'It tugs and wallows, it breaks and heals. Not even ghosts are safe from it.'

The pull of the reality is like stones holding him underwater.

But he doesn't move. One shallow breath. Then another.

Sleeping next to him must feel like lying next to a corpse. He looks over to the wall, bleak and blank as the cold side next to him.

Sometimes company helps to stop the pull. It helps to forget.

That's all it means.

A Ghost can't love the living.

It only haunts them.

Water drips through the roof. It leaks. Droplets of ice cold water. Little sounds in the darkness. And a puddle on the ground.

Dirt, the Ghost has learned, is just a reminder that this world consists out of filth.

Every breathing creature shits and coughs and dies. That's the way of it. Some may try to hide it. But they can't hide it forever. Even if they try.

If they bleed, that is weakness.

If they laugh, that is weakness.

If they love, that is weakness.

The hole in his chest agrees, reacting to the faint memories of his dreams. The pull is strong tonight. It's because the last fight, the hiding in the trench and the picture have reminded the Ghost too much of all the losses.

He tries to forget. One breath at a time in the silence. It does not work.

A pale face, not used to all the filth and blood . Sounds of far explosions and fights, sounds of feet moving, sounds of human strength and misery. "Have you seen many people die?"

A voice that once belonged to him , hoarse, trying to feign strength when there is but none left in the exhaustion.

Daring to speak only because they are alone. Alone, alone, what a rare gem. "You get used to it soon, your Highness."

A lie , a lie. All a lie.

You never forget.

"And it is not like they will send you with the ambushes." Because he is too valuable. He is not replaceable. Not like the men's he has seen, barely alive in the dirt. Entrails hanging out of a gut, a face smeared with dirt but pale as sour milk. "Lost a lot of good men down at the trenches, I heard."

"What does make a good man, Thomas?" the faint memory asks, the memory of someone willing to listen to him. "What do you think?"

And what indeed?

The Ghost stares into the unfolding darkness, pondering about that question.

When he turns around in the darkness, it unfolds, again, and he takes another breath before getting up. A drop of water gets caught in his hair. Another runs along his eye like a tear he doesn't cry, loses itself along his collar.

Once upon a time, a boy named Thomas would have said a good man is made of care and kindness. A good man looks after the ones needing him. And a good man fights for them.

But now, the Ghost knows, that this does not mean anything.

Because all good men die early.

All good men lose.

The world eats them all.

Under the small roof on the porch, one of the others sits. The Ghost holds his distance between them. He remembers when he joined. But he doesn't care to remember the name.

"You let those soldiers escape." He says into the rain.

"Should I have shot them in the back?" The Ghost whispers. His voice is barely more than that. Except when he fights. "Or should I have held a speech to make them join?"

"They just...ran." The man says.

"Frightened people often do." The Ghost answers. Then he just stares into the rain, breathing in deep the smell of wet earth and wood.

"I saw you fight." The man shudders, if it from the chill air or because he remembers the Ghost shoot someone in the head. " I'm glad you have some mercy in your bones."

The Ghost chooses not to answer the question. Mercy. What a word. People never know when to use it right. This poor soldiers ran for their life. But where to? Desertion as a death sentence. Reporting the incident a punishment.

Letting them go will make them suffer. It is the same wrong mercy as it was to get stitched back together.

Flesh and pain, shattered bones. It smells of something foul and sweet, like death itself. They try to mask the smell. Sharp and stinging in his nose. There is pain engulfing him , like someone sticks a needle in his head-

"Your clothes," the man says and he follows the look. Mud and so much blood. A little dirt or dust from the road never bothered him. But this will not help moving undetected and it would reek.

"Ah." The Ghost just makes and gets up. He leaps down the porch , into a puddle. Water splashes over his boots up in the air. The rain is like tiny icicles cutting in his skin. He stretches his arms for a moment before standing still and silent in the rain.

"You were a soldier, weren't you?" the man asks suddenly and the Ghost turns his head slightly. "That uniform you wear."

"I stole it." He just whispers, words huffed into a cloud of air.

"You stole that one. But you wore one before. Maybe for another fight. Another side. "

Now his mouth curls into a thin line as he watches the man. Someone he does not even know the name. But that man still sees through him.

"What does it matter what side I was dying for?"

"You're not from around here." he says.

"No."

"But are you Nortan? You have to be."

"Maybe." And that is the only answer he gives. Left to suffer after flames pushed him aside. Reborn on a plane of ashes, because death would not claim him.

A boy that died twice and returned.

Peculiar.

"A soldier. All soldiers are boys these days. My son was a soldier." The man continues, holding his rifle and looking over the arching gapes in the front of trees around them.

The rain has started to get through the coat. The water cannot wash away the stains on his soul. It can only seep into his bones. Cold. Cold never bothered him. He is used to it by now. The stream of water hits his head and runs through his hair, strands longer now, falling in his eyes.

"His mother was crying the day he left and never stopped until he was dead and she followed him."

Thomas had a mother once. Is she dead? Did she cry when she heard he had fallen? Warm eyes and hand- saying his name gentle, a breeze on his brow- sunshine and the smell of soup-

"Don't tell me anything about you." The Ghost says. "I will leave soon and don't want to know."

"You leave?" the man asks.

"We will deliver the documents to the meeting point first." He clarifies. "Two days north and a little walk through town."

"But where would you go?"

The Ghost wanders through the high grass, like a sleepwalker. Up to the bleeding holes between the trees and runs his hand along one. Feeling the crisp bark turning wet and cold under his scarred fingers, burn marks going all the way up the back to his hand.

"What does it matter." He mutters into the dark clouded sky. And it is the truth. His feet carry him over misery and loss. They carry him to the burning vengeance in his heart that guides his hand. "South again. Every place is the same to me. A man in this forest dies or breathes the same as a man in another city."

He doesn't wait for an answer. He slips out of coat while he opens the door, almost stumbling about someone sleeping on the floor.

It leaves a trail of water on the floor. Like a snake slithering through a crack and disappearing in the shadows.

Two things that this rain is good for.

It cleanses the dreams and memories off him for a while. And it makes tracking them down much harder in this woods. The rain has not yet stopped when they decide it is time to leave the abandoned hut. Four men and a ghost walk little paths through the underwood that morning. One limping, another cut and bruised badly. The others just weary and sore.

The traveling makes his muscle burn in a welcome sensation. Not quite pain, but uncomfortable enough to concentrate on it.

Waiting until night time when they reach town, the Ghost slips through cracks, climbs over walls and hangs on like a spider in their net, muscles alive. Heart pumping blood through his body.

Not quite a fight. But it suffices for now. He watches the lights reflecting on the squares. He listens to the sound of boots on cobblestone and the whispering promise the weapons they carry hold.

"You're not who I expected." The woman says, braid flinging around. "And very young."

I am a million years old, the Ghost thinks. If he was a tree, he would be big and thin without much leaves, scarred bark and twisted branches, desperately trying to glimpse at the sun and soak it into his few leaves.

"You either wait for a corpse or you take the delivery from me." He just offers, waiting.

The woman shrugs. "Doesn't matter how old you are, I guess."

She makes the slightest gesture of her hand. He takes off his bag and throws it over to her.

"Any news?" he asks to fill the time she shifts through the bag useful.

"Nothing really. Same old, same old."

The Ghost hums low. "Are we done?"

"Lost a lot on that?" she asks, throwing the bag over to him again. He catches the rough leather. It does not weight much. A Ghost doesn't carry much belongings.

"We loose all the time. You just never look too closely." He whispers.

Speaking farewells is sentimental and without any practical value. People bid it in the vain hope of seeing each other again.

It tugs at bonds and feelings.

A word of goodbye is as wasted as a word of thanks.

Fingers holding on his, skin warm and smooth, a smile – thank you, thank you for seeing me-

He still finds himself wanting to bid the last word to the men he fought along these past week.

He finds two of them in the hideout.

Missing the limping one and the one sitting on the porch and talking to him.

"I assume they are dead." The Ghost whispers.

Good men always die too early.

Fluttering wings, a shot ringing through the air. Ash and blood.

"Was too slow," one of the two says, pale and sick and tired.

Was too slow to save you, blood staining hands, a desperate voice, shaking, so afraid. No no no not you too- a shot, so loud it seems to break through his eardrums, a soaring bullet cutting through skin-

The Ghost feels the explosion in his head and shakes it slightly.

What does it matter where you rest your head? In the end, his feet may bring him closer to his destination, if there even is one.

He cannot help these people find peace. If peace exists outside of death, as a hushed whisper and cool kiss.

Suffering will continue. With or without him. He needs to head out of the fog and maybe, just maybe he can find out what draws him, still living, still keeping his limbs moving.