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“Could someone please put me out of my misery? Why do I have to keep going like this? It is hell. I cannot keep doing this. I hate it, I hate it. I have been dead since I was 14 years old and it just won’t stop. Why can’t I just fade away? Everyone I loved and cared for is gone. I have nothing left but the ectoplasm keeping me away from everything that is going on or have ever been. They are preserved in my memories that fade more and more as decades pass. I revisit pictures and videos and have a harder and harder time trying to remember what was going on at the moment. I could visit descendants but they do not know me and I do not know them.” I begged, pleaded to him desperately. Clockwork listened but who would not turn and face me.
I am stuck in the past while it becomes more faded as time goes on. It is so hard for me to make new connections because I had the perfect people by my side. I cannot continue like this. I need to die completely. The thing that stops me from being able to let go of my responsibilities and fade away into the ether with my loved ones is my duty. As Ghost King I cannot leave this realm without a ruler. Other people worked diligently for the last Ghost King but it could not continue like that forever. There needs to be a present ruler in charge. It just cannot be me.
Clockwork sighs as he finally turns to me. “Eternity is lonely, I cannot be disappointed in someone that cannot handle it. Fine, we will let out an official competition to see if anyone can beat you. But be warned you cannot hold back in any way whatsoever or the Realm will not accept them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do. I will put my all into it as I always do.” I agreed. Knowing I had no chance to refuse, I had to reunite with the friends and family I love so dearly.
Clockwork efficient as always had the tournament arranged fairly quickly. Many different kinds of ghosts arrived to test their might against the current Ghost King. Especially because their head is not going to end up on a pike for daring to stand against their king like the last one.
Ghost one by one ended up flat on their back as they faced him. Never coming close to his ghostly power or of his honed battle strategy. Only one was left at the end and soon there was none. Punch after punch, and finally nothing, after centuries he had finally become the most powerful ghost with absolutely no one by his side to celebrate the fact. Everyone looked at him with awe or fear. All bowing to him as their mighty ruler.
He watched them all, his throat tight as he realized that his death wish could no longer be fulfilled, with which he turned and walked away wordlessly, no longer able to keep himself together at this failed opportunity.