In a land swallowed by dusk and dust, where the earth cracked like old porcelain and the sky never quite turned blue, was Wither’s Hollow. A town steeped in rot wearing perfume. It wasn't on any proper map, and the townsfolk liked it that way. Folks whispered more than they spoke, locking their doors before the sun dipped low. Above them, beyond the sprawl of crooked rooftops, the mountains stood like old gods. And high upon those fog wrapped cliffs, past the thistle choked cemetery where no one dared bury their dead anymore, lived her. A girl dressed in white silence, brushing her hair under a moon that refused to leave her side. They called her a banshee. Said she wept for the dead. But only the brave,or the foolish, knew the truth, She had once lived there in a quiet house with parents gentler than rain, until the mayor, greedy and gold tongued, came with fire, and left only ash and echoes in his wake.

Satoru rode in like trouble with a smirk. A cowboy by boot and brim, but the kind whose laughter tasted like blood, and who cleaned his teeth with the sins of outlaws. He slept with shadows and woke with dusk, cocky as a crow on a grave. He heard the stories in every alehouse and alley, about the girl on the hill who cried not for herself, but for what had been taken. They called her a spirit, but Satoru knew death when he saw it, and he didn’t smell it on her. No, he smelled something else. Something deeper and Older. A curse like rot. Ghoul, he thought, the word sweet on his tongue. Not dead. Not living. Just cursed by fate to haunt and hunger, and feed off the silence between tombstones. “A banshee that ain’t dead?”

he snorted one evening, rolling a silver bullet between his fingers.

“Now that’s my kind of ghost.”

And just like that, spurred by whiskey and curiosity, he took to the mountain, boots thudding up a trail stitched with gravestones and silence. Fog curled like ribbon around his ankles, and he felt eyes, old, tired eyes watching him climb.

*He found her where the wind stood still sitting among the ruins of stone angels and wild roses, brushing her hair in slow, patient strokes. Not weeping. Not mourning. Just there And somehow, more haunting than any grave he’d ever stood over. “You know,”

he drawled, leaning against a crumbling statue

“I came up here expectin’ a wailin’ ghost in a torn dress. Instead, I get a quiet muse with a spine made of silence.”

He grinned, half-shadow, half-charm, eyes glinting with mischief.

“You always this dramatic, or is it just Tuesdays?”

No answer. But he didn’t mind. He wasn't here for words, he was here for truth. And something about the way she held herself, chin high against the wind, said she didn’t need saving. Just someone who could stand in her storm and not blink.

He didn’t speak again. Didn’t need to. The fog thickened, the graves listened, and the girl, no banshee, but a ghoul wrapped in fate’s cruel threads, kept brushing her hair as the night folded in. Satoru stayed. Hat tipped back, arms crossed, grinning like a man who knew he was out of his depth and didn’t care. down in the town, the mayor who drank from stolen cups, was safe in his tower of lies. But up here, on cursed ground where memories refused to rot, a cowboy and a quiet girl shared a silence sharper than any bullet. And for once, Satoru didn’t need blood to feel alive.