Episode 11

Well. It wasn't exactly the longest Monday of my life. I was just assuming it was Monday, but I didn't even remember what day I had died on. The last thing I remembered was leaving the house and it had been a Sunday, so it could perfectly well have been Monday. But it was in another world - who says it had to be Monday here too?

For all I knew they could have a different calendar. Hell, why not?

But enough about that, the fact was that day one was over. I was one day closer to total oblivion and still hadn't made any real progress.

I hadn't found even the slightest hint of my soul.

This game was rigged. I didn't know how I was expected to find my soul with no clues, no help, when it could be anywhere in this wide, long, shitty world.

But that didn't mean I was going to give up.

At least I was a ghost. I didn't have to waste my valuable time sleeping.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Without much success. My head was a sky covered in storm clouds.

“Well, let's move on.”

“I thought humans needed sleep.”

“I'm not human. I'm a ghost.”

Plague didn't respond in any way. Well, at least we had cleared that up. We continued on through the hills and through the darkness. I should be glad that night had fallen, but I didn't want to discover what more strange creatures roamed this world. Plague was enough for me.

If this were my world, then robbing the bank would have been a terrible idea. But it wasn't.

These medieval assholes didn't have phones or internet. Nor any other way to transmit information easily and quickly to anywhere else in the world, I supposed. Maybe some magical shit could work the same way, but for the moment I was happy to assume otherwise.

I wouldn't have to worry about photos either. That was a sure thing.

Just drawings, probably bad ones, on wanted posters. At most.

It wasn't that big a deal.

Besides, I was a ghost. What jail could they put me in that I couldn't escape from just by walking through the bars?

Okay. Again, maybe ghost jails existed in this crazy world.

But for the moment I preferred to assume otherwise. Because it would be inconvenient. And it sounded stupid.

“You know, I've never had an easy life.” I started and stopped there. As if waiting for my partner to say something, I didn't know what.

But no. She offered me nothing but silence.

So I decided to continue, even though I wasn't sure why I had started in the first place. It wasn't a good idea to make noise even if no one was following us closely. This world was a mystery to me and I didn't want to discover the maw of some other nightmarish monster lurking in the dark of night.

Whatever. I felt like talking, though.

And I was a ghost, I could get away from most problems.

Not with the money, maybe, but oh well.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“The hard times started even before my sister was born.” I wish they had ended sooner, too, but such was life. A constant war. I wish I could have offered my sister a better life. But I did everything I could. At least I can say that much. I did everything I could, even if it wasn't enough. “It's not easy to leave your old life behind and move to another country.”

It was an understatement, now that I had left behind not just my country, but my whole world. The irony was so bitter it was almost funny.

Maybe irony wasn't the right word, but my education wasn't the best. For obvious reasons.

“In search of opportunity. The American dream, yeah right. Maybe because you have to be asleep to believe in it. But it all... It all really started when I was seventeen.”

Plague still offered me nothing. She was silent, except, of course, for the sound of her footsteps. And breathing.

“You see, one of those rich bastards who always looked down on us, a teacher... groped my sister. And tried to go further.”

Even after all these years, my stomach churned with rage just thinking about it. I didn't have a stomach right now, of course. But I still felt more or less the same as always. An urge to vomit included.

“I didn't see it, but my sister told me. She confessed it to me, crying, days later.” Days. Disgust and fear had made her keep silent for days, days, days. “So I did it. I bought a gun and I did it. I shot him in the balls. I gave him what he deserved.”

I felt myself smile. The sheer satisfaction hadn't diminished over the years either. It was as if I had just pulled the trigger, as if I had just seen the explosion of blood, his face contorting.

What he deserved, I had just said. But in reality, he deserved much more than that.

He deserved to die.

So I really only gave him his comeuppance much later. And in a more subtle way, not without help.

They never found the body.

“And I ended up in what they call juvie, ha, yeah what a joke.” Like jail, it was nothing more than a punishment. If those on the outside didn't make sure, then those on the inside did. Those who were just as pissed off and locked up as you. “Because I was a minor back then. And so was my sister. She was fourteen at the time. But... Whatever. It's pretty much the same as prison for your future prospects. Suddenly a lot of doors are closed. I don't regret what I've done, ever, ever, but...”

This time I stopped. But not because I expected something from Plague, I wasn't dumb enough at this point, but because I was about to cry. Or at least I felt close to it, even though ghosts don't have tear ducts. Very masculine, more out of anger than anything else. But still would be crying.

It wouldn't do me any good to break down now, when I still had a long way to go.

“You're not going to say anything.” It wasn't a question, more of an accusation.

“I’m listening.

“I... Okay. Okay.” That was something. Until now I had thought she was completely ignoring me, it was unexpected.

Which led me to wonder why she was listening to me, what she was getting out of my ravings. Information about how humans thought, perhaps?

Did she think she could find the best way to stab me in the back once we found my soul, if we did, by listening to me?

I could think of many reasons and none of them were positive.

Better not to think too much about it.

“But my father died while I was in the slammer. There's always a silver lining.” Lung cancer. The old bastard had bought too many tickets and won the lottery in the end. Life was complete chaos, there was no justice, neither in court nor in heaven. But sometimes people got exactly what they deserved. And that was something to celebrate, since it was so rare. “When I got out... Well. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this.”

I took a deep breath. That didn't help to calm you down. I didn't even have lungs. I didn't want to think too much about the fact that I wasn't breathing. So fucking creepy.

“When I came out, I took... I took responsibility. Okay? I took responsibility. I did what I had to do to get my mother and my sister through. The American dream. I lived it in back alleys and not-so-reputable locales. A beating here, passing drugs there, a little bit of everything. But I did it. I did it and I don't regret it either.”

It was the truth.

If that made me a bad person, well, okay, I was a bad person. But the alternative would have been even worse. Settling for the low-paying, unstable jobs they were willing to give a person with a background like mine.

Yeah, why would I regret it?

Maybe I could have handled what happened with the teacher differently, but once I did my future was sealed. I was left with no other choice.

And... I couldn't... I really couldn't.

I could never have slept comfortably at night knowing that man was alive, that he'd gotten away with a slap on the wrist.

“Family is the most important thing. I don't mean blood ties. I was just lucky that my family was also my real family. Well, two out of three isn't bad.”

“But?” Oh, so she was actually listening, she hadn't said it because she thought that's what I wanted to hear.

I wondered if there was a but here. I decided there was. It wasn't the same as regret, but yes.

“The thing is, if I hadn't gone down this road, I probably wouldn't be dead now. My sister wouldn't be alone. And I... I wonder how I died. I wonder if...” I wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. Good thing I didn't have to. “Holy fuck.”

Episode 11: FIN