The Stranger had snuck into your room in the dead of night, slipping between the window gap you had left cracked open to let in the cool night air. They had appeared like a shadowy blip in the colorfulness of your tiny room.

The Stranger was a swath of particles embedded in the physical world, like a deformation or blemish in the perfect simulation of time and space. They were neither visible nor invisible. They were simply there, an energy that occupied volume and area.

The Stranger, once in your home, carefully walked the length of your wooden floored room. They admired the way you existed in this world, the way you chose to decorate your room, and the colors you seemed to favor for aesthetic purposes. You, in all your simple glory, were the type of human who did not value order and precision. The Stranger knew, before even seeing you, that you were the chaotic sort who enjoyed living in a room overcrowded with meaningless items.

The Stranger assumed, after the first appraisal of your living quarters, that you were the lonely type. It would explain your enjoyment of filling your surroundings with items to close the spaces between one thing and the other. You enjoyed your possessions, the Stranger assumed, because it gave you a sense of ‘having’, something you seemed to lack in this world.

The Stranger made their way to your bed, a wiry frame that still held the faded remains of peeling stickers from your childhood. They watched your sleeping form, unaware and unassuming of the shift of energy in your home. The second the Stranger laid their eyes on you they pitied you. For they instantly knew that their first analysis had been correct. You were lonely, and that loneliness was accompanied by the knowledge that very few would miss you if you ceased to exist in this world.

The Stranger knew that no one would know the difference between you and someone who simply looked like you. The veneer, however imperfect and imprecise, would fool everyone who knew you because those people you surrounded yourself with every day didn’t remember you long enough to keep your image in their minds. They didn’t pay attention to your eyes or your lips, or the way you smiled and the way you walked. They didn’t know your sense of humor or your hopes and your dreams; they didn’t even know the tremor of your voice or the nervous way you fidgeted as you spoke. To them, you were just a person they knew, a temporary being that only existed when you were under their gaze. Now, alone in your bed with the covers drawn close, you were nothing; to them, you no longer existed.

So, as the Stranger passed by your bed, running their hands over your trinkets and your memories, they knew that they had found exactly who they were looking for- a Stranger like themselves, a nobody.

The Stranger knelt beside your sleeping form, a pang of empathy slivering beneath their chest as they looked down at you. They leaned forward, placing a single kiss on each cold cheek and atop your forehead. A sign of respect, an apology for breaking into your home, and a goodbye.

The Stranger ran their hands over the sheets that covered your sleeping form, scattering the tiny, rounded capsules that lay loose between the folds of your blanket. They tucked the corners of the patchwork blanket around your body, creating a warm cocoon around you.

Slowly, the Stranger stood at full height and scanned your room. Their eyes caught on something, a bright yellow flash of color on your dresser. As they drew closer, they saw that it was a bouquet of plastic daffodils, sitting in a dusty glass vase.

The Stranger smiled.

So you liked daffodils?

The Stranger made a mental note of that, remembering to bring you a fresh bouquet the next time they visited you. The Strangers mind, now an encyclopedia of botany and florals, had made sure to keep note of the flowers their victims favored. It was the least they could do after breaking into their homes unannounced.

The Stranger was about to leave, their leg already hoisted over the windowsill, when they heard a thump from somewhere else in the house.

They frowned, they could have sworn you lived alone. The Stranger hesitantly climbed down from the windowsill and drifted towards the open door of your bedroom. They crept around the small confines of your apartment, mindful of sticking to the shadows.

When they got to your living room their eyes roamed around the space, skimming over empty coffee cups and half-abandoned canvases on the wooden floor. Suddenly, a blur of orange movement caught their eye, and they whipped their head towards the source.

There, curled up on the arm of the couch, was a tawny plump cat, its long tail coiled around its body.

‘So you don’t live alone’, thought the Stranger, ‘you have a companion'.

The Stranger walked towards the cat, their mind churning at the sudden realization that they hadn’t understood the situation at all, at least not fully. You had a pet and judging by the cat toys that littered the floor and the large scratching post that took up half your living room space, you loved the thing. So why would you leave it all alone? Why would you leave your window open knowing a Stranger could come in at any time?

Then it dawned on them, you hadn’t meant to leave the window open. You had made a mistake. You hadn’t wanted the Stranger to break into your home, at least not tonight with your beloved cat still in the house.

A heavy, crackling pain settled in the Stranger’s chest as the dots connected in their mind. They shouldn’t have been here tonight. The window hadn’t been left open to intentionally let the Stranger in. It had been an accident, a poor stroke of judgment from a very lonely and impulsive person. The Stranger bent over the couch and scooped the cat in their arms. The cat stirred, prying open its large slitted eyes. It looked up at the Stranger, or at least it seemed to look up at them, its head tilted curiously. Then it looked away, as though it had realized that the Stranger was not a threat, it was nothing but a shadow that existed, suspending the cat in mid-air. A soft ‘meow’ filled the room as the cat looked over the Strangers shoulder, towards the bedroom. The Stranger pressed its lips to the cat’s ear, murmuring that its owner was asleep and that they would be caring for the creature while its owner rested.

The Stranger made its way back to the room, the cat still bundled in its arms. They got to the window from which they had entered and turned back to look at your sleeping form one last time. The cat followed their gaze, a hushed sound escaping its mouth as it looked at you. The Stranger drew the cat closer to its chest and lifted one leg over the lip of the window, then it lifted the other. Soon, the Stranger and the cat were gone, leaving behind a very empty and very lonely house.