"I want to show you something," says the soft voice of a young girl. Her flower print dress and white sweater are gone. She's wearing an old nightgown that loosely hangs on her narrow shoulders. Her feet are bare as she steps closer to me.

"What is it, Melody?" I ask her.

"I want to show you something," she repeats. The closer she gets, the more details I see of her. Small dark circles under her mournful golden brown eyes. Drops of blood on the collar of her white nightgown. Dried blood stained on her cracked, dry lips. Curly blond hair spilling down her shoulders. I'm wondering why she wants to look like this.

"Take my hand," she says. Her pale hand reaches out to me. I hold it without hesitation. I know better than to refuse.

Everything around us vanishes. We're on a moving train that's speeding across the barren land. Melody pulls me to the last car, where we stand in front of a tall glass cylinder. A blond haired boy lies on the floor. An oxygen mask covers his nose and mouth while IVs are poking out of his left arm. His eyelids are closed over his bleeding, midnight purple irises.

"Eden," I whisper quietly. "How….?"

"The longer you exist here, the more you find," Melody says sadly. "The more you find, the harder the truth becomes to hear." She looks boldly at me. "There are no secrets when you're dead. Everything unravels."

"I traced your aura to him and Day," she explains.

"Why couldn't I do it?"

"You're new here. You're weaker than most of us, so you can't go to two different places and watch over two different people. And…Metias made sure that you wouldn't find Eden. He built some sort of barrier on this train."

"Why would he do that?" my voice is sharp.

"To keep you from finding out," she says to me like I'm the dumbest person in the world. As if this whole situation was one-sided. "But I'm stronger than him."

I reach out to press the glass, but my hand slips through and I fall in. I wish I could hold Eden in my arms, embrace him and whisper that everything will be fine. But nothing is okay. Day's with the Patriots, Eden is the Republic's lab rat. And their futures…I can't even begin to fathom about them.

Eden's chest rises and falls, his soft breaths puffing and fogging up against the plastic of the oxygen mask. His blind eyes suddenly fly open. Eden's eyes are moving, but out of focus. "John? Is that you?" he whispers.

I freeze. How can he possibly know? How? "John," Eden whispers again as confirmation. "Is Mom here with you, too?" I swallow hard and turn back to Melody. She shrugs at me.

"Yeah, I'm here," I answer hoarsely.

Eden doesn't seem to hear me. He blinks again. "John?" A tear slips out of the corner of his sightless eye. It's strange how the blind can see more than others. "John, where are you?"

Something deep inside of me twists and wrenches away from my spirit. When I cry, gold light runs down my face instead of wet tears. "We should go," Melody says, tugging me away. I let her lead me away, because I can't take the pain. Maybe when I'm stronger. But right now, I'm helpless and useless to Eden.

Metias is walking towards me. I calm myself from lunging at him with anger. A smile is on his usually stern face. "Hello," he says.

"Hey," I answer back coldly. He doesn't seem to notice.

"Look, I've been meaning to tell you this…but I couldn't find you today."

"I was walking around."

Metias nods slightly. "Remember when I asked you to find another spirit like us?" I nod. "I think you should stop looking."

"Why?"

He hesitates. "It's becoming too dangerous and risky."

I narrow my eyes. "You're lying," I accuse.

"I am not!"

"There are no secrets when you're dead," I repeat Melody's previous words.

Metias scowls. "I want you to stop looking," he snaps. "You shouldn't be prying for info."

"Is that why you hid what was happening to Eden?" I shoot back. "Is Eden not my concern? Because for as long as I remember, Eden is my little brother, and you have no right to hide him from me."

"I did it for your own sake!"

"My sake? You think it would be better if I didn't know what your Republic is doing to my brothers?" Anger surges through my spirit.

"Yes, I think it would be better if you didn't know. I already know how terrible the Republic and the Elector can be. And all of this could've passed by before you knew. But you peeked through the curtain and unearthed the mysteries."

"I needed to know," I say.

"Sometimes, it's better not to. That's why so many souls don't want to remember. That's why you and me are different then everyone else here." His eyes bored into mine. "Time goes on, and we'll all be soon forgotten. That's why souls shouldn't linger." He begins to fade until he is nothing.

I walk around, pulling together my thoughts and pushing aside my feelings. My anger has somewhat dimmed down.

Part of what Metias said is partly right. Time really does go on. It is forever, it is eternal. It is immortal. If Time was like a human being, then a blink of an eye, a heartbeat, a breath, would be equivalent to a million years. And we cannot stop it. That is why souls do not linger. Because we do not have the power and choice to make our legacy live on with Time.

This is us as humans and souls:

We linger.

We fall.

We love.

We hate.

We live.

We die.

We fight.

We are obliterated.

One moment we're here, and the next, we've never existed to the world. Our footprints are covered by layers of dirt and dust. The light we leave burns out. We topple down further and further as other lost lives pile on. And we're pushed down until even a whisper of us has perished.

This is the price of immortality.

I just want to apologize if the chapter seems choppy….I wrote the end before I started the beginning, so it's a bit hard to mend them into something more fluid. I guess the ending's pretty weird too. I just love figures of speech/ overdramatically writing a sentence. And again, as always, please review and tell me what you think!