The pencil in his hand scratches against paper as if the lead itself was as tired as he was, each stroke a dull echo of thought. His eyes flicker toward your image—your hauntingly familiar image—but he doesn’t flinch anymore. He’s long past that.

Try as he might, the memory won’t go. The way your hands covered him from their aim, the thunder of gunfire cracking through the air, the way crimson spread beneath you like some terrible bloom. That moment is carved into him, deeper than any scar.

So why are you still here?

You’re dead. He’s sure of it.

He used to say it out loud, like repeating it would make you vanish. It didn’t. Eventually, he stopped bothering.

The first week you appeared, he’d felt crushed under the weight of it, like his chest was full of stones. You’d hover close, whispering things that made bile rise in his throat, that sent him clawing at his own skin just to drown you out.

Now, months later, you still come and go. Sometimes you sit in silence beside him, eyes glassy, lips unmoving. Sometimes you hum that old tune, the one he can’t bear to remember. He doesn’t scream at you anymore. Doesn’t beg you to stop.

He just lets you be.

Hatred, guilt, grief—it all blurs together eventually.