10:30 PM

Trent stood in the MacAllen ruins, in the center of what was once the sitting room. Whatever furniture may have been was long gone, and all that remained was crumbing walls, and peeling plaster. Despite the state of disrepair - but especially for its history of burning - the ruins were strong, and what remained was either a testament of its craftsmanship... or the nature of the hands that built it.

Nadjia stood beside him.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"There is much to be resolved."

"I can't undo it, Nadjia. I can't take it back." Trent stood his ground, as Nadjia paced around him, her face fixed on him.

"You will not rest a day until I do. I will not let you know peace!"

"...and what will you accomplish? I may not like what I had to do, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't do it again. Your entire friendship was a lie, Nadjia. You used me. I was a stand in! I was filler! You think this is my fault?"

"It doesn't matter, Trent Henrique. Your days are numbered, and the countdown began the moment my time ended."

"What do you want? Revenge? Killing me isn't going to bring you back, and it isn't going to undo anything that is done. I'm done being afraid of you."

Nadjia stopped in front of Trent, the empty sockets in her face fixed on his eyes, her brow contorted in a macabre furrow. Trent turned his attention away from her. Past the broken walls of the ruins, in the darkness of the woods he saw eyes - green eyes - fixed intently on him.

"That's right." Nadjia's hollow voice wafted around Trent in a tone of malign amusement. "I am not the one you have to fear. Even now, my Jonathan is looking for my killer, and you left a hallmark."

"I'm not sloppy, Nadjia. No one knows who killed you."

"Spite." She smiled, and Trent returned his attention to her. She pointed to the floorboards at his feet. "Your own carelessness, Trent. Spite. Carved forever into the floor of these ruins, as much a part of history now as we are. The same you carved into my face when killing me was not enough... when carving out my eyes was not enough... you had to get a last word in. You have doomed yourself. My Jonathan will find you."

"That arrogant piece of shit isn't going to find anything. I'll be long gone before he figures it out, sitting pretty on some beach, somewhere nice. Somewhere you can't go."

"No matter where you go, I will always find you. I will be the death of you."

"You've already killed me. You killed me a long time ago, Nadjia. I tried, and I mean I really tried to show you I cared. At every turn you forgot me like I was never there. He took you for granted. I chased you, but you only chased him. He put no effort into you."

"He put almost all of his life into chasing me, Trent. Maybe I killed you... but you murdered me, and that killed my Jonathan."

"Let me sleep, Nadjia. Stop coming to me in dreams, or when I'm awake. Nothing you do now will change anything."

"If only I could weep, I would weep for you, Trent." Nadjia's voice shook, and it struck a chord in Trent's heart. Nadjia's lip quivered.

"What for would you weep?"

"For everything you lost when you stole my life. For the short, empty life you have ahead of you."

"What do you want me to say, Nadjia? What can I do to give you some kind of peace?"

"Start with an apology... and promise me your life. End yourself with the same knife you used to kill me. Be the poetry you wished we were. Apologize, and end your life... and I will forgive you."

Trent felt cold, not from the night air - what was not truly night air; Trent was fairly certain this was a dream; he was a cold, a creeping chill born in his very bones, clawing its way through his body. For all his wit, Trent was bereft any reply. He had not a single doubt inside him that Nadjia had to die, but where certainty was absolute in his justifications, Nadjia sewed doubt.

"I'm sorry, Nadjia. I'm sorry that you're gone, and I'm sorry that I'm the one that did it."

"Prove it. Take your life, and we will be even."

Trent frowned, and shook his head. "I'm no use to you if I'm dead, Nadjia."

"You're no use to me at all."

"Let me prove it."

"Take your life."

"Or I could live for you."

"If you're sorry, Trent... if you're truly sorry, you'll pay the price for what you've done. I cannot forgive you without your accepting consequence."

"What about you? Where is your apology? Where is the regret for how you threw me away? Where is the reward for my loyalty?"

"A peace in death that you could not find in your life. An escape from the pain you feel in losing me... not only to Jonathan, but to death. The spite you inflicted affected more than those you intended, didn't it?"

Trent felt his eyes welling up, and tried to blink away the tears, but to no avail. He felt his knees growing suddenly weak, and he dropped to the floorboards, palms on the scar he carved into them. Trent's body shook as he sobbed.

"Come now, my darling. There's no need for that. This is all a bad dream. Wake up, and face destiny, Trent. Face destiny, and we can be together at last."

Trent looked up from the floorboards, Nadjia's face pale in his eyes. "Together?"

"If you take your life, I can forgive you. If I can forgive you, then we have a new foundation. A clean slate. Your life to pay the toll you took in mine. Besides that, my Jonathan lives, and so I have to let him go. How better can you dedicate yourself to me, than in death?"

♚ ♚ ♚

Trent opened his eyes to the darkness of his bedroom, his bed saturated in his sweat, the room cold around him, and he felt her nearby. A month's passage made it difficult for her to get the jump scares in on him, and she was steadfast now a familiar presence in his life. Trent turned onto his side and Nadjia was there laying beside him, propped up on an elbow, staring at him with those horrible hollow sockets. "Will you consider my proposal?"

"You need to let me rest, Nadjia. You can't keep doing this. I'm not sleeping, I barely have an appetite, and I haven't been out of the house. This is punishment enough."

"Somehow I think you've got the better side of all this. The fact that you can sleep at all, can eat at all, and can leave your house at all is an example of freedoms you enjoy that I can't. If you think this is punishment, you're blind. Considering your company, that's saying a lot."

"You don't need to remind me." Trent sat up, and pulled himself to the headboard, leaning against it. "Did you mean what you said? About us being together, you and I?"

"I couldn't ask my Jonathan to take his own life. He has so much to live for... you on the other hand are still on a countdown. If you don't do it, he will... and I suspect his way will be painful for you." Nadjia reached for him, her immaterial hand passing through Trent's cheek, leaving a cold tingle as it did.

"I don't want to die, Nadjia."

"Neither did I."

Trent nodded. "Okay."

"Yes?"

"Yeah. I'll do it."

"You have to use the same knife."

"I still have it." Trent furrowed his brow. "It's in the kitchen, in the sink."

"Then now is as good a time as any."

Trent took a deep breath, fighting the sensation of falling in the pit of his stomach. He pushed himself to the side of the bed, his feet hanging over, then his legs. "This is scary."

"It will not take you long. Cut deep." Nadjia appeared next to Trent, tracing a line from his palm, up his arm past the wrist. "It will be quick, and then you'll be with me."

"Won't that be messy? Can't I just take a bunch of my mother's diazepam, and go out quietly?"

"That is not justice. We cannot move on to eternity together without someone resolving my murder. It should be you. It's only right that it's you."

Trent's mouth felt dry, and he felt nauseous. Afraid. "...and I'll end up like you?"

"Probably less..." She gestured to her face. "...but yes."

"Alright." He pushed himself off the bed. The carpet felt soft beneath his bare feet, and as he walked to the kitchen, he felt the change from plush carpet, to cold, hard tile. Nadjia followed behind him, her soundless footsteps the Eurydice to his Orpheus, except Hades was nowhere to be found.

Trent pulled the drawer open, it's contents of cutlery organized in a neat row. He drew the butcher knife from the drawer and stared at it. In mere moments the blade would cut through his veins, and he would be with Nadjia... and when they finally did come home, his parents would find his maggot ridden corpse bloated, rotting on the kitchen tiles.

Mother would scream, and father would rush to the phone. The police would come, then the medical examiner would determine him a suicide. There would be a funeral, mother would pretend to mourn, and father would placate her by installing a new kitchen floor.

They would eat out, and discuss their next holiday while Trent withered in damp wormy earth.

This truly was the only way.

He inverted the knife in his hand, and pressed the tip of the blade to his palm. The blade cut effortlessly into his burn-scarred palm, but before he could sink it deep into his wrist and draw it up his forearm -

" -Trent, stop!" Nadjia was at his side fruitlessly grasping at the blade, her ethereal hand passing through the stainless steel.

"Just a few minutes, Nadjia. Just a few minutes."

"No. You can't do this. Not for me. Not for us."

"It's fine. It's better this way. Better more we stick around to see how mother reacts."

"I forgive you!"

Trent stopped short of his wrist. "What?"

"I forgive you. I can't let you die like this."

"You said this was the only way."

Nadjia shook her head. She reached for the butcher's knife again, but her hand passed through it, and through Trent's outstretched arm, leaving a trail of cold, tingling chills. "Don't. It won't bring me back, and it won't change what is done."

"I'd still rather just be with you."

"A new deal, then! I'm yours... just don't do this."

"They wouldn't even care." Trent stared at the blood pooling in his palm, running over the edges of his hand. His eyes were wide, and he was crying.

"That can't be true. You know that can't be true."

"I once fell into the china cabinet. I got cut up pretty bad. Mother rushed to my side, and pushed me out of her way, crying over the broken china. Father took me to the hospital. After my stitches healed, father struck me with a belt for good measure... just like that, Nadjia. Out of the blue, like it was some sick family tradition - which it sort of was."

"I didn't know."

"I never wanted to burden you with my stupid problems. By the time you came along, that was all over. Mother, and father were always away. Business. Holiday. Whoever the hell they were fucking that week..."

Trent dropped the knife, and fell to his knees, sobbing over his bleeding hand. "Why won't they love me? Why won't anyone love me?"

"I could love you." Nadjia reached out to him, and Trent reached back for her, his fingertips passing through her hand.

"There's that...."

"It's enough for us, for now."