Zalan sat empty on the worn-out couch of his dimly lit apartment, his thoughts feeling so far away from him, yet consuming his every faculty. He stared at the ceiling fan lazily rotating above him with a dissociated focus.Tracking a single blade with his eyes, his mind was stuck in rote loops of repeating questions that permeated through his numb mind. Why was he such a pathetic son?  Every revolution of the fan made him think the same things, trapped in the endless loop.

“Zalan! Open up!” 

Slowly sinking back into reality, Zalan recognized the voice of his cousin, Asher. He barely registered the visitor, not knowing how long he had been there. The persistent knocking echoed through the apartment, and the distorted silhouette of his cousin pressed against the frosted glass window, his features obscured by the fading light. The outline of Asher’s hands could easily be seen as his face went as close as it could to the window. Zalan hoped the dark home was enough to obscure him. 

“I see you, Zalan! Open the door! Come on!” Asher rapped against the window. 

Mechanically, almost without thinking, Zalan rolled himself off the couch. His phone slid off his stomach, thudding against the floor. He had been scrolling for hours before it ran out of batteries. Quickly, he stored it in his pocket. 

Finding his way to the front door, Zalan opened it a crack. The light of the outside world caused Zalan to squint.

“Ash,” Zalan acknowledged monotonously, looking him up and down. Asher had a tupperware of food in one hand, a bottle of pills in the other, and a series of worry lines on his face. He quickly evaluated Zalan, his eyes zipping with increasing intensity. 

Zalan could only assume what his cousin was seeing. There was plenty to pick up from the deep bags under his red eyes. Or the wrinkly, grease-stained clothes, and matted, dirty hair. Asher sighed, closing his eyes and reopening them quickly. 

“Zalan. Are you okay? No one’s been able to call you in days,” Asher asked, throwing the door open and allowing himself inside. Zalan shrugged and closed the door behind him, dragging his feet to catch up. Asher looked him over for another few seconds before Zalan realized he’d been asked a question.

“Not really in the mood to talk,” Zalan said, tapping his pants pocket that held his phone. He deliberately placed it on Do Not Disturb, but was too dependent on the comfortable feeling in his pocket and couldn’t just leave it in his room.

“Doesn’t mean you can ignore everyone,” Asher said pointedly, looking around the apartment. 

The residence was shrouded in darkness, the setting sun casting long shadows in the rooms, none of which had any lights on. Asher kicked lightly at the small pile of pizza boxes at the foot of the kitchen counter and made a face before forcing a smile and looking up at Zalan. The floor was littered with crumbs from various chips as well as their bags haphazardly thrown around the home. Candy wrappers and popcorn kernels gave the white kitchen floor an extra splash of color. Asher began to pick up the smaller trash immediately as Zalan watched impassively. 

“You drinking any water?” Asher asked. 

“I guess,” Zalan shrugged. 

“That’s not really an answer,” Asher replied, frowning. 

Zalan offered nothing more. Asher continued to pick up wrappers, biting his lip nervously. 

“We’re worried about you, man,” Asher finally said, dumping a small pile of trash in the overflowing trash can. 

“Hmm,” Zalan said, his eyes and mind beginning to drift away from the conversation. 

“I’m serious! We haven’t seen you in days. Can’t get you on the phone. Have you at least gone to visit her?” Asher asked. 

Zalan’s eyes narrowed as he brought himself back, trying to piece together the puzzle of the question. Visit?

“You mean Mom?” Zalan asked, his stomach lurching.

“Yeah, who else?” Asher asked. 

“Why would I…” Zalan trailed, deciding not to complete the thought. 

“It’ll be good for you,” Asher assured him. 

Zalan’s lip twitched and he turned away from Asher, lumbering back to sit on his indented spot on the couch. Asher pulled out the trash bag in the kitchen’s bin and replaced it. He took the trash bag and leaned it against the front door before going to join Zalan in the living room in a seat across from his cousin. He flipped on the light, and Zalan turned away with his eyes closed, pained by the second uninvited guest in his home. He clicked his tongue in irritation.

“So, you’re gonna go visit her?” Asher pressed. 

Zalan sighed and laid down across the couch, placing a hand over his eyes to block out the light. 

“Zalan?” 

“What?” Zalan snapped, annoyed. 

“You’re gonna visit her,” Asher said with finality. He was no longer asking.

“Why?”

“Then you’ll do it because I’ll drag you there. We’re gonna get you out of the apartment and help you. Not like you’re even pretending you have anything better to do,” Asher said, looking around the mess of Zalan’s home. 

Zalan laid silently as Asher leaned forward in his chair, awaiting a response. Zalan breathed slowly, giving no indication he was still a part of the conversation. 

“Zalan?” Asher ventured. 

“Yes! Fine, I’ll go! Just please stop talking, Ash. And turn off the light!”

Asher opened his mouth to say something more, but decided to shrug and accept the small victory. He placed the tupperware on a coffee table next to Zalan, and the bottle of pills next to that. 

“Eat something,” Ash said. “It’s barbeque chicken and carrots.”

Zalan shifted the hand away from his eye, peeking at the container of food. His stomach groaned. He sighed and rolled himself up, pulling off the plastic cover and pointedly avoiding the gaze of Asher’s satisfied smirk as Zalan took a big bite of chicken. 

“And take one of these,” Asher knocked on the closed bottle of pills. 

“What is it?” Zalan asked, his mouth full. 

“Sleeping pill. You’ll feel better,” Asher promised. 

Zalan grumbled in disappointment, snapping a carrot loudly and rolling his eyes. Asher watched intently, making sure Zalan took a decent fill of food before bringing him a cup of water and opening the bottle of pills. Asher spilled out a single purple and black pill and placed it next to the cup. Zalan studied the pill, its color nothing like he’d seen on any medicine before. 

“What is this again? This doesn’t look normal,” Zalan attempted.

“Drink it,” Asher asserted. 

Zalan made a face and drank down the pill, waiting for something either magic or tragic to happen, but instead felt nothing at all. Which was about the feeling he’d had for days now. He shrugged and finished the cup of water, irrigating his body for the first time in a day or two. Remembering to drink water dropped lower on his priorities by the day. He pushed forward the empty tupperware and cup toward Asher.

“Happy now?” Zalan asked. 

“Very,” Asher said, finally turning the lights back off. “I’m going to take you to visit her first thing in the morning.”

“Whatever,” Zalan said, laying himself back down on the couch. 

“Don’t you want to at least go to sleep in your bed?” Asher asked. 

Zalan didn’t reply. Asher went back to the kitchen and began the job of tossing the pizza boxes, trash, and cleaning the dishes for his cousin while Zalan stared at the slowly rotating ceiling fan. It spun endlessly, but wasn’t moving fast enough to cool down the room. It was useless at this speed, yet Zalan felt comforted by it in a perverse way. Like it was a kindred spirit, drifting instead of moving with any deliberate direction. Something that could show no emotion and could not cry.

Zalan allowed his eyes to scan the walls to pass the time until his cousin would leave his home. He fixated on his college graduation picture. The image had been long neglected, a screen of dust settled upon it. There he stood with his mom, proudly holding his degree for the camera. Bachelor of Science in Physics with a Minor in Computer Sciences. The image looked nothing like him. Every time he had seen himself in the mirror, a smile was the furthest expression. His mom’s smile was radiant, something he wished he could have seen any of the past few days. Graduating at 21, he felt his whole life was ahead of him. Less than a year later, his life felt like it was already over.

Zalan was soon breathing steadily, sleep oozing itself over his mind to take its hold over him. He enjoyed sleep, it being his only escape from the typical feelings of his life. Ironically, it sometimes made him feel alive to be in a dream. 

Like the many fitful sleeps in prior days, Zalan lost consciousness with dry eyes and a frown on his face.

Until his body heaved, like he was suddenly dropped into a void.  

Zalan’s first instinct was to believe that he was simply experiencing the falling sensation that sometimes came about when he was on the brink of sleep, but as he opened his eyes he saw he was at least three feet above the ground and screamed as he covered his face when he crashed into the ground. His heart thumped recklessly as he slid a few feet in dirt and stopped abruptly. He coughed and threw his head up, witnessing a hulking creature towering over him. 

The creature felt colossal over Zalan, at least two times his size. Its standing wolven form was a collection of gray ash creating ponderous legs and nimble arms. Flames licked up limbs, climbing as far as his back and brightening the area like a signal flame, making it hard for Zalan to look at it directly. The gray sand of its skin shone and formed up in pine-like leaves at its back, like a silver, glimmering shell of gunpowder, ready to explode. Its arms and legs were accented with crimson red claws, as though permanently stained in blood. Deep, red eyes watched Zalan intently, tiny firelike wisps passing over the pupils causing them to dance in bloodlust. Grinning widely, it revealed its jagged brown teeth as. Zalan shuddered and backed away slowly as the nightmare creature raised an arm toward him. 

A thin orange stream light emitted from the creature’s claw like a laser pointer and snaked its way to Zalan. Zalan yelped and scrambled away on all fours, completely terrified by whatever demonic fever dream approached him with its wide, soulless grin. The orange light stopped moving once it reached the point Zalan was hunched over only a few moments ago, then the ground began swelling before exploding in fire and dirt, temporarily blinding Zalan by the intensity of the flame. Zalan screamed in fear and again began scrambling as fast as he could in his unseeing state before finally being able to make out shapes once more. 

When his vision came to, Zalan was madly disoriented. The sun was way too high. It should have just now gone down right as he was falling asleep. His eyebrows approached each other as he suddenly realized that he was nowhere near home, stranded somewhere out in plains with sparse flora and an old wooden town in the distance with an ocean beyond it. The climate was arid and warm, and the horizon was empty on several sides. He couldn’t see his apartment complex anywhere. Everything looked like a dream, but he felt wholly awake. 

Something shifted behind him. He remembered with his heart sinking into his stomach that a monstrous creature had been next to him a moment ago. He twisted his neck around rapidly and gasped.

The creature had raised its arm again and the thin orange light tracked across the ground, landed immediately in front of Zalan’s feet. Zalan looked up at the creature, then back down in horror as the orange light burrowed into the earth. The ground shifted beneath him, and he could sense the blast that would soon emerge, swelling in anticipation of obliteration.