'Sometimes your reflection knows the truth, even if you don't want to acknowledge it.'


What is it he is looking for?

He was sure he would be content with walking. Running away. Taking down anything in his way. Not exactly caring who steps back in.

What does drive a ghost? Wishing to find the one person responsible for their suffering to finally haunt them once and forever?

Wouldn't he know where to go for that?

His feet drag him south, just as he had prophesized another corpse on a rainy day in the woods.

He has to be very, very careful. Even if no one knows he exists, they will not just let him walk by.

The Ghost accepts that simple fact. He accepts the future possibility of a fight and he will be sure to fight well.

He finds shelter, sometimes, here and there, if he has to.

A Ghost eats and sleeps, even if the food tastes like nothing and the dreams are just pale images merging with reality and carving a world into stone he fails to fully grasp.

He never hurts anyone that gives in to the polite silent question of this refugee seeking shelter. Sometimes though, people ask too many questions or make wrong assumptions.

It happens one late night again, when he is hiding out in a backyard like a stray dog. There is a girl.

She may be older than the one with the block letters he met and still remembers, because it was the last long contact and talk he had. The last peace before he ventured too close to cities and small towns. She doesn't hold a gun. No machinery of fine crafted death.

He can feel the weight of his knife when she approaches.

Her fingers are cramped around a bucket.

"What do you want?"He asks her. She stares at him again, with the bucket in her hand.

"I just thought you'd maybe want to clean up," She says.

He just takes the bucket.

Silently stares at her face.

There is dirt on her neck, a tiny fleck, and the seams on her elbow are wearing very thin.

"Someone said you were from the Scarlet Guard-"

Words of gratitude.

As if he was a hero.

Heroes don't exist.

"I am not one of them." The Ghost says, and makes a step back. "Keep your thanks."

"But-"

"Don't think about it. I will soon be gone again."

If she doesn't want to leave, he is afraid he will have to threaten her. Blunt force works for most people because of the fear.

He doesn't have that fear anymore.

If fighting is the only thing that makes you feel even remotely alive you loose fear. The concept of death holds a certain appeal, even if you are not foolish enough to seek it out in the open, and it does erase some of the fear too.

She does not have that.

The water in the bucket almost splashes over his hands when he turns around and looks for another shadow to hide in, just for a moment.

His hands are dirty. The water turns brown and muddy under his fingers sinking in. As if he was poisonous, polluting it.

He stares into the only mirror he has seen for a long time.

The other boy looks back from the water. He moves the same as the ghost, but for the briefest of seconds, the longest blink and the slowest blink he is not the Ghost at all.

Under the dirt and the dust. Under the hollow eyes and the scars.

There is Thomas. And he doesn't disappear.

How could he forget? He was so young when they met.

Lanky bones, thin. Freckles of dirt and sweat on skin. Too big for the jacket he wears, hair unruly despite the fresh cut. Not a soldier. Just a servant boy in a better position.

Faced with the war and the chaos of human misery. But still young and fresh without the scars.

They kissed, that first time. Behind that tent. Fluttering hearts and careful hands.

He was still young when he died the first time. Still not a man when he died the second time.

Smoke, bodies moving, boots soiled. The coppery taste of blood as he bites his lips hard, to stop himself from being afraid. The end comes with shit and piss and tears and that is something they don't tell you when they speak of the heroic deed of defending your country.

With force the scarred and calloused hands swipe through the reflection. Spraying the remains of the dead boy away, atomizing it so the pain can stop. The fear however, will not leave.

I love you, did I tell you that? It means something, right? We never mean anything to the likes of you.

A kiss and a kiss and a kiss and a smile and anger and confusion ,then nothing much while the fire kills- the smell is abominably and when his skin bursts into bubbles it sizzles-

The knowledge that wherever he runs, whoever he kills , the boy is lurking behind the fog. And he grows vicious. The memories hold no comfort. And his defense is running low. The mold cracks open, ever so slowly. With one gaping bite the sea serpent drags him under water and squeezes the breath out of his chest until he cannot breath anymore.

Under water you cannot yell just as you cannot breath.

The ghost boy makes no sound while he shakes.

His hands never shake. His body is still and controlled. Now it deflates. His hands turn to fists, dirty nails digging into palms. Fighting his body. The only ally he thought he had has turned against him.

What is it you want?

What is it you are looking for?

With a kick the bucket sails down, water spilling over stone. It rolls and rumbles over the ground.

He cannot cry, he never cries. His body never seems able to provide tears when other people wail and sob.

Instead, his eyes stay dry. The only water is the one that rinses over the ground, between his feet. It forms small rivulets sinking into the ground when his boots stampede away and leaves. As he always does.

What is it you are looking for, Thomas?


The valley has nothing of any romantic charm. Just as all the life, it fights to stay, hostile and cruel. Life bites. It eats. It swallows. It suits the Ghost fine to wander through it. Even if he does not like to move through the open without coverage.

He has his gun at the ready. One move and he will swing around, perfection in his arms stretched out to end whatever is coming to attack him.

In the distance, a crow croaks, the only sound next to his boots crunching over the earth.

CAW CAW CAW-

The memory of a beak that buries into an eye flows into his mind as close as ever.

"Hello, Thomas."

The Ghost swings around just as promised, pointing his pistol, finger over the trigger. It begs to be pushed and pulled, it waits to scream for him again.

He does not recognize the face that belongs to the voice. Dirty dark clothes, grey hair. Eyes as red as the blood that was spilled on the plane, as red as the pain flooding him. Eyes that see.

"The fogland soldier, they called you for a while, " the man says. Thomas' ghost clenches his teeth. "The spirit of the dead, returned from the battlefield. Hunting the unjust in vengeance."

His voice is not unfriendly, not curious, nothing. It sends a tingle of understanding over his spine he does not like. The man knows things, things no one should know. Or only a few. And he cannot imagine meeting the few people that know his face, his name, and this one bit of information here, in the middle of nothing, down the road south.

His hands shake again around the weapon in his hand.

His finger never quivers. It never wavers. The hand that pulls the trigger is steady.

"I did not come to attack you." The man is unfazed by the way the Ghost points the barrel at him. And the Ghost realizes it is because he knows he will not shoot.

"You should have been dead." The man says. "But then you would not stay. And everything changes where you walk, because you could not make up your mind for a long time."

A statement that reeks of profanity. The Ghost presses his lips together. "Are you following me?"

"Oh no, I don't need to follow you." The man stares at his fingers on the trigger. "But I have seen you. I see everyone."

"Are you silver?" he asks. Somehow deep within his core, he knows the answer already.

"No, Thomas."

More questions that are unwelcome in the ghost's mind. They confuse the little clear alarms and wires that set traps in his thoughts. He knows a little truth, just like he knows the cobble shaped smooth lies.

He knows his name. He does not seem to be lying.

The Ghost listens if only because he has nothing else to do but walk otherwise.

"Your name," Is what he demands even though it does not matter at all. Names don't matter, faces don't matter. All corpses and ruins. But names also hold power. That is more important now.

"Jon."

"Jon." The Ghost repeats. "So, what else do you see about me? What else is important enough?"

Six words leave Jon's mouth, and they will guide him for the rest of the way.

"The road to Archeon is long." Jon sounds certain.

The Ghost just narrows his eyes. "Why would I want to go there?"

"To seek peace. To seek death." The words spring to live inside the Ghosts chest, vibrating with inner truth and certainty. "You could have joined stayed north and followed into ambushes. You did not. You venture further down south, and your feet drag you on roads that lead to the city."

"If I go there," The Ghost is snared by the truth in the words as he has never been since the day he has died and ran away. Now lies are big and lies are everywhere, but if find a truth, you need to know it. It is as powerful and useful as a name. "If I go there to kill, or fight, how could I win?"

"A Ghost just floats along the living to haunt them," Jon says and the boy that was Thomas holds the gun so tight it hurts. " I don't need to tell you how you climb or slip in. You will walk along squares and bridges , and you will see the palace. You're observant, you will notice a window that needs repairing in a far corner. And...ah, three days later, you will take a shot."

"That does sound like me." The Ghost agrees. Who would have thought he would ever agree with someone he met in the dead hostile valley of grey clouds and old naked trees? "But I would never make it to the shot with magnetrons around, would I?"

Jon does offer an answer to that as well. "You are there in the exact right moment, you'll find a clear line without any disturbances, just as you prefer."

One shot.

One more shot.

For a long time they just stand in the dead grey world, neither looking at the other.

"The road to Archeon is long," the Ghost repeats. Then he turns around and just walks off. He does not wait to see Jon vanish.