Charlie was beginning to feel like it would never stop raining. Thick, oily pools of water gathered in the potholes outside her small, dark studio apartment. The air smelled like wet leaves and the wind seemed to blow her toward the front door. She couldn’t seem to avoid leaving muddy footprints on the linoleum floor just inside the front entrance no matter how many times she wiped her feet.

Fucking mud. She pulled off her tall rubber rain boots and went to the kitchen in search of paper towels to wipe up the mess. Aside from the mud, the apartment was spotless and well-organized. The books on the shelf were alphabetized, spines lined up in a straight row. The only other furniture in the room was a neatly made-up twin bed covered in decorative pillows, a bedside table that was home to a brass desk lamp and a box of Kleenex, a small wooden desk with a mismatched chair, and a salmon-colored velvet tufted loveseat. She had found each piece either by the side of the road or listed for free in an online exchange group. She loved her tiny apartment and worked hard to keep it orderly and comfortable with what little money and resources she had. It was the only part of her life that she felt she had control over these days.

She wiped up the mud, hung her raincoat and umbrella on a hook near the front door, and collapsed onto the loveseat. She was glad for the rain, but it made her feel even more tired than usual and it made her bones ache. It also made her see things. Or maybe just…one thing. One person? She wasn’t sure what it was.

Every time she had left her apartment in the past two weeks, she had seen it. A figure with a white skeletal face and hollow, blue-tinted orbs sitting where its eyes should be. It wore a long, black coat with notched lapels and carried a black umbrella to shield itself from the constant rain. All of this was unsettling enough, but the strangest thing about the figure was that no matter where or when she saw it, it had a bright blue butterfly perched somewhere on its body. The figure seemed to be protecting both itself and the butterfly from the rain with its large umbrella.

The first time she saw the figure, she brushed it off. She had been through a lot lately, and it wouldn’t be the first time her imagination got away from her. It was nothing. The second and third time she saw the figure, she began to worry. She had heard that psychosis often presents in your 20s, and that visual hallucinations were a common component. But why hadn’t she had any other symptoms? And why only this one specific hallucination?

The fourth time she saw it, she was standing at the bus stop, huddling under the shelter to avoid the rain. The figure was crossing the street about half a block away and was heading in her general direction. It seemed to be talking to the butterfly that was perched delicately on the white skeletal hand with which it held the umbrella. She turned to the tall, white, bearded man next to her and pointed at the figure, asking as calmly as she could “do you see that?” The man looked in the direction she was pointing and shrugged, “do I see what?” She shivered, “nevermind.” The man shrugged again, shuffled his feet, and went back to scrolling through his phone completely unperturbed.

The figure drew closer and closer, chatting merrily away to the butterfly. Soon, it began to walk slowly past the bus stop. As it did so, it looked up at her and seemed to suddenly realize that she was looking at it. The figure stiffened, stepped back slightly, and abruptly stopped speaking to the butterfly. It drew its hand closer to itself, as though it were trying to protect the butterfly. If she didn’t know any better, she would think it was startled. The figure then fixed its face into an inscrutable expression, nodded at her politely, and continued walking. She watched in complete bewilderment as the figure ambled away and gradually disappeared into the distance. She stared at the figure so intently and for so long that she didn’t even notice as the number 11 bus came and went.