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Wilbur was... tired, admittedly.
He had surprised himself by working all the way up to exhaustion, since he didn’t actually think he would ever reach the point, due to him being dead. It had taken him a while to get used to being undead; and it didn’t help that he was still learning new things every day, whether it was something he couldn’t do in this new ghostly form, to something he had apparently done in his past life.
His past life was... awfully hazy, really. Thinking about it made his head hurt, made him feel cold, so many negative emotions that he’d rather leave behind and never feel again. As a ghost, feeling emotions and touch was rather rare; so when it did happen, it frightened the poor man more than anything.
He had arrived in L’manberg with a passion to learn about himself, it honestly being the only thing he could think about when he initially appeared in that strange decrepit room, unable to recognise the man before himself who held a bloodied shiny sword; he who was only there for a short moment before joining the crowd below, who had other matters to attend to, it seemed.
So many... shouts, screams, explosions... Wilbur blocked out all of it in that very moment as he stared down at the apparent corpse that had been left behind, a stab wound being the most prominent injury by a long shot that immediately caught his undivided attention.
Fear rattled in his heart in that very moment as he realised who he was looking at.
How?
How on earth had the world been so cruel to him?
Not only, for him to be stuck in a state of limbo, stuck in between life and death as he was shoved back into the world he was never supposed to return to; but, he had in fact appeared in front of his own corpse, as well as his attacker, who seemed to had fled without a hint of remorse.
Blank staring eyes burned down at the pale corpse, a new memory surfacing in that very moment as Wilbur now feared the man in green, his memory not being good enough to catch his face to remember his name before he fled. He vowed to always fear the man in green with a diamond sword, even though he wasn’t even sure if he could be seen by him, since he hadn’t exactly reacted when Wilbur had initially appeared for a second unwanted chance at life.
It was from that moment that Wilbur wanted to learn more, whether it were good or bad; since he so desperately wanted to find out what on earth had happened in a country he could only remember in glory, those memories certainly not including a country with a massive crater in the middle of it.
Oh, what a mistake that was.
The more he had asked, the more he wished he never had, since he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
There was no way he was the cause of all of this.
There were countless times when he had tried so kindly to ask what his past life was like to people like Quackity and Tommy, only to be shouted at and called a tyrant, even though Wilbur had little to no idea what they were talking about.
Surely if he HAD done such things, he would have remembered them, right?
Oh, but he had such a horrible problem with remembering. Or at least that was what Tubbo had told him.
During one of their recent conversations, Tubbo kept getting more and more confused, his tone changing overtime before he finally asked Wilbur why he kept asking the same questions, which he of course had no idea as to why.
Had he been? He... was asking these because he didn’t know the answers to them. Why did Tubbo think that he was lying when he said he had never asked them before?
It only took a minute or so of persuading for Wilbur to realise that Tubbo was right, which was an unfortunate realisation. For him to appear with no memories at all in this strange world he had once been a part of, having horrible amnesia only made things worse, especially when he randomly blanked out in the middle of conversations.
It happened a lot actually, especially in conversations with Tommy for some reason, even though Wilbur didn’t have the slightest idea as to why. For some odd reason, he always felt a little bit uneasy around the boy, since a strange sense of bitterness came from him, especially towards Wilbur himself. Whenever Wilbur quizzed about the issue, he was usually called an idiot or told to shut up, so he believed it, since he was only an innocent soul after all.
An innocent soul with no apparent purpose for being here.
Well, that’s what he had thought initially, but after enough people wouldn’t stop telling him about how awful he had apparently been, he came up with a plan. A timeless plan, sure; but a plan nonetheless.
If he truly had blown up everything, perhaps his main goal was to fix it, no? Maybe, just maybe if he cleaned it all up and built something magnificent, he would be set free.
He could be set free from this personal hell of broken memories and shouting liars, as well as being as far away from his rotting corpse as physically possible.
So, that was what he did.
He immediately started ignoring every mention of his past, since truthfully, was that even him any more? Did he really seem like the kind of guy who would do something like that? No! Of course not!
With a ghostly smile on his face and a faded wound on his chest, he created the nickname ‘Ghostbur’, to truly try and distance himself from whoever he had been before, it not mattering to him if they were lies or not. He didn’t care and frankly he had no time for it.
He was just here to be a passing soul, a nice friend to chat with before more work had to be done, an unimaginable amount of work that never seemed to be finished.
Wilbur thought about this, his initial arrival and his journey up to this point as he sat in his library, surrounded by books written by so many names he didn’t recognise, which pained him more than he thought it would. All it was supposed to be was a nice little archive, after all.
The fire in the room burned with a warmth that he couldn’t feel, it really just being there for visitors, which usually only consisted of Tommy and Tubbo, the president more than the VP, come to think of it.
Tubbo reminded Wilbur of himself. A kind soul with a pep in his step who was a rather reasonable thinker, but also knew how to argue when it was needed. Wilbur couldn’t help but be jealous of the poor boy, the main reason being the fact that he was alive and Wilbur wasn’t, he instead being cursed with a horrible past full of crimes and deeds he couldn’t even remember committing.
Teeth gritted before he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he didn’t have and everything he had apparently done to deserve this personal hell, which resulted in a fierce frenzy of scribbling on his page below, it only taking him a second to realise his mistake. Even a second in his world though, was timeless.
Staring down at his book, regret flooded through him as he realised he had just scribbled out all of the memories he had just written down, which had made them unreadable, especially due to how much he had smudged them with the poor ink.
Panicked eyes scanned the pages as he tried desperately to read literally anything to get his memories flowing again, but it was all in vain. As he had scribbled the memories off of the page, he had also in turn scribbled memories out of his head, which left him the same husk he had started with, one that was full of fear and could only remember two things.
His corpse, and the man who had killed him.
Those two memories never seemed to leave.
A knock on a door startled him to his feet, tears welling in his eyes as his only memories told him that it was the man in green coming to kill him again, probably with the same bloodied blade from before.
“Ghostbur? Are you alright?”
A voice called from behind the door with no urgency whatsoever, but Wilbur couldn’t understand why. Perhaps this was a trick, no? Something to keep him on his feet, something to make him realise that this was all his life was going to be now. Collecting memories only for them to be whisked away by his own destruction.
Oh.
Isn’t that how he... had gotten here in the first place?
By destroying his own memories with... destruction?
Another memory. The cycle was beginning again.
Sniffles were the only thing that occupied his hoarse throat as the door to the room he was in swung open, the face on the other side of the door being unfamiliar at first. He gripped anxiously at his sweater as he stood against the wall, desperately trying to remember anything that could save him in this moment.
“Ghostbur?”
The voice said again, it being more innocent than before, a tilting head occupying his words this time, which brought Wilbur some comfort, which was better than none at all. That caring, yet awkward tone... where had Wilbur heard it before? During an... announcement of some sort?
Oh. That’s who it was.
“...T-Tubbo?”
Wilbur had to admit, his shaky voice did irritate him a little, but it was a price to pay for another memory. Tubbo’s face lit up as he was called, since it was nice to see that Wilbur remembered him, it being unfortunate that he didn’t realise that Wilbur had JUST remembered him again. Well, not for long, really.
“Y-Yeah! W-What’s up-“
Tubbo was cut off by Wilbur taking no chances and hugging the hell out of him, which probably felt like nothing to him, but he didn’t care. He needed to pretend to feel something even if as hard as he tried, it would never ever work and he would always be hoping for a broken miracle.
The air went silent, the only noise being the crackling fire in the corner of the room; the room that Wilbur still didn’t recognise, even though he felt like he should. He shivered as he held onto Tubbo, his breath hitching as he felt the boy place a comforting hand on his back.
“...it happened again, huh?”
His tone was low and full of sincerity, yet still full of the care that Tubbo prided his words with, a sigh of regret leaving him as he hugged Wilbur a bit tighter, which the ghost could just barely feel.
...wait.
Again?
...how many times had this happened?
Through teary eyes, he peeked over the boy’s shoulder to stare at the library, the cycle of his life being as painfully visible as ever.
In the corner of the room was a pile of open books all thrown to the side, every single one having a scribbled page that was messily showing upright as if they had all been tossed aside in a hurry.
On top of the pile, was the book he has scribbled in moments ago. Tossed aside like nothing, its only purpose being to show how useless it was trying to write his memories down at this point.
Maybe he was just destined to forget everything and roam the world as a hopeless soul.
He already had the hopeless part down, after all.