts and shackles.

After climbing the stairs (the elevator had been broken since god knows when), Fyn was overjoyed to find that he wasn't exhausted. He was breathing hard, but nothing like the panting he usually did by the time he reached his floor. Perhaps this was another side effect of the experiments, he mused. Now he had another weird ability to add to his list of useless ones. Not burning alive and not getting tired... the blight better watch out, Fyn thought sardonically.

The view from his floor was rather grim. Dublin - in all its withered majesty - stretched out below him like a tattered quilt. It was drained of all the colour and vibrance he was told it once possessed. Dark black smoke rose from tyre burnings in pillars all throughout the city, and rusted cars lay abandoned on street corners. No one could be bothered to move them. Not in this part of town, anyway.

He sighed and turned away from the balcony, hurrying down the corridor to his room. When he finally reached the door, he froze.

It was open.

Only just, but open.

There it sat, ajar slightly.

Had he been robbed? It wouldn't be the first time… but he was sure he had locked the door before leaving, and robbers didn't normally bother picking locks. Not when smashing the door down was far quicker and infinitely more fun.

He had already replaced his front door twice since moving in two years ago. But this one didn't need replacing. It looked completely intact, sitting as though he had left it open. Which he hadn't. He never left the door unlocked.

An odd smell leaked through the open door. It was like a mixture of vinegar and cheap cologne, tickling his nose like an acrid feather. Why did this smell seem familiar?

Fyn squinted and took a deep breath before bursting through the door and charging into the room like a frightened bull.

To say that everything was still there was rather redundant since there had been nothing in the room to begin with. In fact, it would be entirely false, as not only were none of his meagre belongings missing, but there was an entirely new thing lying on the floor in the middle of the room.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It wasn't often that burglars broke into your house to give you something, especially if that thing was themselves.

Fyn screeched to a halt in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the big man with the black beard. He recognised him from the van. The same guy had put on his blindfold and stuffed an old sock in his mouth. Even his cologne was the same.

"What is he doing here?" Asked Fyn. He spoke to no one in particular and didn't expect an answer. It was just one of those questions that had to be asked. Like, are we there yet? Or, when is dinner ready?

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the low rumble of the man's snoring. He was out like a light... Or perhaps a log. Something big and hairy, anyway.

Fyn inched forwards and closed the door behind him. He crept across the room on the balls of his feet before coming to a stop by the man. Fyn stared down at him silently. Same beard with specks of grey, same scowl, same tattoo of a hatchet on his left arm. Same smell.

It was definitely the guy he had met a few days earlier. He just had no idea why he would be here, of all places.

"Uh… hello?" Fyn asked uncertainly. After the words left his mouth, it occurred to him that maybe the big guy being asleep was a good thing. The considerable size difference between them meant that if he did wake up, Fyn wouldn't have much chance in a fight.

Unfortunately, whether or not his actions had been thought out, they had an impact. As soon as the words left his mouth, the man stirred, his nose twitching and eyes fluttering. Slowly, two gloomy brown orbs were staring up at him. They were bloodshot and feral, like a rabid dog or a parent who hadn't had their morning coffee.

Neither of them made any sudden moves, but with every second that passed, the tension in the room grew.

Fyn cleared his throat. "H-hi?" He coughed awkwardly. "You're uh... in my house."

The man's brow wrinkled as he heard Fyn's voice. "I am." He said it like it made sense. Like it was natural he was here.

"Well…" Fyn trailed off, not really sure where to take this. "Well… would you mind leaving?"

"I would."

Fyn nodded slowly. That was not the answer he had been looking for.

"I was really hoping you would say otherwise. I kind of live here, you see?" said Fyn. "I don't suppose you could be persuaded to leave?"

The man's beard split to reveal a toothy grin made up of teeth far whiter than Fyn had been expecting. They practically gleamed in the gloom, glinting like polished marble. "Not likely. A good house is hard to come by these days."

"Yeah, well… I'm not sure if I already mentioned this, but I already live here!" Fyn pointed out helplessly.

This time, it was the big man's turn to nod. "But I don't like sharing," he growled. "So I guess I'll just have to get rid of you."

Fyn's blood ran cold, and he took a step back. He felt like the man's bloodshot gaze was one of an animal with nothing to lose. Slowly, the big man rose, his shadow looming over Fyn like a mountain cresting the horizon. The window on the far side of the room was narrow enough that his bulk covered the entire thing, casting the room into even deeper darkness.

"Wait, wait, wait," Fyn pleaded. "Before you do anything rash," - the big man was already stalking towards him – "Why don't we just talk this out?"

"What's to say?" the big man's voice was like the low rumble of an earthquake. "I'm not in the mood to talk right now."

"Well, well, don't you remember me from the other day?" Fyn hurried, speaking so fast he started tripping over the words. "You know? In the van, with the blindfold?"

The big man paused, his hulking frame pressing down on Fyn's slight build like a boulder rolling towards a blade of grass. "Van..." he rumbled. "Was that you?"

Fyn frowned. "What do you mean, 'Was that me?', You sent me off to the chopping block just a couple of days ago."

Realisation dawned on the big man, and his eyes widened. "And you made it out!? That place was burnt down."

"I survived under the rubble for days somehow," Fyn explained, without really explaining anything. "I only managed to escape this morning, and that was after hours of digging." He held up his hands. A few hours ago, they had been covered with scratches and cuts from the sharp stones he had pulled out of the way. Yet now, they were both flawless, if a little dirty.

The big man's demeanour changed all of a sudden. He had gone from threatening to frightened, glancing around the room in paranoia. His pupils never seemed to settle on one place, and he soon rushed over to the window, peeling the curtain back a fraction and peeking out onto the road below.

"What's wrong?" asked Fyn, worried by the man's sudden shift.

"You're what's wrong!" hissed the man. "What if they followed you back here?"

"Wh-who's they?"