She didn't realize the release of her affinity, rushing through the room, bringing their bodies into existence for Davante to see just as much as she did. Nor did she realize the man that had been standing silently within the corner, his arms folded over his chest, his striking emerald eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he watched the scene in front of him play out. It wasn't until her distraught reached it's climax that he felt inclined to intervene, some of his magic in life following him into death. With a flick of his wrist the books lining one of her shelves went flying, colliding into the ghost, touching him in a way that Serafina could not till the ghastly figure stumbled backwards with open jaws, clearly protesting the intervention that stopped him from taking the life that had led to his own death.

I would be lying if I said I wouldn't take a chance to relive some of the happiest moments of my life, brought to me by the blonde haired woman who had lost her life in attempting to bring another life into the world. How cruel of a God could she have prayed to in order to deserve such a fate? There had come no good of her death, only sorrow, despair, and hatred had been borne of those solemn moments. And yet, when faced with the opportunity to acknowledge the spirit of the young woman I had loved so entirely, I couldn't deny the apprehension that wrapped it's wraith-like fingers around the circumference of my arms and my neck, even proceeding further to cast a shadow over my heart that weighed far too heavily to be truly shadow alone. I had carried a weight there years after Serena died, professing an absolution for my belief that perhaps love wasn't enough. Perhaps love was a sickness that only caused some kind of side effects that eventually led to a fatal weakness. Time had erased that explicit absolution I had harbored for years, festering in its stench and vice-like grip over my emotions and when I finally felt the weight lift, it had been hard to believe I was free of a cancer acquired in the dark moment when I lost the two lives that had, at that point, meant more to me than the very breath I breathed. The memories flooding into my vision with such surreal force reconciled feelings I had meant to bury in the grave on top of the bodies I had placed there... They weren't feelings I ever intended to relive and yet, in the confines of a kitchen belonging to a woman who had somehow inordinately begun rearranging how I felt about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness all because she was capable of meeting me with a steadfast gaze that I interpreted to mean she would accept the very things that had created in intricate pseudo-sociopath capable of being more than a few handfuls.

Maybe I was wrong, given the way Serafina put distance between herself and I as if markedly protesting what she had seen. And in that moment as my feet touched the ground in her sanctuary, I felt as if I shouldn't be there and I should have allowed her time to process the effects of her power alone almost as much as a sour taste had arisen in my mouth, reminding me with a nefarious glimmer of doubt that Serafina wanted distance. And that wasn't something that felt particularly comforting after reliving the scenes that haunted me in the darkest of moments- not to mention that it was the first time someone besides Elenore or Finley knew the intimate details of those moments. The crumbling effect I felt of the wall that had assembled itself over time seemed to cease in that moment, debris clouding my eyes as I removed my gaze from her even though I had been able to stop the relentless anxious energy that materialized long enough to find myself seated near her. In that moment, there was a longing for an ease that I typically operated with... I longed for the general ambivalence but emotional train wreck that I seemed to conduct, but the wheel was nowhere in sight and suddenly, I'd forgotten just how good at driving I was. God, you'd think I would revel in the fact that I would have moments with the ghost of whatever past heartbreak I'd endured, but instead it was like looking over a ravine and seeing my reflection in the hundreds of feet below as if I were already falling. My reflection, now, looked hazy and worried with concern causing a line to knit between his eyebrows and a kind of juvenile pain resurfacing in his eyes. Oh, I hadn't seen that in a long, long time.

"You don't need to be vague. I know who you saw."

Any traces of humor had made a great and vile genesis from my voice which had lowered marginally, alluding to an empathetic understanding I might share with her. Neither did I want to try and understand how she felt in that moment, nor did I appreciate the lack of understanding she offered me. I would have been apprehensive and scared to tell her the truth behind why I had moved to the United States; never had I verbally told anyone about the circumstances that had led to my somehow immediate maturation. Finley knew from the blood on my clothes... Elenore knew from the ghosts in my eyes. I had relentlessly fought with myself before of telling this particularly macabre truth, with efforts of coming clean finding themselves futile and the words with which to express my historic distress falling stale on my tongue. The pattern evidently would cease here though the gentle burn of the memory was like incense, smoking with an exotic stench until long after the smoke stopped. Acrid and strong, it hung in the air and stung every open orifice and freshly peeled back scars to settle and sting the proud flesh as the young witch evaded my gossamer touch against her cheek. Solidified and emotively personified did the motion effectively produce a hole in my stomach, one that would be loath to heal quickly. Upon her statement of her wellbeing, I nodded once and found my expression uncharacteristically dull as I allowed both of our bodies to be bathed in a darkness void of the hum of electricity I detested, making no attempt now to return to any sort of vicinity of her regardless of the comfort and acceptance or reassurance I desired.

"Fitting," I muttered, surrendering to a tide of annoyance I felt rushing over me and targeting the memories of the blonde woman I seldom had good dreams about. She was gone? What specter of the woman who had professed only my best interests at heart would leave either Serafina or I unattended when there was some kind of ominous thunderhead rolling towards collision? It was easy to sense the unease with which Serafina lingered in her space on the floor, now surrounded by candles lit opportunistically by my Shadow, though when she refused to reply to my quip I felt certain that it was a disbelief in the words I had professed regarding communing with the apparently visible dead.

"Ghosts are meant to be buried and released; I have no desire to linger in the past."

The blonde woman nodded as Davante's words greeted her. It would seem she agreed, a soft expression of peace gracing her features as the baby in her arms quieted, like it was a statement she had needed to hear. "Good man," She murmured, the peace leaving as soon as the cold air returned and she could sense the arrival of the angry mob of spirits ebbing into the room. "I will be back â€" I need to try to find help. I can't do any of this alone, there are too many," She murmured, having materialized beside Serafina. Her words were genuine before her presence was gone.

My words were the briefest of explanations for why I might not have wanted to speak with the ghosts of anyone I had met. Granted, I didn't particularly believe that many of my personal ghosts were individuals I would meet peacefully, but that didn't change the fact that those who came to me bidden and desiring of solace I wanted to speak to. I had a particular knack for letting go of what no longer existed, regardless of what the young witch thought or what I wanted her to think of me. That was a personal truth that perhaps only age or time yielded the answers to. And in the precise moment I had resigned myself to accepting that perhaps I wasn't worthy of acceptance or my personal ghosts were too great in number and heavy in weight for another to burden. Maybe it was wrong of me to ask for such a thing, and maybe then again, I didn't deserve it. Sighing, I felt a tide of restlessness wash over me again until I could no longer sigh but not for lack of trying. The grip around my throat was ethereal and intangible as if there weren't any fingers around my throat though the distress coming from my shadow's writhing figure alerted me with whatever it was I needed to know, until I could suddenly see the body looming over it. Rotted from the grave with skin peeling from his bones in a way I hadn't tampered, he was a heinous spirit that would have frightened any other being, but I had made personal peace with this life that I'd taken long before. Though I had caught sight of the figure in the corner, lurking with a kind of disturbing satisfaction I wasn't able to foresee the shelf of books dislodging the spirit from my Shadow even if one of the books assaulted me.

"Of all places, really?" The words were directed at the quiet man.

I reached a hand to rub my temple where I'd been slapped with one of the books, finding my Shadow to become attached to my figure once more. The angry spirit licked his lips in a decisively Joker-like manner, his eyes narrowing as he looked from me, to the man, to Serafina and back. "That little witch of yours and the blonde whore can't do anything to help you now. You deserve every ounce of callous, horrendous agony any one of us could hope to inflict," He hissed, shriveling in the wake of a lighter, smaller being that materialized closer to me with wild eyes marked by dark circles similar to the mark on her neck, tattered clothing, and a wide infected wound infested with crawling maggots visible on her chest. "Let it be me,"She hissed, her tongue flicking angrily like a snake. And in these few moments as I struggled to find the memories that would blatantly share who these beings were with Serafina, I exhaled any trepidation I'd had and raised my chin slightly in order to effectively challenge the ghosts before plunging into memories that were far less painful to recall than that of Serena's death.

The memories were illusions cast before us in an almost sepia toned filter, helping decipher what reality was from memories. First the man's death came into view, the scene set on a heavily storming night in an impoverished side of town where I was at the center of a circle of men, a small blade of a knife materializing in one hand while the other was effectively wrapped around his throat until the eyes rolled back and his body dropped from my hands like a dirty rag and I shouldered my way out of a crowd. Immediately after, the scene was set in a familiar world rife with gun shots and screams emanating behind what was my very, very young body seated on the tailgate of a dusty truck, cradling a gun beside many other children. It came to a horrific halt as bodies dropped behind us, leaving an almost empty street except for the radiating noise of fallen bodies as the rebel group paraded through the streets, lighting buildings on fire and halting the truck in front of an alley as I was cajoled out of the truck and shoved down the alley much to the delight of the creature hiding in the shadows. She whimpered my name, rushing towards me as an old friend even though we weren't but children ourselves. It was as if a camera moved, allowing our perspective on the illusion to migrate so our faces were visible, and the fear in my eyes was something I hadn't remembered, no... Disconcerting, even. I hesitated until a gun gently touched the back of my head and I coerced the girl into the corner, pressing against her to murmur something softly that elicited a steady flow of petrified tears and a muted scream as the sound of a knife piercing her chest struck the silence and a rush of individuals from behind me to tend to her body while I swam upstream and crawled into the back of the truck where a very large man wrapped a tourniquet around my arm that I would become very familiar with and inserted a needle. The scene faded, though it was clear to me that there would need be many more as the room around us had become more and more crowded.

The faces were marred in distorted ways, the bodies disfigured. Some charred, some bruised, some bleeding still and mangled. And as I could see every one, I felt a sense of calm blockade my senses and effuse my soul, allowing my spine to straighten and my eyes to lighten, the impending sign of magic. And in that calm, my voice didn't falter.

"Angry as you might be, you would have done the same things. I never claimed to be a good man."

My words were bland, holding absolutely no emotion behind them. I never claimed to be a good man, but the lives I had taken had often needed punishment. Sure, the man and the young girl had done nothing wrong but become victims of the wrong place at the wrong time, their lives marred by a darkness thrust upon me. I would let my eyes survey the souls that were dead at my hands, gaze unwavering and almost merciful until a familiar, vampiric face that had introduced Serafina and I rose through the swarm.

"Okay you? I really don't feel bad for killing you, Frank."

There was a minute snicker in the crowd, the humor not lost on the ghosts that his soul might have been harassing in his intricate, stupid way. Ugh, fucker just wouldn't get out of my hair. The lives lost were reminiscent of an evil I had thought was behind me, invested in the actions of those before me. Some were those who had opposed me, some were those who had raped my sisters and sold drugs to my mother. Some were those who had attempted on my life in the slums we'd lived in. And all these moments and memories were running a reel in front of all of us to see as I took in the bodies crowing the basement, my insides on display for however long it took for me to see her, and my heart began to melt all over again. Her bright blue eyes and dark hair were indistinguishable from those of the rest of the Dorians', and she appeared behind both Serafina and I, her voice tiny.

"D, we're finding help, we'll be back as soon as we can but please, please... Be careful. Don't antagonize them, or she could get hurt... They know she is the only one you would fight for," Nahlia whispered, her once lively impish eyes darting to Serafina, alluding to the fact that Serena was trying to find help for us and Serafina was at stake, help to eliminate the horde of irate, malicious spirits. And as of that moment, a wave of sadness comparable to that of what I felt in remembering Serena hit me like a tsunami as that little girl was the manifestation of the first time I had truly, truly blamed myself for the faults of the world and my inability to protect any of the ones I'd loved.

God, having feelings was the worst.

As if it weren't enough, a soft sheen of sweat gently coated my limbs as if it were my body's response to the threats imminent on all sides. I hadn't the time to analyze what my little sister had admitted to, though I would surely have to explain it once the tide of spirits had waned and we were safe, somewhere. Some time. There was a low din audible in the frigid fog of spirits of those who had fallen at my hand, some murmuring threats and some telling their stories to anyone who would listen. The most horrific of memories had yet to surface on that reel, as some of them were long since drowned in a pool of heroin soaked haze, and they weren't things I was content to remember with an audience. Azrael knew of some of them, yes, but only because he had stalked into my past enough to know details even I wouldn't remember. Didn't want to remember, really.

Words befell from the mouths of a group of beheaded boys, holding their heads in their arms as if the Headless Horseman himself had taught them his ways. Their mouths moved, the sounds gurgles emiting from their gaping mouths, though unfortunately enough they were understandable as they murmured intimate details about of the afternoon where they'd met their deaths.

They advanced slowly, trickling drops of electromagnetic blood on the ground as they stepped closer. "She cried for you, you know. And you let her down, busy with that stupid, stupid blonde whore. Serafina, was it? Oh no... Serena. How do you even know that child was yours, Davante?"

I tasted blood in my mouth, unaware my teeth were sinking into my skin.

Began another, "Your whore sister begged for you and you just wouldn't come. She was sweet as honey, Davante, just the way she felt when I â€"" My Shadow gripped its fingers around the shadoy figure, causing the Ghost to dematerialize much to its delight. The other headless boys shook their heads in their hands like rattling bars of a cage. "Do you know how my mother cried when she found my head on her doorstep? How his sister wept over his grave? Do you know what it's like to wander, alone...". Oh, did I ever.

And quietly, the words would slip from my lips. "It isn't the dead that feel most alone in the graves dug for them. After all, as humans we dig our own graves, by our own hands, alone." I would give the boys who had ravaged my sister no other words, though my blood was boiling and I absolutely longed for a way to make the ghosts of my past disappear, at the mercy of the woman beside me who was the only one with that power it would seem. Now here's a stronger, important question.

Would she leave me to the revenge of the specktors demanding something, or would there be pity in her eyes and pity alone when they disappeared and leave me alone with their wake. If only there was a way to let go of the fiery madness of your own chaos.