Chapter 22: I could not see who was waiting there

Just because Vlad was convinced otherwise didn't mean he'd ignore the possibility that there was a ghost using him as a recovery unit. He didn't think it true, it was Bianco's hypothesis – not Vlad's – but it would be stupid and not very scientific to simply dismiss a theory just because his instinct told him otherwise.

Vlad's instinct didn't amount to much, considering it hadn't saved him from green pain acidic swirls of agony the accident and that was the reason wrong you know why who is to blame who didn't check who didn't warn who simply went with it who killed you he was stuck here now.

Not that Vlad thought his lack of "ducking" back then was his fault – he hadn't been prepared, hadn't expected that, shouldn't have been in that situation, and it had only been a handful of seconds – but good instincts might have gotten him out of the way.

Instead, it had been shock – and then the explosion.

can't breath

So no, Vlad had no trust in what felt intuitive – such as the deep-seated conviction that he was ghost-free, if you talked about ghosts other than himself. He believed in that intuition, yes – but was entirely open to finding out otherwise.

It most likely wouldn't happen, and he'd recently decided that hope was a bad thing – since it hadn't been proven right even once since the proto-portal – but he could still try to look for proof anyway, just in case.

At worst, it would deepen his current belief of doom and death, and then he'd...

It couldn't get any worse, so.

Vlad, thus, spent the next days – weeks, month – hyperaware of himself. Oh, sure, there were moments he wasn't keeping watch – when he slept, when a mild fever came over and made everything a bit blurry, a tad fuzzy – but generally speaking, he just...

Listened.

When he was alone and waiting for time to pass, or reading a book June had gotten for him, or trying to figure out the business-major-related textbooks he'd asked for in the vain perspective of a future after the clinic – that was going well, by the way, except for the fact that he'd never get to do anything with those he'd had prospects and dreams and things he'd wanted to build after college with Maddie "Jack these calculations aren't right" with Jack "banzai!" he was supposed to be out there and helping his friends set up a venture that would finance their ghost-related research and actually make use of their findings not rotting away forgotten by all like an extra in a horror movie he could have gotten the girl or not maybe but he would never find out now would he just because Jack Fenton couldn't be bothered to care about security and his best friend when there was some stupid decision he could make instead all that because – Vlad would listen.

To the silence. To himself. To nothing and to what wasn't inhabiting him because the answer was different and he knew it.

He listened, and heard nothing.

He was as alone as he'd always expected.

you know the tales Vladislav

If a ghost was sleeping inside him, it was well and deeply slumbering, letting nothing appear of its presence. Which was probably because it wasn't there at all, but Vlad was trying to keep an open mind.

listen to your mother son

you know the tales don't you Vladislav

He could listen all he wanted, of course – it wouldn't change the facts.

There was him and only him in here.

When he stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, when he looked at himself, he didn't see who he used to be, but he didn't see a stranger either.

When he went there at night, when the doctors and June wouldn't walk in and ask why he was staring at his reflection as if waiting for something to wave back, Vlad could see too much even without the light on – not quite like it was day, but as if he was standing outside, under a bright moon and a great many stars.

He'd touch with dead fingers dead and red and grey and cold and dead his teeth just a bit too sharp to feel human canine not too long but longer than before only an edge shy of cutting into his skin and lips or his ears not quite like they used to be pointier perhaps shaped oddly and grip at his hair grey like a too-bright grey sky making him squint grey like the shadows of photographs past silver whisps escaping his grasp and pause. Listen. Notice.

He'd search for a heartbeat that he'd forgotten about.

It'd take him too long to find, as if it had to start again once he'd noticed its absence.

A wave of cold and blue would creep along his limbs everywhere but for the tips of his fingers black and red and necrosed for a second, and disappear into nothingness as he'd blink, doubtful of the color in the darkness.

Sometimes, Vlad would choke down a cry then – and his eyes would drown into red and pink, tears cloaking his vision until he forced himself to go back to bed.

To sob silently to a life lost and to nights spent listening even if there was nothing to hear.