“Just because the people you love leave, doesn’t mean their time wasn’t well spent.”

Conan woke to the familiar sun peeking through his curtains. The room was cool, he looked around to the all too familiar room and the feeling of depression stood on his chest. He pulled the cover back over his face and sulked. He had ruined the last good thing he had. The only good thing he had in years. No, he could not think like that. He had to let her go, he was setting her free, right?

Conan grabbed his phone to see a few missed calls from Luna. He raised the phone to listen to the voice recording. It was hard to understand, but it was obvious she had gotten drunk with her friends. Music blared in the background over her slurred curses at him. Even though he could not make out the words, the tone was obvious. She hated him.

He groaned and tossed his phone to the end of his bed and held his face in his hands. How had he let his guard down like this? He knew, deep down, this was how it would end. He demolished her heart and his own. He had to try to move on and forget her.

_______________________________________

The rest of Conan’s week went by in a haze. He could not get the strength to leave his room. He restored to old video games and a special concoction of beer with a heavy pour of tequila in it. His room developed a strung musk of old food and stale air. He had fallen out of his routine and was fine living as an inactive part of society. He felt the bed rot had glued him to his mattress. He spent the days numbing himself and the nights with dry, red eyes and fighting a sleep that would not come. He knew this was not healthy and something needed to change. But, Luna’s absence had paralyzed him.

He was in the middle of a losing streak on Galaga when his phone buzzed. It was 2 p.m., so naturally, he was already tipsy. He grabbed his phone to see an unsaved number. He put the phone to his ear and slurped a soft hello. He realized his voice sounded more like a croak for not using it in over a week.

“Hey, it’s Jackie, I am one of Luna’s friends,” the sweet voice said. Conan recognized it as one of her roommates he saw at the bar the night he dumped her. “Look, we can’t find Luna, and her phone has been off for days. Is she with you?” Conan paused. Luna was missing? “No,” he responded softly and hung up the phone.

Conan changed quickly, grabbed his car keys, and sprained out of his apartment. He knew he probably should not drive under the influence, but he would have a harder time trying to transform and flying under the radar. He drove to her work first, and the girl working the front said she had not shown up for work in a few days with a scoff. Conan then went to a few of her classes and asked some professors if they had seen her. They all responded with a perplexed no, with a few staring at the sweaty, disheveled, and drunk Conan. He never gave them enough time to ask if he was okay as he was running to his next venture. He already knew her roommate did not know where she was. He even debated going to the police and reporting a missing person. He decided to check one last spot. Her favorite spot. He knew she could not be up the mountain by herself for that long, but maybe there was a clue.

He reached the spot where he had taken her flying. There was nothing on the cliff, only the beautiful view of the city as the sun set and made the windows a blinding gold. He sat on the roof of his car and watched the sky turn amber. He did not know what to do. He looked around and saw something new in the setting light. A piece of paper pinned to a nearby pine tree was an unearthly white. He would not have noticed it if he had not been at that spot before. He ran to the note and saw it was addressed to him. He unfolded it quickly only to find an arrow pointing up. He ruffled his brow. He stood where the note was pinned and looked up to see it was pointing at the abandoned observatory. He felt she was there, he could almost sense her fear and smell her perfume. Feeling a little more sober, and with no one in sight. He let the energy take over his body and transformed into his ghost form. He felt his eyes burn with uncried tears and blazing blue with anger, and he shot upwards toward the observatory.

Conan reached the boarded entrance to the observatory and phased through the rotting wood. It was dark and the air was musky. He marveled at the way weeds and vegetation were slowly taking back over the brick walls. He floated through the main entrance on high alert. He sensed many evil creatures lurking, but he also could feel Luna’s light in the building. He followed his intuition and turned down a hallway off the main corridor.

It was quiet as he floated. He stopped in the middle and breathed, trying to calm his nerves. He heard a sharp intake from behind him. He turned quickly to be faced with a particularly large demon running towards him. Conan shot upwards to avoid the bulldozer rocketing towards him. He landed over it and began to run back down the hallway. He was in the main dome-like room again, and it was now full of demons of all shapes and sizes. Some resembled common human myths such as sirens and small dragons, while others were truly unearthly and looked as if they were scraped from the depths of hell. Conan began to hyperventilate. He shot upward to phase through the top of the dome, only to be smacked with an iridescent, invisible wall.

Shocked, he fell from the sky and was descending straight into the madness of hungry demons laid beneath him. He caught himself and zipped around the claws trying to grab him. He was looking for another exit, but everything was either sealed off or had the slight purple hue of the iridescent and impassable wall. He had never seen something like it before. He floated to a corner and tried to gather a plan. He could not win against all these demons, even when he first turned and had unleashed strength he had no chance, especially not now. He could try to fire an enormous energy blast, but he was not strong enough to destroy all of them with one blast, let alone he would pass out and be captured. He did not have much time to contemplate. He then felt something towering behind him. He turned slowly with wide eyes to see a dragon-like demon with pitch-black skin and deep purple eyes that stood four stories tall. It snarled at him and unleashed a blast of hot breath that pushed Conan back to the center of the room. Conan raised his palm to shoot a blast at the dragon, but it was too late. It had already stretched its wings and was flapping directly above him. It then wrapped its tail tightly around Conan’s waist like a snake and threw him down into the center of the pit. The second Conan hit the floor, the world turned black.

_______________________________________

Conan groaned as he opened his eyes. He was not dead. He was still in his ghost form. He went to sit up, but his arms and legs were strapped down in an extended position. His position resembled a big X with a strap down his waist. He looked at the cuffs to see they resembled the same iridescent hue of the wall that surrounded the interior of the main corridor. He lifted his head to see He was in, what looked like an used to be where the main telescope used to resign. There was a large hole in the roof of the room where the stars shone brightly through with the full moon blinding him. He looked to the other side to see it was almost like an assembly hall with auditorium seats surrounding the stage he was trapped in. Whatever was happening, it was bad. Conan began to resist the restraints but then caught a very familiar smell of the woman he loved. He looked around frantically to find her. That’s when he heard a soft laugh from the back of the auditorium. However, It was not Luna’s laugh. But he still knew that laugh.

The dark figure stood and began to walk down the aisle towards the stage where Conan was planted. When they got into the moon’s light, Conan saw it was a very old woman. Her skin looked like it was barely hanging on her skin, however, her eyes were bright with energy and her smile was evil and wild.

“Hello old friend,” the voice said sweetly. “Do you not recognize me?” she asked and sounded slightly offended.

“What the hell is going on?” Conan begged as he pulled harder on his restraints to pull away from the woman. She slithered up close to him and grabbed his face to make him look at her. Conan looked deeper into his eyes, and something clicked.

“Stella!?”