At first glance, no one would have mistaken the dark figure for a human.
It was about as tall as Mai Mingle and spoke with perfect clarity, not a single drop of spittle escaping its lips.
It had ears, hands, and even a cell phone—wait a minute.
In the murky, rainy night, Mai Mingle squinted hard.
'Is… is that a cell phone?'
The resident had lowered its arms. They now hung loosely at its sides, its hands pinching the hem of its long robe. It swayed the robe in circles around its body, like a shy little girl twirling her skirt.
But the phone remained attached to its ear.
A sliver of white light from the screen illuminated half of its face—a face Mai Mingle wished had remained in the dark.
Below a single, high, protruding eye was a lower eyelid, just like a human's.
A curved slit split open in the skin of that lower eyelid, revealing half of a second eyeball.
