Chapter 6 :- Answer first. Question later.
RECAP :- In the past fifteen minutes, I have raised my hand to constrain Travis from letting himself become overwhelmed by his emotions, dodged spittle coming out of Tuomas's mouth, and stared out at the beauty of the skeletal moon.
With these subtle gestures, I have done all that I needed to do. Travis and the ghost of Mark Rossteau did the rest for me through the simple act of being themselves.
Tuomas is now on the path towards self hate, and the gaping maw of Destiny itself beckons him forth.
I only need to guide him.
Travis believes I am asleep, but I shall not yet go to sleep for another five minutes and forty three seconds. It is my knowledge of his thoughts that will keep me awake for this long. Because from now, he will quietly contemplate my existence.
I try to fight Fate, anxious to exercise my own free will by showing Travis that I am still awake, but my responsibilities to correcting the past chain me down. Shackle me to do nothing but play The Game.
His thoughts make me frightened. At how well he knows me; how strong his conviction is that he is doing the right thing. I already knew that this emotion would well up from somewhere deep within me at this moment. And yet it's the immediacy of his thoughts that cause this fear. As well as the guilt at not revealling to him the whole truth.
'I am safe in my own thoughts,' he muses to himself. 'Well I assume I am safe. Of course, Shadow already knows everything I will think of, even if she is asleep. But I have grown used to that fact. At least I can do it without the worry of her reacting to my wayward thoughts. My world is mine again in that sense.'
Travis shall feel for the cigarette pack in his pocket and extract one. The driver side window will lower by his mental command. The usual sound of rushing air in doing this shall be muffled because he shall cancel the noise by mere thought. The air obeys him. And now his index finger lights the cigarette, even before it has reached his lips.
'So what are your plans now Shadow? Are we to go watch another animal species become extinct? Will there be another world shattering incident we will bear witness to? Maybe meet some more people with unique abilities?'
I want to say yes to all of those questions, but I am not destined to do so. Not if I want the future to be stable.
He takes in a deep breath of smoke, knowing its contaminants will be immediately doused and rendered harmless by his supernatural immunity.
But Travis thinks nothing of this.
He only smokes for the psychological peace of mind of doing Something. Anything. During these phases of Nothing.
As he does this, I find myself considering the thought he is about to have.
If I could have a wish, it would be to feel surprise.
'In a way I don't really want to know. It ruins the mystery to know. And thats an advantage I have over you. Your life is already set, and has no mystery. And without mystery you can never experience surprise.'
I laugh when I wait to watch someone about to do a silly act that will kill them. Watching stupid deaths helps keeps me sane. Of course Travis knows this. It's just been a long time since I bothered to witness one. The novelty of it wears thin after a while.
'There are so many emotions you can never fathom. How can you laugh when you already know the punchline to a joke?'
It was at first exciting to know what people would say. When I did have a voice, I always played the game of saying what someone will say at the moment they say it. But when a two year old girl plays that game on someone, the shocked expression soon becomes one of extreme fear. Fear at not knowing why I can do such things. It alienated me. Caused my great loneliness in the first place.
No wonder my father disowned me.
I knew that would result when I started doing it. But I was young. A slave to my own immaturity.
'Conversations would be such a bore for you, knowing what will be said, and indeed prewriting your responses.'
Presents mean nothing to an omniscient like me.
'You will never know the emotion of shock. Or true happiness. What good is a present when you already know what it is?'
I know when and where I shall die. The circumstances and how it will occur. It will be soon. And when it comes, I shall not fear it. I have seen enough of Death in life, and when it is my time, I will embrace Death with open arms.
Travis feels the comfort of letting his mind wander freely. It gives him a rush of contentment that he rarely allows himself the luxury of enjoying.
'Worst of all you know, what day you will die. The circumstances. The time, and who will be there. Is Port Hedland where you will die Shadow? And if so, you know how to prevent it, change your destiny? But then you knew you would change your destiny, so you wouldn't really be changing your destiny at all would you. You'd be just living out your life as you knew it would occur.'
Evolution has been occurring on a time-scale that is beyond even my comprehension. It is the greatest game of all. For one line of evolution to end marks the moment when a long line of ancestral species existed for nothing.
To know all these species, their history, their struggles.
Sometimes it overwhelms me.
'It is at times like this that I feel most sorry for you. Of course you know that though. And yet just when I feel most sorry for you, you will hold out your hand, and a butterfly will alight on your finger. And you smile. Then you give me a scrap telling me that that was the last of its species left. From that day forth, a small part of the history of evolution will exist no more, and that the last of its species spent a few seconds on your finger. And you smile.'
My brother knows the secret to my youth. My brother will be the one who kills me, for that is what Fate has in store for my future.
Travis' expression turns to one of seriousness.
'Like the day you watched 9/11. Eating that ice cream. Watching, and smiling while everyone around us screamed in terror. Which comes the question of how you can keep your youth after all these years. Your still the same from when I first met you. How?'
I hate my life. I hate me.
This is why I shall become close with Tuomas on the backseat of this stolen vehicle. For the GhostTalker shall one day feel the pain I feel every day. And truly understand.
To know that will make me happy.
'You can never experience the mystery of life, yet at the same time your entire life is a mystery.'
'You cannot experience the happiness everyone else experiences, but you can experience happiness because I have been there when you smiled. Not the fake smiles you give to ellicit a certain response from a person. The way you smiled at Richard, or indeed at me when we first met. Those were the cold smiles of an imposter; a pretender, made for your own reasons. They aren't the smiles of happiness.'
I never wanted my father to die. But I had to. After all, letting my father die was the eventual price I had to pay to give my mother five extra days of life. I learned the hard way not to mess with Destiny.
'And I have seen you sad. When you wake up and nothing can make you happy. When you watched your father die.'
The memory sends a shiver through him.
'You cried the only tears I have ever seen you weep. I couldn't understand. You said you could have saved him, but it was his fate to die on that day.
I think I have figured you out and then you do the exact opposite of my assumptions about you.'
You will never truly know me, Travis, even though you will spend more time with me than any other. And even after my death, you will struggle to understand what a curse it is to know everything. But you will come to realise why I existed. Why I must lie to you. Decieve you. Decieve everyone I meet.
Why I must be the only person to practise true free will.
Travis sighs and unwittingly recharges his mental reserves with another lungful of innocuous cancer.
'The girl is a mystery. I will never know Shadow. And come to think of it, I hope I never do. Somehow I feel scared if I ever did know you. I guess I just love the mystery and suspense too much.'
And as the headlights roll back the blackness of the night, a sign is revealled to him.
Port Hedland 200km.
He gets the car up to speed. The tyres on the road, the humming engine breaks the frigid silence.
And as his mind returns to the ether, I fade into the monotonous empty nothing which perpetuates my existence. For I must meet the Dream Prophet, and show her the future.
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Hey there all! Well I hope this explains more about Shadow and builds the mystery around her as well!!! I guess I tried to portray how Shadow knows what will be thought of and how she thinks about another person's thoughts even before they think it, for, (of course) an omniscient would be able to do that.
Provide an answer before a question is posed.
Not sure if it worked but anyway gave it a shot! Hope it is not too confusing!
Again any criticisms and grammar punctuation problems please point them out to me I love that stuff! It makes me a better writer!
For the next chapter Shadow will enter the dream state and will converse with Jacy from my story the Dream Academy! The Dream Academy was always just a backstory to Trinity, developing a character that can enter other people's dreams and stuff!
Hope you all keep reading!!! I am enjoying writing this and trying to break new ground in writing future tense almost instead of past and present tense!!!! It is soooooo hard!!!!!
Cheers all and wish me the best for The Watty Awards:)