"Daddy… I'm home…" Simon's voice drifted through the house as he stepped inside after school. "Why are you always so quiet, Daddy…?" he asked, his tone soft yet uncomfortably casual as he wandered into the living room and sat on a worn-out couch next to what remained of a half-decomposed corpse, dressed in a lab coat. "You just want to slip away, don't you?" he continued, his voice almost tender, as he unscrewed a small bottle and carefully dripped two drops of an unidentified liquid into each of the corpse's clouded eyes. "Your eyes… so green. I wish they were mine, really."
Ding-dong.
The sudden chime of the doorbell shattered the twisted moment of 'peace.'
Simon rose slowly, each step toward the door weighted with hesitation. His uncertainty seemed to grow with every inch of distance he closed.
"Good afternoon…?" he muttered as he finally opened the door.
"Good afternoon," replied a young man, likely in his early twenties. He looked like a pizza delivery driver, holding a box in one hand and a payment terminal in the other.
"Oh...?" Simon hesitated, confused. He hadn't ordered a pizza. No one could have. He lived alone—well, alone with corpses—and even in his fractured state of mind, he knew the dead couldn't prank him with a pizza delivery.
"I've got a delivery for Mr. James... Abashkin," the delivery man clarified.
"Ah, right, yeah, that's my father. He's busy with his research at the moment, so I'll take it for him. He must've wanted a little snack. I completely forgot."
"That'll be 15 dollars," the man said, with an expression that was starting to hint at discomfort.
"I'll just grab the money," Simon responded calmly, turning back toward the living room as if there wasn't a decaying body sprawled out in full view. He moved with unsettling nonchalance, retrieving a wallet and counting the bills. No card—cash felt more... appropriate.
As Simon returned to pay, he noticed the delivery man's face was tightening with unease. Then, Simon realized—he hadn't activated the filter that masked the stench of decomposition. The pungent, gag-inducing odor had undoubtedly reached the man's senses.
"Here you go, 15 dollars," Simon said, offering the cash.
"Thanks…" the man replied, his tone thick with disgust as he handed over the pizza box.
Simon closed the door slowly and leaned back against it, cradling the box in his arms. The smell in the house seemed to seep into him, but he didn't mind. He calmly switched the filter back on, letting the foulness fade.
"Hm... are you playing pranks on me?" Simon murmured, raising an eyebrow at the lifeless body beside him as he settled back onto the couch. His father's glassy eyes offered no response.
…
The pizza was quite good though.
"Ehh, what do you want?" Tyler asked, standing uneasily in a dim alley. Before him, a shadowed figure loomed, its features obscured by the darkness that seemed to cling to it like a second skin.
"You. Take this, and make sure no one else knows what happened here," the figure rasped.
Tyler looked down at the slip of paper handed to him, his face paling as his eyes scanned the name. James Abashkin. Simon's address.
"But—"
"No questions," the figure interrupted, its voice sharp, final.
"Alright, then…" Tyler muttered, lowering his head, his breath shallow. He stumbled out of the alley, his mind racing, his fingers trembling as he reached for his phone to order a pizza.