Empty Vessels

by Meredith Katz

  Keith took another deep breath and let it out slowly. All he could do was focus on the facts. He was inside Lucas, and the dream had to do with Lucas. Lucas was lost somewhere in here and didn't know how to find himself.

  But where everything had been strange in the dream, he knew where he was now, at least technically. He knew Lucas—but could he rely on anything he knew about Lucas? Could he search for the right memories to release?

  Lucas couldn't remember being Lucas.

  There was no way of knowing if it would be like it had been for Marion. Marion was an old, inhuman spirit, used to dying and finding a new host and slowly filling it, with centuries of weight behind even those few images he'd seen, and her main concern would be completely recovering that sense of self because it was who she was used to being.

  But Lucas had died young, barely twenty, and stayed around as a ghost. With no connection to the world, he would eventually become a Terror. As long as he had a connection to the world, he would be a ghost, and as long as he had his memories of who he once was, he would be an intelligent ghost rather than residual energy. Marion had wanted to know who she was because she'd been that person for such a long time, through so many experiences, and that grounded her. It was different for Lucas. It—

  It struck him so suddenly that he almost staggered: Lucas would want to know who he was because he was dead and disconnected, and having a sense of self kept him from hungering for the life essence he didn't have. It wasn't just about knowledge. It was about being.

  It was a horrible realization. No wonder Terrors ate the essences of Others but simply killed humans. Even unbodied, an Other was still alive and vital. Humans just died and moved on. Vitality was everything a ghost needed, everything a ghost was obsessed with, but Terrors hunted it without even knowing, even remembering, that they had been a ghost.

  Keith shook his head, trying to focus. Knowing that didn't do him much good. It didn't matter. One way or another, he needed to find Lucas, just going one step at a time.

  He shifted his feet again, trying to clear the path. It was a sidewalk—and that meant it probably led somewhere, which was already different from his dream. So his choices were to stay on the path or leave it. If he left, he could easily get lost, and he wasn't sure how long it would take him to find his way back. In his dream, running blindly had been a mistake.

  And he didn't have the time that he'd had before, with Marion. Better to assume that this mindscape knew what it was about, and if it put him on a sidewalk, he was meant to be on one.

  Keith began to walk, sliding his feet forward and swinging his arms, trying to clear the fog enough to be sure he was staying on the sidewalk and wasn't losing track of it. It worked well enough, but with no noticeable result. After a few minutes of that, of walking endlessly on cement with no change around him at all and no end in sight, the oppressive silence of the fog started to weigh on him and he cleared his throat.

  Talking had seemed to affect the surroundings when he'd been in Marion, so he tried that here as well. "Lucas Brown," he began, "died two months after turning twenty, in a car accident, saving Keith Marose's life." It seemed best to get down the facts, the things that would have import to Lucas as a ghost, as a dead man. "Before that, he was a student at Stonybridge U. His sister's name was, uh, Shaunee. I don't remember his parents' names, sorry."

  He drew another breath to continue when his foot found a curb. He waved his hands again, and found—painfully—a pole. Two street signs were mounted on it, and he leaned up, waved at them to try to read them, but they were covered with dirt.

  Heart leaping, he wiped at one with the edge of his hand, clearing off the smog buildup, but the sign underneath was without a word, a blank green plaque. He tried the other as well to be safe, but it too was blank.

  So he could turn, or keep going straight, across the road. Without a guide, he felt it better to keep on with what he'd started, and shuffled in a straight line across the road until he found the opposite curb, mounted it, continued on the sidewalk.

  His throat felt raw. The fog, or his own swelling grief? "After he died, he began to haunt me. Keith Marose. Since he'd died in Keith's place, he was connected and bound to him. To me. But Lucas never acted like a malicious spirit. He wanted to be a friend, and was."

  That didn't seem to have better results, the sidewalk continuing on endlessly still, but it was hard to tell if that was due to his choice of commentary, or if it was just the necessary distance between blocks. Then again, this wasn't real space. It shouldn't need to be treated as such.

  He kept walking, thinking over everything he knew of Lucas's life. It was remarkably hard to dredge the details up, and he tasted guilt in his words as he kept speaking. "When he was alive, I think he was studying engineering. He hadn't gotten very far into his degree. He was in his second year, I think he'd said. And second year was hard and he was thinking of taking time off but didn't want to admit defeat. But he was sleeping in a lot and not going to his classes. He told me that."

  Another curb. With a sinking heart, he found the pole, cleared the air enough to find the dirty signs, wiped them clean.

  Nothing.

  He crossed the street and continued on. His heart was aching, and words were coming up without being invited any more.

  "He, uh, was a Libra. September birthday," Keith said, awkwardly. It felt as if he was just pulling out the most random facts, but they were all that came to mind. "I don't remember what day. He mentioned it once, but that was a few years ago. It's October now so… guess his birthday would have just gone past again if he were alive."

  No curb yet.

  "I wonder what his family does on his birthday now. He was single when he died. I don't know if he'd ever gone out with anyone. He never said, but I mean, I'd guess he must have at some point? Well, maybe not." He was rambling but couldn't seem to stop. "So whatever they'd do for his birthday, they'd do alone. Wouldn't need to bring anyone else in on it. I mean, I guess he had friends. He was a nice guy. I didn't know them—"

  And then rushed forward, hating to think about that: "I should have done something too—for his birthday, I mean—but that first year, he said it would be too weird. The dead don't age. He couldn't eat a cake or get a present, but I think it would be nice to acknowledge it anyway. That hey, this is a reminder that one day you were born, that you were… that you were alive. I miss you. It's not the same, I guess. It's not like I was your family, just that dumb teenager you saved and who you ended up stuck to, but you're so important. You're just… I wonder how much I'll regret it each September if you don't come back. Not as much as your family regrets it, I guess. But I don't want to think about that. Sixty, seventy years of reaching September and thinking about how I didn't even know what day your birthday was on so I couldn't do anything, after… after I lost you…"

  A curb. He stopped again, feeling like the air had been stolen from his lungs, like he'd been punched in the chest. He found the pole, waved away fog, stared at the dirty signs with his heart in his stomach, a heavy weight.

  On one, he wrote in the dirt with his fingertip: Seventh.

  On the other: Elm.

  And then he stopped, holding his breath, but nothing happened. There was no sign that putting on those street names, identifying the corner that Lucas had died on, had meant anything. No hint that it had changed anything at all.

  Keith let out his held breath, shoulders falling, and tried to think of what to talk about next as he shuffled forward off the curb, began to cross the street.

  A screech of brakes, blinding headlights tearing through the fog, and then an explosion. A sudden slamming pressure to his side, hard, flinging him to the ground, making him lose his breath entirely. In a burst of wind, fog streamed past him in tatters, blown away from that point of impact. It felt like he was in the center of a storm, and flung an arm up to protect his face, needing to close his eyes against the wind and grit.

  And abruptly, it cleared. Sunlight streamed in behind
his eyelids and slowly, he forced his eyes open.

  In real life, at the time, there'd been lots of people around. Himself on the ground, the car with a pole bowing over it but the owner of the car alive and safe, getting out in a dazed panic, people gathering around, screaming, calling on their cellphones, gawking in horror. Lucas's body on the ground, crumpled and torn, still trying to breathe, blood bubbling on his lips, crushed in places it shouldn't be.

  Here and now, it was just the car, crumpled against the pole, and Lucas's body on the ground. And Lucas himself, the ghost, sitting next to his own body, sadly petting his own short, tightly-coiled hair and trying to comfort himself as he drew those slow, bubbly breaths and struggled to live.

  Keith let out a sob and scrambled over to him. "Lucas," he said. "Lucas, man, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…"

  "Not your fault, bro." It was Lucas as he knew him, not the Lucas who had forgotten. Lucas who looked up at him with pain and grief in his eyes but also that familiarity of the years they'd known each other. Even so, he kept petting his own hair. "It really wasn't. This sort of thing happens."

  "Yeah, but…"

  "Hey." Lucas finally pulled his hand away and shifted around, putting himself in front of his body and reaching out. One of his hands found the back of Keith's head, and he pulled it down, pressed Keith's face against his shoulder. He felt solid, real. "Don't look anymore. You don't need to see this again."

  "No, he's, you're hurt, you're dying, he shouldn't be alone, I can't ignore—"

  He felt Lucas shake his head, draw a slow breath. "No," Lucas said. "I think it's okay if we both acknowledge that I've been dead for years now. Nothing we do here will matter. We can't change that. It's over. I'm gone, and it's time to let go."

  It should have been comforting, being able to feel Lucas's arms around him, hearing Lucas talk to him with the weight of memory behind it, knowing who he was and who Keith was, but the words sent a chill through Keith instead. "No," he mumbled. "You don't mean that."

  "That I'm dead?"

  "That it's time to let go."

  It came out of him in a rush, torn out of his lungs, and when he looked up again, pushing Lucas away to arms' length, the car was still there, but the body was gone. That made him feel a little more panicky. It wasn't that he wanted to see Lucas like that, but it wasn't as if he'd ever forget, either. If anyone ever walked around in his own mindscape, they'd find a scene just like this. He was sure of that much. But why had it gone? Was Lucas trying to hide the body from him, or was he…

  Keith swallowed hard. "I don't want to let you go," he managed.

  Lucas stayed tense against his push, resisting, then sighed, leaning back, reaching up to take Keith's hands instead. Keith let him, let his hands drop from Lucas's shoulders. He clenched them with Lucas's between them.

  "Keith," Lucas said. "There's nothing good for you if I stay here. There really isn't. Yeah, we get along well, but you never asked to be haunted. It's keeping you from living your full life. Even if we joke about it, people think you're weird. Talking to yourself all the time because you're talking to me."

  Shaking his head rapidly, Keith dropped his eyes to their joined hands. "That's going to happen whether or not you're here," he said. "I do have the sixth sense. I do see the Otherworld. Even if I don't have you around to talk to, I'll see the Others, clinging shadows, visions. I'll still react to things normal people can't react to. I just—I just won't also have you there to talk to about it. I'll be alone."

  "You're not alone," Lucas said, and his lips twisted in a strange smile. "Hiraeth welcomed you to the community, didn't he? You'll spend more time with him, and he'll introduce you to the Others he knows. From here, you'll get to know them properly. You'll become more of a part of them. A human part, but a part anyway. And it won't look as strange to outsiders. People usually just see them as human anyway."

  "Yeah, but—"

  Lucas pushed on. "And you want that, don't you?" he asked, softly. "I saw it, the way you two were acting. I saw that you want Hiraeth. But you're not accepting it. You feel guilty about me, about how I'm bound to you, about opening your life up to anyone else when I'm a part of your life no matter what. But if you let me go, your life will be yours to do with as you like."

  "I slept with him," Keith burst out.

  Slowly, those eyes widened, very pale in his face. "Oh."

  "I'm… I'm sorry?"

  Lucas shook his head, looking down. His voice, when he spoke again, was awkward. "No. I'm glad. It's fine, I mean… it's better that you're already accepting someone else in. It means you're ready to let me out of your life…"

  It felt as though Lucas was going to spin it that way no matter what. If Keith hadn't slept with Hiraeth, he was holding himself back. Since he had, it meant he already started to get over Lucas. "Do you want that?" Keith asked. He could barely make the words come out, feeling entirely airless and empty. "Do you want to be let go, to pass on or be forgotten or… or change into a Terror?"

  "It would be better for you," Lucas said. He squeezed Keith's hands. "I've been an uninvited roommate too long already, and I'm already dead. I've been dead for five years and dragging your life down with me. It's okay to move on."

  His insides felt wrong, twisted, compressed in a smaller space than his body would allow for. Put like that, it felt as if he was the one preventing Lucas from moving on.

  Was he? There were so many things in him that might be doing it. His wish the accident hadn't happened. His fear of what he was seeing when his ability woke up. His guilt over surviving when Lucas died.

  Was his connection to Lucas more of a binding? Forcing him to stay in this world?

  His throat ached as he drew breath to agree, to let Lucas move on. For his own sake.

  He couldn't.

  "You didn't answer," he whispered instead. "Do you want that?"

  "I'm saying it's the right thing for you."

  Keith's throat tightened more. His heart had started to pound too fast, anger starting to mix with anxiety. "I didn't ask that," he said. "I know what I want. I'm asking what you want. Do you want me to let you go?"

  "Keith, fam…"

  "Do you want it? To move on, or to drift away from yourself, whatever?"

  Lucas's face screwed up with the displeasure of the unexpected, as though he’d thought he was about to eat one thing and found another flavor entirely in his mouth. "It doesn't matter, man, I'm already dead. Your life is about you. Stop making it about me."

  "I'm making your afterlife about you," Keith said. He squeezed tight on Lucas's hands, wanting to hold Lucas there through that point of contact. "You are part of my life, you have been part of my life—I'm not talking about theory here, Lucas. This isn't some—some hypothetical situation. We're friends, whether you're alive or dead or whatever!"

  "Keith—"

  Keith drew a deep breath but didn't let go. "If you want to move on, I'll do everything I can to help you pass. If you want to not be stuck as a ghost, that's fine. That's reasonable. I'll help you because I love you."

  It came out just like that, unintentional and not a confession like he'd wanted. Not some way to build up and finally express it but flying under the radar. He saw it fly past Lucas without truly hitting and snapped his teeth shut on whatever pained sound wanted to follow after.

  Still, Lucas blinked. "I love you too, Keith. But—"

  "No. You don't get it," Keith said. It'd be easy to let it go at that. As long as Lucas understood he cared, that it wasn't about guilt—or at least, not just about guilt—he was making his point.

  But he was tired of that. Of avoidance. Of letting things go too easily. Of doing the simpler thing.

  He straightened his back, staring Lucas in the eye, almost challenging, still holding onto his hands with a grip so hard it whitened his knuckles. "I love you. I want you in my life. I want you there for the rest of my life and to move on with you at the end. I want to keep waking up to you every morning and talking with you about
everything and just feeling you there around me."

  Into Lucas's silence, Keith drew a ragged breath.

  "I want to share every important thing with you," he finished.

  That had hit. Lucas's eyes were very round again, and his gaze was fixed unblinkingly on Keith's. Keith couldn't tell how Lucas was really feeling about it, only how stunned he was, but that was fine. He didn't need to try to read everything and react to it appropriately. He just needed to say how he felt.

  "Like I said," Keith said roughly, throat aching and raw, "if you want to move on, that's fine. You are dead. You and I both know it. That can't be something you're happy about, I mean, obviously. Shit, you just learned about the possibility of being a Terror. Maybe you should have moved on. Maybe you won't find peace until you do, and you want peace. If so, fine. Sure. I'll do it."

  He struggled to keep breathing as Lucas just stared at him, then made himself continue. "But I'm not going to get talked into it because you think it's better for me. Or even if it was objectively better, you know, I'm fine having you with me. I'm happy having you with me. However I can have you. As a friend, or… or anything else. This time I've spent without you—" He swallowed hard, unable to go on.

  "Keith," Lucas began.

  Keith didn't let him finish, needed to get it out before Lucas could try to dissuade him again. "I haven't been this miserable in years," he burst out. "All I can think about is you. So if you want to move on, I need to know it's because it's what you want. I need to know it's the best thing for you. Because I don't want to live my life without you, but I will if it's what you need." He was trembling, teeth chattering. Didn't want to say what he had to say.

  He said it anyway. "So tell me: Do you want to try to pass on?"

  Lucas kept staring, stunned. It was still impossible to read his expression, too shaken to tell Keith whether it was a good shock or a bad one.

  And then, finally, he seemed to crumple.

  His eyes dropped first, and his full lips started to tremble a little, nose wrinkling again. Keith drew closer, unable to fight the desire to comfort him, but Lucas shook his head, shoulders drawn up, hunched around himself.