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Hands shaking, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Everything was going wrong.
Well, in fact, nothing had happened yet but I couldn't help but feel everything would fall apart. I’m going to be killed, or maybe my car will run out of gas and explode. Maybe the world around me will collapse onto me, crushing me beneath its mass that has always threatened my existence, because - in all honesty - nothing is bound to care about my feelings, my safety… and this truth haunts me. It’s eating me alive. It’s forever at the back of my neck like a ghost, a lingering vendetta. It’s unsure… it’s hesitant, like me. Perhaps it’s my reflection, and that’s why it seems to follow me wherever I go.
I can’t run from it. I thought as I double checked if I had actually locked the door of my apartment, and made my way through the lit street of my neighbourhood. The streetlamps held nothing against the natural sunlight, and it bothered me. My steps echoed against the concrete ground, and my back stiffened whenever I would pass by other people on my way to- where am I even going?
I can’t seem to remember, but it feels like the world is closing around me again. I thought the fresh air and the lack of walls would help but the darkness outside the light of the street lamps began to be creep closer to me.
“Should you be up at this hour?” A voice said, and I was so over-aware of my surroundings that when Gilbert spoke from behind me, I was not surprised.
“Should I be alive at this hour?” I countered, having stopped but refusing to turn to face him.
Not yet.
“You professional recluse-” his voice slithered through the air and around me like some kind of parasitic ET, and now he stood before me. “Conversations don’t occur while you face your partner with your back.”
I sighed, perhaps a little tired. “What do you want?”
“Your soul.”
“Gilbert.”
“What? I’m dressed in black from my shoes to my eyepatch. I've haunted you for days and now I've caught up to you.” He pinched the bridge of my nose. “And it’s the middle of the night.”
I pushed his hand away, feigning irritation. “It’s hardly 10pm.”
“Don’t ruin the mood, little rabbit.”
“I’m not in any mood for your nonsense today. I actually need to return home to sleep soon.”
Gilbert’s expression shifted from playful to empathetic- the irony, I did not believe for a single moment since I’ve known him that he was capable of such an emotion. “Worried about tomorrow?”
I pursed my lips. He remembered?
As if reading my thoughts, Gilbert continued, “Why are you looking at me like that? My memory is as sharp as an iron blade, how could I forget?”
I sighed. “You just… tend to discard things that don’t concern you.”
“As the horrible fiend that has dedicated his life to haunting you, how could I forget such an important fact about you?”
“You’re overdoing it.”
“At no point did you state that you hated it.”
I remained silent. It was true… wasn’t it? In my pitiful existence with nothing to fall back onto except my seemingly half baked achievements (No matter how hard I work, they will always be half baked because I cannot be satisfied with a single thing I do), it was nice- the attention that Gilbert gave me- no matter how suspicious (he literally appeared out of nowhere into my life and his ‘adoration’ never once wavered).
“Kill them.”
“What?”
“The people you work with, just kill them.”
“Then I'll get arrested and my life will be far worse than it is now.”
Gilbert feigned a thoughtful expression, or rather I hope it was feigned- alongside this entire conversation because what the fuck- then his expression brightened.
“Just don’t get caught!”
“Go get some help.” I said, and with that I turned to walk back to my apartment.
My problems were not solved. Tomorrow is still going to come but- I felt a little bit better about the fact of that inevitability. I turned back to where Gilbert stood, his fingers typing away furiously at his phone screen. Not too long after, my phone vibrated from my pocket and the man looked up with that ever charming smile of his.
I pulled out my phone and opened our chat and there was… a random assortment of letters staring at me from my screen. I looked up again, his smile did not waver.
Ugh.
It was another one of his messages that I had to decipher.
Rolling my eyes, I switched my phone off and carelessly placed it in my pocket ignoring the damned smile I couldn’t hold back along with my intention to spend the rest of my evening trying to decipher his message - just like I had many nights in the past. I knew I would regrettably enjoy every second of it.
I could look forward to tomorrow knowing I had more nights like this waiting for me.