A Quiet Life Denied

The cigarette smoldered between Franz's fingers, a single point of fading light in the oppressive dimness of the apartment. He looked to his left, at the familiar figure sitting in the shadows beside him.

"…Why are you back, Leo?"

The ghost of his friend smiled, a sad, gentle curve of the lips that was far more haunting than any ghoulish snarl. "What do you mean, 'back'?" he replied, his voice a quiet echo in the silent room. "I was here the whole time, my dear friend. Don't you remember what I said? I will haunt you forever."

The words dug like nails into Franz's chest. A sharp, excruciating pain pressed into his heart, as if something old and rotting inside him had just been woken. He dragged another pull from his cigarette, smoke burning down his lungs before spilling out in a steady exhale.

"I didn't think I'd start hallucinating again," he muttered, voice flat. "Even after dying… even in another world. My dead friend still follows me.".

Leo broke into a soft, mirthless laugh. "Ha haa ha… yeah, the situation is pretty absurd, isn't it?"

Franz's lips pressed into a thin line. "System."

Silence.

"Arcadia."

Still nothing.

Leo rose from the couch, his movements unnervingly fluid as he began to walk around the apartment. "Oh, they're replying, alright," he said, pressing a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. "But I've put them on mute. You can't have three people in your head at once, can you? That would just fuck you up."

He stopped in front of the strange, abstract painting on the wall, tilting his head. "Still got questionable taste, don't you?"

"Yeah," Franz replied, his voice flat. "I do." He paused, his gaze fixed on the smoke coiling from his cigarette. "What do you want?"

In a movement too fast to track, Leo was in front of him, his cold hand tangled in Franz's hair, yanking his head back. He leaned in close, forcing Franz to look him in the eyes.

"What do I want?" Leo spat, his voice no longer gentle but a raw, ragged hiss of pure agony. "You fucking bastard, what do I want? I wanted to have a wife! I wanted to have children, a family! But I can't, can I?"

His other hand tore open the front of his spectral uniform, revealing the horror beneath. Where his heart should have been, there was only a gaping, bleeding hole. Blood dripped from the wound, thick and dark, staining the floor that wasn't there. Through the mangled flesh, Franz could see his own innards, still and grey.

Franz stared into the abyss in his friend's chest, his own eyes as dead and empty as ever. The pain was still there, a hot knife in his gut, but his face showed nothing. He had grown accustomed. A Stoic to the pain.

Then, a sound tore from his throat. It should have been a sob. It should have been a scream.

Instead, he laughed.

A broken, hollow sound that echoed in the silent apartment. Ha… aha… ha ha ha.

Leo's face twisted in disgust as he released him. "You are a sick fuck. Not a normal human." He took a step back, his form beginning to flicker, to fade. "I wasn't the only one you wronged, Adrian. I wasn't the only dear one dead because of you."

The ghost of Leo began to dissolve into smoke. "I came to remind you of that. Stop acting like you can protect anyone. The only thing you can do… is kill."

His form was almost gone, his voice a final, fading whisper that coiled around Franz's soul.

"I'll be back, my dear friend."

He disappeared.

The silence that followed was heavier than before. Then, two frantic voices burst into his mind.

<Arcadia: Hey, Franz, are you alright?!>

[Quiet Life System: What just happened? We couldn't hear your thoughts. You just sat there and… suddenly broke out laughing.]

Franz looked down at the cigarette in his hand. It was still unlit.

So that was just my imagination this time, he thought. He didn't reply to the systems. He simply brought the lighter up again, the flame flaring to life. He lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and let the smoke fill his lungs.

"Nothing," he said out loud, his voice calm. "Just an old friend came to visit."

The systems didn't press any further. They could sense it—the thin, fraying line he was walking between sane and insane.

Franz slowly brought the lit end of the cigarette to the back of his other hand, pressing it into the skin. He watched the flesh sizzle and burn, a small black mark appearing. He felt nothing.

"Okay," he said, standing up. "Let's just take a shower."

He walked into the bathroom, the two systems trying to act as if nothing had changed, their voices a stream of forced normalcy.

[So, what's the next game plan, huh? Back to school tomorrow?]

<Yes, Thinking of impressing girls !>

Franz turned on the water, the spray hissing against the tile. He stepped under the scalding stream.

"Nothing," he replied, his voice flat over the sound of the water. "Let's just go with the flow."

He got out of the shower and looked in the mirror, steam coiling around him. At first, he couldn't see his own face. The glass was obscured, covered in the reflection of rotten, mangled corpses. They were piled high, a wall of death, their limbs twisted at impossible angles and their dead eyes staring blankly from the other side of the glass.

Slowly, as if parting a ghastly curtain, the bodies in the reflection began to slide away, revealing the face behind them. He saw his own face staring back, but something was different.

It was smiling.

And from the corners of its eyes, thick trails of blood were running down its cheeks.

Franz reached up, touching his own face. His fingers came away clean. He didn't feel anything. He blinked twice.

The corpses in the reflection were gone. His face was back to normal—stoic, tired, unreadable.

[System: Is there something wrong?]

"No," he replied, turning away from the mirror. "Nothing."

He went to his room like nothing had happened, but on the inside, he knew. He was being reminded of his past, of the horrible things he had done.

But neither pain, nor grief, nor guilt would stand in the way of his revenge.