The first thing that Licht did as he woke up was to fall out of his bed. The extra sleep that was still in his eyes had distracted his focus, allowing him to forget about the fact that the covers on his side were pulled over way too far and even in their tensed state were not strong enough to handle his falling weight.

The man fell on his side, applying all of his weight gracefully onto his elbow.

“Ouch!”

Licht cursed inside his mind simultaneously. Did he really fall out of the bed? Was he getting to be that cliche? Pulling himself off of the thankfully-carpeted floor, Licht scratched his neck and shook his head.

While some might discourteously say he was already an old man, he was really only in his thirties. It was way too soon for him to be exhibiting old-man like behavior. Licht decided to himself. It was definitely because of last night.

Moaning internally as he went from the hallway into the bathroom, he recalled the previous night. The twenty-fifth of August had been the date of his wedding anniversary with his wife, and it had just passed. Seeing how she was no longer in his life to celebrate it with him, he had respectfully chosen to drink himself into a stupor in the comfort of his own home before falling asleep on the sofa. It was an incredibly classy way to celebrate alone, he had told himself. Far cheaper than going out too.

And at some point during that night, it seemed like he had woken up and drunkenly dragged himself into his bed.

Splat.

Licht thought to himself while spitting out his toothpaste into the sink. He washed up briefly and went back to fix his bed. After he was done, he looked around. It had hit him just how little his small house in the sticks had changed after his wife had died. Just five years ago, she had left this world due to cancer, which had also been the last time he had seen his kids.

Licht shook his head when the thought entered his mind.

He felt bitter about the way things had turned out. His kids were currently very young, and there were a lot of them. Something which his wife seemed to inherit from her mother was fertility, and they had grown to have a huge family before she had passed. But when that time came, his children were all taken to live with his wife’s parents.

It had been something like, “With your wife gone, you aren’t mature enough to raise seven kids. You shouldn’t have even gotten married at such a young age!”

Which smelled like total bullshit to him. Licht knew plenty of people in their community to get married before 25, but did they get shit for it? No! It was normal. Okay, maybe they didn’t then have seven kids shortly after, but was that his fault? Well maybe half of it was, actually, but that was beside the point.

Any legal defense he could have found in his community at the time might have been able to help him, but he had been stricken down when he was at his lowest, still grieving for his wife as his kids were taken away. Now they were with their grandparents, wherever that was, and to cope with that Licht had chosen the liquid method.

The point was, he was alone. At thirty three, he was back to being a bachelor. So far it had been one long whiskey-fuelled nightmare.

“I should get the mail now, I guess.”

Licht put on his coat once he was done with waking up. Although in their small rural community mail was delivered but once a week, staying in the house was never a good way to improve his mental health. He wanted an excuse to leave.

“Eh…”

As the sunlight hit his eyes he winced, but continued walking down the long driveway that was surrounded on its sides by a cornfield. Most people who lived the way he did would choose to reserve a space around their house so the crops weren’t so close, sort of like a yard, but Licht didn’t need the space so he chose more profits over comfort.

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Stopping in front of the mailbox he looked inside, but found nothing.

“Figures. Didn’t expect anything anyway.”

As Licht latched up the box he felt a slight tap on his shoulder. Turning around, however, there was nothing there. Just beyond the mailbox which was buried in grass was a skinny gravel road. It was ‘paved’ out of gravel, as asphalt was too expensive and unnecessary for all the small roads that ran through the countryside like capillaries. The gravel road had two shoulders on either side of grass, in the unlikely event that two cars were coming the same way they could pull over to get by each other. His mailbox was planted in this grass shoulder and his driveway connecting the road to his house after a couple dozen feet.

“No one here? How spooky…”

Licht laughed. The nearest house was about a mile down the road, given the size of their plots of land this was actually kind of short, but the acreage of corn on one side of his house was actually a bit shorter. The tap he felt must have been the result of some kind of paranoia.

“I need to lay off the juice I guess.”

Yeah that probably wasn’t helping.

Tap. Tap-tap.

Just then, Licht felt a few more taps on his back and head, only now they were much more audible. He looked up, and saw that the sky had begun to darken.

“Damn, it’s going to rain? Better get inside.”

It was actually good for the crops but Licht didn’t care. He didn’t harvest the surrounding corn himself but instead paid a company to do it. Long had passed since he had the motivation to do that kind of labor himself. He was about to make his way toward his driveway, when…

“What the…?”

As the rain started to come down harder, Licht’s head turned in all directions. Confusion was evident on his face.

He had just been standing on the grass shoulder of the road to check his mailbox and looking at the stalks of corn when he turned to walk back the way he came, and was met with more corn! Licht’s eyes flickered in both directions. Even the mailbox was gone!

The sky darkened and finally broke into a shower, but Licht wasn’t in the state to consider the weather. Where was his home?

“I was literally standing outside my driveway a second ago. What happened? Where is my mailbox?”

Licht strained his eyes in the darkness to see down both directions of the road. The sudden storm had made it unusually dark, and he was unable to see signs of his mailbox.

“Hmm, what do people usually do in situations like this?”

Although Licht now felt it was really weird how he was separated from his house and property, he could only accept it and find a way back. He considered what people normally did, having heard many stories of course about people lost in cornfields.

“My biggest advantage is that I’m on the road, so I could probably wait for a car to pass.”

Licht shivered. But…he might want to find a faster way. The onslaught of rain was increasing in intensity, and he was left with only the coat he had taken after he woke up. Unfortunately it wasn’t waterproof, nor did he have a phone on him. He was only getting the mail for god’s sake!

Licht’s range of vision was rapidly decreasing as the rain got denser. Maybe he should consider other avenues? Like what did people in horror movies usually do? He was sure he could come up with plenty of cornfield examples from those, right?

Wait, stop. Licht shook his head. Better to just try the car method. He turned around once again for the tenth time in that minute, but this time was greeted with more than just the blank abyss of rain and thunder.

A light, at about head-level with Licht, was approaching.

“Hello?!”

Licht called out. The light was bobbing up and down. Probably a person then, and not a vehicle, Licht decided. He walked toward it.

“Hello?”

Was it a person after all? In that case they were being a little rude. Even in the dense rain there was no way they didn’t hear him. Licht sped up now, a bit more irritated than enthused to see another person in the storm.

“Hey, person with the light! Come on!”

Licht dropped the cautiously polite attitude and blurted out his true thoughts. Like come on, how are you going to be mysterious in a situation like this? Just talk, man! Licht was becoming a little more on edge as he approached when, at once, the visage of the light-bearer became clear.

Skin as white as porcelain. An exquisite suit that stayed dry despite the rain. A tall top hat that was not fashionable anymore, yet didn’t clash with the man’s classy demeanor.

A man with no face.

Licht backed up, shocked by the sight.

“Who–”