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*
Geliy has long since given up on lifting his head when someone new enters the house.
There’s no use in it. It’s not like proper introductions are meaningful these days. He doesn’t even know the name of the man whose house he’s occupying. That is, if he is a man. For all Geliy knows, everyone here is a visitor—just like him.
If the fungus under his arms and the dirt-coated flesh where his fingernails used to be weren’t enough to clue him in, the dead bodies left behind when he made the mistake of lifting his shirt at his last safehouse is. The gaping, frozen void where his humanity used to reside is just as evident as the blood stains left on the carpet when he escaped into the night before someone could kill him for what he’d done.
It’s been two days since that happened. Geliy has had two days to accept that, at some point, he stopped being a human. Maybe he was never a human at all.
He regrets not waiting for someone to shoot him. Now he’s here, and the homeowner refuses to waste the bullets.
He buries his face against his lap, fruitlessly trying to fight off the cold and the aching, clawing guilt. The new person is being led past the living room. Another person in the house means another potential victim. Another risk of his lack of humanity hurting the people around him.
It doesn’t help that this new person is clearly suffering. Geliy doesn’t look up to check, but the man’s voice is muffled and strained, like he’s attempting to speak past a gag in his mouth. Each slurred murmur is progressively more frantic. There’s a wetness to his speech that makes it sound as if he’s got a throat full of blood.
It’s not unlikely, given the circumstances. Geliy has seen more blood in the past few days than he’s ever seen in his life.
He huddles in on himself, pressing his arms to the side of his face in an attempt to drown out the man’s wet, muffled sounds. It’s worse than the silence that’s been plaguing the living room for the past several hours. It’s worse than when the homeowner switches on the television in his room and Geliy is forced to hear reporters noting all the telltale signs of creatures masquerading as humans. At least those broadcasts are delivered in neutral, unaffected voices. This man is in agony.
Geliy makes the mistake of peeking up from his lap when the homeowner and the new man walk past him. It’s purely accidental, his lingering human instincts darting his eyes up at the sound of footsteps approaching, but despite looking down just as quickly as he looked up, he catches a glimpse of the man.
He looks like the kind of person Geliy would have liked in a different time. Back before the sun became deadly—or, at least, in the memories his brain has fabricated of a time before all this—Geliy often found himself huddling in the corners of bars, eyes seeking out the most alternative people in the room. He’d nurse a drink and fantasize about being the kind of person who could make friends with people who liked the same things he did.
The man’s hair is dyed purple and there’s a piercing in his ear. He looks exactly like the kind of person that would’ve had Geliy shooting back liquor in a fruitless effort to give himself the courage to ask for his number. The piercing is on the side that suggests that, maybe, if Geliy did somehow manage to find the courage, the man might have said yes.
It’s a fantasy within a fantasy, though. In reality, the man would say nothing. His mouth is a mess of wounds and wires, blood and metal sealing his lips together. Geliy sucks in a horrified breath as he hides his face against his legs.
He feels like he’s going to throw up. Maybe he would if he still had a stomach. As it stands, though, all he can do is press his face into his lap and beg his brain to let him forget the look on the man’s face when they accidentally made eye contact.
He looked scared. Geliy’s starting to give up on fantasizing about a world where fear isn’t the default expression on every face he sees.
*
There are cries coming from the storage room. They’re getting harder and harder to ignore.
Geliy can’t comprehend why no one else seems bothered. The tall man is sleeping on the couch next to him as if he hears nothing at all. The thin woman’s leaning against the bookcase, petting the cat sitting on her lap just like she’s been doing all night. Geliy can still hear quiet whispers from the other rooms in the house, people carrying on with their own conversations just as they were doing before the cries started funneling out of the storage room. Geliy's stomach twists with the phantom churning of organs he no longer possesses.
It’s a grim reminder that there’s no use trying to help the man. If Geliy went to check on him, he’d just make it worse. His sweater could slip, or he could lose control of himself, or just his monstrous presence alone would be enough to turn the man’s cries into screams.
Whatever is happening in there, Geliy’s not going to be able to do anything. It’s best to just wait it out and hope the man is still alive in the morning.
But he just keeps crying. Every once in a while, the cries are punctuated by a muffled scream.
Something bad is happening in there. Geliy needs to do something. No one else will, as made evident by the utter lack of reaction from the people around him.
Geliy tightens his coat around his shivering torso as he lifts himself up from the couch. His heart is pounding when he gets up on trembling legs and pads his way down the hall. The cries are more pronounced the closer he gets.
He’s shaking hard enough for it to take several tries, but eventually, he manages to get a hold on the doorknob. When he turns it, though, he immediately regrets thinking it was a good idea to come here.
Because, as he comes to find upon entering the storage room, the man is trying to pull the wires from his lips. There’s blood caking the lower half of his face and the pads of his fingers. His eyes are bloodshot—clearly, though, from tears. Geliy has never seen anyone look more human than the man does in this moment. It’s horrifying to see.
“Oh my god,” he breathes, dropping to the floor in front of the man. “Stop, please. You’re making it worse.”
The man flinches back, hands flying over his face as if to protect himself. Whatever he says is lost on Geliy. The wires puncturing his lips prevent the syllables from coming out as anything beyond a muffled slur.
The effort to speak has the metal pulling at his flesh. Fresh blood mingles with the old blood drying on his chin. Despite how badly it must hurt, the man just keeps gasping out unintelligible murmurs and yanking at the wires.
“Shit,” Geliy mutters, twisting around to search for some kind of tool. His eyes land on a girl huddled up in the corner, chewing on his fingernails. “Can you help? Please?”
The girl presses herself further into the corner and shakes her head jerkily. “Make him stop.”
Geliy lets out a frustrated groan and drags a hand through his hair. There has to be something in here he can use. He can’t just let this man keep suffering like this, and it’s clear he’s going to keep trying to pull his wires out by hand. The punctures on his lips are all red and raw, like he’s been at this for hours.
Geliy’s tempted to ask the girl why she hasn’t been trying to help the man, but it would be a worthless inquiry. Geliy has long since come to accept that humanity means something different these days. People don’t help people just because it’s the right thing to do. No one can afford to be kind when there are monsters wearing the faces of people wherever you go. For all Geliy knows, this girl is one of those monsters. He himself is a monster.
The man, though, is a person. Geliy knows that for sure. He can recognize the humanity in his eyes. He crawls forward, digging through the boxes lining the walls until his hands land on a pair of scissors.
“Let me,” he says, shuffling back over to the man.
The man’s eyes widen in fear. He shakes his head, tightening his palms over his lips as he backs up against the wall.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Geliy says. “I’m trying to help.”
The man must not believe him, because he just keeps pressing closer to the wall with his hands locked protectively over his face.
“I don’t think he knows Russian,” the girl says quietly.
Geliy turns to look at her. “What language does he speak?”
The girl shrugs, hands flying back to her mouth. “I don’t know. Just make him stop.”
Geliy sighs and turns back to the man. It’s been a long time since high school, but he’s still got a few German and French phrases clinging to his memory. At least, the memories he thinks he has. Now isn’t the time to start wondering what’s real and what isn’t, though. The man looks like he’s on the verge of ripping the wires straight through his lips. Geliy sucks in a stabilizing breath and does his best to piece together enough German to ask, “Will you let me help you?”
There’s no recognition in the man’s eyes. Just fear. Geliy tries the same with French.
Nothing. The man is still huddled against the wall and shaking.
Words won’t do then. Geliy tries something else he hasn’t attempted in a very long time. He pulls his lips up in a smile.
“Help,” he says, tapping his fingers to his lips, then bringing them down to tap the scissors.
Finally, there’s a flash of recognition. The man’s eyebrows press together. “Hllph?”
Geliy’s smile turns genuine. It’s hard to tell, exactly, but he could swear the man just tried to mimic the word. He nods and says, “Help.”
“Hllph,” the man says, nodding his head eagerly.
Geliy breathes a sigh of relief. They’re finally communicating. He lifts the scissors up slowly, careful not to startle the man. “May I?”
While the man stays calm, the girl in the corner doesn’t. She lets out a choked cry and says, “Don’t do it here, please.”
Where else are they supposed to do it? The house is full of people seeking refuge from the sun. He could take the man back to the living room, but that’s too close to the front door. With so many people knocking these days, Geliy’s worried any sudden noises will startle him too much. He can’t afford to be startled when he’s holding up scissors to the man’s face.
There’s no way Geliy’s taking the man to the bathroom. He can’t bear the thought of seeing the corpse in the tub. The couple in the kitchen make him too uneasy. He might slip and accidentally hurt the man if he sees the bruises on the husband’s knuckles again.
“Mmfph.”
Geliy’s eyes fly back up to the man’s face when he makes another attempt to speak. He still looks calm, but the air in the storage room is thick with tension. The girl is still letting out choked cries. Geliy’s still just crouched on the floor, scissors hovering in mid-air.
He’s wasting too much time. The man must be in so much pain, and the choked sounds coming from the girl in the corner are making Geliy’s heart start to beat too fast. It’s making his hands shake. He can’t afford to have unstable hands right now. He shakes his head clear and stands up, placing his hands on the man’s arms to help him.
He hasn’t touched a person in so long. He forgot how warm skin can feel. He circles his fingers around the man’s forearms and tries not to groan from relief. Despite the stress and panic and blood, Geliy feels the closest thing to comfort he’s felt in a very long time.
It’s like grasping onto the final remnants of humanity. He can’t stop himself from threading his fingers with the man’s as he leads him out of the storage closet. The feeling of fingers, real and warm and alive, is almost too much. When the man squeezes his hand back, he feels like he could break down and cry.
He’s tall, Geliy notices. And, past all the blood and wires, deeply human. There are chestnut brown roots growing from his scalp under the dyed purple hair. He had an entire life before all of this—one that, unlike Geliy, he must be certain in his memories of. Geliy tightens his hold on the man’s hand, feeling his throat clench when the man squeezes back again.
Frantic words try to make their way past the wires piercing his face. It’s a reminder that Geliy can’t break down right now. He needs to help the man. He leads him out to the hallway in search of an empty room.
His foot catches on the rug underneath him, revealing a trapdoor. There are no quiet murmurs coming from the space underneath.
Geliy crouches down to unfasten the hinge. It’s dark in the basement—silent, in the way that Geliy has come to be afraid of since FEMA first issued the warning to never be alone. He keeps his hand locked with the man’s. It comes as a relief when the man doesn’t let go.
Maybe he can see some remnants of humanity in Geliy. He doesn’t look afraid to be alone with him. The thought has Geliy’s heart finally beating at a steady pace as he goes down the stairs, keeping his fingers tightly interlocked with the man’s.
*
Geliy, or at least the version of him that may or may not have existed before the world started burning, was always pretty squeamish. The most intense body modification he could handle was stretching his ears. He always wanted more tattoos and piercings, but he couldn’t stand the pain. Even seeing other people in pain made his stomach twist. He cringed at violent news reports on the television. He couldn’t handle gory movies. He always hid his face when someone started screaming.
There’s no hiding his face right now. If he still had a stomach, it would certainly be twisting.
Even as he puts in a concerted effort to cut the wires as slowly and carefully as he can muster, blood still seeps from the man’s punctured lips. It’s dripping down his chin. For once, Geliy isn’t drawn to warmth. The hot, sticky liquid is making him want to return to the living room and bury his face in his lap. He wants to shut his eyes and forget the agonized look on the man’s face.
He can’t, though. That agonized face is looking right at him, close enough for Geliy to make out every muscle twitch when the man tries not to flinch from the pain.
He’s got an expressive face. His wide, green eyes keep twitching and darting around when Geliy manages to cut through another wire. His thin eyebrows keep pressing together when Geliy struggles to pull a wire free. His rounded nose keeps scrunching when Geliy goes back in to cut another wire loose.
It’s not the right time to let his mind wander, but Geliy is in desperate need of a distraction, and it helps calm him enough to keep his hands stable when he imagines what the man must have looked like before all of this. He’s coated in sweat and blood, he’s got prominent bags under his eyes, and his features are warped with pain, but underneath it all, he looks young. Maybe somewhere around Geliy’s age. It’s not hard to imagine those dark, terrified eyes in a different context. He seems like the kind to crinkle his eyes when he smiles.
Geliy can imagine himself sitting at a bar, trying not to be too obvious about it as he stared across the room at those expressive eyes. He’d nurse a drink as he watched those eyes crinkle with laughter, playing out a dialogue that would never happen in his head.
I like your hair. Did you dye it yourself?
Your eyes are such a nice shade of green. Green is my favorite color. What’s yours?
This is a great song, don’t you think? Would you like to dance with me?
The man would say yes, at least in Geliy’s nested fantasy. Geliy would be shocked, of course, but he’d hide it behind a smile. He’d wrap his arms around the man’s shoulders, maybe make a coy comment about his height. Geliy would have to stand on his toes if he wanted to be eye-level with the man. He’d need to crane his neck up if he wanted the man to hear his voice over the loud, thrumming music.
His lips would brush against the man’s jaw. He’d startle at the sharp sensation of metal catching on his skin.
Who did this to you?
What kind of person would do something like this?
Reality seeps in as Geliy pulls the final wire out. Even if someone suspected this man was a visitor, it’s hard to imagine what kind of cruelty a person has to possess to do something so violent.
It isn’t hard to imagine how much pain the man must have been in while it was happening. His hands are shaking as he rubs them over his bleeding lips.
If Geliy had enough heat in his body, he’d probably flush from anger. The man seems so gentle. He didn’t try to hurt Geliy at all when he suspected Geliy was trying to hurt him. Judging from the precision of the wounds, he must not have fought very hard when he was attacked. He must have been too terrified.
Or maybe he was being held down. The wounds are very precise.
Geliy wants to ask. He doesn’t think he should, and even if he tried, he may not get an answer. He still isn’t certain what language this man speaks. So, instead, he lifts himself from the floor in search of something to clean the man’s face with.
There isn’t much. The best he can find is a rag. At least it looks soft. The last thing he wants is to make the pain any worse than it already is.
“Here,” he says, holding up the rag as he sits cross-legged on the floor. “Can I help you?”
“Help,” the man echoes, lips barely moving. It must hurt to speak.
“Help,” Geliy repeats, eyes locked on the blood caked around the man’s mouth. “Let me help you.”
The language the man responds in definitely isn’t Russian. It doesn’t sound like German or French either. But his voice is soft, and his tone is light, and Geliy can make out his intention fine enough, despite the language barrier. He smiles as he carefully dabs the rag at the man’s lips.
Underneath all the raw, reddened skin, he has nice lips. Definitely the kind that Geliy would stare at all night.
It’s probably wrong to fantasize about this kind of thing. The man winces every time the rag catches on a puncture wound. Geliy grimaces, guilt sifting through his chest. He’s always had a habit of getting too lost in his own head. It was a fine enough quirk when he had no one. Now, he has to be present. The man is looking right at him. He looks like he’s in so much pain.
“I’m sorry,” Geliy says as he puts the rag on the ground. He’s not sure if he’s apologizing for the pain or the thoughts. Probably both. Either way, the man won’t understand him. He’s sorry for that too. This must all be so frightening for him.
The man says something. There’s an upward inflection at the end. He’s asking something, though Geliy can’t be sure what it is.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats with a frown.
“Sorry,” the man echoes, eyebrows raising curiously. He points a finger at Geliy. “Sorry?”
Oh, his name. That must be it. Geliy can’t help but smile a little, despite all the guilt. It feels like, maybe, they’re starting to understand each other a little bit.
“My name is Geliy,” he says, pointing a finger at his chest. “Geliy.”
“Geliy,” the man repeats, lips turning up minutely at the corners. The string of words that follow are laced with consonants. Geliy blinks as he tries to catch which cluster contains the man’s name.
It’s clear the man must be frustrated by the language barrier. He lets out a sigh before gesturing at his own chest as more words spring forth from his damaged lips.
It must hurt so much for him to talk. Geliy just nods at whatever he says, hoping it’ll calm him enough to stop moving his lips so much. Now that his mouth has been freed, he seems to have a lot to say.
“It’s okay,” Geliy says, reaching forward to curl his fingers around the fabric of the man’s shirt in an effort to soothe them both. The warmth emanating from underneath is too comforting for him not to reach out and touch. He wants to lean into it.
He nearly can’t stop himself from doing just that. It’s especially hard when the man lays his hand flat over Geliy’s, pressing their fingers close together and repeating a single word multiple times.
“Your name is Demna?” Geliy asks.
The man nods eagerly. “Kho, Demna.”
‘Kho’ must mean ‘yes’ in Demna’s language. It feels like progress. Geliy grins and says, “I like that name. It suits you.”
Demna smiles back. It’s a beautiful smile. Geliy can easily imagine himself sulking at a bar and wishing he had the courage to speak to someone with a smile that beautiful.
It doesn’t last long, though. Demna lets out a moan when the tension on his lips aggravates his wounds.
“Ssh, it’s okay,” Geliy says, leaning in close and laying his palm flat on Demna’s chest.
It’s far from okay. Now that the blood is cleared, Geliy can see each puncture in Demna’s lips. They look as though they were done with a piercing needle. There are twelve distinct holes littered across his face, the six above his lip perfectly aligned with the six below. It reminds Geliy of years ago, or his fabricated memories of years ago, when he was considering getting his lip pierced. The thought of a single needle passing through his lip was enough to make him feel like he was going to faint. The thought of it happening eleven more times, by force, is enough to have him grimacing as he tightens his hold on the front of Demna’s shirt.
A rush of words leave Demna’s lips. They’re paired with both his hands clutching Geliy’s tight to his chest. He sounds frantic, judging from the speed of his speech. Geliy worries that he did something wrong while removing the wires, or perhaps Demna’s offended at the physical contact, or Geliy had been staring too much, but then Demna sucks in an exaggerated breath and says, “Brrr.”
Right, of course. Geliy’s hands are freezing. He smiles sheepishly and nods his head.
The confused look on Demna’s face requires no translation. Geliy knows how bizarre this must be to him. It’s bizarre to everyone. All those people at the old house would still be alive if they weren’t so fixated on how Geliy could possibly be so cold when the world is burning. Their insistence that he show whatever it is he hides under his coat is the reason he’s now aware of the expanse of nothingness that’s come to replace his organs in the past few days.
Maybe it’s always been there. Geliy’s always been bad at keeping up his body temperature.
He rips his hand away from Demna’s chest and tightens his coat over his torso. He needs to be more careful. His sweater could have slipped. He could’ve murdered Demna, just like all the others.
“Brrr,” Demna repeats insistently, grabbing Geliy’s hand and rubbing it between his own. The next words he says are delivered softly, punctuated with a smile. When he points to lips and holds up Geliy’s hand, warming it up between his palms, the meaning is evident—’You helped me, so I’ll help you.’
It’s a kind gesture. Geliy’s always been weak for kind gestures. They’re such a rare gift for a person like him, even rarer now that the world is reaching its end.
He keeps a hand at his waist to clutch his coat over his torso, but he allows himself to lean into Demna’s touch. He rests his forehead on Demna’s shoulder, letting out a content sigh when the heat seeps into his skin.
Demna’s hands leave his own, but only for a moment. He unwraps the jacket from around his neck, holding it out as he voices a question.
Geliy may not know what the words themselves mean, but he’s getting a knack for picking up on nonverbal communication. He smiles and says, “Kho. Thank you.”
Demna perks up at the word. “Kho,” he repeats, nodding his head enthusiastically as he drapes the jacket over Geliy’s shoulders.
It’s a very kind gesture. Geliy shuts his eyes and leans against Demna’s side, imagining a different version of reality—one where they don’t meet in a stranger’s house in the midst of a burning apocalypse. Instead, he imagines that they’re at a bar, and he finally worked up the courage to say hello.
It would be difficult with the language barrier and Geliy’s terrible social skills, but he could ask for a dance. Dancing doesn’t require words, and Demna’s so kind, it’s easy to imagine him saying kho. He seems like the type of person not to laugh at Geliy for being so awkward. He so willingly gave up his jacket, after all.
He’s probably the type who likes to dance, too. He’s got that vibrant purple hair and that earring. His jacket is a bold shade of orange. They’re sparks of brightness in this dim, damp basement.
They’d stand out on a dancefloor in a dim, damp bar. Geliy can imagine himself huffing out a surprised breath when Demna pulls him to the dancefloor, unfurling his awkward limbs from the pockets of his coat so they can move in time to the tinny rock music funneling from the speakers.
They’d be positioned not all that different than they are right now. Geliy’s head is the perfect height to rest on Demna’s shoulder. Demna would wrap a hand around his waist, just like he’s doing right now.
He wouldn’t be doing it to warm Geliy up, though. Geliy wouldn’t be so freezing—he’d be alive, and his stomach would be swimming with butterflies instead of an empty, churning void, and he wouldn’t have to worry about his clothes rucking up and destroying the people around him. He’d invite it when Demna’s hands slip under his sweater to touch his waist.
His waist would be warm. Demna wouldn’t flinch and say ‘brrr’ when he felt Geliy’s skin. He’d just pull Geliy in closer as they danced.
And when they walked home that night, hands clasped together, Geliy would be wearing Demna’s jacket just the same as he is now.
It wouldn’t smell like blood and rot. It’d smell like Demna.
Maybe one day, Geliy will learn what that scent is. The sun will stop burning, the void in his stomach will fill, and he’ll wake up from this horrible dream. He’ll be able to go back to the bar. This time, he won’t be alone. He’ll have a kind man with expressive eyes by his side. His lips will be free of punctures and raised in a smile that doesn’t cause blood to seep from his skin.
They’ll be able to communicate with more than just touches and stilted phrases. Geliy will learn his language. Maybe he’ll move to his country with him and start over somewhere new, where he isn't just a passive observer to a life happening around him. They’ll go somewhere where the sun doesn’t burn your skin and monsters aren’t knocking at your door.
Geliy won’t be a monster when that time comes. Somehow, some way, he’ll be a person. Either again or for the first time, he’ll be just as human as Demna is.
Until that happens, he shuffles in closer to Demna’s side, relishing in the warmth.