Sorry for the late update, I've been kind of busy lately. I'll try to update it by every other day.
"In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves."
Laurie Halse Anderson
As Will tread lightly from Tessa's little institute in Powell Estate to the riverside, he made sure that no one followed him. He had put on an invisibility rune on his arm, and he cleaned his footstep when he stepped on mud. He kept on looking over his shoulder to see if there were any stalkers, which there was not. Alright, he was a bit paranoid. But he dared not to be discovered, lest the Clave would banish him and his only best friend from existence, or worse, from ever seeing each other again. No, he could not bear the thought of not seeing Jem again.
Over the three years, he was the only drive for him to move on. From the endless nights that he yearned for Tessa, the endless days he had to read by himself, and the countless days and nights he had to fight demon after demon, all across the globe. The fight that has no end has gotten to him. First, he noticed that his sense of humour had died, then his Welsh lilt. One thing after another, it was like his identity died bit by bit, with the more he killed, he shed more of himself. Until one day, when he was looking into a mirror in an institute in Hong Kong, he could barely recognize himself.
He had grown a stubble, which was not unwelcomed. It had transformed his adolescent face to something more mature, manlier, and more dangerous. He had scars of big and small sizes covered his already-marked body. Underneath, his body ripened with bulking muscles, never more was he a willowy slender teenager. But some things never change, like the hue of blue of his eyes, his brushes of brows, and his nose, slowly, he retrieved his image in his mind.
He whispered, "I am still Will."
But was he? He stroke over the faint mark of the rune of parabatai, it had faded the day Jem died on the altar. Oh Jem, he was his saving grace. Always the cheerful one at the face of mortal danger, and his music had soothed Will's long agitated soul. But he was gone. So no more of Will's saving. There he was, eternally damned, cursed to the never-ending life of a Shadowhunter. So he shall more on, he tramped the perpetual journey, never stopping for a chance of bonding with those who are not on his journey, like a special someone.
Back in the heat of London, Will wiped off sweats off his brows, and along with it, his melancholy for his lost love. Also, he was not completely lost. When he was immersed in the down world, he had found a phantom that claimed to be Jem. He was much nastier than Jem was, crude at best, and he does not have much thought for others. At first, Will had rejected him a bit for that, for Jem was infallibly kind, but he soon grew used to it, and simply dismissed it as a side effect of dying. After all, Jem was Jem. Even when he was dead, he was still his best friend, his zhiyin, his parabatai.
As he stared into the murky water of Thames, Jem slowly apparated from thin air.
Hey, I've hidden a few easter eggs in this chapter, comment if you've found one.
