My wandering of the ivory forest had left me hopelessly and maddeningly lost within myself, believing that I would never once feel the warmth of my heartbeat now, It be just a beat of survival. And I tranquilized my foreboded fate with memories of nights when the moon looked through my window seat hither and paid me attention with its midnight omnipotent eye. At the same time, I enwrapped myself amid toasted blankets baked by the warmth of my beating, youthful soul. Then came a yellow tint to the damnable deathly whiteness, and being a difference in the monotonous plain, I stalked through the banks of snow toward it. Then my eyes began to shimmer though I feared the tears might freeze quickly, puncturing my weeping portals. Human life, albeit no identification of a human but the makings of one, sat almost entirely concealed by winter's embrace, and a thought I damned to be forgotten was that if the lights had not been on then, I might have walked towards a frigid death. The home was coated in a layer of hard snow, but the windows held a picturesque scene of an inviting home within, which had me barreling at the door. My chilled digits cracked and snapped into a fist, landing on the wooden door though the sensitivity of my skin had my hand throbbing from the sharp pain which began after my knock. One knock was all I landed though it was successful in churning up life within the cabin, for I heard the sound of floorboards croaking and an audible footstep approaching the door.

It shook, and a distinct latch sound was heard before the door opened a sliver, and the light which poured out was quickly halted by a body, and that of which I only saw the glaring bulbous eye investigating my presence. I spoke to the human of my dire need for help to which I was replied to with silence. For a moment, all hope was crippled when the door slammed shut, but a second latching sound was heard, and the door swung farther now to show the gaping opening into the inviting luminous of the inner walls. My voiceless guest had begun already walking back to his seat, which I saw was his from the opened book and glasses that sat on an ancient wood end table. He sat down in his chair, picked up the book, and held it to his face, further mystifying his identity. For some time,, I sat by the door, waiting to be additionally introduced to the home, in silence, except for the crackling and snapping of the fire which danced in its cage and the man's irregular turning of pages. Then I watched the man's left hand release the book, and with his long finger, he pointed to the opposing side of the fireplace where an empty sofa chair sat waiting for me. It was an offputting gesture, but out respect, I obliged my hosts request and walked towards the offered seating. As I walked closer, my host slightly shifted his book as so, I could continuously not see his face and as I sat down on the chair was face to book with my mysterious host. I sat, taking in the warmth from the fire and resting my feeble consciousness, enjoying the serenity of my rescue. The man's house was vast inside with walls hidden by rows of books with unknown titles and of obscure languages and the walls with no books adorned with strange ornaments that had untold mysteries and reasoning to hang such decorations I could not figure out. A clock hung above the mantlepiece, silent in its passing of time. It read five thirty-two p.m. I do not know when I fell to my exhaustion, but when I awoke, the clock had read nine forty-eight p.m. The fire was now but an incandescent mass of coughing coals. It was a suffocating silence in the home, though the whining of the winter's tempest was at the door, shifting the house, causing it to moan from discomfort. I had assumed that my host must have left me to my dreams while he found his own within his bedroom. I got up from my chair and found myself drawn towards a bookshelf behind me. The books were hazed with darkness and a thin layer of dusk, which after careful prodding, I had come to realize that most of the home was unkept and time-lost, seeming to be more used by the insects which commonly lurk in the deterioration of man, than the man who lived here. In the darkness, a quick succession of scratches echoed within the silence, and with instinct and fear driving me, my head snapped to look behind, but nothing but a still scene of absence and nighttime ambiance was shown to me. I continued my scan of the curious books, picking at random one from the shelf, which, when I blew off the collection of forgottenness, read an unrecognizable dialect that I had never seen and though I am not of advanced intelligence to see such symbolistic characters made wonder what they meant and who would read such books; books that too me had weird suggestions of occult like literature and pictures that perturbed me greatly. Then another scurrying in the dark, this time far more aggressive and lasting for a more significant period than before, but as my eyes peered with great worry into the void that encapsulated the interior, I saw nothing but a quiet room. I walked up towards the mantle, which was gloomily illuminated by the smoldering coals beneath yet still smeared the objects’ shadows that lay upon it, up onto the wall like a stain. Objects of odd uses and or meanings which I could not make out by a mere view yet holding the items also left me perplexed, and they held similar qualities of occultism as the books did. And then for a third time did I hear the scurrying scratches of something within the dark and at this I turned completely back around and exclaimed myself aloud with courage yet my world shook slightly as I peered aimlessly into the dark. And although I sense a presence I was not expecting, or maybe wanting, a response yet I did receive one and it spoke with a croaky voice that seemed to hiccup and droop in its words. Though the words it spoke I could not understand for they were syllables of some tongue which did not even sound human. And from the dark I saw movement. The Host fell into the tenuous light from the almost dead coals and in that moment I saw his face. A long vertical mouth slit which ran down all the way from the top of his cranium to the beginning of his chin and jutting out were quivering teeth of cone like proportions. He pressed forward maniacally towards me and though I pleaded, the fear which dripped from my pores only seemed to arrose him more, now a black ichor dripped from the bottom of his mouth. His slanderous tendrils reached out towards me and though I tried to run his arms kept me prisoned within his eye sight, to watch me breakdown and see the light in my eyes fade when he takes his first bite.