Mate Pawara

Mate Pawara oozes through the darkness, like a spirit, touching nothing, affecting nothing. There will be no traces come morning, only a chill in the air, and a lingering sense of dread. Nothing more.

Just outside the bedroom door, where the woman sleeps, on a small oak table, sits a music box. Mate claims it for his hoard. This ghost thief takes nothing of significant value, only memories, music boxes, framed pictures, supple stuffed bears, the fragments of a whole, a picture painted in moments and years.

When the woman wakes, she won’t even notice the lost object, won’t stop to wind it as she does every morning, listening to the familiar tune, a simple melody sung to her child in the dark quiet.

Every night, Mate will come, claiming more pieces of song, more heartfelt moments. Others will be visited by this specter, this invader whose violations surpass all. The crime will spiral ever outward, sparing none. A son, name forgotten. A wife, face unrecognized. A place once known and comfortable suddenly terrifying.

It takes their memories, shatters their families, all without remorse. It is an acid that corrodes the brain, a poison of regret, an echo of loss.