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How much pain do you have to go through before giving up is okay?
It was a question Ghost often found themselves asking, though to who or what, they didn’t know. All that was there to answer them was silence, maybe the skittering of spindly legs or the sickly sweet miasma of Infection.
Speaking of Infection—it coated Ghost’s nail. It dripped from their cloak, their shell, their mask. Only their mind was untouched… perhaps it would be next.
How much pain do you have to go through before giving up is okay? Ghost silently cried, no voice to speak aloud.
No voice. No question.
No answer.
***
Death. Life. In Hallownest, the line between the two was blurred. The Infection killed the mind and reanimated the body. Corpses stumbled through the caverns, no goal in sight but to kill those that had not shared their fate.
Ghost envied them. Sort of. They certainly didn’t want to be a bitter goddess’s puppet, but at least they wouldn’t have to think, or feel pain.
Ghost’s shell was cracked. Black ichor oozed out between the jagged edges, mixing with the orange rot covering the ground. Their nail was slick with the stuff, to the point where there was no telling where the metal ended and the Infection began.
Bleeding into the dirt, Ghost barely held themselves up as the Stag Station was in sight—
Heavy claws clutched onto their cloak, ripping at the already-tattered ends and tearing patches off at the seams. At this rate, Ghost might as well be running about with nothing but their shell to cover them.
The claws of the disgraced noble behind them tired of their cloak and dug into the wound on their leg. Ghost could not scream, but silence rang through the area as they collapsed, vision fading as Void seeped from their shell in a sick mockery of blood, just another reminder that no matter what, they would never be normal.
Gods, they wished they were normal. Perhaps then they could finally die.
***
Quirrel was dead. Cloth was dead. Tiso was dead. Zote wanted them dead. Grimm was gone, left as soon as he had gotten what he wanted out of Ghost, taking the child that they had raised with him (selfish, so selfish, though all gods were). Hornet was somewhere else in the kingdom, either avoiding Ghost or coincidentally being in other places. Cornifer had finished his mapping and returned to Dirtmouth to rest and be with his wife (what was being in love like? Ghost would likely never know, and that made something in their thorax ache).
Ghost was used to feeling lonely. They supposed that Hallownest had spoiled them a bit, since now the loneliness was biting, scratching, slashing, hacking at something in them.
How much pain do you have to go through before giving up is okay? they asked again. The Lumafly Lantern they held hummed. It had been looking a bit more orange lately, though Ghost couldn’t find it in themselves to care. The Radiance had likely already won.
Ghost meandered through the kingdom with no concrete destination in mind. They eventually found themselves in the Ancient Basin, standing in front of one of the many corpses of their kin.
The Broken Vessel lay crumpled before them. Shattered. But at least their spirit was able to move on. Ghost had managed to free them, against all odds, from the wicked moth gripping them with iron talons.
Ghost eyed their own claws. Underdeveloped, blunt with overuse. They were never given a chance to grow, not like the Pure Vessel, who was freed from the dark confines of the Abyss just to be thrown into another prison full of golden brilliance and rot.
Was there no fate in which Ghost could win anything?
How much pain do you have to go through before giving up is okay? Ghost silently asked the Lumafly Lantern.
Not even the Radiance answered. Ghost understood. No one ever answered their questions. Ghost understood the message behind the neglect.
Not worth my time.
***
Another miss. Another failed parry. Another death.
Another hunt that ended in dark stains on Ghost’s nail.
They left their reclaimed Geo behind. It had no use to them. Not anymore.
How much pain do you have to go through before giving up is okay?
Ghost had found the answer.
They should have given up long ago.
They stood at the top of the Abyss, recalling the fates of their kin, all those years ago, desperately trying to climb out of the dark, to be free.
They now knew that there was no such thing as freedom. Not for them. Not for any of them.
The floor of the Abyss was paved with the faces of the dead. The faces of those who never got to live, and never would live.
One more wouldn’t make a difference.
Ghost gave up.
They jumped.
And as their mask and shell shattered upon impact, they felt nothing but relief as the Void reclaimed them.