Lacking Empathy

-Who are you? -asked Cristopher, trying to see through the darkness- Who's there? -he inquired in response to a faint, unknown sound.

The door to his room opened slightly, letting in a beam of yellow light from the bulb illuminating the hallway.

-What do you want?! -he shouted, frightened, at the apparent nothingness.

The temperature began to drop so drastically that his body shivered, his lips cracked, and he started to see small clouds of vapor coming from his mouth as he spoke.

The shadow in his room condensed, and a slender figure, draped in a long cloak with a face covered by a white mask, presented itself before him.

Cristopher, immobile as he had been all this time, standing with his back to the window, froze.

-Cris...to...pher -the being said slowly in a guttural voice- I have seen every moment of your life pass before me since you were born, regardless of whether you remember it or not, and yet I still cannot understand, why?

Cristopher raised his gaze, and upon seeing the emptiness in the being's eye sockets, felt his own eyes fill with blood.

-Why...? -he asked again.

The pain in his throat had begun to push its way through, trying to articulate a word, but the sound took time to emerge.

-Com...pre...hension -Cristopher replied with difficulty.

-But, I do understand you, Cristopher -the being responded.

Cristopher tilted his head and, while smiling at him, raised a hand wanting to touch him. The being reciprocated his approach by touching him.

A scream from his mother as she entered the room, turning on the light, made the shadows dissipate, revealing Cristopher suspended in the air, swaying slowly.