The first day of the weekend started sunny, but around noon heavy clouds started to pile up, just two hours before Jasmine was about to leave. She pulled out a large umbrella from the closet and put it next to an already packed purse. She hesitated to choose between open toe beige sandals with high heels and white flip-flops, to finally opt for sandals. Flip-flops are too informal. She was wearing a white sleeveless blouse with a lace around V-shaped neckline and a long beige 'peasant' skirt. This outfit looked very beautiful with her tanned complexion. After tying her hair into ponytail, she sat down on the couch to relax a little before leaving. She had very vivid dreams that night, and it was not uncommon for her to linger between deep sleep and being awake with people from her dreams looking like they really were. next to her. Since she was living alone sometimes this could feel quite creepy. She didn’t want to sacrifice her independence and tolerate someone else's habits every single day. Living with a person, be it a boyfriend or a friend, meant you would never be alone for too long, you would be less scared when you are overthinking things, or when you look into the darkness, fearing what it could hide, and you are still not awake enough to get up and turn on the light. But living alone also meant that you can have your own space and your own time to organize them as you wish at any time. Jasmine became almost addicted to this feeling of large personal space. Loneliness was below on a scale of importance after independence and not wanting to adapt to anyone’s else's needs or schedules and not to be responsible for anyone else but herself.

  That has changed since the unusual event on Wednesday night, when confronted with a possible intruder in her apartment, and since then she had a vague feeling that she was not living alone. Yes, someone else was near her in that apartment, watching her. It wasn't an animal hiding nearby, for example, a nest with sparrows, a mouse, or a stray cat. No, it was a feeling that there was a human hiding nearby. That should be impossible, because her apartment was very small, that there was simply no space for anyone to hide. Despite that, since the event with the creature in the bathtub, Jasmine felt paranoid, so much that even a business trip seemed like a perfectly acceptable excuse to run away from home for a while. She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes briefly. It was still a day, slightly cloudy weather, but still bright enough for anything terrible to happen. The horror comes at night, not during daylight, not when the streets are full of people, when the TV is on, not when neighbors make noise in the hallways of the building.

  She must have fallen asleep, her eyes were closed but she could clearly hear someone's breathing beside her. When she felt a gentle touch stroking her hair, she screamed and woke up. The thing she saw was terrifying as hell, and she screamed even louder, trying to get away from it. She was definitely not alone and the feeling that haunted her for days did not deceive her. Someone was with her, that being living by her side, watching her while she slept, in the dark next to her sleeping body, maybe even touching her. That was not a human being, nor an animal! Whatever the creature crawling on the couch in the place next to where she slept until a few seconds ago was, it wasn’t human or natural. It looked like a huge monstrous crab, with pink hard shell covering his large body and head. From under that body armor it had extremities, eerily resembling human arms and legs, deformed and crooked limbs, almost beyond recognition, but still with enough resemblance to human limbs to look indescribably scary and indescribably sad at the same time. The creature had human eyes. In contrast to the rest of its monstrous, nightmarish body, the creature had beautiful, crystal blue human eyes. They watched her with sadness, but also with a diligent dose of curiosity and intelligence, and her terrified screams and fear abruptly weakened.

  Still holding herself away from the creature, Jasmine slowly started to calm down. If it wanted to hurt or kill or harm her it would have already done so. There were opportunities for that, so many of them by now. And besides, even though the creature looked grotesque and mythically unreal, it did not look threatening. With those short limbs and solid armor, it looked like it was built to defend itself and not to attack. The creature could pull its limbs under his shell and then be closed solid. Now his whole head protruded from his armor and Jasmine felt a new wave of horror. Not only were creature’s eyes human and its limbs had a resemblance with the human limbs, but this creature also had something very similar to human face. Maybe the eyes were too prominent for a human, but there was clearly a nose, full and attractive lips and a small chin that could retreat under the shell, like in a turtle. "I am dreaming. This is a nightmare, ”she said quietly. The creature watched her silently and now she was sure that this was an intelligent being, resembling human, which made its deformity scarier and even sadder. What could distort a human being so much but to still stay alive? Maybe in front of her was a victim of a horrible experiment or, more likely, a hallucination.

  The creature raised one deformed little arm, resembling a crab's leg, and Jasmine recoiled in horror at the thought that it probable touched her with that. Before she could realize what the creature was up to, it quickly and skillfully slipped off the couch and began to run away towards, it seemed, some hidden exit door. To her own surprise she said, "Plese, stop!" And it stopped, standing by the door hesitantly, as if wondering whether to leave or face Jasmine. She almost regretted stopping it, that creature looked intelligent, maybe dangerous. Despite monstrosity of this being, there was something undeniably interesting, even charismatic in it. Jasmine stood up and walked closer to it, surprised by her own courage, to look at those navy blue eyes. "What are you?" She asked, and immediately corrected herself. "Who are you?"

  The creature stood as if paralyzed, watching her, and then spoke, in a low, hoarse voice that struggled to form words, a voice she had already heard several times during sleep. "I have to go."

  "What do you want?" She asked more calmly, encouraged by this creature talking. She was right. This was an intelligent being.

  "I just wanted to see a woman. You are a beautiful woman. I haven’t seen a woman for a long time. Not that close to me. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have touch you. I'm leaving now."

  It didn't move, though.

  "Are you human?"

  "Do I look like human?" It replied, pulling its head in an armor, so that it only showed its eyes.

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  "Hmm, no. To a certain extent. I don’t know."

  "I was a man. And now I'm also a human. Under this shell."

  "What ... how did that happen? How did you get so ... um, uh ... changed?"

  "Please, turn to the other side. I want to get out. I do not want you to find out about my exit place. I want to leave now."

  She was surprised when she heard her own voice saying: "Don't go yet. I want to talk. What is your name?"

  The creature retreated a little further toward the door. There was something reassuring about him, even appealing, despite the monstrous deformities, at least she thought there was. In his eyes, in those human eyes, were remains of a soul that was disarmingly pleasant.

  "I am Sergei. You are an unusual person. How are you not afraid?”

  "Sergei?" She said, amused by the fact that crab-like a man with beautiful eyes has a human name.

  "I don’t know. I'm not afraid. Sergei, do you live in my apartment?”

  "I live anywhere I can. Now I live in rooms where there are no people. Close to your apartment. There's a way to get from there to your room. I didn't mean to scare you. Just to see you. Then I wanted to see you again. Several times. I am sorry"

  She slowly sat on the floor in front of Sergei who was almost completely tucked into his shell and only his breathing could be heard from inside. Let's say that this was a nightmare, or a dream, let's say this was not real, hallucination, that would be fine. But what to do if this is not a dream? It didn't look like a dream. There was no dreamlike lightness of body, absence of any weight and real problems. She was hungry, it was warm and sweat was dripping from her hair down her back. What suggested that this was a dream, however, was the absence of fear. That calmed her down.

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "I don't mind."

  "Will you report me? Am I going back to the circus as freak again?” he asked but without a shred of fear in his voice.

  "If you don't want to go, then don't," she said, "but I don't like anyone sneaking around my apartment. That scares me."

  "How else can I see a human being other than from hiding? My body is monstrous." He said it like a fact, without bitterness.

  "You are with me now. I'm not afraid," she said but still thinking: "... because I am pretty sure this is just a dream."

  "I was an artist," Sergei said suddenly, "scientist, and an alchemist. I used to be handsome. Once long time ago..."

  "Is there anything I can do for you?" She asked.

  "Make me a potion that will make me human again."

  "What potion?"

  "Just kidding. No potion. There is no going back. Does not matter. I was a handsome man for much longer time than any human ever. Maybe this is my punishment. Maybe it had to be that way. Everything has to be paid. Everything you get is a trade."

  This was turning into something quite weird. She was walking around the room. "Okay, stay here as long as you want," she said, convinced that he wouldn’t stay and that, after she returns from her trip tonight, she will never see him again. How was she so calm? "I have to go to work. We'll talk when I get back."

  "I'm coming with you," Sergei said, and Jasmine froze. Maybe she's losing her mind. Unless ... unless other people can see him too. But to whom could she show a man who looks like this? She had no friends, not so close anyway. Sergei pulled his head and limbs out of the armor and now he looked more like something between a man and a turtle with the color of the human skin, rather than a giant crab.

  "No." she said firmly. "I can't take you with me. Please and give me time to process this."

  She turned away and left the apartment. Few minutes later she was sitting in her car, and before starting the engine, she turned back to put her bags and umbrella on the back seat. She almost screamed but hold her hand over her mouth. There was an old blanket in the back, for which she knew was not there before, and she could see Sergei's large shell-like body lurking beneath it. On the street, in the light of day, his appearance was even more absurd, his existence was impossible. And how did he get down there so fast? He must have had some secret passages that led to her apartment and down to the street. But, still... how?

  "How the hell did you do this?" She screamed at him when the car was on the road and she put it in third gear.

  "I'm sorry," said an already familiar voice under a plaid blanket "I have my ways. I didn't want to scare you."

  She was so upset she almost crashed a cat. She turned left at the intersection and continued to drive, still trembling. When they turned out of busy city roads to far less busy outback, she dared to talk to her new companion.

  "How did you get to look like this?”

  "I've forgotten a lot," murmured the voice below blanket "I remember leaving home, a long, long time ago, I remember Lena ... I remember how she died. She was too young. And I loved her. I remember my works. My paintings. And medicine, from which I lived. I was making medicine for various diseases. I made a cure for all diseases and I tried it on myself. Then there was a war and all my work was destroyed. And a drug formula. I forgot everything, who I am and where I came from and what I did. Until I realized that I lived too long. I didn't get sick. I was not getting old. That lasted too long. Decades. Then centuries." He paused to rest for a few minutes and then continued. "That could not last forever. I knew it couldn't. Yet I didn't expect this. Metamorphosis. Body changes."

  "Metamorphosis?" Jasmine asked.

  "That's right. It was slow, but the worst thing was that I had hope. Hope is a dangerous thing. Reversibility. It didn't happen. While I was hoping, it was bad. I was and a freak in a circus, made a living of it. Then changes became too much for people. I was more than a freak. Had to escape from the circus. I was too much of abomination to even exist. Stopped thinking about going back to society. I'm ok.. I can think. I'm learning. I live. And it doesn't matter." He fell silent.

  Jasmine swerved the car off the road and stopped by the side. She turned to her companion. He looked at her, without bitterness, without regret, without a trace of self-pity that might go with his story. She looked at him curiously and with a fair amount of fascination. Weirdly enough, she believed him. It surprised her even more that she was not afraid of him at all. She was fascinated. After all, he was obviously able to move in far more skillful and faster ways than it seemed at first glance. He even found her car and crawled into it within minutes. So he was much more capable than he looked. He could have hurt her if he wanted to, he had myriad of chances to do so But there was more to him than that. She had is vague feeling that she could trust him. That was new to her. She didn’t trust anyone before.

  "Well, what are you going to do while I'm at work? You can't come with me as my colleague." she imagined Sergei appearing as her colleague on business meeting and almost laughed out loud. She was stunned when she was she saw that he laughed too, and had mischievous look on his face.

  "I will wait for you. I'm used to waiting." He crawled out from under the blanket and settled over the back seat. His appearance pretty much stuck out and he could probably be seen through the car windows by other drivers.

  "Someone will see you!" She warned him, pulling back the blanket over his shell-covered body. "Here, you can show your head, but we'll cover the body and the tail." she said, without thinking. "I don't have a tail, I am not a dog." Sergei grumbled, pulling his head back into shell together with his "tail".