𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬

Unexpected visitors | The Company

The fire burned under the fireplace of that humble house located on the outskirts of a small forest and on the shores of a lake. That house was next to several houses a little more secluded. The owner of that house rested, warming herself with the heat provided by the flames. She was taking her hot chocolate, looking at everything and nothing at the same time, losing herself in the fire and feeling comforted. It was night, and the sky was clear, revealing a starry mantle in that navy blue.

Y/N lived alone, peacefully alone, in that house, with hardly any worries other than those generated by work.

Her eyes were closing little by little, hypnotized by the comforting flames, by her soft sofa and by the blanket that covered her body. It was then that she heard something unusual outside. Laughs, voices and manly screams. It was a strange thing at this time of night, when everyone was getting ready to go to sleep. She leaned out the window and saw a group of men walking slowly until they reached the house closest to hers. One of them, a handsome gentleman with long black hair, was the one who opened the door and turned on the lights, and the rest followed him, closing the door shortly after.

"New neighbors, I guess," Y/N said, closing the curtains and sitting back on the sofa to continue drinking her chocolate after dinner. Shortly after, she would go to sleep, even if it was Friday, she was tired.

Once she got ready to put the blanket away and get into bed, she heard those manly voices once again, but this time they seemed to be singing a soothing melody. The woman could hear low voices and others higher, but they were all male. A small orange light was peeking out of the window and that caught the young woman's attention. She got out of bed and leaned out the window again, seeing the same men sitting in chairs around a small campfire, some smoking and all singing. It seemed a sad song, nostalgic and melancholic, but at the same time beautiful and hypnotizing. Everyone was looking at the lake, the full moon, with their backs to the house. She stared at them for a while, seeing that time passed and they continued singing.

Y/N decided to crawl back into bed, beginning to fall asleep to the soothing song that her ears were listening to. But it was the next day that a knock sounded on the door, an incessant pounding. That suddenly woke her up with a terrible headache. The woman got out of bed as fast as she could to attend to that person, probably the postman, but when she opened the door what her eyes found were someone very different.

"Good mornin', sweet little flower of the wild field, we stopped by to give ya these cookies that Bombur has made, although only half have arrived, Bombur has eaten the other half," said a little man with a strange hat passing without asking permission while other little men waited outside, curious and leaning out to see what was inside. Once the man left the house without saying anything else, everyone went with him. And Y/N didn't understand why all this had happened all of a sudden. She had no explanation.

The woman leaned out of the window again to see them in more detail and, out of nowhere, two of them, younger in appearance than the one who entered her house, suddenly leaned out of the window greeting her and doing mischief, getting Y/N to move away and closed the curtains in fright.

"Who are all these men?" she asked herself, leaning back minutes later and seeing how several of them were about to take off their clothes to be naked and jump into the lake, of course without letting anything of their body be seen. That made Y/N blush and look away from them again.

She went to the kitchen where the cookies were, she took one, tasted it and saw that they were delicious, so she took the tray and sat on the sofa again to have breakfast with a coffee, listening to the laughs and all the noise from those men outside. Noon came and silence filled the place. Y/N looked out the window after eating, and saw that no one was there. Then, after picking up a basket, a knife, and dressing appropriately, she left the house to go to the forest and pick mushrooms, chestnuts, and some wild fruits that were available at that time of the year. Once she filled the basket with everything she wanted, she headed home.