10:00 AM

Trent sat in his living room staring into the fireplace as the flames consumed his tuxedo.

Only the night prior he was covered in the lifeblood of the girl he loved, but a fresh shower and a restful night's sleep later he was back in step, evidence burning away before his eyes.

Trent sat back on the couch, and watched as the last piece of fabric curled in on itself and turned to Ash.

It worked for Lizzie Borden... except she was sloppy. Not sloppy enough for the court to find guilt in her, but sloppy enough to leave questions for all time.

There would be no question of his innocence. There would be no questions whatsoever. No one saw him - and no one would see him - not until his brush with Nadjia was healed up. He held his hand over the scabbed wound on his cheek. The piece of his face she bit off as some last bit effort at spite.

As though she understood what spite truly meant.

He did manage to dig the piece of his cheek out of her mouth, and took pride in his attention to detail. He wouldn't want the police on some macabre Cinderella manhunt, trying to match up a the piece of his cheek with its rightful owner.

The only loser in that outcome was Trent. So he left the piece with her eyes at the MacAllen​ ruins. He hid them well from sight, beneath the floorboards, and would return soon enough to put her eyes in a proper box.

Trent spent the majority of his life lamenting the absence of his parents. Always away on business, or holiday, and never including him in the family. A son scorned? No. That was a silly kind of dramatic, and it was not remotely the truth. Independence. That was his strength.

Once upon a time he dreaded their long absences, but especially during those rains that came bringing with them the nightmares of ghosts beckoning him to his doom. When he learned they would just as gladly buy his affection, and his silence, than deal with whatever trivial complaints he had, he embraced the wealth, and the wealth that came with his independence.

To be able to do whatever he would without anyone to tell him otherwise.

All his accomplishments before eighteen years.

Trent felt a rush of cold, despite the warmth from the fireplace, and stood from the couch, rubbing his hands together. He walked casually to the neatly stacked pile of firewood beside the hearth, picked up a log and placed it carefully into the fire.

Trent held his hands up to the fire and warmed them, unable to shake the chill in the room. Trent turned, and started back toward the couch, and screamed.

Nadjia sat on the end of the couch staring at him through cavernous hollows where her eyes had been. Trent back peddled and tripped onto the hearth, his hands catching his fall on the burning logs. "Fuck! Fuck! No! You're dead!"

Trent rolled away from the hearth, eyes clenched, blowing on his hands. He pushed himself along the floor with his feet until he felt the wall behind him, and covered his face with his hands, his palms stinging against his face.

Trent, knees pulled up, hands over his face, only heard his breathing, and the sound of the crackling fire, stroked by his inadvertent direct handling of the logs.

After a long silence, what felt like the passage of minutes, he uncovered his face. She was almost nose-to-nose with him as he stared into her ragged hollow sockets, her olive complexion pallid. Trent screamed, and felt warmth spreading from the front of his pants, to the back.

Trent felt light headed as his vision became flooded with splatters of black that finally stole his sight. There was only a vague sensation of falling as he slid along the wall to his side before darkness took him completely.

♚ ♚ ♚

Trent opened his eyes. He was sitting on Nadjia's stairwell, the carpet stained in her dried blood.

"Murderer." Nadjia's voice was in his ears, a cold distant echo of the voice he loved so dearly. Trent turned his head, and found himself staring into the black, bleeding wounds where once her blue eyes would have stared back. Her olive skin was pale, laced in fine blue veins, her bloodless complexion only just tinted in its former olive splendor.

She was sitting beside him, her cold hands suddenly holding his. Trent tried to scream, but found himself petrified, unable to move, unable to scream - he was barely able to breathe.

"Look what you have done!"

"Nadjia..." His voice came out in a whisper, a whimper, a trailing breath of weak air.

Nadjia lifted him to his feet with inhuman strength, her hands rushing to his throat, pinning him to the wall beside the stairwell. Trent felt his feet leave the bloodstained carpeted stairs, but he was unable to struggle, to resist. He felt his eyes welling up, tears spilling onto his cheeks and freezing on his skin.

"Nadjia..." Trent choked, strangling on her tightening grip. "Please let me go. Please..."

Nadjia dropped him, and expression of disgust over her face. Trent dropped heavy to the stairs, rolling down to the tiled floor at the base of her stairs. He struggled to stand, pushing himself to his knees - grateful her could move at all - and held his palms up. "I didn't want to hurt you! I only meant to scare you, Nadjia! I only meant to scare you!"

"Did I look scared when you plunged your knife into my lungs? Was I frightened enough for you as my lungs collapsed, and I drowned in my blood? Did I look terrified as you cut my throat?"

Trent fell onto his hands, and wept. "You have to believe me. I was so angry, but I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted you to see what you meant to me!"

"You wanted me to see, so you carved out my eyes?"

"I wanted you to understand! He was never worth your time! He left for four years! Not a letter, not a phone call! He never visited you! I was there! I was there for your tears! I was there when you were alone and there was no one else! I was there for birthdays! I was there! Not him! Me!"

Nadjia stared down at Trent, and frowned. "...but you were never my friend. I was a possession to you. Something you wanted to own. Even now, you're here blubbering about all the "great things" you did for me while my Jonathan was away. You're going to die, Trent. I will be the cause of this."

"You're dead, Nadjia! You're dead, and I can't take it back, but you have to know I'm sorry!"

"You're sorry. My mother and father weep for an empty room where their daughter once slept. Jonathan agonizes for an empty place at an altar that where I'll never get to take my vows. You're sorry. You have no idea what sorrow is, but you will."

"I'll do anything! Whatever you want... just please, forgive me Nadjia. Forgive me!"

Nadjia on the stairs flickered out, and appeared at Trent's side. "Go away, Trent. Wake up, and leave me. I cannot stand the sight of you!"

Trent lifted his head, and stared up at Nadjia.

Nadjia still in her beautiful green dress, and her choker, her finery ruined in cuts, and bleeding stab wounds, her throat a black gash where he bled her out. Her blue black hair shook when she spoke, when she moved, the perfect curls trembling with her fury. Nadjia grimaced, and her voice echoed around Trent, from her, from the walls, and from the stairs. "Get out!"

♚ ♚ ♚

Trent woke to an excruciating pain in his hands.

He stared at the soot covered blisters on his palms, and wiped his eyes. He grimaced at the stink of urine in the air, and wiped a wet sensation from his chin, smearing rank chunks of spit and bile across both his forearm, and his cheek. He grunted, and sat up.

The side of his head was sore.

Nadjia stood by the hearth, the fire struggling against dying coals behind her. She stared down at Trent with a sympathetic frown. "You're a mess."

Trent coughed, and rubbed his eyes. He regretted it immediately. "Clean... I need to be clean."

"There's nothing in this world or any that's ever going to clean you up, Trent."

"Why are you here?"

Nadjia stared at him a long time, and without another word, she was gone. Trent felt the temperature drop in the room, sitting with his back to the wall, staring at the empty space where Nadjia was standing.

Trent shook his head, and pressed his soiled palm to his forehead. I'm fucking cracking up.

This is only guilt.

Guilt I can get past.

I always get past the guilt.

This isn't real. There are no such thing as ghosts... and even if there were, there's rules.

They only come when it rains.

(You wish)

They only come when it rains.

Trent pulled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them, rocking against the wall. "They only come when it rains. You hear that Nadjia? You can't be here. This isn't real."

This isn't real.

(I am real)

This isn't real.

(I am here)

Trent felt a sharp, burning pain in his forehead. He grimaced, and released his legs, rising up to his feet, using the wall for stability. He hurried on unstable legs past the fireplace, out of the living room, and to the downstairs restroom. He managed to collapse to his knees at the toilet in time to vomit again.

The force of his nausea was enough that he saw a burst of bright light before his vision was assaulted again by black splotches threatening to overtake his consciousness once more.

Trent held onto the toilet, and willed himself not to pass out again.

Time passed as he stared into the mess of water and vomit inside the toilet bowl. He reached for the handle on the reservoir, pulling it down. He watched with dim interest as the whirlpool of water carried the bile down the drain.

Seconds passed, and then minutes.

Time passed slow, or quick - he was unsure - and he continued staring into the toilet. It was the times like this where Trent wished his parents were home. Someone - anyone - to tell him things would be fine, instead of relying on assurances from himself, assurances he was no longer certain he could trust.

After he was confident the worse was over, Trent climbed up the toilet and put the lid down. He sat on the toilet's edge, and drew the curtains away from the bath tub. The tub was dry, the basin empty, and he the distant fleeting fear that he would see Nadjia laying in it were brushed away as he reached for the hot and cold water knobs.

The rush of clear water filled the tub, breaking the thick silence in the restroom, and Trent pulled the shower-pin on the spigot. The hiss of the shower head startled him, and Trent cursed at himself.

There's nothing in this world or any that's ever going to clean you up, Trent.

(...nothing)

Trent shuddered, and began undressing for his shower, all the while looking over his shoulder to make certain that the apparition of Nadjia did not return again.

(You cannot hide from me)