THE HUNDRED WAYS TO LEAVE SOMEONE.
"Tine," Sarawat called out carefully, voice wavering in the quiet night while staring wide eyed at the ghost. "What's wrong?"
Silence and then a shuddering sob echoed throughout the murky space. The room was gradually growing colder.
Sarawat had called out to Tine several times already but it seemed that he had gone into some kind of state of shock after their toxic kiss. His form kept shifting between his soft, human looks and that of a bloody corpse, as if he was reverting back to his initial form, the zombie-like thing he had first showed up as. A chip of worry hacked at Sarawat's heart at what this could possibly mean.
It seemed that the end of their time together was growing closer. Sarawat could not stall it for any longer. It was impossible to stop the flow of time, as it was impossible to stop the laws of nature.
A crack spread rapidly along Tine's hairline as a deep wound ripped the skin on his forehead apart, running to the side of his temple and nicking one of his eyebrows. Trails of dark red blood ran down his face like gruesome tears and blood bubbled up between his puffy lips, spilling over his pointy chin, dripping sluggishly onto his trashed clothing. His wide blown, brown eyes stared horrified at the guitarist.
Sarawat's heart raced even faster, almost trashing straight out of his chest as he watched the strange phenomena unfurl before his fluttering eyes, like a loop back and forth. One moment Tine's face was porcelain and beautiful, serene like an angel and the next moment it was all bloody and broken like a road kill. The same thing kept happening with the rest of his ethereal form. His one arm alternated between hanging uselessly at a strange angle down his side, white bone sticking out and then mending itself back, the comfy clothes flickered between being wholesomely clean and then all ripped up and bloody.
It fucking terrified Sarawat that Tine looked so scared. So scarred.
Sarawat's hands started to shake as it finally dawned on him that something was seriously wrong, an eerie feeling tickling along his lower back. This was not one of Tine's usual whimsical outbursts, something strange was happening and he did not know how to stop it. As always. Fucking useless. He bit his lower lip in frustration, almost drawing blood as he darted closer to the ghost, shaky hands outstretched helplessly.
He wanted to draw Tine into his warm embrace, press him close to his own thumping heart and comb his fingers though those ebony locks and feel Tine's heart beat reassuringly against his own, feel his warm breath fan against his skin. Sarawat just wanted Tine to be there and alive with him. Was it too much to ask for?
Yes, yes it was.
Bitter tears stung Sarawat's big eyes, clouding his vision as he desperately tried to blink them away. Tine could not leave him now. Not yet.
Please.
Sarawat had felt a pull from the depths of his core during their kiss, as if something deep rooted had been ripped out of him and transferred to the ghost, drawing blood along with it. It had certainly felt like Tine had taken some of Sarawat's energy, his life essence. But was that not a good thing? So why the fuck was Tine regressing? Maybe the undead and alive forces were not meant to be mixed together at all?
Icy air hit Sarawat's overheated skin as his tanned hands swept straight through the ghost in his attempt to get a hold of him and bring him closer. Tine's chest burst into powdery tendrils of ghostly smoke at the foreign intrusion from Sarawat's limbs, before instantly clustering back together. Without Tine consciously putting effort into creating a shallow corporeal form it was impossible for them to even touch each other. Tine needed to get a hold of himself.
Sarawat felt beads of cold sweat form in tiny clusters along his hairline and a cluster of them tickle down between his shoulder blades. He was slowly starting to panic, doomsday thoughts running mile a minute inside his head. He understood nothing of what was going on, feeling utterly powerless and hating himself all the more for it. This was his payback, Sarawat concluded grimly, for treating his life like a game and just mindlessly gliding along with the stream. He grew up in a prosperous home brought forth by the hard efforts of his mother and he was bigoted enough to turn his nose at it. And now, when he finally cared about something, or rather someone, other than his own gratification it was too late. It had just slipped between his fingers because he had been too blind. Sarawat had not even stopped to appreciate the beautiful thing already in front of him, constantly chasing after something to fill the void inside of him when Tine had been there all along. He had been the missing piece.
With an agonizing cry Tine raised his grimy hands to cradle at the sides of his broken face, eyes squeezed shut as dark smoke started pooling at his feet, gushing out from an invisible crack in the space continuum. The dark tendrils climbed up his ghostly legs and then further up his chest, enveloping him like two big, claw-like hands in a cocoon of darkness. The air inside the dorm room was now freezing, nipping at Sarawat's exposed skin of his bare arms and through the rips in his jeans. The guitarist shuddered, heart stuttering behind his ribs when he could do nothing more than watch how Tine was breaking down.
Fuck. Sarawat looked around the room wildly, searching for a way out. He needed to interrupt what was happening. There had to be a way to divert Tine's attention from the apparent hysteria that he was lost inside of before it was too late.
The room suddenly went completely dark as all lights flickered off, a layer of heavy smog obscured the twinkling lights of the city skyline and the silver light of the full moon.
"-wat," came a weak gasp form within the gloom and Sarawat almost felt relieved, knees buckling under him but then a nail of devastation was hammered into his heart when he heard the next words. "I'm afraid."
"Shit. Tine, baby, please speak to me. What's going on?" Sarawat begged, voice cracking slightly as he peered out into the gloom, trying to make out Tine's hazy form in the darkness in front of him. Sarawat's shaking hands combed through his hair desperately, tugging at the ends of the strands painfully. He needed to keep Tine talking, keep him anchored to the present.
Tine was trying not to lose himself to whatever that was eating at his being. It felt like his soul was being ripped apart and breaking inside of him into tiny, sharp shreds as memories of his last moments on earth rushed back at him, making him buckle under their weight. He knew now what he had to do to continue on his journey and release Sarawat from their strange predicament. The dark air was full with dense anticipation, pushing him to confess. He just had to be honest about his feelings and tell Sarawat that he had liked him ever since that event during the freshman year. He needed to tell him to keep that guitar pick since it belonged to him anyway, because Tine's soul belonged to Sarawat.
But Tine did not want to go yet. He was not ready. They had barely had any time together. He wanted to linger for as long as Sarawat would have him. And that was obviously a problem, he realized, since spirits should not have any lingering attachments. A soul, as the purest state of being, could easily get consumed, obsessed even, with an innocent desire if the longing for it was strong enough.
And with his desire for Sarawat, a seed was planted inside Tine's heart, like a festering wound. Maybe the malicious sprout had already been growing inside his heart ever since that strange solar eclipse. The dead should not cling to the world of the living. It was not right. It was not natural and only sent ripples of unbalance throughout the universe. The ghostly solar eclipse had been his first and last warning, which Tine at the time had unknowingly ignored. Tine was now only setting himself up for annihilation. Nothing good became of spirits that clung desperately to the living world. They should know their place.
"I don't want to-" Another gut wrenching sob. "Wat, p-please get me out of here. I keep seeing this- this-"
Sarawat heard then a shaky, labored inhale, as if Tine was suffocating by all that black smog that now completely consumed him. Sarawat swore harshly and fumbled blindly around in the dark and cold room, sending something crashing to the floor. He had to help Tine. Blind panic blared inside Sarawat's head, all other thoughts going bleak in comparison as he suddenly realized that there was maybe one thing that he still could do. He fucking hoped it worked. Sarawat had to find his guitar.
He rummaged around the room until he found the instrument, its curved, wooden body was both familiar and soothing in Sarawat's embrace amidst all the chaos raging inside of him. With fingers clumsy from the freezing air he kept unwaveringly strumming over the taut strings, eliciting the first soothing tones of that one song Tine once had mentioned that he liked.
The whirling shadows in the middle of the room, surrounding Tine, stilled as soon as the music penetrated through the darkness, notes sailing through the air in arrays of light. Sarawat kept playing, his hopes rising with eachchord that brought more light into the room and something heavy was finally slowly lifting offhis heaving chest.
Abruptly everything went completely silent, an eerie stillness prevailing the tiny room. It was almost tangible, just a little more and things would probably start floating around the room. Blinding, golden light then pierced through the dark cocoon that had enveloped Tine as the ghost stepped straight through the gloom, his form shining in the dark. He floated across the room, stopping right before Sarawat and his guitar. The ghost's loose strands of hair were fluttering around his head in an otherworldly breeze, locks curling around his temples.
Tine looked serene, his skin was glowing with a golden shimmer, cheeks rosy and healthy looking, brown eyes bright. He smiled wobbly at Sarawat and a bone chilling dread swept through the guitarist. He shook his head, sending his dark strands of hair flying sharply around his chiseled face.
"No," he whispered, clutching harshly at the guitar in his embrace. "Tine, no."
"Not yet, but soon," Tine said plaintively, a sudden calmness overtaking his being as he finally resigned himself to the unavoidable.
There was nothing to be afraid of. He was finally going to finish what he once had started. He needed the closure, craved it even. It was either that or facing eternal punishment by getting stuck in his last living moment. Reliving the anguish and the pain all over again and again. It had obviously already started, his memories coming back at full force, consuming Tine. He would be no good for Sarawat like this, a mindless shell leeching off on Sarawat's priceless life essence. Tine finally understood this, as if through some divine revelation now that the damn in his mind had been broken, making him all the more in tuned with the ways of the world.
The air was steadily getting warmer and the shadows gradually grew smaller while they silently gazed at each other. The cold light of an early morning filtered through the still open balcony door when the paranormal storm seemed to have finally reached its end. Sarawat had long time ago stopped playing on the guitar and was just helplessly staring at the ghost, his bow shaped lips parted in shock.
"I'm tired," Tine finally murmured, not wanting to break the silence that clung to the buzzing air between them but he had to let Sarawat know that this was not the end. Yet. "Let me rest just for a little bit and we'll talk later, okay?"
Sarawat swallowed dryly, articulating with his mouth but no sound came out. He tried once more while hugging the guitar to his body. How he wished that it were Tine instead.
"Where are you going?"
Tine smiled thinly, even if not a little playfully while looking at the other through his black lashes.
"I'll be just around, I guess." He shrugged, motioning with his pale hands at the air around them. "I'll see you soon, Wat," he said soothingly, confidently and with those words the ghost was gone, flashing out of sight.
Sounds from the outside world instantly invaded the tiny room. An occasional car drove by on the road outside and early morning birds chirped noisily. Sarawat sat down on his unmade bed, elbows on his hard thighs and head cradled in his hands. He had no clue how to change the outcome of this whole situation and it was slowly driving him mad.
Since when had Tine become his whole world?