Naim had only the faintest of ideas as to what had just happened.
Ion removed his cold hands from off her eyes.
Naim pushed herself from him and took a peek out the door. The man was no longer there. One moment he begged, the next he had vanished. All that remained was a dirty pair of shoes.
"Put them on," Ion gruffly mumbled. He was busying himself brooding in a corner.
"I don't understand," Naim said, "where'd he go?"
"Apparently," he said, "you wouldn't understand."
Naim frowned. "That's not an answer, and you know it." She opened the door.
Ion made sure to stay away from the light that streamed in, huddling himself further into the room's darkest corner.
Naim stepped out. She looked left, and then right. Something about the way the sun's stark ivory light set the world aflame filled her with a foreign sense of dread. It hurt her eyes to look even at the ground. Naturally, she was becoming more accustomed to the dark night by night. But why must that make me adverse to the light?
She stooped down and grabbed the vanished man's shoes before retreating inside again. She sat on the ground and examined these strange objects of apparel. She'd never worn shoes before. She'd never needed them. Of course, they were far too big for her small feet; but tied as tightly as they could be, they would at least refrain from slipping off. She stood and practiced pacing about in them. It was an odd sensation, to be removed somewhat from the earth. A sense so familiar to her—the ground beneath her feet—was now muted and dulled. Her stance and her gait would painstakingly have to be altered to accommodate her new way of walking through life. "I don't like them," she said.
Ion nodded. "You'll get used to it."
Naim sat again to ogle the dusty leather brogues, which were in surprisingly good condition for their age and use. "Tell me what happened to the man."
"I told you. You wouldn't get it. You can't even see them."
"See what?" she looked at Ion, determined to get an answer. "I'm listening. And I'll believe you. I promise."
Ion sighed deeply. "The shadow people. Shades. Ghosts. Whatever you want to call them. They only exist in the sunlight—from dawn till dusk. There are thousands of them. Millions. You couldn't count them if you tried. Every corner of everywhere. And they just stand there, waiting for someone to make the mistake of stepping into the light." Ion's eyes shifted to a far-off glaze. "And then they grab you. Grab you, and take you. Just a touch is all it takes. And you freeze. And they take you. And you're gone."
"...Where do they take you?"
Ion shrugged. "Maybe you become one of them. Maybe that's why there's so many." Ion slumped to the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees. "Only the darkness is safe." His gaze locked firmly onto Naim. "But you," he said, "you can't even see them. And they can't see you. Why?"
Naim was silent for a moment. "I don't know. The way you're talking about them—it's like we're living in two different worlds."
Ion rested his head against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "Must be nice," he said. "I don't care much for this one." The bags beneath his eyes were more pronounced than ever. He looked so gaunt in the faint light. Naim felt exhaustion ooze through every word he breathed.
Naim looked again at her shoes—shoes coerced from a man moments before his death, or undeath. "I'm wearing the shoes of a dead man." She felt wrongness bubble up from her conscience. She felt dirty, and began to panic as she fumbled in the dark to untie them.
"Don't say that," Ion whispered.
"I'm wearing the shoes of a man you killed!" She pulled the first from off her foot and threw it in Ion's direction. He caught it.
"I did what had to be done."
She cast aside the second. "You saw how he begged—what if he was telling the truth?!"
"He tried to shove a knife into my throat." Ion's words were devoid of all energy or emotion. He merely stared at the shoe in his hand.
"Maybe he was scared... Maybe he was right to be." The hot tears welled in her eyes began to run down her face. "What gives you the right?"
"The right?" Ion was quiet for an uncomfortable length of time. "Maybe," he began, "I don't have the right. To live at another's expense. But here we are. You and I are still here. We'll still eat. We'll still drink."
Ion's eyes moved across the room until they rested on Vio. "And we'll still carry that thing to the lake. Maybe we don't have the right to. And maybe you don't have the right to wear his shoes."
He tossed the shoe, which clattered to Naim's side. "But we exist. I exist. Maybe I've done wrong. No, I have. More than my fair share. But do you think there's a chance that, if I keep existing, somewhere down the line I might do enough good to justify it all?"
He looked at Naim's eyes, glimmering in the dark with anger. "I don't know it. I don't believe it. I don't even hope it. But I want to hope it."
As he said those words, the shadow on the walls of his heart wrapped its claws around his soul, tightening its clutch. "Or maybe I'm wrong."
He looked at the door. It would be so easy to step out. He thought of his mother—the pain in her eyes. He thought of the man. The same pain. Ion felt pain too; the pain of guilt and regret. But then he thought of Naim.
"You're still here. He didn't kill you. He would've, Naim. Without a second thought. He didn't have the right to do it, but he would've." Ion's voice was thin and shaky. "You're still here. And now you have shoes to wear. So, I think what I did... was good."
Naim sniffed. She wiped away the tears that blurred her eyes and laid back on the cold, dirty floor. Was what he was saying true? Would the man have truly killed them without warning or cause? How could Ion know? How could he say it with such certainty? All the while laid evidence beside her of Ion's rash action: shoes that, mere minutes before, housed the feet of a man who was now dead, or whatever the proper term might be for one whom supposed daylight shadows had absconded with. But Ion was certain. At least, he seemed to be.
Was it wrong for her to distrust the man who had brought her this far toward her destined destination? His intentions, it seemed, were pure enough.
Were the shoes he commanded the man to remove evidence of calculating coldness toward his victim, or evidence of the warmth of consideration and compassion upon her, who had walked so many miles without any? Naim didn't know.
She thought back to their first encounter. There he was, sprawled before her upon a heap of debris, soaked in a pool of moonlit blood. She had saved him, had torn her own sleeve to bandage his wound. She didn't know why she saved him, but she did. She also couldn't reason exactly why she took his waterskin and food, though now she felt guilt for it. A coarser man would have hunted her down for that offense, she supposed. And that was just her impression when they met again the next day. At full speed, he took her and threw her into the dark. Naim now realized that his intention was never to kidnap her; he did not intend to hurt her. In fact, he thought he was saving her. And now again, he had saved her from a far more imminent, real threat—or at least one that she could see—and even thought to procure her a pair of shoes while he did.
But a man was dead at his hand—a thought that still made Naim ill. Was he monster or man?
Naim sat up. She took the shoes into her hands and put them back upon her feet. She pulled the laces as tight as they would go, tying them into a pretty bow, and curled onto the floor again. "I guess..." she said, "thank you."
The world is harsh, that's what her grandfather had always told her. How, then, had she chanced upon one seemingly kind? But then again, could it really be called kindness? How could it be kind to kill? Or was there, in truth, any humanity in the act that could be scrutinized as good or evil? Or was it mere animal impulse rationalized and studied after the fact?
Naim couldn't wrap her head around it. Though she was sick to her stomach, and part of her wanted to run from this man who would kill—purportedly for her sake—another part knew that she'd never reach the lake by herself. And a third part of her, the part that yearned for a friend, told her to keep him close, that she might have someone to talk to, that she might not be alone as she was for so long. "You'll stick with me, won't you, Ion? Till we reach the lake?"
"I will," he said again, in that same rough monotone.
Naim, as reassured as she was unsettled by her reassurance, closed her eyes. She slept a tumultuous sleep for the remainder of that day.
Ion did not sleep; he never would. But, at least for that day, he did not dream.