'They meet and part. In another lifetime, they may have been friends.'
People do not attempt to find him, for the most part. He finds them instead, drifting along. If he needs to.
Where to go, when enemies spawn everywhere and memories keep you ensnared like a bear trap snapping shut around your feet?
He follows his body more than his head.
The traveling, at least, keeps the body of the boy that was Thomas, alive.
The hiding behind bushes, in lost places and poor huts, excuses with a bare roof with too many people stuffed inside.
The boy wears his tethered restless spirit like a bundle, and the traveling draws him closer somewhere.
He has minimal options to continue but less to return too.
Return to the whatever is left from the splinter group he has served his duty and given his gun too and fight again would be very simple.
But he does not wish to do that.
The handler of screaming death and voices clouded by fog has spent too many times in the forests and the north. And so he moves.
It is excruciating and lonely. Feeling impossible to survive alone to travel so far and so least it would be for people. The Ghost seldom bothers to talk if he doesn't need to anyways. He maneuvers around checkpoints and watchful eyes.
Fire is destruction. It is ever consuming and never fulfilled. It yearns and hungers. Begs to be fed like an animal may set its eyes on scraps. And bites as vicious if you come to close.
Fire eats people as embodiment of life itself.
Water is, as the polar opposite, supposed to be calm.
Water cleanses. Water flows. Where fire is force water should be graceful.
In truth, water holds as much destruction as fire. It can suffocate as much. It eats through stone and turns things rotten.
Little Sword Lake lies silent but not calm, a mile away at most. Through the mud and the trees, the Ghost can sense there is a turmoil. Something not supposed to be there creeps through the bushes. It has been hiding for a few days. He finds snapped branches on his way. Footprints leading away, straying from the safe paths. It's human and it moves. Probably on the run. A traveling soul.
The burnt out ruin that once was a barn has stable doors. It hangs on a hill below trees, an hour march from the lake.
Whoever has lived, breathed and worked here is long gone.
It seems fitting he has chosen burnt land and a leaking roof to hide. The weather in this woods is more lenient. The fog has vanished, the rain retreated. The weather is almost pleasant.
It is a sun that shines in all it's glory, mocking and cackling.
For now, the Ghost blinks into it, like a sleepwalker, as he sits down on the scorched grass. It warms his skin but fails to warm his soul.
There is a rope dangling from one of the trees close by. It may have once been a noose. There is nobody weighing the branches down. Either rotten and eaten away or buried.
Noise outside the barn. It wakes him from an ungrateful sleep. Tears him away from dreams he doesn't want to have. Saves him, for now, from the serpent ready to swallow him whole.
The smell of sunshine and water, a voice, and a hand, longing, searching, I had a family once.
A pale face in the darkness – you were my friend, or did I dream that as well- and then ash, ash, and the crows- CAW CAW CAW CAW-
His hand moves under the coat he uses as his pillow. The handle of his knife is smooth and fits perfectly. Worn out, recognizing the need of its owner.
It is in the same good shape as his pistol. He cares for the well being of his instruments. But unlike the lover that burns bullets into heads, it is silent. The knife waits and ponders where the pistol sings and screams.
Weapons at least, don't lie about their purpose. They cut and hurt and inflict pain. They do the bidding of the hand guiding it.
In the darkness of the night, no one sees more than Ghosts. For him, the world always is more grey, colors drained and faded. Ghosts drift along the world, wandering ethereal. He lies in waiting, like a snake in the high grass, ready to strike.
It does not take long before something rustles along the treeline. Snapping branches and leaving footprints. The small light must have attracted the wanderer.
The knife glides through the air gracefully. Steel awakening to the song of hunger.
It points at the curve of the intruder's throat.
It's a girl, lean and slender. The darkness is her shroud. Numbers curl along her neck. The Ghost looks at them, curious. Numbers evaluate. Numbers show worth. Numbers replace names when lists are endless and lives worthless.
The barrel of her gun points upwards, at his head. His eyes glide over the dark metal. This is a gun made for efficiency, it is not forsaken and left like his pistol was. Fine craftsmanship, and beautiful promise.
Neither of them moves.
"You hold it wrong." He whispers. His hand twitches on his knife. The blade almost cuts her skin. Smooth and young, stained with sweat. If she is scared he can't see it. Instead, he feels the brimming energy, an energy that stems from desperation and weariness. "Not used to shooting."
"I can still blow off your head." She hisses.
It is a stalemate.
"I will slit your throat before you do. And then we are both dead." His voice is hoarse. Strangely, this is the longest conversation he has held of yet. "So while we breathe. State your business."
The Ghost only huffs out a puff of air. He doesn't ask for the girl's name. Names can be powerful. But they attract attention. Names are gates to the past and images of loss.
Bare feet in the dirt, fresh scars, the realization- I am alone alone alone-
Never free. Never alive.
Your name is Thomas, you are dead, dead.
"Haven't eaten for days."
"I thought as much." The Ghost says, and he lets go if her, finally. Touching another person feels wrong. It makes his bones burst and his guts clench together. "Take what you want. Stay. Or hide in the forest again. I don't care. As long as you leave me alone."
He will not kill someone over food or a place to sleep. Not anymore. Not someone sharing his blood.
Red blood spilled over the floor, shot in the head, splinters of bones. Scattered around careless like parts of a morbid puzzle.
Not someone that points the barrel of despair at his head to survive.
The first is the hardest they say. The first you will never forget. But no one mentions what threatens to overcome you when you look back and see that after the first there are many more. And he looks back, back, and he sees, but he doesn't want to regret. Weakness cannot be allowed anymore.
She looks at him, but he does not care to look back. He can guess well enough her eyes are weary. It will speak of mistrust.
The barrel of the gun does not disappear. He still moves. Away, out of the range.
The Ghost slips back into the barn and sits down in his corner. The knife and the pistol stay close. Listening to the heartbeat of the forest, the swaying of the branches, he waits. Maybe she will not come. Maybe she will move away. What does he care? Another lost soul on the pavement of lies.
Lies are like stones. Some are shaped from the water streaming along. They turn smooth and round, perfectly shaped, with time. Some will be worn out cobbles. And some are sharp enough to cut.
Everyone is a liar in their own way.
In the small light inside the barn, he can see her clearly when she decides to come in.
Long black hair, half hiding the block letters on her throat.
Eyes too old for her face.
She's not without a certain grace, he guesses. He doesn't care for beauty. Beauty fades. Beauty deceives.
For a moment their gazes lock.
He has his weapons. She still holds the gun.
"Learn to shoot when you travel alone." he finds himself saying. "Not everyone will be as lenient as me when it comes to a fight. Wherever you might go."
She is silent for a while. The Ghost does not bother asking. He does not even want to know.
She sits down as far as possible.
He throws the meager hard bit of bread from his bag over. It rolls over the ground and rests at her feet.
Brushing off the dirt, she tugs at it, cracking it open and biting into it.
"I am going to the Choke."
"Then you will die." The Ghost promises, without any ill meaning.
And why would he try to persuade her to stay? He does not command anything. Anything than memories, fog, and bullets.
"What do you care?"
"I don't." If you look a dying man in the eyes, you see how the light fades- regret, fear, understanding, why, why is it me-
She does not try to tell him a sad story. And he doesn't tell her his. Instead, they just sit in the burned barn. Sharing the comfort of a small light and hard bread.
Knife in his hand, he falls asleep again somehow, guided by breathing.
He sleeps a few hours. Enough to keep his body straight but not enough to invite the dreams back in.
He does not attempt to go near her, sitting down in the corner instead. Her hands still holding tightly to the black gun. Crooked and bent fingers, belonging to a woman and not a girl. As always, hands tell the truth when faces can disguise themselves.
They hug the gun like a child holds onto a stuffed animal. Seeking safety in the dead of night. The metal can't give her warmth, but it may give comfort. When you possess little, the Ghost knows, something that helps to occupy, something that keeps you going, might as well be a gun.
His body has become perfection in sitting still, unmoving as stone. A single ray of light graces his burnt skin as the sun slowly creeps up.
There's a single book hidden in his bag. It is old, whispering pages dirty and stained. Some pages are not readable at all, letters lost in rain and blood. Washed away and used, like the Ghost himself.
Tired eyes, red veins creeping through as she opens them slowly. The Ghost half expects her to point the barrel at him again. She does not.
"Didn't take you for a reader." It is rude and insulting, spoken with spite.
The Ghost looks up slowly. He is not insulted at all if that was what she was hoping for. "Some people think books make better company than people."
And what are books but the whetstone for wits? Not that the Ghost considers his wits his greatest asset. A creature of instincts and reflexes, but what can it do? It keeps him occupied. At least for some time.
"I will spare you details," he murmurs, licking his thumb to turn a page. "Let's say it is a history lesson." Gruesome, superior, but that is what history is about. The winner claims their price to be immortal and everlasting glorious.
Blue eyes looking up, rustling from paper, a candle and flickering light, sitting in silence. Silence before a storm, silence before-
He tears himself from his thoughts. Raises his voice a little. " In the end, there is only silence. Might as well fill it with words."
Little time passes before he sheathes his knife and slips into his coat. There is no boding farewell, nor does it have to be.
Strangers do not need to display affection.
"For your sake, I hope you find what you seek in the Choke. Even if it is your death." he finds himself whispering. He was sure the least bit of compassion had been drained out of his body, withered away when his heart stopped.
She does not thank him. He is glad she doesn't waste her breath.
Two wanderers part at the edge of a hill. Leaving scorched grass and burned wood behind. One wants to march with determination while the other still searches for his reason.
When the jet arrives, a shimmering point in the distance, coming closer, the Ghost hides. Trees wallow and bend under the gushing wind of the engines. He does not wait to see if they find him. Nor does he look for the girl with the block letters tattoed around her neck.
