Wraith ; Semblance

by Riley Mason

  “You do too,” I say back to him. “I was thinking about you the other day. I’ve thought a lot about us since there was an us,” I say getting ahead of my own thoughts, my heart growing a mouth of its own and deciding that it's time to speak up. “I was thinking that I wish our timing had been better. I miss you, alot and I don't know what that means.”

  “You should,” he says calmly, he was always the one that held the calm in our relationship. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Trust me I wish our timing was more in tune with one another too.”

  “We had something real,” I said, almost finishing the sentence I knew he wouldn't say. Part of me felt like I was lying but some part of me felt an air of truth in the words my emotions chose to speak.

  “We did,” he said back certainly. “Trust me I thought about us a lot of nights too. How I wished that something different was going to happen between us. Even now it’s easy to fall back into a flow with you. I hate that we fell apart but that was the agreement that we both made, that it was better and that at least at that time, I wasn’t what you were looking for.”

  “But you were,” I find myself saying. My heart is still busy speaking what my mind won’t.

  “I wish I was, trust me I wish that I was. I knew that I wasn’t it and I knew months before it ended. You’re a strong girl Arinna, I would never say you weren’t and you have an amazing heart, but I wasn’t that.”

  It hurts to hear him say something that I know is the truth.

  “Are you okay?” he asks me.

  I have no idea what to say. It’s like I gave him a view of me that no one else can see, even myself. He had this ability to him to see into the wall that I use, the wall that he found out was there in the first place. “I am,” I lie. “At least I think I am.”

  “You know I'm always there for you if you need me,” he says and I believe him.

  “It’s that I thought that ending us was a way to find myself. That I didn't want to drag you into the shit that was going on in my life and I feel like since we ended, I never really found what I was looking for. I still don't have that sense of self that I wanted.”

  I see his face change. He’s still waiting for something that will lean my heart in his direction and even though it is, it's clinging to the inside of my chest trying to touch his, my face hides all of it.

  Again.

  “That was our biggest problem,” he said, his voice was heavy.

  “But I wanted us and to figure that out,” I say back. “I didn't want to lose us.”

  “You were right saying it was the timing. That was the piece of the puzzle that was always missing between us Arinna. You can’t say that you would go back and change it because we had the chance to do that and we never did.”

  He’s right. We went months without talking. At the time I thought that it was best to cut us off completely and deal with the repercussions myself. It was a bad move, but I knew what I was doing, he couldn't be a part of.

  “I loved you, I still love you,” I say out of protest, that was the one thing that I didn’t want to say.

  “You know I love you too, I’ll never stop loving you,” he reminds me.

  “I need to know something though,” I ask.

  “What?”

  “I need you to tell me who I was when we were together.”

  Chapter 21

  “What do you mean?” he asks me and there is a look of genuine surprise on his face.

  “I mean who I was, I know I’m not the same woman but I have blanks in my memory that I can’t put back together. You were the only one I gave my heart too, I figured if anyone knew then you would.”

  “I don’t get what you're asking?” he asks me.

  I look at him and all the emotional guilt is out of my eyes and I know that he can see that. “There are things that I told you about me. You're the only one that I’ve given my heart too and I know you know things about me and I want to know what I told you about me.”

  “Arinna we dated for two years,” he says back to me.

  “And I want to know what you know,” I reply, and he can see that this isn’t a joke, I’m glad because I’ve never been more serious.

  He takes a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes on me, he’s considering what I’ve asked him. As well as he can see into my eyes is as well as I can read the features on his face.

  “You told me that you were a student that never got a chance to finish school, that you have a brother that was off the Navy but he never came home to see you. That you and your parents got into an argument and you’re not on speaking terms with them. You lived alone, no roommates, that’s really it.”

  “How was I to you?” I ask him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My emotions, my mannerisms, did I treat you well, was I angry. Did I snap quick? Did I make you happy?”

  I see him take in a deep breath, he’s preparing a statement in his head as if we’re still dating and he has to tread carefully with what he says. I don’t care what he tells me, I just want to know what he has to tell me.

  “I mean any relationship needs work. We had our ups and downs, but our ups outweighed our downs. We fought Arinna, every couple fights, it’s the ones that fight that are the ones that are real.”

  “Did we fight more than normal?” I ask and I suddenly realize that I have no idea where these questions are coming from, but I have to know at the same time.

  “We fought a lot but in phases. The first six months we barely had an argument. The second half of the year was angrier. I knew you knew how to fight, you raised your hands to me a few times. One of the times you left me with a black eye,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, I can tell that the well of patience in my voice has dried up.

  “We were out at dinner, we had a fight about my brother, you didn’t like him very much and you felt that he was disrespecting you. You didn’t talk to me the whole way home, when we got there, I wanted to put it behind us and I tried to hug you. I think, even now I don’t know for sure if you thought that I was going to attack you but you threw an elbow into my face.”

  It was like a needle being dragged through my ear. “I’m sorry,” I say out of pure instinct, leftover instincts from the person that Liam thought he fell in love with. I’m not the same person that I was with Liam as much as I might want to be. I had that closure of my heart and I tore it out and left it for dead somewhere.

  “You don’t have to apologize, that was a long time ago.”

  “No, I do,” I say, “I need to and I need to know that I did then too.”

  “What apologize?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not at first. I mean, you never outright said the words in that order, but you were a lot nicer for a while after that. We went a few months without arguing before it started again but I figured that was your way of apologizing.”

  “How do you look back on us?” I ask and I find that I really have to know the answer to this question.

  “In truth?” he asks.

  “Only in truth,” I advise.

  “I’m happy for the time we had,” he says, his voice is heavy and indifferent for those words, but he looked like he regained some composure he lost. “I’m always happy that we decided to end what we had. You can fight the timing struggle all you want, our time was in that time and I know had we stayed together, I don’t know where we would've been right now.”

  “Then why did you want to meet me?” I ask, there’s a flare in my voice, I know he hears it but I don't really care.

  “Because I do still love you, we spent time together Arinna, I can’t turn my back on that. We were friends even if we didn’t work as anything more.”

  I decide that I’ve heard enough and that I don't want to listen to it anymore. I have to go, and I stand. I reach into my pocket and put a twenty on the table to repay him for the coffee that neither of us should've shared. “Thank you,” I said and turned and left. It was cold but I don’t think he saw t
he action as unexpected, maybe that walk down memory lane showed me something that was better left buried, maybe it was better dug up with a shovel left in the heap, in either event, I don’t think he was surprised by me leaving so suddenly.

  Chapter 22

  I have to find out what I don’t know. I can’t be the person that I’m functioning as. I think to myself that there is a chance that I don’t know everything but now it seems that things are erasing themselves from my head. It’s never been like this but it’s starting to change. Even the memories I do have, the ones I cherish, I’m finding out aren’t the same as the ones I thought I had stored.

  I never thought that it would be like this. I thought that I had a better grip on it all. I knew at the time that Liam and I never could’ve have stability as much as I wanted it, but it was as if Liam and I were in two completely different relationships. I know it was the hunts, the after-effects of the chase that can change a person which is why more Chasers hold onto solitude, functioning on basic survival instincts, food, water, drinking, drugs, they serve what’s basic and nothing else. They can’t draw another person into their life unless that person is already part of that life. That and when you hunt something supernatural, a piece of your soul is always left exposed and that rot that you chase taints the piece of you that’s left exposed and it can take days or weeks before those symptoms finally fade.

  It’s hard for me to hear what I heard but I’m grateful that I did. Doing what I do for a living, wandering the streets of Manhattan at all hours of the night looking for things that no one else can see, I have a life and I have a past and I need to know what it all means. I suppose that question has been somewhere in my head for a great deal of time and some part of me has been driven by it while another part of me has ignored it entirely.

  I put my hand up for a cab and one stops after my third try. I get in and direct the driver to the hospital, it's close to midday, the traffic is horrendous but I’m not really in a rush.

  The driver pulls up in front of St. Luke's hospital ER entrance after about an hour in gridlock, I pay him, and get myself out of the car. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here but I have to be honest, I don't recall the last time at all and I’m trying to satiate this hunger for recollection as best as I can. Maybe it’s Jesse, maybe it’s this thing called Gabriel which I can only assume is a demon, or maybe it’s Courtney’s death. I don’t have an answer, but I want one badly.

  As I step into it, I can smell the stale and sterile air, hear the honk of hospital PA systems and the call for doctors to different wings and different codes being shouted over the loudspeaker. I loathe hospitals. Even when I’m hurt myself I’d rather triage the wound then take it to professionals. Hospitals always reminds me of how close I flirt with a life inside walls like these.

  I make my way through the ER to the main guest entrance and ask for my brother by name. The woman directs me to the floor and the elevator, I can see a strange look on her face. I know she can see how long he’s been administered in this building and that his sister doesn't know what room he’s in or how to get to the elevator.

  After the elevator deposits me on the fifth floor, I eye the panels marking the room numbers until I find his but once I do, I can’t go inside, not right away at least. I know people are curious as to why I’m just standing there staring at the wood of the door and waiting, pacing myself before I walk in or maybe it’s my familiar sense of paranoia that’s gone to work inside of me.

  As I make to go inside, someone touches my shoulder gently, I want to react but all I do is turn my head. “I’m sorry I thought I knew you,” a woman with long blonde hair says to me, her hands are chubby but her nails are chewed, I know I give her a disgusted look, I don't mean it but it’s what shows up.

  “Sorry,” she says to me.

  I open the door and step inside not really knowing what to expect but trying my best to brace myself for a tidal wave of emotions that could come back out of me or for the memories covered in my mind to finally find a way to move back into my consciousness.

  Chapter 23

  I stand there looking at my brother as he lays there in the bed, gently closing the door behind me. His head is to the side, he’s wearing a hospital gown with the blanket up to his stomach. There are more wires and tubes running out of his body then I can count. All of them are hooked up to the IV rack that stands there over his bed like it's watching over him.

  I can see scars on his face even before I move towards him. His face is covered with them. Some of the stronger ones run through his eye and one through his mouth, a few of the smaller ones are on his neck. “Hey kiddo,” I say to the room. I expect something, but I’m not surprised when nothing happens.

  I look at this person that I shared a life with, but I can’t even remember their name. My heart feels something but it's not a feeling that's translated to my head. The gaps are growing, and my head is stuck dealing with trying to hold it all together even with an anger bubbling as my brain is trying to force connections that just aren’t finding one another.

  I step over to him, my hand runs through the hair on his head, they’re keeping him clean and shaven, I’m grateful for that.

  “I’m sorry I don't remember,” I say to him. “I’m sorry I don’t know how you got here or how I can help.”

  I look at the door, I could ask, no one needed to know that he’s my family but there's too much going through my head for me to try and get it straight. I feel like my words would confuse themselves before they came out. I decide that I need too, I can't just stand here and look at him and not know. I look down and realize that my hand is holding his.

  I step back outside and I walk up to the desk. “Can I ask you something?” I ask politely.

  The woman looks up at me but makes no words that she wants to listen to anything I’m saying.

  “Can you tell me about that boy in there?” I ask.

  “Which room?” she asks.

  “Five-Nineteen,” I reply.

  “One second.”

  I wait but I want to tell her to hurry up, I can feel anxiety crawling up my chest.

  “Car accident,” she says. “No next of kin listed. Who are you?”

  “I’m his cousin, I was adopted but I found out about him recently,” I lie.

  “We had no next of kin listed,” she said apologetically.

  “No, I can’t image that you would have. Do you know who brought him here?” It’s a stretch but I’m hopeful.

  “A girl,” the woman said back. “Woman was listed as Jane Doe, nineteen years of age. Police had wanted her for questioning but she ran after she brought him here.”

  “Why for questioning?” I ask I know I’m pushing my luck now, but I can tell that this woman knows something, her eyes are telling me that she’s a bit curious as well.

  “Injuries weren’t consistent with a car accident. There was no information on him, we have him listed as a John Doe but his medical bills have been paid monthly for the last two years without fail. ICU isn’t cheap unfortunately, someone is out there that cares about him, I’m sure he could use it right now.”

  I look back at the door. “I know he could use that,” I add.

  “Thank you for your help,” I say and a smile comes to her face its weak but it drags a smile out of hers too. She knows something but I can tell that she decided that it was better left unsaid. I walk back into the room and take a look at the only family that I know for sure that I have in this world and decide that I need to know what happened to him. I can’t shake the feeling that whatever happened to him is related to why my memories are starting to disappear.

  “Why don’t I have a name for you,” I ask the room, I look around expecting to see something, as if someone has visited him in the past. There’s nothing. No one except for me and the hospital staff even know he exists. That’s the path that I seemed to have chosen for him.

  “I want to know if me being a Chaser had something to do with this,” I ask an
d I stand, my eyes analyze the directions of the scar patterns on his face. I run my fingers over them, they slide in the shifting groves of the scars that his skin and I’m sure grafts helped to stitch back together.

  There is so much that I want to say but so much at the same time that I don't trust myself to say. I look at this person and only the most basic of instincts inside of me is telling me to love them. The rest of my heart is telling me to reserve myself, to keep part of myself out of this. I can’t do that even if it was the only advice my mind was giving me.

  “I’m going to find out,” I offer him for what little he can hear to words that he can never really reply too. “I’m going to learn how this happened. I do love you, you’re the only thing in this world that can show me that I was really alive,” I say and a tear burns my eye. These are the feelings that I thought were dead, the ones that I don’t know how to use.

  I can see a small blossom of red show up at the center of the blanket covering his chest. Moving to touch it, I can feel it’s wet, the red that soaked through the fabric touches my skin and I caress it through with my thumb, that’s when I see the new red line that’s burrowed under the blanket. When I pull it back I see the carnage that’s there. Seven slashes rip up my brother’s midsection, showcasing bone and veins and organs. My mouth drops but as I step backwards a frail hand puts an impossible grip on my wrist and I see my brother’s eyes open, vicious red as the seams of old scars are suddenly torn open.

  The scream that escapes him is enough to make my ears bleed but it’s not one that my ears can hear, it’s one that’s projected inside my head. Then it stops, all of it. The blood, the mutilation, the eyes, all of it move back into the reality that I’m standing in.

  Instead of running, I decide to sit down in the chair and pull it beside his bed, I’m going to stay for a little while, not long, but long enough.

  Chapter 24

  I leave the hospital feeling worse than when I had gone in. Going in there was a sense of discovery that had settled in me, now that it was in there, that something was twisting my heart in a way that I didn't fully understand and it felt dangerously out of place.