Book Recommendation Wizard

Now, here, the world has ended. It ended over ten years ago, in Zegnautus Keep, with a blue crystal and a goodbye he didn't fully understand at the time. The world has ended, and he is already dead and rotting, while life goes on around him.

Maybe this is proof of his stagnation, of his rot, that he's seeing dead things now. Maybe he's died in his sleep, and this is the afterlife.

Maybe he's just finally lost his mind.

He takes a shaky breath. In, out. In, out. Reaches over, turns the tap on. Splashes water over his face. Doesn't look in the mirror.

"Prompto."

He doesn't look in the mirror.

"Prompto, please. Please look at me."

He doesn't look.

"Hey. C'mon. Please. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry."

He doesn't.

"Is that what you wanna hear? Is that what'll get you to look at me? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He-

"Guess not." Pause. In, out. Don't look. "I didn't want to leave you, y'know."

No.

"I didn't wanna leave any of you. If there was any other way, I would've taken it. I know that doesn't make it better, and I get why you're mad. Just- I need you to understand. I need you to know that I didn't want to hurt you."

He doesn't-

"How are Gladio and Ignis?"

Silence.

"Guess they'd be in charge of rebuilding Lucis." Pause. In, out. "Can't think of anyone better for the job, to be honest. I mean, Ignis is... well, he's Ignis. And Gladio’s speciality is barking orders at people. Surely that's come in useful at some point."

The laugh sounds so real.

He needs to leave the bathroom. To get away from the mirror.

His legs won't move, the ice of the tiles beneath his bare feet freezing him in place. He's so cold.

It's snowing, and he's alone, and he's chained up in Zegnautus Keep with Ardyn's mocking echoing in his ears, and there's a blue crystal, and the world is in darkness, and he's alone-

"Hey, hey, hey, breathe."

Something touches his shoulder. Air. A breath. Movement out of the corner of his eye. A hand, then, maybe. The absence of one. It doesn't matter. It's not real. He's nobody, and he's nowhere. Just another faceless clone.

"Hey, Prompto, c'mon. Don't freak out. I'm not gonna hurt you. It's me. You know I wouldn't hurt you, right?"

His best friend pushed him off the train. His best friend left him alone. Alone in the dark. Alone in the snow.

Maybe he died in the snow. Maybe his life's just flashing before his eyes. Maybe this is all a dream, and he'll wake up in his twelve-year-old body, a body that doesn't fit him, that can't run for more than a few minutes at a time, that can't nail a target from a hundred metres away. He'll wake up, and he'll always have been alone.

"Please." The voice that isn't there sounds strained. Broken. "You're scaring me, man. You can see me, right? You saw me earlier. Come on. Talk to me."

"Go away." His voice is hoarse with disuse, the rough edges of it scraping against his throat. It hurts.

The thing that isn't there startles- he sees it out of the corner of his eye, because he still refuses to look up, to acknowledge it head-on. It isn't him. It isn't real. He's alone.

"I... Prompto?"

"You aren't him. You aren't real."

"I-I- I swear, I- it's me, it's Noct. Please, just- look at me."

"Noct is dead."

Another laugh, this one strained. "Y-yeah. Yeah I am."

"... Don't know if you've noticed, but dead people don't usually talk."

"I'm a... special case."

Noctis is. He's always been, in everything. He'd been destined to die since before they met.

They were never meant to be friends, or even meet. He- Prompto- was always meant to be alone. Noctis was always meant to die.

Maybe this is the universe's way of punishing him for daring to actually care about the gods' sacrificial lamb.

Maybe he's just delusional. Maybe he's going insane.

...

He looks up.

Noctis stands behind him in the mirror. He looks the exact same has he had ten years ago. Not when he died. When he left.

Somehow, that's the part that makes this seem most like a sick joke.

He touches the mirror. The glass is cold under his fingertips, cold like absence, cold like darkness.

Cold like the snow.

He watches Noctis' face light up with hope, and then immediately fall as he begins to walk away.

He leaves the bathroom, and, immediately, the ghost is gone. The voice goes silent. Blissfully, horrifyingly silent.