I take a step towards the table.
“Don’t,” he warns as if it could be a trap.
“What the hell is this?”I stare at the open drawers.“Have you been down here since I fell asleep?”
“No.I stayed in your room the whole time.”
“I don’t understand.How has this happened?”I certainly don’t remember doing this.And Fenrir is running on fumes, not having slept properly for days.
Did he do this?Is this a product of a lack of sleep, his overtired brain operating on its own?
I can’t say he’s been acting rational these past few days.The other night, I woke to find him standing over me, convinced there was something in my room.Then, earlier today, he shot at a wall.These are not the actions of a level-headed man.But then I recall the night I woke, having had a bad dream, and not remembering getting out of bed.I wonder at what point I consciously decided to mount Fenrir when he was next to me on the bed.
Maybe neither of us is sane right now.
I run my hand through my hair as Fenrir steps towards the table and picks up one of the knives.
“There has to be a rational explanation,” I begin, treading carefully.“There are only two people in this house: you and me.”
He glares, picking up on my accusation that this must have been him because I know it wasn’t me.And if it’d been me who’d done this whilst I was asleep, then surely Fenrir would have seen me and stopped me, unless he also nodded off.
I’m going around in circles until he gathers all the utensils and shoves them back into the drawers.
“Come on, let’s check the cameras,” he says as he slams the drawers shut.
We cram into the small room under the stairs, and Fenrir works quickly, rewinding the camera footage from the kitchen.Surely it will show either him or me going into the kitchen and setting up this stunt.I’m not sure what I fear most: seeing myself or Fenrir on the camera.
He stops the recording at the right time and hits Play, and we see the kitchen, still, silent, smothered in darkness.Then there’s a blip, a moment where all we see is a blank screen for one second before it flicks back to life.The drawers are open, and the knives and scissors are all lined up on the table.
“Fuck.”I rub my eyes.I can’t explain what I’m seeing.
Fenrir plays it back several times.I check the timestamp when the blip occurs, and there’s no shift in time.The blip lasts two seconds before the kitchen returns, the drawers open and the knives having been placed on the table, not enough time for a person to have done this.Then what?It doesn’t make any sense.
“There has to be a rational explanation,” I repeat, more to myself than to Fenrir, who I know must be as stumped as I am.
Fenrir stares at the screen, playing it back again before moving on to the footage from my room.He rewinds the tape and plays it sped up.I watch myself sleep, turning over occasionally as Fenrir remains seated in the corner, engrossed in a book, looking up now and then to check on me.
And then I sit up as he springs from the small sofa and draws his gun.We must have heard the noise.
“Three o’clock,” he says, pointing out the timestamp in the bottom corner of the screen.
Fenrir goes back to the tape of the kitchen and finds the moment when the screen goes black.He pauses it and checks the time.
Three o’clock.
It wasn’t me or Fenrir.
So, who was it?
Whatwas it?
“This can only mean one thing,” I say, with less conviction than I’d hoped for.“Someone else has been here.”
Fenrir doesn’t answer.He checks all the other tapes to see if anything else has been picked up on any of the other cameras, but there’s nothing.All the other areas of the house remain undisturbed.
“There’s nothing on any of the other cameras,” he says.“The snow is deep enough now to ensure that no one is getting up this mountain.And even if, somehow, they did manage to get up here and break in, why would they set this up?For what purpose?”
“To scare us?”I suggest.
