"When I first saw her, I was, of course, paralyzed with fear. It was a spectre, an apparition from beyond who progressively made herself known as I was developping my photographies.

I stood there, incapable to move, just as she remained immobile herself. We stared at each other for a long while, before I started to finally shout and curse at her to leave me alone and go away.

She did no such thing, so I ran to my bedroom, hid under my sheets, in a panic move straight out of the most basic horror movie ever, too afraid to do anything but wait for the inevitable moment where that ghost would send me to my doom.

I must have been exhausted from the fear because I realized I had fallen asleep. Anxious I lifted my sheets, expecting to find the ghost there. She wasn't. I convinced myself that I had imagined all that, and came back to the room to check if that was the case, if the ghost had disappeared. She hadn't.

This time I tried to be diplomatic. I didn't shout, I implored her to tell me why she was here, what I could do to appease her. She remained mute, half immersed in the liquid, staring at me always.

It's funny how the mind works. After a couple days trying this, i had become a little bit desensitivized to this whole phenomenon. I was still dreading an attack, of course, but I had become a little bit more familiar with the spectre. I started jokingly asking if she was just looking for a place to live or something, so that I'd warn my landlord. She was silent as ever.

One day I brought her food, as a joke, and as a curiosity. She didn't do anything when I put it on the corner of her bath, as I now called it, but when I came back later it had disappeared. Only the plate remained, her cutlery politely aligned at the center of the plate to indicate she was finished.

One day I brought her a video to watch on my tablet while I was going out for groceries. When I came back, the whole series of video from that playlist I picked was marked as watched. I hadn't put autoplay on.

It became an habit for me to talk to her. I became as bold as to start patting her head to say goodbye. One day I lamented about rent going up, jokingly asking if she'd like to contribute.

The next day, there was a little enveloppe full with bank notes, amounting to exactly half of what I pay my landlord every month. I never mentionned how much it was.

I guess I have a new roomate?"