Of course, she would never smoke weed. Not at work at least. Nor did she vape. No. At work, she was more than content with classic Marlboro reds. Tobacco laws prohibited her from buying them herself, so she smoked them sparingly. She made sure to thoroughly enjoy every puff. She wasn’t addicted. Cigarettes were great but never a necessity. She didn’t crave the nicotine. She craved the silence.

            Just being able to get away from the chaos of the store for five minutes was the whole reason she had started smoking. In an ironic twist, the cigarettes helped her remember to breathe. It was like a cancerous meditation. Most nights she didn’t ask for a smoke. After all, she was down to three cigarettes. However, tonight had been one of those nights where five to ten minutes in the alley alone would save her entire evening.

            As she closed the door behind her and headed for her car, she felt a lone gust of wind hit the side of her face and stop abruptly. She took it as nothing and unlocked her car. She opened the glovebox to reveal the carton of cigarettes and a small red lighter. Another singular gust of wind made her take them to the alley instead of trying to light them in the open.

            She crouched to the ground with her feet flat and her back against the store with a cigarette already in her mouth. Cupping her hand around the lighter, she flicked it on and brought it towards her cigarette.

            The night was like all others. KC was working the graveyard shift at the same McDonald’s she had been at for the past year and a half. Up for a management promotion and stuck with high turnover, nights were hard. There wasn’t a lot to look forward to especially on Friday nights like this one, but there was always the hope of a smoke break.

            Right before she thought she had it lit, a burst of wind snuffed the flame out. She tried again with the same result.

            Annoyed, she made another attempt. This one was successful. She took the first long drag and reveled in the smell of tobacco and success. A wave of calm rushed over her and washed away the stress of the night, including the troublesome wind.

            She sat staring at the wall deep in a thoughtless trance that cigarettes offered her. The peaceful serenity of killing yourself came with every breath she took. She was in her safe place. In between two blank walls. The door to the shed to the left. A sliver of the parking lot and the line of trees beyond it to the right. Home.

            She focused on inhaling and watched almost half an inch of the cigarette turn to ash in front of her. A cloud of smoke surrounded her. She kept her eyes on the cigarette and the wall enclosing her.

            She was so focused on her vice that she didn’t hear the rustling in the shed. Nor did she notice that the door handle had begun to move.

           KC took one small and final drag of her cigarette before crushing it out beside her. It left a black spot on the cement as she ensured it was completely dead. With a sigh, she pushed herself to her feet and began walking towards the alley’s opening. As she neared the corner, she heard the creak of the shed door opening behind her.

           She stopped and turned. Surprised but not frightened.

           Some idiot must have forgotten to close it all the way, she thought as she approached.

           Without a second thought, she grabbed the handle and pulled. It didn’t move. So, she pushed. It gave, and the crack of darkness grew but did not brighten with the light coming from the alley. It was a void. Confused, KC lit her lighter expecting to see stacks of boxes, the salt spreader, the worktable, and all the other junk that they kept in there.

            Instead, she saw Something. It was unlike anything she could have imagined. Some kind of half ghost-half shadow being. A mass of smoke illuminated by the small flame. It was formless and small, but it seemed to be pulsing. No. Breathing.

            “Hello?” she asked.

            A whooshing sound. Then the sound of inhaling as the smoke swarmed around her. The lighter went out, but she could still see the smoke in a dim halo around her. It didn’t make her cough like it should have. It just made her feel warm, and a tingling sensation crawled over her skin. It was as if her whole body had fallen asleep and was just beginning to wake up.

            “Stop that!” she almost giggled.

            She was stifling laughter because it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She wasn’t sure what the Something was doing, but it was not attacking her. It was filling her like the way her cigarette filled her. Intoxicating her in an addictive manner.

            She felt the Something leave her and could see it floating just in front of her again.

            “I’m KC,” she tried, “What’s your name?”

            It could only hiss in return.

            “Where did you come from?”

            At this, the Something seemed to still, then approach her. It seemed to drift at first, but as it neared it surged in her pocket where her cigarettes sat.

            “From my cigarette?” she asked hopefully.

            No reply. But the Something lingered around her pocket insistently.

            “Interesting,” she looked down at the bulge in her pocket.

            She pulled it out and retrieved a cigarette. She put it in her mouth and lit it. The stream of smoke coming from the end of it gravitated towards the creature. The sound of inhaling came again.

            “You like cigarettes?” she said with it still in her mouth.

            KC breathed in and blew a smoke ring to the Something, “Me too.”

            The smoke ring was absorbed into the Something. The creature seemed to grow.

            “Huh,” she looked at the cigarette in between her fingers.

            Another drag, this one much larger than the first, blew into the Something. Again, it inhaled the smoke and grew.

            “You know,” she admitted, “I’m not much of a smoker usually.”

            She closed the door behind her leaving her with only the halo light of the Something to see. The smoke seemed to spread a little thinner. Relaxing in the darkness.

            “You don’t like the light either?” she smiled.

            KC sat with her back against the door. She was feeling calm now and got comfortable. She sat and smoked her second cigarette in a row and watched the creature grow with every breath she took. As the ash reached the small “Marlboro” printed near the butt of the cigarette, she sighed again before crushing it out.

            “Hey,” she smiled at the Something, who was now swarming around the pile of ash where she put out the cigarette, “I got to go, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”

            She stood and opened the door.

            “I promise,” she said before closing it behind her.

            And she did come back.

            As she approached the alley, the door of the shed opened. KC beamed as she took the cigarette out of the carton and entered the darkness.

            “I told you I’d be back.”

            She looked around expecting to see the large cloud she had left yesterday. That was not the case though. Instead, she saw a small puff no larger than her hand. The Something had shrunk back to its original size.

            The Something moved weakly but excited towards her. It was pulsing very slowly.

            “Are you okay?” she put her hand out.

            The Something nuzzled her hand leaving the same pins and needles feeling it had the night before. But it couldn’t help but drift towards the lighter in her hand.

            KC lit the cigarette and took the largest drag she could and blew it out directly into the creature. She coughed from the effort. The Something grew and began to pulse at a steady pace. It was able to envelop her in a kind of grateful embrace before taking its place at her side.

            She realized that if she hadn’t come back tonight, the creature would have been gone. It would have died without her cigarette. It needed her to smoke. Needed her to give it breath and life. KC thought hard and silently about this as she fed the creature smoke in puffs as large as she could manage without coughing.

            I can’t smoke every day, she thought, I’ll die.

            She watched the Something crawl up her arm and cuddle her near her neck.

            But I can’t let this die either, she considered.

            After a long while, another cigarette to be exact, she had to go yet again. Before she left, she had to decide what she was going to do, right? She at least had to make the creature think she had made a choice.

            “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she let the Something fill her before she left, “I promise.”

            For now, she decided, she would take care of it and make a choice later.

            But later never came.

            Day after day, she came to the shed to feed the Something. She told herself she would stop. She had to stop. She was spending too much money on cigarettes and more than that, she was smoking. One of the unhealthiest things you can do to your body.

            But she kept coming.

            The Something lived in the shed. It was its home. KC understood that. But she always wished the Something could be with her someplace else. And so did the Something. She knew because one day it tried to leave, but the lights from the alley made it hiss and crawl back to the shed. So, KC always did her best to describe where she was from.

            “I hate the light too,” she smiled, “So, I live in a basement apartment about two miles south from here.”

            And coming.

            “It’s not much, but I love it,” she said with pride, “It’s so quirky. For some reason, it says 1017 on the top and side of the door.”

            And coming.

            “And I have this welcome mat that says, Come Back with a Warrant,” she laughed.

            And coming.

            “I wish you could visit.”

           Until.

           She didn’t come. But she had promised the day before that she would be back in a raspy voice. The Something knew that she wouldn’t stop. Unless.

           The Something opened the door. It was night. A cloudy night. Thank God. The moon was hidden away. The artificial light from the lamps hurt but was bearable. She wasn’t there, of course. She wasn’t inside the building. Her car wasn’t in the parking lot. It knew what it had to do.

            It wooshed through the air. Two miles south. Two 1017’s. Hiss. Come Back with a Warrant. And the door creaked open.

            The Something crept down the stairs. There was a door at the bottom. He opened it and found KC lying in a bed. Her breaths were heavy and forced. And numbered. The Something rushed to her side.

            “You’re here?!” she managed.

            The Something slipped under the covers and let itself into her arms. She smiled and reached for her nightstand where a lighter and pack of Marlboro reds lied. The Something blocked her path.

            KC’s eyes were solemn, “It’s. O.K.”

            The Something moved out of the way and let her grab the final cigarette in the carton and light it.

            She coughed and patted her chest.

            It entered her fully. The sensational tingling covered her whole body as she struggled through the cigarette. She felt the Something growing inside of her. The feeling grew stronger, but her lungs grew weaker with every breath.

            She reached the Marlboro print. There was no ashtray, so she put it out on her arm. There was no reason for this other than pure apathy. She hardly felt the burn as she gasped for breath. The Something clung tighter to her.

            “Thank. You.”  She choked out these final words.

            The cigarette was still in her fingers as her hand fell to her side. The Something howled until the sun rose through the window and he too took his final breath in her arms.

– Ash Pehrson