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Separation was a quick affair – mused Ghost between hanging onto those thoughts as a whirlwind of different sceneries whipped past him – they didn’t even get to say more than a handful of scattered sounds at each other before their feet moved to bolt away from their tiny sibling.
The dull colour of their surroundings whipped past them, grey and off-white mixing, a dull replica of the dark of the abyss filled with the heads of Ghost’s siblings’, the white palace in the distance a larger copy of the lighthouse, the bugs chasing them just more colourful version of their sibling-shades.
Ghost climbs higher, that’s all they seem to ever do, they jump from ledges to platforms to half-finished structures and they think NoThornsNoSpikes and they continue on unafraid for they are smaller and faster than those who chase after them.
They reach higher and suddenly rain falls around them, ice cold and harsh. Soldiers, guards, their mind supplied, yelled after them to stop, fruitless in the endeavour. Their cloak was wet from the rain, it did not repel the liquid like the petals of their little sibling’s would have. Their feet never stop moving as they bolt through the alleyways and out through a gate, darting around bystanders who they can only see as splotches of colours. Their cloak is soaked around them, the chill not a bother to their kind. If one looked, they could see black shadows curl around their feet.
Up - They thought to themselves – Away from this cursed place – Hurried in their every movement, climbing higher and higher through places way too colourful and bright, everything strangely reminding them of their birthplace and the fruitless tries of their siblings escaping – Did they kill their tiny sibling too? Have they lost their last kin as well? How many were left who got out, how many lost to the sea, how many dead and waiting to rise, how many filled with the hatred of their pitch-black parent who only wanted the best for them?
Where Ghost saw others, they did not go, instead choosing the smaller passages, the dark corners, the shadowed arches, the top of the buildings- the air around them turned to liquid, or something similar. See through creatures floating around and about – they wished they could have been born see-through, to escape the notice of all who were out for the last of their kind – suddenly the liquid turns to greenery and air and for a fleeting moment they think – I wouldn’t mind returning to this place with Them.
The next moment they are going even higher up and winds are all around, several small bits crash against them with every step and they clutch onto the only petal they have left of Them like a lifeline and begin to force their way through the land.
Out – They think, walking past a corpse of a bug they have never seen before – Away – They think trudging on through this wasteland.
A part of them is screaming at them to go higher and higher, something calls to them above still, the void in them churns and calls and beckons still, always, wanting its children back but as Ghost struggles further into the winds the howling starts to muffle the calls.
In the back of their mind something sets in, something dreadful, they feel like something is starting to cover them and they can only hope that the darkness they inherited from their parent will be enough to consume it.
At first, they can feel the void envelope the strands that want to cover them, eating away at old magic and new and they feel confident in their origins for the first time in a long time - it is a strange feeling, they cannot recall being here long, and yet something tells them that they have been before, a thousand lives ago.
They trudge through the sand and the dust and whatever else it is that tries to bury them below and they feel like they have felt similar to this before – a thousand siblings fall, burying all below – and then they remember a chamber with several pairs of foreign corpses.
Ghost found that chamber with their tiny sibling – why did they decide to leave – always two or more corpses side by side, words etched into the wall – they could have remained there, together, would it be better? Would it be worse? - Ghost never finds the answer.
A strong blow of the wind almost knocks them over, their skull is bent at an awkward angle towards the floor, desperately trying to make themselves even smaller and for the wind to avoid them all together.
There were words – they remember a while later, clutching the petal once again as they struggle to gain another foothold. - What costs nothing but is worth everything, - their foot slips - weighs nothing but lasts a lifetime, - the shadows curling around their feet are now nowehere to be seen - that one person can't own but two can share? - The words echo in their head in a language unfamiliar yet they know what they mean, it echoes again and again and something nestles itself deep inside their mind, inside the void and they feel like it should scare them that the void doesn’t consume that something but they feel strangely comforted so they don’t dwell.
Ghost remembers the words but has no answer to them. They formed a question, they know, but why did it looked like most things were missing when they read (looked – Ghost remembers not knowing what was on the walls back then) the inscription on the walls? Another part questions why they know so much more now, why they understand it all now, then they remember a flash of light and they let the questions go.
It is only when they first fall to their knees that they ask themselves a different question – Why did I leave? – something starts to cover their mind, but they just stand up and go forward again.
They are once again thinking back to their tiny sibling, petal held to close to themselves so they don’t lose it to the winds when they think – Why did we try to escape? – another layer, full of dust and sand, is added to their skull and they feel heavy.
Something in them seems to splutter and die out and they think. – Why would they chase the light? What light? – a curse layers over them over and over again, burying their thoughts as they struggle to carry on.
Their questions seem to stall in their mind as they start to focus more and more on the sand and the winds and the howling and it becomes harder to walk to breath to exist and-
An ache forms when they spill black liquid into the sands, eating away at everything it touches. – Why does it do that? What does it mean to bleed? – A part of them begins to scream to struggle, somewhere panic mixes in and they struggle harder than ever to move forward but they feel like they are stuck in one place, like the winds are pulling them back in and refusing to release them from the clutches.
A lone petal is clenched in Ghost’s hand and they force themselves past a fallen body, not a bug, they note in their mind. – What is a bug? – They wonder and let the howl of the winds fill their silence, so much louder than anything they ever heard.
Somewhere inside a part of them screams and shakes and feels afraid, they don’t know why but it makes them want to scream and shake and oh so afraid – They feel like they are forgetting something important – the wind around them guides them again, away from the eye of the storm that could relieve them of this weight.
Ghost continues on, even and as their thoughts circle around and around they wonder – Who was it, that they called their Twin again? They cannot remember – They hold onto their petal and think of their tiny sibling, over and over and over and over and over and –
As time continues to pass (to regress? to rewind?) they remember less and less. Gone is Ghost and instead a vessel remains. They trudge on.
There is sand in their body, there is sand in their head, their skull. There is sand stuck to their torn wing and there is sand building on top of them as they fall, curling into a ball amidst a raging land.
Ghost struggles to stand and they push themselves up, the sand beneath them shifts and they tumble and the wind throws them over and suddenly they are no longer rooted, they hold onto themselves, to the last bit remaining of their past.
Something inside their chest curls in with them – and then it snaps.
The vessel finds their claws in the ground again and they start running, searching, yearning – they find themselves content despite this aching pit that wants to swallow them and they trudge on and they are desperately trying to keep on thinking and moving and feeling and they know they are panicking again and – Something in them feels broken and they are starting to forget the screams of siblings long lost.
Emotions unfamiliar swirl around in them as they scratch at the surface of a wall, etching in words that echo around their empty minds and they come up lost, the words of that question lost to the howling winds, they forget about the bits of the words their remains stuck beneath the abyss of their mind and move on.
Time stretches and they are thinking of the little one again, they can’t remember any of the rest – What rest? - They ask themselves at one point before thinking of the tiny one again and again and again – something has wrapped itself around their mind and they think in the deepest parts – we should have stayed in the abyss.
Each particle that lands on them, they feel something go missing, something else buried under the winds like a liquid they can’t get off. - Would joining their parent have been the same? what is a parent anyways – it begins to wonder more and more.
It lifts its skull and walks on, something clutched in their claws.
There was a place filled with green somewhere in their head- now it is all gone, dust and winds fill the space with howls as a white noise to fill what’s left.
Like a bottle it becomes full and overflows, the hourglass turns and they lose the feeling of liquid all around them, the transparency of jelly and it is filled with the urge to go on to leave to go against the air currents around it.
Another turn of the glass and it cannot remember the clanking of armour and panicked yells, it cannot recall the weeping city at all as the particles trickle away again and again and again and something slips and it doesn’t even try to remember what it was, doesn’t recall ever trying to do so, maybe it never did.
The tides turn and they forget the urge to climb, to reach, to escape and they can’t recall ever wanting to run and something is still inside them, pulled taut over a part of their mind but they can’t focus and it’s lost.
Void fills with dust and they forget their calling and there is but a small glowing part of them inside that is slowly being covered up, white light swallowed by its own curse.
It sees a corpse and moves on.
No will to break.
What is there to break when it wills for nothing?
What is a will even, the will to stand to move to struggle?
Is it a will to lie down and accept the coming of this never-ending storm?
If it had a will at all it is lost and buried and no one will be able to find it, buried beneath all the curses piled on top of each other, beneath all the bits and pieces that continue to cover up the past.
No voice to cry suffering.
It never had a voice and even if it did, who would it talk to?
The sand and the dust don’t listen, they howl with their own agony, a deafening scream of their own that everyone hears but no one listens to.
Even if it knew of talking of speaking, it would have no one listening.
The winds are filled with their own sorrow and they cannot hear its mourning.
No cost too great.
The vessel feels something in their claws, a strip of something rests between two sharp digits.
The object flaps with the winds, the texture refusing to break despite it all and it can vaguely recall a memory, but a moment later it’s gone.
It stares at it. – what was this for again? – it thinks, for the last time, and let’s go, the last remnant of the past lost.