Author’s Notes – A snippet from this boy’s (Ghost’s) life, originally posted on my livejournal community for original fiction, Serving The Sword. www.livejournal.com/community/serving_sword Join if you can!

Oh, & one more thing. Steal & die. Thank you.

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

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Pooling Waters

by Ghost Helwig

***

Later on he would blame himself, though he was never quite clear on why. But then... He had stayed when Wood repeatedly told him not to. He hadn’t wanted to, but his feet and his heart and his lungs and just everything inside him would not obey.

And so afterwards, it was almost natural to go for the blade.

He could’ve used Johnathan’s knife again, of course, even though he had given it away to keep himself from doing just that, but he hadn’t wanted to go through the trouble necessary to get it back. And he also knew that he was supposed to attempt this while in a tub full of warm water, but he didn’t want to die in an airless bathtub, surrounded on all sides by heartless walls. No, that was not for him. Even as furious with himself as he was, he could not do that.

So this time he tried it while hiding under the dock, hoping that this time he would not be found by family, by people he loved and who loved him in turn. Another reason to forego the bathtub idea, and just cut as deep as the razor could go...

So he did it, and, ironically enough, prayed... He hadn’t bothered with a note this time, hadn’t thought anything through, not with his mind full of Brad’s twisted razorblade futures and his insides full of Wood’s hot, sticky-

So no, he hadn’t thought, not really. Unusual for him, but he was starting to feel less and less like him as time wore on. Soon enough the Ghost he’d once been would be just a shade, a thought behind someone else’s eyes...

So really, he wasn’t killing himself, because he was long since dead and gone.

As his mind swirled lower and lower, darker and darker, he focused on the thought that maybe this time he would truly be breathing his last-

And a vision, not a dream or an imagining or a fantasy planted in him by a madman but a real and true vision, flashed in front of his mind’s eye.

Himself, soaked through with blood. A young man, no older than he, skinny and confused and looking shocked, ill. Another young man, younger but of an older bearing, bigger and more together even in the face of this horror, rushed forward, knelt beside him and searched frantically for his pulse. Having found it, though it was weak and sullied, like he was, like he’d rather die than be, like he was trying to kill himself before fully becoming, the young man ordered the other to call for help, to staunch the flow of his blood by applying pressure with his hands, and he knew it would work, suddenly, he knew that it would all work and he would live-

And that was what finally knocked the vision from him.

As he passed out, he, who never swore, even in his own mind, could not help but feel a soft but emotional “fuck”.

It seemed he could never do anything right. Even die.