65

The neighbour awoke several hours later. The green light above him gently warmed his eyelids before he slowly opened them. He lay flat beside the birdbath pedestal that his watches sat on. He sensed his tormentor - the one with the ashes - present in the antechamber also, tainting it. He cried in agony as he attempted to sit up, the wound above his hip burning again as he tightened his core to move. He dropped his head back down to the floor with a thud. He wondered for a moment whether this man was a friend of the Bears. Whether he’d put him up to it, to scare him, until he recalled again the ember eyes he had. They hadn’t blinked. Not once. He’d been in such agony that he hadn’t realised at the time - only now, as he rewound the old tape, the man had no eyelids. He was no acquaintance of the Bear. This man was from some deep.

“I tried to visit you many times before. But you locked it. How?” asked the ember eyes behind and to the left of him.

“I. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the neighbour whined.

The eyes laughed - patient and painful.

“No one ever locked their deep before you. I live in a world of open doors. I dislike the precedent you set.”

“I didn’t set any precedent. I just, I just, I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“The boy and the girl are down there now. They both paid a lot to open that door. I need to know how you locked it.”

“Locked what?”

The laugh was worse, his patience was waning. The eyes moved closer; he was as tall as the Bear. He moved to the watches, brought his hand crashing down through the lid of the case. The neighbour cried out. His great hand picked up a shard of glass as he moved back around the pedestal, stepping towards the neighbour and dropping down. Squatting behind his head, he lifted his face closer to his. The neighbour again reckoned the proximity of his end.

“Your deep - you fucking mongrel,” said the eyes.

“I didn’t even know it was locked. I mean, I never locked it. I didn’t, I, you could have come. I. You,” he carried on starting several sentences that failed to materialise. The patience was gone.

The visitor lifted the neighbour's head with his left hand, placed the shard of glass against the crown of his forehead, and pressed it in and up. Pulling towards him. He felt his skin tighten and begin to fold before the tension gave, and he drew a single deep cut across the crown of his head.

“Think. Quickly,” said the ember eyes as they disappeared behind the shower of warm, thick blood pouring down into the neighbour's eyes.