Because as long as they left me to it, they didn’t come near me for anything else. I learned quickly to appreciate the distance, even when it came wrapped in blood. Tell me something, little Ghost.
How long do you think a person can keep getting back up before it stops being strength?
Before it turns into something else?
Because I started wondering, what if this never changes?
What if it’s just this, over and over, for the rest of it?
One hit bleeding into the next, never enough time to actually recover, just enough to stand again and pretend you’re still holding it together.
What if the only thing keeping you upright is the act?
And what happens the day you stop pretending?
Because out there, people cling to this idea of good and evil like it means anything. But inside that prison, it doesn’t. There’s no moral line, no right side, no wrong side, just balance. And the second something tips, something else answers, hard. It started like all the others. Yard, same concrete, some bodies moving in circles that never really went anywhere. I felt him before I heard him, which is impressive with his loud and stupid voice taken into consideration.“Look at you…”A low laugh, like he already knew how this was going to go.“Fucking freak. Doesn’t talk, what are you even supposed to be?”
I kept walking, didn’t give him anything. That really should have been the end of it, but of course, it wasn’t. He stepped in front of me, blocked my way. Close enough that I could smell him, sweat, something sour underneath it. Such a delight.
“Stuck like this, huh?”he went on, tilting his head, studying me like I was something he’d found and didn’t quite understand.
“Alone. Always alone. That’s your thing, isn’t it?”I could feel it building inside my spine, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“I can see it on you,”he said, voice dropping just enough to cut deeper.
“No one will ever stick around, huh? They all leave eventually.”
It was not like that was new, but hearing it like that, said out loud, like it was something obvious, something visible, it hit somewhere old, somewhere I didn’t touch.
“Tell you what…”he added, almost amused.“We could fix that, end it for you. Put you out of your fucking misery.”
That’s when it broke. There was no warning, it just detonated. I turned, fast enough that he didn’t even have time to register it. My fist came up and drove straight into his throat with everything I had behind it. I felt it cave under my knuckles, felt the impact shoot up my arm, violent andright.He dropped instantly. Hands flying to his neck, eyes wide, mouth opening but nothing coming out except that broken, wet gasp as his body tried to figure out how to breathe again.
You see it now, don’t you, little Ghost?
That part of me.
The one I’ve been trying to keep caged, the one that’s been taking every hit, every shove, every word without giving anything back. It was never gone, just waiting. You don’t come into this world covered in blood just to end up as something soft and fragile. That was never the point. You don’t survive what I survived just to become something gentle enough for other people to handle. That’s the lie they tell themselves. And whatever this was inside me, this thing that doesn’t ask or hold back, I didn’t fight it. Because it’s the only thing that’s ever felt like it belonged to me.
I know madness, little Ghost. I don’t run from it, I drink it like it’s the only thing that ever made sense. And standing there, watching him choke on air he couldn’t pull in, watching his body fail him in real time, I felt awake. And that was the moment everything snapped into place and I knew, this wasn’t stopping here. Something in me didn’t calm down, it split open.
I was on him before he could even pull a proper breath in. My hand fisted in his shirt, dragging him up just enough that hishead lolled forward as I drove my fist straight into his face. Again, again and again.
I felt something break, not him – somethinginhim. That sick, blunt give where bone meets bone and one of them loses. My knuckles tore open instantly, skin splitting, blood spilling down over my fingers, but at that moment I didn’t even register it properly. He made this choked, broken sound, half breathed and I hit him again, harder this time. His head was wrenched savagely to the side, the motion so violent it seemed to tear something loose within him. Thick, dark red blood gushed from his mouth in heavy streams, splattering the ground in obscene, glistening bursts. A grotesque, wet spitting sound followed as the force of the blow drove the air from his lungs and then his teeth came loose, ripped free and flung outward, clattering and skidding across the dirt like shattered porcelain.
I heard it around me, boots scraping, bodies shifting, but it all sounded distant, like it wasn’t part of the same moment, but I didn’t stop. I dropped my weight on top of him when he collapsed fully again, straddling him, grabbing whatever I could reach, his collar, and slamming his head down into the concrete. There was blood everywhere now, spreading, smearing under my hands, sticking to my skin, making everything slippery and harder to hold onto. He was trying to fight back, I think. His arms came up at some point, hands clawing, pushing, trying to get me off him, but they didn’t have any strength behind them anymore. It was panic, not resistance, not that it mattered, though.
I caught one of his wrists, twisted it out of the way and drove my elbow down into his face, and a crunched sound followed.
Little Ghost, you ever feel something take over so completely that it doesn’t even feel like you’re making the decisions anymore?
That was it.
I hit him until my arm started to burn, until my shoulder screamed with it, until my breathing turned ragged and uneven and I could taste iron in my own mouth from where I’d bitten down too hard. The alarm hit. Loud, piercing, cutting straight through everything else, bouncing off the walls, echoing in my skull. Hands grabbed me, from the side, from behind, pulling, yanking, trying to drag me off him. I shrugged them off like they weren’t even there.
Someone shouted, more boots, more weight hitting me, trying to force me back as I drove another punch into his face. My knuckles were shredded now. I could feel skin hanging, feel the slick drag of blood every time I pulled back to hit him again. His face barely looked like a face anymore, just red and broken and moving in the wrong direction when I hit it.
Something slammed into my back, a baton, hard enough to jolt through my spine, to rattle my ribs, to send a sharp, violent shock through my whole body, but still, I barely felt it. They were shouting now, order, threats, it didn't really matter what they said, I didn’t hear the words, just the noise. And then, burn.
