Chapter Text
Ghosts don’t exist.
That’s what Claude has always believed: they’re a superstition, a bedtime story, something to scare the gullible and thrill the imagination--nothing more. And in all his nineteen years, he’s never seen a shred of evidence to suggest he’s wrong. Which is why, with the help of his best friend Hilda, he started his paranormal investigation blog.
Ever since he graduated high school, he’s been traveling around to hunt down urban legends and haunted houses, and dispel the darkness surrounding them with the bright light of truth. He’s spent the night in abandoned prisons, chased eerie lights through swamps and forests, attended so-called séances and interviewed so-called mediums, and captured all manner of supposedly otherworldly phenomena on camera to unveil their completely mundane explanations. Each week, he publishes these debunkings to his blog, regardless of the arguments and hate mail and accusations of falsifying evidence he receives daily. That’s the internet for you, he always says, ignoring them to the best of his ability as he continues to uncover the secrets behind things that go bump in the night.
And that is how he finds himself breaking into this ancient, decrepit castle on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere at eleven o’clock at night, the crumbling remnants of stone walls denoting where the structure’s surrounding town probably stood. A local legend speaks of the ghost of the infamous Boar Prince that has haunted this castle for centuries. Terrifying in countenance and enraged by anyone who comes near, they say. Trapped inside by the chains of the heinous deeds he performed in life, the bloody swath he cut across the land in a fierce war long ago, the details of which are lost to history. And of course, the best time to find a “ghost” is after dark.
Claude knows it will turn out to be smoke, mirrors, and someone’s love of an old story gone haywire, but he has to admit that getting to explore an old ruin that no one’s dared to touch all this time is exciting. Flashlight held between his teeth, he quietly picks the lock on the servants’ entrance at the back of the building and pushes open the heavy door. Taking the flashlight in hand, he steps inside and traverses the dusty, narrow corridors until he comes out in a dilapidated grand foyer, with two curved staircases leading up to the second floor underneath a magnificent--if caked with grime--stained glass window. It depicts a scene that definitely looks religious in some fashion, but doesn’t seem to reflect any religion Claude’s familiar with. Some kind of lost cult, maybe?
He takes pictures of everything as he crosses the foyer and climbs the stairs. Many of the doors he passes are closed, and he leaves them be for now, as he spots a thin shaft of moonlight spilling into the hall from a room near the far end.
When he peers in through the doorway, he has to suppress a startled gasp--he’s not alone here.
There’s a boy with golden-blond hair standing at the window, staring up into the starry sky with his arms folded on the sill, completely silent. Claude barely dares to breathe as he lifts his phone to snap a photo, with his flashlight’s beam cutting through the dark room and the flash lighting it all up for a split second.
“Hey there,” he says in a friendly tone, once he brings his phone back down again. “I didn’t think I’d find anyone else here tonight. Some coincidence, huh?”
The flash doesn't seem to catch the boy's attention, but Claude's voice does. As he whirls to face this unexpected newcomer, the old drapes framing the high window are caught in a blast of wind, unbearably frigid for this time of year. But the breeze dies down as quickly as it came, and the room falls back into silence. "How did you get in?" the boy asks, eyes wide--not quite with fear, but his apprehension is obvious.
Claude shivers in the sudden gust of cold wind--it definitely wasn't that cold outside when he came in, and definitely shouldn't be--but the look on the boy's face is what really catches his attention. He's probably afraid of getting caught sneaking in. "Through the back door," he jerks a thumb over his shoulder in that direction. "I'm curious about how you got in, though--I didn't see any open doors or broken windows. But don't worry, I'm not gonna bust you--I'm not supposed to be here either." He gives the boy a wink.
"Clearly not." The boy observes Claude closely; his arms draw close to his own chest and grip tightly at his sleeves. "So you're... one of them, those explorers, are you? All of worth here has been taken already, so what is it you want here?"
"Huh?" Claude tilts his head. "Well, I thought it was the same thing you wanted here--to investigate this supposedly haunted castle. Now I'm not so sure."
The boy goes silent, but his eyes move away only for a second. He doesn't seem to contemplate long, and after a second, moves further into the room (though not without giving Claude a wide berth) to perch on the edge of the bed there. The sheets are in tatters and caked in layers of dust and mold, not that he seems to mind it at all. "...it isn't as if I can stop you." His brow furrows. "But know that there will be consequences, should you see fit to take anything."
Something's off here. This guy's talking like he lives here or something, but that's obviously impossible. Claude puts up his hands in a surrender gesture, although he's got the flashlight in one of them and the phone in the other. "Whoa, okay, sheesh. I wasn't planning to. I'm just here to debunk these ridiculous stories about the ghost of the Boar Prince. It's what I do."
Something seems to spark in the boy at the mention, though from the look on his face and the hesitation in his words, what he says isn't quite what he wished to say, not at first. "Could you do so elsewhere, at least?"
Claude's brow furrows. So he's just going to sit here by himself in this run-down ruin? What's he even doing here? "If that's what you want." Well, this would hardly be the first time someone didn't want Claude around for no good reason. He sighs quietly to himself, but outwardly smiles. "Feel free to come find me if you change your mind, though. My name's Claude."
The boy looks to Claude, then away again, pulling in his bottom lip to chew. "Dimitri," he says, after what seems to be a great deal of consideration. "...go with care, Claude."
Claude's smile grows a bit more genuine. "Same to you, Dimitri." He turns to go, but glances back. "Are you sure you'll be okay by yourself up here? This place isn't exactly in tip-top condition."
"I'll be fine. I... am here often. You would be best off worrying more for yourself." Dimitri tries for his own smile, or some imitation of it, anyway; it's strained, a little awkward. "Be... be mindful, that's all."
"Don't worry about me--I do this kind of thing all the time." Claude gives the boy a wave. "See you around." With that, he's off to investigate the rest of the castle, though he doesn't find anything remotely like a haunting, false or otherwise. He ends up leaving with nothing but the nagging feeling that he needs to find out what Dimitri's deal is. That's a guy with secrets if Claude's ever seen one, and he's determined to find out what they are in the process of disproving this latest ghost story.
Claude returns to the ruin a few days later, after having tried to figure out who this Dimitri is without success--neither Google nor the local library has any record of someone named Dimitri matching the boy's description in this city. He figures once he solves the case of the mysterious Boar Prince and posts it up on the blog, maybe Dimitri or someone he knows will read it and contact him. So he waits until well after sundown again and makes his way back to the castle, intending this time to stay until he finds something he can use. He comes through the same door as before and makes his way methodically from one room to another, searching for any sign of what other people would call a ghost.
This time, it isn't the bedroom at the end of the hall, but an inconspicuous door on the way there that opens to reveal that Claude, once more, has company here. The room looks to be a library--a grand one, once upon a time. Its ceilings are high and the bookshelves inside nearly just as tall, though there are few with shelves intact, and fewer still that hold any books. Even with the shelves as they are, moved and placed oddly within the room, a sliver of candlelight just barely flickers through the gaps between the bookshelves... before snuffing out completely. The library sinks quickly back into darkness, save the faintest hint of moonlight from the high windows of the far wall.
Flash goes the phone camera, lighting up the vast, dark room in brief bursts, before Claude slowly ventures farther inside with his flashlight at the ready. "Hello?" he calls, not too loudly, as he makes his way step by step toward where he saw the candle flame, shining his light into every corner. "Anybody home?"
When Claude gets his answer, it comes not from within the room, but from behind him, back closer to the doorway. "... Claude?" There's hesitation when he calls out, a hint of confusion, but soon Dimitri wanders into view... though devoid of any lights of his own.
Claude whirls, shining his flashlight at the source of the voice behind him. "Gah!" Then recognition sets in, and he exhales in relief. "Geez, don't sneak up on me like that!" He walks back the way he came, closer to Dimitri.
"I... hadn't expected I would see you again, so soon. It is Claude, is it not?"
"Yep, that's me. And you're Dimitri. And you're...wandering around here by yourself again. Without a flashlight."
"As opposed to... wandering around with someone else?" As if it needs emphasis, the boy takes quite the theatrical glance around the room, and the maze of decrepit bookcases before them; Claude rolls his eyes. "Light that bright tends to... hurt my eyes, I suppose. It's--it's easier for me to go without, especially with all of this moonlight." Another pause, briefer, but Dimitri becomes almost sheepish when he speaks up next: "I... really didn't think you would come back."
Claude hastily points his flashlight away from Dimitri. "Oh--sorry. Wait, why wouldn't I come back? I didn't find anything last time--not a single spooky noise or suspiciously realistic painting." He grins, but then it falters. "Are you sure you're the only other one here? I definitely saw a candle burning over there a minute ago." He gestures toward a bookshelf deeper into the room. "And what are you doing here, anyway?"
"Well... if that's the sort of thing you're looking for, you may have found it. I'm the only one here, and I haven't lit any candles this night." Dimitri moves, picking his way through books strewn about the floor and toward the shelves, weaving his way through to pass further into the room. "... I live here. More or less."
"What?" Claude follows Dimitri doggedly, keeping his flashlight pointed at the floor to avoid both tripping over books and making the other boy uncomfortable. "What do you mean, you live here? This place has been a ruin for centuries, nobody lives here."
"I'm sorry to say that you're wrong—because I live here." It's a cool insistence, calm, and Dimitri moves to sit on the lounge in the center of the room, a space slightly clearer than its surroundings and... mostly intact, at the least. "Though you're probably the first to see me and not mistake me for the Boar Prince. That's what you said you were here for, after all. Right? To... debunk this haunting, you said?"
Claude gives Dimitri a skeptical look. He's been in nearly every intact room of this castle by now, and he's never seen a single piece of evidence to suggest that this boy could possibly live here. There isn't any food, for one thing, nor are there any lights. No running water, no electricity. But he can't deny that Dimitri at least seems to know his way around...Claude follows him all the way to the lounge and sits on the other side. "That's right. I don't see how I'd mistake you for the ghost, though. Especially since there's no such thing." He smirks. "Unless you've seen it? If you really do live here, and it really is haunted, then you must have met this Boar Prince, right?"
"I haven't met him, no. He doesn't exist." There's wariness in Dimitri's eyes when Claude approaches, but he makes no move to warn him away from sitting, even if he seems to stiffen. "Or, he does, but not as a ghost. A real one, I suppose. I will be candid with you, Claude, and say that I don't enjoy having others come... come traipsing about in here, poking and prodding into whatever they may well please. Perhaps the Boar Prince isn't a ghost, but he certainly helps to keep even the most determined of you all away... or he did, I suppose."
There's a part of Claude that feels a little bad for intruding on Dimitri's space, even if he had no way of knowing it was Dimitri's space, but it's drowned out by the burning need to get to the bottom of this...and to find out why someone would want to live in a ruin and ward off all visitors. The guy can't be happy like this, can he? "Really? That's weird, because hearing about him only made me want to come here more. But I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't believe in that nonsense." He switches the flashlight off and casually tosses it up and down in one hand. It's hard to see much of anything now, even Dimitri, in the meager moonlight, but he'd rather that than make the strange boy less likely to let him stay. "I'll leave if you insist, but...why do you want to be left alone so badly? Aren't you lonely here?"
"Should I be?" It's an odd question, and Dimitri quickly takes a step back to reconsider. "It isn't as if it stops people from coming. But it gives them something to fear, once they hear strange sounds, see odd things, experience odd sensations..." A hand comes to Dimitri's face, and the boy rubs at his eyes. "I have no doubt you've been brought here by many things. Hearing of a ghost, a monster... whatever you wish to call him, your Boar Prince is more akin to an excuse to rid myself of unexpected guests, really."
"So all those strange sounds and odd sensations are just you messing with people. I have to admit, I've never heard that one before." Claude gives Dimitri a broad smile, with a bit of mischief in it. "What if I tell you ahead of time when I'm planning to come back? Then I wouldn't be an unexpected guest, right?"
Dimitri's only response is a blink, for a few seconds of silence. "Knowing the Boar Prince is not real, why would you return?"
"I never thought he was real in the first place. But now I know you're here, and you're much more interesting." Claude shifts a bit on the cushion, leaning his elbow on the back of the lounge and resting his chin in his palm. "You're a mystery, and I can't resist mysteries."
"... I am not merely some mystery for you to entertain yourself with." Dimitri can't quite keep the accusation out of his tone now, and he stands abruptly. "I may not be able to stop anyone from coming here, but I would rather you didn't return, if that's how you see me."
Claude's face falls. "Hey, that isn't what I meant. ...though I can see why you thought so. I'm sorry--that was insensitive of me." He stands, too. "What I meant was, I'd like to get to know you better. Your life really does sound lonely, you know. I'm sure you have your reasons for chasing everyone away, but you don't seem happy to me."
Dimitri makes a valiant effort, but deflates quickly after hearing that. His eyes drop to the floor; he seems to consider a pile of books at his feet more than the conversation at hand, but Claude isn't waiting long for his response. "No, I apologize. It is... overwhelming sometimes, when the only visitors I get care very little for this place." He glances to the windows then, just barely visible between the shelves. "... it's quite late. You should consider going for now, Claude."
A sudden twin pang of guilt and sympathy hits Claude as he realizes that in some ways, he might as well be looking into a mirror. An outsider whom everyone views as a curiosity at best, a menace more often...no wonder Dimitri decided to make a habit of giving people what they expect to find to keep them at a distance. Claude's done the same thing for most of his life, just...not so literally. "...sure." He hesitates, though. "Would you mind if I came back tomorrow night to hear your story? Or, if you want, I could tell you mine."
Dimitri doesn't answer right away; he finds his way back through hills of books and reaches the door before he stops, though the glance he sends Claude is little more than a furtive look over his shoulder. "I wouldn't mind," he says eventually, low.
Claude follows Dimitri back to the doorway, suddenly aware that he's not sure he could have easily found his way back out of there without the help, even with the flashlight. He smiles at the response. "Then I'll see you tomorrow--" But Dimitri doesn't stay for the pleasantry, stepping out into the hall and disappearing past the doorframe. Claude turns his flashlight back on before hurrying after him.
The hall, though, is empty save for Claude. None of the doors seem disturbed, and there isn't a sound to be heard. "...huh." Guess he's gotten really good at hiding in this place...
That night, Claude has trouble getting to sleep. Between the anticipation for going back there and the wild conjectures his brain is conjuring about Dimitri, he completely forgets he was supposed to report back to Hilda.