You know that ghost is me
The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 8, 2008. Here there be spoilers for Chapters 220 onwards~
Beyond visions of fire, blood and scintillating webs of strings sharp enough to cut men to ribbons, Belphegor sometimes dreams of a black place that was empty of everything save a pool of water reflecting the darkness back unto itself. He always finds himself floating just above the surface, staring down at something that should be his reflection only that he knows that it isn't, because that isn't his smile, even if it looks like it is. Sometimes, the dream stays as it is, with him staring at that reflection staring back at him. On other days, however, he dreams of himself suddenly falling into that pool, drowning along with that person that isn't him wrapping its hands – small and white, exactly like his own – around his neck and squeezing, crushing the air before it even reaches his throat.
Whenever he woke up from those dreams, Belphegor spent most of the day after listless and annoyed, quick to torment whoever happened to have the misfortune of running into him (with the natural exception of Xanxus, whom he respected far too much to take out his personal issues on him). He hated dreaming about dead people. Dead people were uninteresting because they could not scream or attempt to fight back, and beyond that, they eventually stopped bleeding and not bleeding was never cool for someone as fascinated with blood as he was. He had always believed himself unattached and apathetic to matters of the family, much less a dead family member whom he was already done slicing and dicing. Why, then, was he dreaming about such things?
Much later, when he found himself looking up at his twin perfect and whole and smiling that smile, Belphegor remembered, with a small and near invisible shudder, the feel of the dream, the empty lake and the reflection. The bloodlust, however, was quick to set in, and Bel soon decided that maybe, if played his cards right, he could cut Jill up for real and he'd never have to go back to that void again.