My new house was a second-storey duplex in a whole street of terrace complexes. I had felt a bit homesick since I had got to the city for greenery, but honeysuckle vines grew round the iron staircase that led up to my door, and the sweet scent of them made everything feel less alien. I looked out from the balcony as my new landlord opened the door for me. The land didn't stretch out like I was used to, but it all belonged to so many different people, and the balcony washing lines and distant glint of the city looked like freedom.

    "Eric, your new housemate is here!" my landlord yelled through the door. After a minute, my landlord shrugged.

    "His room is the one to the left of the kitchen. Yours is the room beyond it. Enjoy."

    "Thank you," I said, and watched my landlord walk down to the street, his feet clanging on the occasional loose step. I took a breath, and walked in, taking the key from the door and putting it on my keyring. The apartment opened up into a lounge space, with a wall jutting out from the corner. That would be my housemate's room, I guessed. His door was in a small corridor that led to the back balcony, and past a locked gate down to the small courtyard that belonged to the ground floor renters, not us. They were growing vegetables down there, in cute little rows.

    Beyond the lounge was the kitchen, laundry, and bathroom, which all kind of flowed into each other, minimising plumbing requirements I guess. My own room was beyond. It was furnished with a single bed with an old mattress, and one wooden chair. The landlord had said it came with a desk as well, but maybe my housemate had moved it somewhere. The place was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was obvious that nobody had come into the room in a long time.

    I dumped my stuff in the loungeroom, and found the vacuum cleaner. After cleaning my room, there wasn't time to go grocery shopping, so I reluctantly microwaved the pie my aunt had baked me for a going away present, and ate that for dinner. My aunt has a lot of talents, but baking food fit for human consumption isn't one of them. I am sure it was nutritious, though.

    The sun set, and finally my housemate made an appearance. He had been in his room all along. I hoped I hadn't woken him up with my vacuuming. He was a short goth kid, with dark circles under his eyes and platform shoes.

    "Hello," I said to him.

    "Hello," he replied, and walked out of the house before I could introduce myself. How rude. Maybe I had woken him up after all.

    It still early, but I was tired out with all the travelling I had done that day. I arranged my stuff a bit in my room, then fell asleep.

I still had a day left before term began, so I spent the next day shopping for groceries, notebooks, and stuff I found I'd need now I'd seen my living area. I got my notebooks and a folding table from a discount shop, and after looking for about an hour I found a grocery store for my food. When I came back into the flat, I found that the only other thing in the fridge was a pile of foil packages, like what those fancy soups are sold in. Most of those were called "Ot", which perhaps was a foreign brand, because I'd never heard of it. Maybe my housemate was really into health shakes? I hoped he at least ate out sometimes. My uncle had told me once you can do yourself a mischief, only drinking shakes long term.

    I didn't see my housemate all day, but he came out at sunset.

    "I didn't wake you up or anything, moving around?" I asked.

    "Nah, I sleep like the dead," he said.

    "Are you nocturnal or something?"

    "Yeah."

    "Okay." We paused, looking at each other. "I don't know if our landlord told you, but I'm The."

    "Eric," Eric said, nodding. He walked out of the house.

There was literally no point in having a smartphone where I grew up, because we're in a weird valley area within two hills and we have no phone reception at all, unless you climb up half the mountain. We had internet in the house, but it was super slow. Almost everything at uni, though, was on apps: the maps, the course outlines, the timetables. After school I found a place that sold phones, and the sales talk was so pushy compared to what I was used to I literally ran away. I was super embarrassed about that, and vowed never to go to a store again. I did ask Eric about phones when he emerged from his lair, and he delayed going out to help me buy one, plus a good prepaid sim on the internet.

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    "You want one with lots of data, unless you want to buy extra internet for the house." Eric said.

    "Is it worth getting more than what my phone has?"

    "Your phone only has so much data per month. Not enough for, like, streaming and stuff. If you wanted I guess you can also use the downstairs guy's password. They don't mind, but it's really slow. I can download updates, patches, and DLCs, but it's pretty useless for anything else," Eric said.

"Do you have your own internet?" I asked.

"Yeah, but you'll never guess the password." He grinned. His teeth were very white and long.

My phone arrived a few days later, and I may have got slightly addicted to it after a week. It was like a little computer you could just carry around with you all the time, and I found some pretty cool blogs. There was a cooking one I really liked, and I got into the habit of picking up ingredients from the grocery store on my way back home to try recipes out for dinner.

    "Is that ginger stir fry?" Eric asked once.

    "Yeah. Want some?" I asked, having made too much as usual.

    "Nah, can't. Like the smell, though," Eric said, and disappeared into the night.

I had never really lived with someone before (aunts and uncles don't count), but as I got more and more homework and so stayed up later and later, I began to think there might be something a bit odd about my housemate. For one thing, he had the habit of drinking his health shakes by biting the packet and sucking the shake out by the holes made by his teeth. For another, he walked oddly, almost like he was skating rather than walking. Once he came out of his room without his platforms on, and I swear he was actually hovering above the ground. That could have been my eyes though, since I had been marathoning a movie series someone at school had recommended for four hours by then.

Once, my housemate woke me up because he had a friend over.

    "Can you invite him in?" Eric asked.

    "Ugh," I said, stumbling to the front door, then, "Come in," to the goth guy standing in the doorway. He stepped through.

    "Thanks," Eric said, and he and his friend disappeared into his room.

    "What, is your friend a vampire or something?" I asked him the evening after.

    "So am I," Eric replied.

    "Huh," I said. "Well, that makes sense."

    "You're not going to freak, are you?" Eric asked cautiously. I considered it for a moment. My aunt had warned me things would be different in the city.

    "Nah," I said, and went back to doing my homework.

    Things didn't really change after that, although Eric was more comfortable wandering around the house without his platforms on. He really did hover about ten centimetres off the floor.

    "Does that mean you never trip over?" I asked.

    "I've tripped over on the stairs once," Eric said. "Because I don't reach the floor, I couldn't catch myself until I'd reached the bottom."

    "Ouch," I said.

    "Nah," he said, shrugging. "It takes more than that to hurt the undead."

The end of summer came, and like some kind of lizard, Eric became more sleepy as the weather got colder.

    "I'll adjust to it soon," he said once, when I asked if he was okay when he walked into the doorframe, bashing his head. "We only sleep when the sun's out. In Greenland, apparently we stop sleeping altogether for a few months."

    "And you'll adjust to it," I said, dubiously, watching him trip over the back of the couch. He settled slightly above the cushions.

    "Yeah, it's just the sleep/food ratio that I need to figure out."

    "I have noticed that you're more hungry at the moment," I said. Those days Eric went straight to the fridge at sunset, rather than straight out the door.

    "In Greenland, the other half of the year we just eat constantly, basically," Eric said. He paused. "That's why there aren't many vampires in Greenland."

It was this increased hunger and decreased awareness that caused all the commotion in the end. I was figuring out what was in the fridge for dinner, when the sun set. Eric came stumbling out of his room, looking particularly bad this time. His eyes were puffy slits. I figured out after he was basically navigating via smell.

    "Fooooooooood," he said. Without looking, I grabbed one of his Ot bags, and held it out. I felt a sharp pain.

    "That's my hand, not the bag," I told him, wrenching my hand back.

    "Oh, shit," he said.

    "It's not that bad," I said, looking at the neat holes in my hand.

    "Oh shit!" Eric repeated, looking panicked.

    I fell unconscious to the floor.