The Visitor held out a rotting hand, fingers outstretched. Graham, battered and bloody, did not have the energy left within him to resist. He handed over the remaining eye to the skeletal figure.

The Visitor snatched the orb greedily, as though a terrible hunger had gripped him and the porcelain sphere was the only way to quench it. It rotated gently in his palm, the skin twisting and turning a little too loosely for something so tightly attached to the bones.

The dark spaces in the head of the Visitor regarded the eye for a moment. They started to convey confusion, although Graham was still unsure as to how voids could convey anything. The Visitor pulled his gaze from the eye and returned it to Graham. He knew what the visitor was going to say before he parted his hideous eternal smile.

‘Where… is the other… one?’ The Visitor croaked. There was anger in the voice, but not the heartless surface anger of an idle threat; it was a deep, brooding anger that Graham recognised as a sign of deep trouble. It was an anger that shook the room with a quiet sense of a very real danger.

‘I don’t know. I put them both in the safe but one of them isn’t there any more.’

The Visitor lurched revoltingly at the news. Angrily he popped the eye back into his head, the grinding resuming almost instantly. The pupil-less eye swivelled around, regarding the room, as though The Visitor was just getting used to seeing again. The grinding was aster than Graham remembered it, but the steady stream of dust fell at the same pace.

‘Show me… this safe.’ The Visitor demanded, the subtle anger in his voice stumbling slightly, letting through a thin vein of fear.

‘I can’t… I can’t get up.’ Graham replied, ‘It’s on the top floor. The only room on the top floor. Surely you can find it yourself?’

The Visitor leant in close to Graham’s face. His new eye swivelled angrily in his head as a vile sneer crossed what passed for his lips. Graham was sure he should have been able to feel the creature breathing, but he could not. What he did experience, however, was the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh mingled with the pus of oozing boils. It made his stomach turn and his eyes water. He tried to look away but a bony hand seized him by the chin.

‘It would… not be wise to get… vocal with me… Graham.’ The Visitor spat, ‘Midwife or no… I could end you if I needed. Do remember… I still hold… your soul.’

They stared at each other for what Graham was sure was over an hour, then The Visitor released Graham from his grip. Graham’s head sagged back to the floor as The Visitor stepped over him and began to awkwardly climb the stairs. Graham surmised that whatever The Visitor was truly he was not used to the form he currently inhabited, he wasn’t sure how everything worked. The legs were giving him some bother, it would seem.

Graham’s left eye twitched involuntarily. It was somewhere between a nervous tick and a violent seizure, and it put Graham on edge. A couple more twitched followed, each as jarring and disconcerting as the last. Graham put a hand up to try and hold his eye still, but it did little good. His left eye was rolling around on its own orders now, throwing his sight around into a maelstrom of confusion and vertigo. He tried to close his eyes yet only his right would obey him anymore.

He felt dizzy and nauseous, he was sure he was going to vomit. The acidic taste in his throat lodged on his Adam’s Apple, liquid fire roasting away at his throat. However, just as Graham was convinced it was going to burst its dam and spew forth, the voice returned.

Now would be as good a time as any to make an escape, don’t you think?