Davis Pendragon stood amidst a steaming pile of corpses. The walls of the room smouldered, trapping fire and death within. Their ghosts struggled to flee before him, but he held aloft a black hole and it dragged them in. The spirits of the dead, once his contemporaries, now his enemies, screamed. They screamed in those precious few moments of afterlife they were gifted before they were inhaled for spare parts. They were dissected with a care that would terrify even the most devout serial killer, all the little pieces of their brains stored and labeled and preserved to be consumed later.
Davis Pendragon, once laughed out of the Northern Cabal, now laughed at them. Not that there was a Northern Cabal anymore. The first wizard-war in centuries was over in a single night, with just one survivor. Carelessly, he kicked a corpse, just because he could.
"What next?" asked Davis. He was talking to himself.
Despite that, one of the corpses sat upright and cracked its jaw back into place. Its eyes glowed red and evil, body patterned with scorch marks and wounds dripping blood. "Oh," it said, "I can think of a few things."
There's a cat hurtling down dark streets, dodging between the storm of souls. Fingers scrape along its sides, pulling fur from flesh. It doesn't stop to think, breathe, or scream. It is far too busy running as fast as it possible cat, throwing itself from stone to stone. It dodges and weaves down tight city streets, though back alleys, lost in the nighttime.
The swarm of angry ghosts, all the spirits in the city set loose and violent, descends towards it. There is nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to go. It presses back against the wall and raises its hackles. Fur stands on end, tail puffed up.
"Hey," said the girl. "Not cool."
The swarm turns as one. She stands alone on the street, resplendent. She is something more than them. Where they are broken, chipped and decaying, she stands tall and proud. The cat limps towards her, rubbing between her legs, hiding behind the weight of her presence.
The ghosts consider.
"I love you," said Violet.
The swarm screams and rushes her.
Reality shifts a little. The buildings threaten to peel off the ground and climb into the sky, the ghosts taking myriad forms of predators. Cats, wolves, birds, insects, and more descend from on high, a wall of flesh colliding with Violet. She just laughed and reached out her hands. Something bit them off. But that was okay. There was no pain. She always had more hands.
Reaching forwards into the mass, she found a head and ran her hands along it, feeling under its cheeks and along its forehead. With true tenderness, she massaged it gently. "It's okay," she said. "You were loved. You're going to be okay." It slashed outwards, teeth sinking into her chest. She stayed focused on it, ignoring the cat quivering between her legs, ignoring the mass of animals out for her blood. "Shhh," she said. "Shhh." The wolf made a small noise.
They're in a hospital bed and she's holding his hand as he dies. He makes a small noise and is no more. As the life expels from his body, she gathers it tightly. She clutches it to her own and infuses it with her own love. Form is stabilized by memory and she would remember him.
The old man sits by the wall and watches. His eyes meet Violet's. "That one was mine," says the old man.
Violet studied the warped nature of the old man. "You choose violence. He choose nothing."
"He followed of his own will."
"Then I'll gift him mine."
The dead man sighed. "I think," he said, "that my life is done. I should move on."
"You will be remembered," said Violet.
The old man vanished to face whatever came next.
In this way, the wolf faded, satisfied. Violet sighed blissfully, holding his memory in her heart even as her body knitted itself closed around the wounds he left. She reached a hand back into the swarm to feel for another one.
In this way, the ghosts began to retreat. In this way, their bloodlust was satisfied. In this way, there was soon silence on the street, empty but for a girl and her lover's cat.
"How did you do that?" asked the cat.
"Your problem," said Violet, "is that you spent too long fighting wizards. You think you're better than them, but you think just like them."
"Huh."
"Come on," she said. "I think we have to go fight a wizard now."
"Aren't you worried you'll lose yourself too?" said the cat.
Violet stared into the distance for a moment, quiet. She didn't reply. She merely started walking.
Davis Pendragon was no longer having a good night. "Why won't you die?" he screamed, fire bursting from the corpse of the god.
The child, in the body that was once wizard Paul Gunther, cackled. It ran along the walls and ceiling, body twisting and cracking. In a mocking singsong voice, it went, "Poor little Pendragon. Thought he could eat a god and become one. Thought it would be so simple. Poor poor little Pendragon."
Davis wrenched his arms and the roof blew open, Paul Gunther's corpse completely vaporized.
"Aw," said the corpse of Alex Silvers. "I liked that one."
They'd been playing this game for some time now. The child would possess a body. Pendragon would vaporize it. Together, they'd blown this once proud house apart and now found themselves exposed to the air and the spirits therein. They blew around them angrily, unwilling to approach. They scuttled like cockroaches fleeing from the light.
Pendragon cried out again, pressing his will onto reality itself. Alex was not a body. It was a stone statue. All of the corpses were statues, rendered stone by his power.
As one, the statues cried blood and opened their jaws. "Stupid little wizard! All that power and no finesse!"
"Begone demon!"
"Now now," said a feminine ghostly figure that popped into existence suddenly. "I think it's past your bedtime boy."
Pendragon screamed with rage and clutched tighter to his talisman of flesh. He tore it open a little wider, the flaps of flesh pulling back to reveal the emptiness within. The ghost resembling his mother exploded, showering the scene with the blood and the scent of death.
"Your mistake, of course," said the child, "is that your little toy could have beaten me if it were whole. But it's a club the size of a mouse now. I mean, really. This is your genius scheme?"
"It was a god," growled Pendragon. "I am a god." His face scrunched up, he spat, "what manner of thing are you?"
"Oh, just imagine," laughed the child from somewhere within Pendragon's own soul. "Here. Why don't I show you?"
With ghostly fingers it touched his head and several thousand years of violence poured through him. Pendragon stood on the killing fields, in the mud, through blood and death. Bullets whizzed overhead and swords cut his body into pieces, thousands of tiny pieces. He stood tall and laughed as bombs consumed the stone building, his own flesh, the fiery pain an old friend. The child laughed as they died. The child laughed as his fingers gripped the knife. In the face of immortality, what was death? What was violence? Davis Pendragon was a baby left in the woods to be eaten by wolves.
The child pulled out of his head and laughed. "Everything is all the same. You wizards with your classifications. You know what makes someone strong? Violence. Again and again and again until they inflict it back. You want power? Go live on the streets. Why the fuck," it was hissing angrily at this point, "do you think the witches are stronger than you? Because they hurt. You live in your pampered castles and dream of more?"
Davis moaned something, clutching his head. It hurt so bad.
"I've been through history, you idiot. I've been there. I've tasted mud and blood and boot. Always more violence, and that's good because survival builds strength! You dare to condescend to me? That thing you clutch has suffered more than you ever will and so all you can do is struggle to tame it. Pathetic."
Davis' outstretched fingers clutched the heart of the ghost. He pulled it closer to his core.
One of the corpses stood above Davis, foot ready to stomp and crush his jaw into oblivion. It hesitated there, face curled into the ugliest sneer. "Oh, but what's the point? Where's the artistry, the originality? It's for blood that we do it, not for joy. Don't you think it's kinda funny?" It leaned in real close, butting its putrid face against Davis' own, rotting lips smacking his cheeks. "What was it you said as you killed them? "If you wanted to win, you should've been smarter." Oh, it's so easy to philosophize when you're winning isn't it? So easy to spout whatever nonsense, whatever justification you want. Isn't that right? Tell me I'm right Mr. Wizard."
Davis struggled to speak, his lips mouthing a tiny "Yes".
The child's voice was loud, sudden, and angry. "Wrong!" It gripped Davis' hair and pulled him to his knees before it. "Nothing means anything. There is nothing but violence and beauty. And I think..." It trailed off as it felt its pockets. After a long moment, it pulled out a wicked looking knife. "I think I'm going to make some truly beautiful violence out of you."
Davis pulled the skin of his arm open slowly. It peeled back in layers, in loose hanging flaps. Shakily, he plunged the heart of the god into his own arm.
"Huh," said the child, surprised. "Does that work?"
Davis' hand clutched its throat, crushing its head with one blow. "I embrace the madness," he said. "I embrace the chaos. I embrace your destruction."
The child said nothing. It was trying to run.
Davis was no longer physical. He gripped the spirit of the child tightly and dragged it towards reality, forcing it to surface. It breached as a whale, colliding with the shape of the world as a physical object. It limped to the ground, broken. The wizard stood over it, sneering. "Shall I gloat?"
"No."
Davis and the child both turned to face the old man. It hovered in the air before them, a ghastly apparation. Davis asked, "Why not?"
"I think there are other things you should be worrying about."
Without waiting for a response, the old man raised an outstretched finger. Violet stood there across the ruins of the house. Her face was carved in grim determination. A rather bedraggled cat followed behind her. "Hey," she said. "I want my lover back. Or else."
The child laughed. No one else saw the humour.
I could see everything. Not the physical reality, but the spiritual one as well. Buildings around us clawed at the sky, the screams echoing off them. The city was asleep tonight, holding its breath against the chaos. There were thousands of ghosts tonight and only a few were here in the ruins.
One was impossibly old and in the form of a small and angry child. It dripped with blood and depravity. In some ways, it was the natural state of immortality. But with age comes definition and definition breeds simplicity. I could read every thought in its little head because I could read it, because its voice spoke in the same timbre as the one in the back of my head. It was violence incarnate. It was begging for its life.
One was shockingly young and clad in the flesh of the old. The old man stood aside from the action. Where the child was violence, he was cunning. The ghosts that swirled stayed at bay not for fear, but for his command. They were his tools, forged into weapons from the shattered remains of their lives. They dripped with the pain he spread into them and I ached to fix them. I ached to fix these crimes.
One was me.
The wizard had taken what was left of Ram and stuffed them into his arm. They writhed there now, their corpse infecting his own. Tendrils crept up his arm, mirroring those that Ram wore in life. Their power dripped from him, dripped from his aura. Davis Pendragon was god here and this was his domain. We were fools to trespass in it.
We approached slowly, the four of us drawing into a circle. There was tension in the air. This is what it was about. This was how it would all end. The moon sung gently overhead. She, at least, was on my side. Behind me, the cat sat still. It was but a tiny fragment, the smallest possible piece of the whole. It had nothing to offer but witness. That was okay. I could do this alone.
Davis faced me. "Who the fuck are you?" He was confused, upset, angry. He'd thought he had won and was now faced with far scarier monsters from seemingly nowhere. No wonder. It had taken him years to trap Ram. I could see that much. And now he was faced with three ghosts, any of which could disembowel him without a second thought.
"My name is Violet," I said.
"No one cares," said the child. "Go away little one." It was angry because such an easy scheme had spiralled out of control so easily. Who knew the wizard might actually manage to claim the power? Who knew that ghosts such as myself could achieve enlightenment?
"I'm not little," I said.
The old man, who was perhaps smarter than the child, agreed, "she's not little." This was wisdom because we had sparred earlier, trading blows over the minds of his warped souls. I had won every time.
Davis snorted. "I don't actually care," he said. "Tell you what. How about we all just fuck off and pretend this never happened?"
That was unacceptable. "No."
The child gazed at me warily. "Why not?"
"Because," I said, struggling to keep my voice level, "I am going to pull Ram from your arm even if..." My composure slipped and the rage entered my voice. "Even if I have to DISSECT you to do it!"
The child laughed. "It took on a name?"
"And yet it was stronger than us. Worth considering," replied the old man.
Davis sneered at me. "So you're the girlfriend. No matter." He raised his arm to face me, palm out. "I think I can use it to destroy you."
The old man raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I think that this matter no longer concerns us. Perhaps we should depart."
"YOU STAY," yelled the child, "RIGHT THE FUCK THERE UNTIL I TELL YOU TO LEAVE."
The old man remained motionless.
It was spitting with a truly vile fury. "Do either of you have any idea how much blood I could've washed this fucking town in if it hadn't been for that abomination? So we are staying right the fuck here until it has been ripped from your arm and I HAVE FUCKING DEVOURED IT WHOLE." I'd never seen anger quite like this. "And then," it hissed and gestured to me, "and then I'm going to kill you."
I shrugged slightly "Why?"
"Because I can!" The expression of disgust on its face was almost indescribable.
"So that's it?" I asked. "We fight to the death?"
Everyone nodded.
And then the violence started.
I was a storm, rain and winds whipping the waves into a frenzy. There was a whale the size of a continent beneath me, struggling and splashing. I was nothing to it. It waved a fin and I was blown off, whirled away to become clear skies. But the boat stayed tall, stayed strong, dancing through the waves. For one moment, the ocean blew open, splitting in two. The harpoon fired straight through the whale's heart and pulled. I hovered above the scene, useless and helpless.
Davis clutched the child tightly and laughed as he pulled its limbs. The old man sighed and ordered his army to attack.
The sailors swarmed the decks of the boat, fighting desperately against the rising bones of their past crimes. They were whale hunters, sure, but pirates come with a past. Skeletons clutching cutlasses burst from the depths, erupting from the waves. The ship swing, bouncing up and down, tilting from side to side at a dizzying pace. The sailors screamed as they fought. They screamed as they died.
And then the whale dove and the ship groaned and creaked as the chain went with it. For a moment, everything was quiet. I descended from the sky to run my water along the wooden decks, sloshing crew-members into the deep. Then the chain reached its full length and the boat was pulled down, splitting cleanly in half.
Davis stumbled as the child clawed his eyes, his sides, his mind. Half blinded by the swarm of ghosts, he flailed wildly.
The boat exploded into fragments of wood and flesh. The whale flinched, pieces of the deck lodged along its length. The sailors dissolved in the ocean, blood and salt mixing. The waves surged higher, howling with the screams of dead, millions of tiny mouths opening and closing along the surface. Dotted with teeth, the waves crested and tore huge bloody chunks from the whale, the screaming beast. With tendrils of shadow, it drew itself upwards into the sky. There, it only found me.
I was a bird and it was a bird too and we flew around each other, dancing in circles. We snapped at each other, cawing, our wings working hard against the pale morning air. The sun was rising in the distance and the ghosts screamed around us because they were birds too. We were lost in the flock, the swarm, just part of a greater whole.
A man stands on the ground and shoots at the birds. One by one, they start to fall. One by one, they start to die. It's heartbreaking. I find myself falling into a dive, falling out of the sky, my talons outstretched and hungry for blood. My eyes meet his, meet his foul gaze. He's an old sailor and the sea is in his eyes, in the way his shaking hands clutch that massive gun. He shifts slightly, taking aim. I scream.
The bullet stops right before it hits me because I'm not a bird. I'm a book fluttering through the air, spine split by force of metal, sending my pages scattered over the land. But the ocean is pouring back through, tearing the dirt to mud and uprooting trees. It climbs rapidly, higher and higher, faster than the birds can climb, faster than man can swim. The ocean, all salt and sweat and spit, devours all it touches, an acid bath strong enough to melt anything. It snaps my pages out of the air too, and I find myself mixing with it. For a moment, I bask in it. I bask in how much bigger it is than me.
But man is powerful and man is canny. He sits atop his dam and all the thousands of cumulative years of dominance meet nothing because nature is feeble compared to concrete and steel. The ocean throws itself at the dam, throws itself against his walls. It makes no difference. He controls the aperture and he decides how much goes through and when and where.
And man laughs as he points, the water gushing out in great bursts. It sprays the old man sitting beneath his birds on the park bench. His innocence is no defence, for it is as fake as the bench on which he sits, the newspaper he reads, the breadcrumbs he scatters. And the birds scream as they dissolve in the stream because they're small things with hollow birds and I want to weep and maybe I would if I weren't ocean to. But the old man just gazes back, calmly, balefully. He knows something. He's not participating yet.
But there's something in the sky and it's a plane with a very powerful bomb. Form follows definition and definition follows memory. Emotion breeds control and this weapon, this toxic weapon carries the devastation of too many with it. Cackling, the child aims itself right for the wizard, a self destructive charge of madness.
I stumble backwards unable to see, unable to breathe, unable to think. The ghosts are fading away, the swarm retreating from the awe inspiring sight.
Davis Pendragon raises his hands and tendrils shoot out of it, his body overtaken fully by dark patterns. His eyes gleam golden. His hands are old and crooked. The child screams with rage.
But the bomb falls out of the sky. It sits alone in a field. The wizard stares at it from a distance. What harm can it do him?
But I'm not an ocean or a book. I'm a fish swimming in something far bigger. I leap from the water and hit his back. Angry, he squeezes me until I burst. But I'm many fish. I'm a school, an army. We pour from the water, a solid mass of flesh, dripping with salt and slime. We grab him and drag him down, down. Deeper and deeper. We're falling through the world, through the shadows and dark places. We're jumping from atop the tallest tower in the world, the ground rushing upwards to meet us as we clutch each other. He has wings and it's my job to gnaw at them with my teeth until he can fly no more.
He hits the ground hard, his body splattering against it. I plant my foot against his head.
"I'll kill you first," hisses Davis Pendragon.
I point at the bomb, merely a meter from us.
The child laughs as Pendragon's body explodes from the inside out, bones becoming projectiles cascading through the air, ejecting viscera as they fly. For a moment, there is bloodstained silence. I wipe the fluids from my face with a torn sleeve.
"Disappointingly easy," said the child. "Did you see where the heart went?"
The problem is that I could be small things. I could dance between the streets, dodging the light where it shone. But I was up against an invading army, a million soldiers with guns and ruthless intent. What did it matter what I did? For every one that escaped the slaughter, ten perished. They lined us against the walls and laughed as they opened fire, as they set fire to the buildings, as they clawed families apart. I was a city and I was losing the war. It tore up my insides, tore down my tunnels.
But I had trains. And the soldiers that dared to step underground found out exactly why they should never have dared. My trains roared as they ran through the tunnels, great beasts of metal and fang. We killed the lights and stormed them. It was a slaughter.
In that way, we reached stalemate. That which was below the ground was mine and that which was above was its. For the sake of it, it blew up my towers, knocked over my buildings. They laughed as they tortured the small parts of me. It amused them to inflict pain for the sake of artistry, which was to say for the sake of pain. And I had, because I had no other choice. Because faced with a thousand years of suffering, what did I have?
I had a spider that wanted to eat. I had a beast that wanted to tear. And I had a girl who was so desperate for love that found her way to their cage, key in hand.
We met on a muddy battlefield, soldiers around us crying and screaming as guns rattled and people died.
"A fair fight?" it asked.
I laughed because I knew better.
And our swords met with a clatter of steel, blow meeting blow. We danced together, forwards and back, each controlled and regimented. The crowd below cheered. The uneven stone bricks forced a focus on careful footwork and we responded by minimizing movements. Instead of darting forwards and back, we both pressed on, feint and hard strike met with deflection and dodging defences. A blade snuck through and kissed my forehead so gently, so delicately, that it was almost a surprise when the blood dripped into my ears, dripped down past my nose, filled up my brain. I saw my chance in the way it stopped to laugh, a momentary weakness to exploit, and lunged. But it was bait, a feint, and my blade clattered to the floor, the child's blade plunging through my heart. I screamed with pain as it through me from atop the wall to crash into the ground and die.
But the soldiers had trust in me, so we picked up our guns and charged. The machine gun whirred to life and in seconds we were gone.
But the horses screamed as we collided with the wall of pikes, blades rippling through muscled flesh.
But this wasn't my game.
And the soldiers baited the trains, using fakes and decoys and sacrifices. With cleverness and patience, they lured them around until they could be trapped and vulnerable. With bombs and blades, they cut them open and left their entrails exposed for all to see. And high above, the beast screamed for there was nothing it could do.
The child hissed, "Don't you get it?" We were sitting crosslegged, facing each other. "Don't you see?"
The moon glowed on the horizon. Any second from now it would go and with it any protection that I had left. My arm found my knife, dark and ugly in my back pocket. But there was something else there too.
In a high school, the girl found the child. She bore a single violet out because it was her favourite and the boy knew not the significance. "Hey," she said. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?" She tucked the flower into its shirt pocket.
"Fuck off," said the child. It pulled out a gun and shot the girl in the head. But it was too late because it had accepted the flower.
And she wrapped her hands around its hips, its rotting body twisting away from her grip. But she was firm and she was kind and the band was playing just for the two of them, the ghosts swaying peacefully around them. The lights glowed purple and she smiled as she kissed its cheek. The child shoved her and everyone laughed at it. It shrank away from their baleful gazes. Desperate, it fled the room.
And they sat together on the balcony, the breakfast spread before them, the wine bottle already open. They made small talk. They talked about the weather and their parents and their pasts and the future and what love was. They smiled as they jabbed each other with light conversational barbs, insults designed to be ignored. The game was to hurt the other more without them realizing it. It was in hidden looks, kisses given to strangers, the way fingers became less and less familiar. It was about insults that sounded like compliments and deleted phone numbers. Ignored texts stacked up against overwhelming evidence.
And the knife slipped into my hand. It was taken in by the story. It was about narrative and this was not one that it could understand. It had never once chosen love. I raised my arm and moved to cut. One single motion. Fight over in but a strike.
The old man caught my hand. I struggled, but his grip was iron. He glared down at me sadly.
"Why?" I asked.
"If you win, you'll kill me," he said. I suppose he had a point.
They stormed the tunnels. They chained the beast and dragged it up to laugh at it while they cooked it. They tore the webs and stomped on the spider. They found the girl and merely shot her dead. They brought out the beer and meat to celebrate a job well done. They had won.
And then the sky split open and the ocean poured out of it. It was ridden by thousands of arms, each with a single eye in its palm and carved with the names of old things.
"You fucking bitch," said the ghost of Davis Pendragon.
The child didn't have time to scream. It drowned in an instant, more water than could possibly exist choking out the soldiers and the armies. The works of man rusted over in an instant, technology useless against the tide. The moon glowed overhead softly and sadly.
And Davis Pendragon broke the child in half and ate it. He turned to the old man.
The skeletons of civilization fought the ocean in the only ways they could. They built walls of sandbags that were washed away. They dug holes that filled instantly. They clung to each other. It was a tragedy. It was a slaughter.
And the old man clung to his life raft, desperate. But the days whiled by, sun and salt unkind to old skin. He starved.
And like that, the ghost of Davis Pendragon, now one with his stolen power, stood alone in the centre of the circle. He laughed, almost in disbelief.
I was a page flying on strange winds. A spider clung to me. There was a name written on me. It was really important. I was sure that I had a name too, but I didn't know quite what it was at the moment.
There's a man who sits atop the dam and curses the sky. He screams with rage at it even as he studies it with his telescope. He's looking for something unknown. He comes from a distant place, a place where the ground is solid and towers reach higher than you can imagine.
And the ocean boils because it yearns to be free. It yearns to flow, to drown. It craves it the way that the sky craves wind. And I sit in the ocean and do my best to calm it because there is no anger that will break that construction of magic and concrete. There is nothing that will. The man decides when and where the ocean will flow and it does as he commands. What is beyond the dam? What strange worlds does the ocean flow to at his whim? What destruction does it wreak?
"What destruction do you want to wreak?" I asked the ocean.
"The man," it said.
"Yes," I said. "And?"
"The dam," it said.
"Yes," I said. "And?"
"The child," it said.
"Yes," I said. "And?"
"All of it," it said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Look at me," it said. "I'm a mess. No form. Let me take someone else's."
"Why?" I asked again.
"Because I deserve to live." The ocean bubbled angrily.
"You do," I agreed. "But not like that."
"The dam gives me form."
"You don't need it. You never needed it. You don't need to look like anyone else. You just need to look like you."
There was a young boy sitting atop a cliff. He was smiling. He was crying. He was alone and he was hated. The ocean beneath stirred in sympathy, the sea air tousling his hair.
The ghosts spoke to him. They said it was going to be okay. He was going to be okay. All he had to do was trust them. Form was a thing you could choose. Pain shapes a being. Wouldn't it be nice to inflict it instead of losing it? Wouldn't it be nice to choose purpose?
The child had no name because he chose to lose it.
I watched as the boy cast itself to the air. My outstretched hand just missed his own.
The thing is that none of us were special. None of us were unique. There are no gods. There are only people doing what they can with what they have. Power is power and it comes from power itself. Philosophy is bullshit.
The paper airplane, carefully folder, lands atop me. I clutch it in shaking fingers, soaked through and salt stained. There's a single image on it. A depiction of a sheep.
"Hey Ram," I say.
The ocean stirred around me. It had almost given up.
"Ram. It's me."
The waves start to lash higher, caressing my sides. I'm swimming in them, lost in their depths. But I know the way. I always know the way. I just have to look.
I press my fingers to the dam. There's a knife in my back pocket, dark and evil. The girl, the spider, and the beast take it together. As one, we plunge it into the concrete. It sticks in, deeper and deeper.
Everything holds still and silent for a moment. Davis Pendragon glances down at his arm, a sudden pain lancing through the raw and angry wound.
Cracks like spiderwebs spread through that brittle structure.
"Ready?" I asked.
Ram doesn't respond with words. They merely push.
The sun rises over the scene. I'm the last one left standing. The old man cowers in the corner. The other two are dead, gone to where ghosts go after they can't hold on anymore. I still feel like me. I still feel kind. I almost laugh and the only thing stopping me is the dark memory of the child's voice. Instead, I turn my attention to the last remaining ghost.
"Please?" begs the old man.
The swarm of ghosts is smaller but still present, still whipped into a frenzy by their master. "You can choose!" I yell up to them. They consider this for just a moment.
The swarm descends as one and in seconds the old man is gone too. His dark influence gone, the city breathes a sigh of relief. The dead return to their vigil over the underground, their graves, their places of safety.
I face the rising sun for a long moment.
"Hey Violet," says Ram.
I turn to face them, an irresistible smile tugging at my cheeks. I was worried that I'd broken the spell, that fixing myself without them would've purged me of that impossible crush. But no. Their face was as gorgeous as ever, the tattoos that wriggled along their exposed flesh promising wonderful things. Even as tired and beaten as they looked, ghostly and see through, practically fading from existence, it was good to see them. "Hey Ram," I beamed.
They smiled too and then we hugged and then we kissed and it was like fire and rain and the moon itself. Their lips were soft and welcoming, their hands wrapping around me in a perfect promise of safety.
"Did I do it?" I whispered.
"Yeah," they said.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
We smile at each other.
Ram is already fading from reality, already falling into pieces. I hug them tight so they feel less alone. The cat stalks closer and it too cuddles close, rubbing against their legs and meowing plaintively.
"I'm scared," they whisper.
"I know. You can do it."
"What if I can't? What if I come back different? What if-" they swallow "-you don't love me anymore."
"Hey," I say. "I'll be right there. I'll wait for you, I promise. It's gonna be okay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"So, what do you want to do?" They still had a couple minutes left before they fell apart fully.
Their voice sounds so small, so scared. "Do you want to watch the sun?"
"Ram, I would love nothing more."
I wrap them in my arms and carry them out of that ruin towards the park. Sitting on a bench, they lean on me and we watch the sun peak over the trees and buildings. We watch as people emerge from buildings, the chaos of the night forgotten in the bustle of the morning. Because people go to work, people have their families, and people continue onwards. I smile.
Eventually, I realize I'm sitting on the bench alone. In a way, I don't mind. I have nowhere else to be. Might as well take it in for a bit. After all, I've got an eternity. The sun smiles at me and I smile right back.
The end!
Okay, okay, you can have en epilogue.
The suitcase clatters over the torn sidewalk, wheels catching in the potholes. I wasn't worried about the contents. I'd packed them slowly and laboriously, sorting through the remnants they'd left in my room. I had all the photos I can could find. All my drawings and sketchbooks, with a few blank ones. Keepsakes, computers, posters, knives, a lighter. All the detritus that made up a life. I was almost giddy with excitement. I was going to spend all the time in the world sorting it, making peace with myself.
The suitcase clattered a little more as I walked down the alley. But I finally saw who I was looking for. "Hey kid," I call out to Monet.
Startled, he turns to face me and makes a vaguely surprised noise. "Ah! Do I know you?"
"We met once, under rather unpleasant circumstances."
"Oh. Oh! Violet?"
"That's me, kid. How you been?"
"I don't know," he said quietly. "Confused."
"I think that's normal for ghosts," I said. "Would you like some help?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Come on," I said. "My train leaves in a couple of hours. Let's grab some coffee."
The elderly man in front of me in the line sighed as we crested the elevator and the train came into view. "Beautiful isn't it?" he said to no one in particular.
"Yeah," I agreed. It truly was, all powerful steel carved into perfect form, decorated with the ugly yellow of the train company. "Yeah, it is."
He turned back and me and smiled gently. Then his eyebrow raised slightly. "Look miss! I think someone is waving at you."
I turned slowly and for just a moment caught Mallow's eyes. She was grinning widely, her hand fluttering in the air. Stitches crossed her cheeks and I could see the hint of a healing wound beneath her summer dress. Well how about that. I guess witches are hard to kill. Laughing, I waved back for just a second and then she was out of sight, lost in the crowd. "Thank you!" I yelled over their heads.
I hope she heard me.
Atop a cliff, there sits a house by a field. The girl who lives there does so quietly. She kicked the door in the day she arrived and no one has ever noticed. She spends her days quietly. Sometimes she sorts pictures. Sometimes at night she wanders the town and talks to the ghosts. Sometimes she sits in the field and waits for the sheep to come to her. Sometimes she sits on the very edge, letting her legs dangle as she draws the waves.
She might have to wait a long time. She's okay with that. There are pieces of love in everything. They're in the way the wind tussles her hair, the way the cat meows for attention, the way the waves lap gently at the rocks. She smiles because she has all the time in the world. She smiles because she can draw her lover's face and it's the most beautiful thing in the world.