There was something extremely painful in seeing Ace standing in the middle of his living room.
Alex sighed from the darkness of the bedroom.
Ace didn't hear him, he didn't hear the little sigh of agony, he never had.
Being the eldest of the three siblings, Ace was always protective of his younger ones while growing up. Whenever Aurora and Alex would find themselves in critical situations because of their mischiefs, Ace would always come to the rescue. They looked up to Ace to save their backs forever. Then one day, Aurora left them. Gloom clouded over the family along with the death of their tiniest angel. And Alex found his older brother turning more attentive of him, it was almost like Ace was scared of losing the only sibling he had left now.
And then, many years later Ace lost him too.
Sadness tugged at Alex's heart seeing Ace throwing a soft kick to the floor. The dust that coated the floor flew up and swirled about Ace's feet.
Alex felt this strong urge to do something, anything, to tell his brother that he was here, so close to him. But he knew he shouldn't. He didn't want to let his brother know that he existed in this way, in this dreary permanence.
He just wished for the guy to move on already.
Ace needed to forget him.
It was visible how much Ace was still hurting. In his every visit at his home every month, he would wander about the grimy, dark place as if in search of his younger brother, but would only find scraps of memories in lifeless objects. Ace had been even not letting go of this apartment, paying the rent every month, keeping the place his younger brother used to live in, and unknowing to him still was.
When Ace finally made his way out of the apartment, Alex quietly followed suit but had to come to an abrupt halt just at the doorway.
For Charlotte approached his brother.
Standing right behind the now closed door he heard the conversation they were having and shook his head in exasperation. Why would Ace talk in that manner to Charlotte? But then again, Ace had always been that protective of him. The man was literally on fire when Alex had walked away from their family's ready fortune and towards a struggling career of a musician. For so long after that Ace had tried to make whatever career Alex had chosen a bit easier, trying to get him recording deals, offers from different studios and radio shows—but every time those stealthy attempts got caught. Alex recalled the enormous argument at one point he had with Ace because of this.
It was just a day before the accident.
The accident.
Alex clutched his head with his hands and blinked hard, his eyes turning black abruptly.
No, he didn't want to remember about the accident.
Between Ace's receding footsteps and the accelerated beating of his Charlotte's heart, Alex found himself lost somewhere.
How unfortunate he was to be stuck in this miserable state of his own existence!
We live life taking it for granted always, knowing the value of it only when we die and lose everything, knowing that things were in our control only when we were alive.
"Alex?"
He heard Charlotte murmuring his name and it brought him back from his reverie.
"Please tell me what's going on before I lose my mind."
His heart broke.
Her plead, her emotions, the distinct strain of sadness in her voice—it all tugged at the strings that held his soul together.
But he was tethered with the cards fate had dealt him with.
He whirled around from the door that stood rigid between them, and he dropped to his knees. He threw his head back, submerged in the dense dark that coiled around him.
Why hadn't she come sooner in his life?
--
"So, Rick invited me out on a date," Tina told Charlotte two days after the eventful party.
"And you said yes, you're going to go out with him?"
Tina fiddled with her fingers. "Well, I was a little drunk in the party and kind of promised him a date. Now you know that I keep my promises no matter the circumstances."
Tragically Charlotte did know no such disposition of Tina's. The girl was not that firm in the matter of keeping promises.
Their conversation halted when they saw Sammy approaching them. For some reason he was limping badly, Charlotte guessed it was phantom. The guy was once hurt in the leg, and it left the kind of damage that shoved him out of the basketball team, took away his passion. She had noticed before and she was noticing now as well, that whenever he was stressed the limp would return and the limp's severity would depend on the severity of his issues. Such is the power of the mind.
Most of the college already knew about Sammy's stunt that night. Bad news spreads like wildfire. In the era of social medias it spread even faster.
As Sammy came closer, his one bruised eye became clearer. Charlotte's hand twitched seeing her handy-work.
"Charlotte," he spoke with hesitation.
Tina exploded immediately, "You have the gall to open your evil mouth in front of us, you shithole! You're no more our friend. That poor girl, my God, I can't believe—"
Sammy closed his eyes briefly before opening them. "Nova called me this morning. She said she is not going to file a complaint against me." His face was coated with grief as he looked at Charlotte, his eyes pleading.
Charlotte had her teeth gritted as she stood there hearing him.
"Damn." Tina shook her head indignantly. "She should have."
Charlotte agreed with her.
Sammy dragged a hand down his face. "But she said she will if I show her my face again. I can't describe how bad, how ashamed I've been feeling since waking up the morning after—" he exhaled a pained breath. "That I was drunk or frustrated or the fact I love Nova so much—none of these, or anything will ever justify what I did to her... what I tried to do to her. Bloody hell. I became the kind of monster I've always hated."
Both Tina and Charlotte stood mum, more because of the authenticity in his eyes, in his voice.
He leaned against the wall beside him.
A group of students were coming down the corridor. They walked past them giving Sammy disgusted looks and whispering among themselves. By the redness creeping up on Sammy's face, it could be very well told that he was well aware of everything going on around him.
There are more ways to punish someone than filing a police complaint against them.
Now not only the general public of the college looked at Sammy like he was an insect crawling through the dirt, except for the basket ball guys—the fellow insects, but also the string Sammy had attached to their circle of friends was also severed. There was no hope for anything to ever recover.
Sammy shuffled his feet to put most of his weight on his good leg. "But this monster that I turned into, I believe that didn't take place in one night. I've been losing so much in the past years that the fear of losing has lodged itself in the deepest of my mind. When Nova came into my life, she slowly became something to me that I didn't want to lose in anyway. I wanted to make her mine as soon as possible, as thoroughly as possible. And in the grip of liquor, I lost common sense, acted on my basic desires, my desperate urgency."
"I feel like I'm beginning to understand you," Charlotte said, eyes narrowing. "But your excuses, your reasoning wouldn't justify your deed. That poor girl will perhaps forever be in trauma because of you, Sammy."
Sammy's glassy eyes stared back at her. "I'm so sorry. I would change it all if I could."
"I'm not the person you should be apologizing to," Charlotte said. Tina hummed in agreement beside her. "And the one you'll apologize to may forgive you but I don't think she'll ever be able to forget, I wouldn't."
Sammy nodded in acceptance. The liquid stored in his eyes now hung from his lashes.
"About the inner struggle you just spilled to us," Charlotte told him. "You need some serious help regarding them."
Furiously Sammy wiped his entire face, especially his eyes, with his palm. He looked at Charlotte questioningly.
"We've got a new and awesome student counselor," Charlotte lifted a corner of her lips in a smile. "Let's take you to professor Ian Flinn."
Tina suddenly straightened and then reddened in boiling excitement beside her. "Oh my, I'm going to go with you guys, I need some help too."
Things stayed the same. The severed strings between them didn't recover, because there was no undoing the past. And yet there was this sense of sympathy, even for the one who had wronged.
--
In the evening Charlotte was carrying bags of groceries from her car to the elevator. She saw three women huddled together, facing slightly away from her and talking among themselves in the space between the stairs and the elevator. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't notice her.
She could identify all three, all tenants of the building. One of them were Linda's mother, Catherine.
As she drew closer, seemingly unnoticed, she heard Catherine saying, "I wonder what will happen to the poor girl. That she's still not run off is more concerning and scarier than what horrific experiences those before her had gone through. My daughter, my dear Linda, even saw her...," Catherine shook her head as though she didn't want to remember more.
In a hushed tone, another woman began speaking, "I just hope Mr. Dias gets to rid this building of the ominous spirit. The fourth floor's been haunted for more or less three long years now, and I'm afraid the paranormal incidents had spread its perimeter from what I've heard. Passers-by have been seeing, been experiencing weird shit."
"No shit."
"Hey... sh sh shh, it's her."
Finally they seemed to have noticed Charlotte when the elevator doors opened up and she was getting in.
As the elevator door closed before her face, she leaned back against the metal wall.
Her brows pulled together in a deep frown. "Haunted?"
She shook her head, then chuckled, then she frowned again.
She didn't believe in the paranormal—in ghosts and ghouls, demons and angels, magic and stuff. She believed in none of that.
Yet, if so many people were experiencing some bizarre shit around here, especially at the fourth floor, then it must indicate towards something. And that something shouldn't have to be anything supernatural, no. It, whatever it was truly going on, had to have some sort of logical explanation behind it.
Charlotte had dinner early that night. After washing dishes she made herself a cup of tea. It was scalding when she took her first sip while walking towards her bedroom. Good, she thought. She'd read somewhere that having a cup of scalding hot tea before going to bed helps drive away migraines and get good sleep. She had people telling her that their migraine was treated that way but no one could tell her if it helped with insomnia at all. Well, she guessed she was going to herself find it now.
She sat at the edge of her mattress with her legs folded beneath her and the tea cup resting on the floor before her.
Since the last few days as Alex had once again decided to draw away from her, she found her insomnia raising its ugly head once more. Also, nightmares of Alex eyes changing color would haunt her in the little amount of sleep she could get, that too, after hours of trying.
She saw something move from the corner of her eyes.
Her face snapped towards the movement.
It was the balcony door.
A thousand people, all together, as if screamed within her in alarm.
Bloody darn it to hell.
She didn't recall opening the balcony door after coming back home. But now it stood open, swaying due to the softly flowing wind.
The more she stared, the more she felt like there was someone standing in the darkness outside that halfway opened door. There was no way to see through that darkness, it was a new moon and as a cherry on top the sky was cloudy thus hiding all stars.
She felt like a shadow moved.
"Who's there?" she cried.
Was it Alex? But no reply came.
It could be her eyes or perhaps her mind betraying her.
And she hated that it felt like she was desperately conjuring up excuses to prove how normal things were around her.
She blinked away and concentrated back on her cup of tea. The steam steadily moved up, she leaned forward to be on the way. Soon her nose was sodden with beads of steam. The nice fragrance of tea filled her senses, as she sipped the heated liquid warmth spread through her tongue and traveled down the length of her throat. And yet there was this unnerving cold that made goosebumps erupting on her flesh.
Some things were becoming a regular occurrence. And it didn't sit well with her. It made her feel what sounded so much like fear.
--
On Friday Charlotte returned from a busy day passed in campus, doing some eleventh hour work on the paper and then finally submitting it and then going to work at the library.
The elevator was under maintenance. Carlos informed her that it will be not operative for the next two days.
That meant she had to take the stairs. And it was no fun taking the stairs to get onto bloody fourth floor after an exhausting day.
She sighed, standing on the staring step and then began her journey up.
There were wall lights lining up, some were lit some were not.
By the time she reached the last flight of stairs to her floor she was panting for breath.
"I need to start going back to gym. My stamina is a joke," she muttered between breaths, bending over a little as she reached the reached the middle of the flight.
The wall lights began flickering right then; the last two at the top sparked until they went off.
Great, it starts again. She thought and was straightening back up, but then she was startled seeing someone standing at the place that was empty just a moment ago, that too halfway peeking out the wall. Instinctively she stumbled back a step, forgetting that she was standing at the middle of a flight of stairs.
A gasp came out of her mouth when, behind her, her foot began going below without her control. Two steps below the heel of her foot slipped as soon as it hit the edge.
She shrieked.
As her body began falling backwards her hands flailed before her in the air to grasp onto something, anything.
The person, clad in dark clothing, tall and stout and oh so familiar, dashed out of the silhouette behind the wall.
In mid-fall Charlotte watched Alex's face appear in the light. She saw him moving towards her and it seemed as though he moved without using his feet, just drifting in the wind.
He bent over from where he came to a standstill on the second step from the top. His face clad with panic, his eyes wide and mouth agape—screaming her name.
He outstretched his hand for her to hold.
Everything was as if moving is slow motion.
She hurled her hand towards him, trusting that he would catch her, feeling the lump of panic from her throat begin ebbing away.
Alex was here. He would hold her. He wouldn't let her fall.
~
A/N:
Hello everyone! I've got something to tell you. I've entered Truly Madly Ghostly and Bitterly Sweetly into #wattys2018
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