#phanphicc

So I guess I was a step ahead, I’m still unsure if that’s for the best or not. Sure it made it easier to adjust to all of this but others noticed my ease; and people, humans especially, are easily paranoid. It doesn’t help that the young, quick to fight, and those seeking to take advantage of things were the first to succumb to this harsh reality. Those were the ones who trusted me and believed in me most. I mean sure my parents are still around but they never really knew me, trusted me or even really liked me. Well, at least that’s how they were about half of me, though if I’m honest they didn’t know either half of me. Before everything fell I had suspected they were starting to realize how far from them I had become but that doesn’t matter now. Survival and trying to protect what’s left is what matters now. At least my parents can agree with me on that. Though if at any point they had begun to trust or like all of me, that time had since past. My ease with suffering, destruction and sudden mass disaster made them blame me. Because of course, since I was used to everything going to hell then I must be the cause! I guess if I hadn’t reacted with jokes or may be shown a facial expression other then resignation, they may have viewed me differently. 

I visibly sigh, giving my current surroundings another once over; just in case. I need more, always more. Yet there’s never really enough. There isn’t enough for anyone and there are not enough people to need things either. Sure there’s an abundance of many things, picking up a discarded poker chip, but those things aren’t good for much. Flicking the chip across the floor it manages to break off some glass from one of the few somewhat intact windows. Chuckling, it’s not like windows do any good down here anymore. Deciding that there’s nothing here worth the effort I elect to head back to my overpass, not that it really counts as an “overpass” anymore. Looking back I’d honestly rather just jump out one of the real windows. One that can actually see the outside air and sky. But I know that’s a fools game today, a gamble not worth much thought. Even if I did find a way out to the above from that building, who knows how far a drop the ground is; and it’s not like I can fly. Chuckling dryly, it’s been longer than I’d like. Turning back, using both memory and the glow of my eyes to guide me “home”. 

“Home” is a funny word now, it really doesn’t mean what it used to mean. All it means now is that I can rest, stop, breathe; for a while. When I’m out I never breathe, I just hold abated breath. Can’t risk anything or one hearing. Before I could breathe, I did breathe, all the time actually. That seems dangerous and absurd now. Back then dangers came and went, they were boisterous, flashy and wanted to be noticed. Now danger is a constant, it never leaves, and it doesn’t care about making itself known. Before I could fight back, I could spar, I could joke; I can’t do that now. Not with this danger. 

Humans can be ruthless things, sure ghosts have naturally equipped weapons but they seldom have a true drive to just end you. Ghost can be content with returning to the same game of hunt and chase, over and over again. Humans want finality and when they really truly want it, they never take breaks. Maybe that’s why I’m still here, why I still keep doing this again and again. I’m not content to succumb to accepting the finality of this situation but I’m also not willing to just try again later. I won’t accept finality and I won’t take breaks. So that’s why I went looking today and why I’ll go again tomorrow. Till I have what I need, what they need. 

Ghosts gave up on this place years ago, I don’t think I’ve even sensed a single one in months. I guess humans are no fun to scare when they’ve gotten past all their senses. And I guess cities aren’t so fun when nothing works. Sadder thing yet, it’s not just here; it’s everywhere. They’re everywhere. 

I used to love the stars, there were my everything when I had nothing else. They were a safe haven I could have fled to if everything went to hell. Well, guess what? Everything did go to hell, but the stars were the hell. Yet I can’t bring myself to ever hate the stars, even if they’re on earth now rather than the sky. Everything’s better in the sky, including me; I would know. That’s the great irony of this all, my one love stole my other love. The two things in the world that gave me mental safe haven, apparently unable to coexist. On top of that, I’m basically the definition of two things that technically can’t coexist, coexisting. That’s another reason why really, because dammit, if I can make life and death coexist then I damn well will do the same to the sky and stars. Though that’s not something that’s really a desire of mine much anymore, these stars, our stars, need to be destroyed. 

As I sit here, legs crossed, tinkering away on what little I’ve managed to find over time; I can’t help but look back. That’s always how it is, get in the zone of simply making something, anything, and the mind goes to pleasanter times. Before all of this mess I was a pretty happy kid, all things considered. I can’t really say if I’m still happy. I think I am, but it’s not the same kind of happy. Maybe it’s closer to hope than happiness. I remember the day with odd clarity but I’m sure much has gotten muddled in the years since. I can’t really say how long it’s actually been, times a funny thing like that. 

Just a day with ordinary classes, ordinary teachers and extraordinary friends.

At first, I thought it was nothing more than another ghost attack, we all did; how could we not? We all lived in Amity Park after all. 

One look outside changed everyone’s mood though, the sky was alight with a great many blazes.

As if someone had set every single cloud on fire, turns out that was pretty close to the truth. 

Emergency broadcasts erupted over every phone and every speaker. 

Screaming to stay indoors, away from the windows and to not under any circumstances look at the sky. 

Being kids, we did what kids do, we looked to the skies. 

Light danced across the sky in massive arches, I knew it immediately as lighting. 

Far more massive than anything I’d ever seen and very much not right. 

I foolishly assumed it must be that weather ghost again and looked for a way to leave; to change. I wish I had been right. 

The teachers had herded us all up, packed and watched closely. There was nowhere I could run and no one who could hide me. So I waited, just like everyone else. 

Not knowing was the worst part, I’ve learned over the years before this time and since this time that the worst thing I can do, is to do nothing. Both for my own sake and others. If I didn’t believe that before the day the stars fell I would have after. 

In movies, people like to say the crash came without a warning but that’s not true. We had a warning, the buzzing, the popping, the air becoming brutal just to breathe in. 

Instinctively I just stopped breathing, I had known no one would notice. That was something I had been right about. 

Everyone had gone to the ground, I had gone into a fighting stance originally but I got pulled down by the chaos of the others. 

The roof shook for only a second before it all came down, massive flashes of blinding electricity shooting everywhere and at everything. 

It hadn’t taken me long to notice that it wasn’t just things it had struck and was still striking, but rather beings. 

They say this is when fight or flight kicks in, when you see a person's true colours. That saying is true and I had long since lost my flight response. Fighting was all I knew, had been all I’d known for so long. But this, this was something I couldn’t fight. I hadn't even known where to start.  

So I did what I knew, I protected. I wore my colours, my true colours. Secrets be damned, secrets don’t matter in the face of death. In the face of people dying while you’re just, there. 

Turns out I needn’t worry about my secret, there wasn’t anyone left to tell.  

That day I learned something, something about intangibility. Something I wish I hadn’t. 

There’s a big difference between a regular human being made intangible and me becoming intangible. Raw electricity will go through me, it won’t go through them. But that wasn’t for a lack of me trying, anyone who was there wouldn’t dare disagree; if they had lived. 

I screamed, I cried, I wailed, I begged. All while struggling to hold onto, grab onto, and cover as many as I could. They flocked to me too, understanding that I always had and would play protector. But it didn’t matter, the electricity went through each one, most I didn’t even get to see die. 

They were gone too fast and eventually I was left to cradle the last one. I’ve seen so many others go like this since, had so many others go because my protection just wasn’t good enough; that I can’t say who I was cradling that day. Things blur, it’s all a matter of time. 

Stepping out of the destroyed school I had been soaked in blood, none of it my own, and tears, all of it my own. And I looked to the skies. 

And everything was coming down, crash and burn. Every building, every plane, every person unable to hide. This was on such a level that for seconds all I could do was stare, eventually I made some unremembered joke. I’m sure it was either really stupid or unbridled genius. 

Then I got to work, I did the one other thing I knew. I tried to exchange witty banter and a few blows. Turns out that doesn’t work on a gigantic ball of electricity and exploding gas. And that was when I knew, I remember looking up and seeing the empty night sky. Not a single star. Then staring around me, massive balls destroying everything. 

I had no time then to think about, really think about it, now I do. Back then I had simply fallen into trying to get people inside shelters, away from the nightmare from the skies. Others did the same too, even my parents. But they as always didn’t recognise me as their son and I guess I was acting to calm, too collected. In short, I had gotten too good at lying and playing a facade. 

They shouted and yelled at me, assumed it must be my fault. Some plan to make myself look like a hero. My mom has always been good at fear-mongering and being a ghost expert everyone assumed she was right about me, who to them was just a ghost. And like that, they turned on me, now that they had something to blame, something that had a consciousness. I quickly learned that my human allies were all dead or gone. 

I hid, I had to, if not for my own safety then for theirs. Humans, in their chance to seek revenge on those they deem responsible, will put themselves in harm's way. I couldn’t have that. And if they managed to destroy me, in their fear, then I wouldn’t be here to protect them. I couldn’t have that either. So I ran. 

And that’s how I discovered that flying was bad, very bad. The stars electricity was drawn to movement and the higher up the movement was the more attractive it was, and I move both fast and high. This caused the electricity to target me, and this show caused the humans to be even more sure that I was somehow controlling or responsible for this. While my intangibility could protect me, I could only hold it for so long and the blinding light really was blinding. 

Eventually, everything caught up with me, emotional and physical exhaustion, I just stopped. Stopped all of it, the flying, the intangibility and my colours. In some way, I wanted the pain of electricity, felt I deserved it. Why wouldn’t I? I had failed to save everyone. My ghost healing is all that saved me then. 

The only other like me was not so lucky, it turned out. Shortly after this catastrophe started he, being the frootloop he was, tried to bend the arm of the world. Tried to offer his “protection” for a price. He didn’t know what I had already learned and I’m not sure he would have listened if I had been able to get a hold of him. Intangibility wouldn’t work. He tried his plan and it killed him. I know it did, I’d heard it over the radio. 

Eventually, I think I’m done with my tinkering; this one might actually do something. What exactly? I don’t know but anything is better than what currently is. I’ve given up on testing things, on making sure it’s just right; I guess I realised I don’t have time for that anymore. I don’t have time for much at all anymore. But that’s ok, my time was never really mine was it? No, it always belonged to everyone else. To their safety, their future, their survival. It always was and always will be. And that’s ok. It really is. 

Look I know you can’t always save everyone, but that’s always been my plan. At the very least I’ll save some of them, a part, something that can exist on. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I have been, and will continue to be, saving more parts than wholes. A leg here, an eye there, even a patch of hair will just have to do. I can’t afford to be choosy with anything, not a single scrap. And every single scrap has seen me bleed and cry, that’s what doesn’t get easier. Mourning still happens even if I don’t have the time, even if no one does. I know a lot of people walking around are permanently mourning, unable to just carry on. They’re the ones waiting to just be taken out. I wish they wouldn’t do that, they’ll become another person I can only save part of. And everyone, every single one, is worth being save in the whole. I don’t care what hardships they’ve seen or who they lost, dammit! They have inherent worth! They deserve the right to survive! I always want to shout at them when I do spot one of the wanderers. If you can’t bare to survive for your own sake then find someone or thing else to survive for! Someone or something needs you! Wants you! I promise! But I know shouting does no good, I’ve tried; oh how I’ve tried. They’ll either learn it on their own or well.............or they just won’t. But I’ll be there to pick up the pieces, always. Put back together what I can and hope the rest forgives me for not rescuing it too. I like to think they all do but I know some don’t, they’ve told me so. 

Picking up my new trinket I begin the walk to the surface, breathing stalled and eyes always scanning. Looking for stars or looking for people, I no longer know which I’d really prefer. The first time a saw some eat another person was when I knew this really was hell. As I pass one of the many haphazardly built concrete caves, I do wind up spotting a person; and they spot me. 

I never take off my colours now, I can’t afford to. I need to be able to fly, fight, fire, or become intangible at a moments notice. I must not die. Sometimes that’s a problem and right now is one of those times. This person is clearly one that blames me, I know that immediately, as the fling anything they can get their hands on. A second runs out and attempts to fire what is a now empty ecto gun, old habits die hard. I shake my head and sigh at them, my parents. They look worse for the ware, with them being so close to where I’ve been resting and tinkering; they must be tracking me. This knowledge just makes me sigh deeper and longer, I know talking to them is no use. They’ve lost everything, believing both their kids dead and gone. And they blame me, a parents desire to kill who they believe is their children’s killer is unmatched. It can’t be faltered or bent. I know that and I know that to tell them now would break them to dust. They need something to blame and if they knew they’d eventually blame themselves, that’s yet another thing I just can’t have happening. So let them blame me, I’ll gladly take the fall. It’s what I do. 

It doesn’t take much to get away from them, they’re weakened and without usable weapons. Though they’d rip me to shreds with their bare hands if they could, and I know they’d think they were doing it for their kids; for me. Which is touching and I choose to hold on to the warm feeling that brings. Warm feelings don’t come often, so they have to be cherished. 

The time comes when I get to where and when I need to be. This star is the biggest I’ve spotted, so it’s always the one I pick to try and destroy. Take out the biggest, baddest foe and the rest will fall like flies, that’s how it works right? Well, I sure hope so. 

I stick my fists inside and charge up the blasters with my own ghostly energy. They look something like giant balls attached to tubes encasing my arms. Balls to defeat balls, I find some humour in that really. Once they’re all charged I ram them inside the star with an angry growl. 

It doesn’t work. 

I know I can’t go back to the same place as before, I know my parents will be waiting for me. I’m used to this though, just move on. Keep going. You’ll get it. Eventually.

It’s just a piece, just a part but it has a charge. A charge I didn’t give it. I know why as I continue on. Because ectoplasm drips down the walls here, there’s a pool of it on the floor. Radioactive green with hints of a strange unnatural purple. It’s still sentient at least, though I’m unsure if that’s what’s best for it or not. There’s a collar floating in it, with absolute certainty that is a piece of it that needs to be saved. Touching the ectoplasm I can sense that it knows me and I know it. I can not help but cry, though I must make no sound. Through everything, he was a good boy and I’m certain that through this he was good till the bitter end. But I came to late, again too late, always too late. Why were you here! How were you here! You shouldn’t be here! I refuse to speak, who knows who or what could hear. I can’t get caught, get destroyed because I grieved with sound. He wouldn’t want that and they can’t afford that. I will take what I can, every part and set him to sail to the happiness he deserves. Somehow this hits harder than every human I’ve failed, dead humans become ghosts; they come back. But ghosts? They don’t. It’s sad, humans are the ones who seek finality but ghosts are the ones who have to face it.

As I walk along further I realize the metal ghost’s here, he’s never been friendly. That part, the one that worked, was his for sure. I can’t say I’m glad to see him but my displeasure turns to concern, he used to look ok and happy. He doesn’t now. He’s angry, unstable, corrupted somehow. He moves in jerks, green and purple ectoplasm drips from the holes and cracks in his suits. He would never let his suit get into this state, and he would never pass up an opportunity to show me a new weapon. And yet he just did, I think I know what happened to my dog. Ghosts I can deal with, ghosts are easy. This wasn’t a ghost, not anymore, this was a hollow shell of a ghost. Words are written all over his suit, but I have no chance to read them.

He fires and burns me, it’s been too long. I forget this game and dance but some things never die. Swerving, sweeping and spinning in the air, we go at each other like a wild dance. One rehearsed so many times but never grew old, for either of us. I manage to fend him off but this corruption, whatever’s eating him, is killing him. The more I fight him the more I can tell, the more I fight him the more he dies. I just can’t. I can’t do that. I exist so others may survive, regardless of who. So you better live damn it, I let him fling me with the whip of a taser out across tree lines; back the way I came.

I regain consciousness to shouts and jeers, they’re above me. I know they are. Who or what I don’t really know, I can’t take the time to find out. Move. Now.

I shoot straight through the roof, flying up. I don’t look down. Thankfully I had long since gotten used to keeping everything I couldn't leave behind, physically tied to my body somehow. Most of the ropes have been there so long they’ve dug deep enough into my skin that skin has formed over top. I’ll have to cut it out when this is all over, if it’s ever over. Which I’m sure it will be, in time. All things in time. They throw things at me as I go, which means I know who they are. Humans, likely my parents have gathered some others up to hunt me, to hurt me, to make me pay. I’d be fine with paying their payments if it didn’t mean my death. That’s the only payment they’ll accept.

I fly through hallways sweeping and turning, I try to avoid using my intangibility as much as possible, might mess up my trinkets. Can’t have that, one might actually work now or in the future; I don’t know. As I whip by I spot some human, clearly barely 20. I don’t hesitate, I just keep moving. Moving is better, for both of us. I don’t know if the humans would kill another human just for being friendly to the “enemy”, they might. I can feel his eyes watching me go, they don’t feel hateful. That’s the first time in years I have felt a regular humans stare being non-hateful. It’s jarring actually, you get really used to the way people treat you, look at you, speak to you; over time. Whether it’s filled with hate or love; for the longest time it’s been nothing but hate. That’s ok though, I’m sure it’s ok, completely ok. The jarring sensation has the negative side effect of causing me to smack my head into a wall. But I have to ignore the minor pain, I’ve had far worse. This is just a blimp on the pain rollercoaster of life. The person watching laughs or snickers, whether that’s at my pain or out of genuine humour; I do not know. It’s probably best if I give it no thought anyways.

If they start liking me again, if they start asking for my help again; I won’t say no. I won’t turn away, if anything will be the death of me it’s that. So I don’t think about even one possibly beginning to like me. No, never. I’d go back.

I’m going back.

Why did the boy have to look at me? Why did one, just one, have to be nice? I was right before, human morals fall to the wayside in times like this. They saw me of course, they had traps of course, and I didn’t fight back of course. But I don’t just sit and take it, no, if there’s anything I’ve become an expert at it’s coming out ok when I’m completely and utterly screwed and beaten in every single imaginable way. I sigh bitterly as I busy myself with my work, needle in a steady hand slowly doing the delicate work of reattaching my leg. I lost it for a bit. Just a little bit, no big deal. Though I didn’t find my toes, but things grow back. I don’t have time to look for them, I have other things to look for. I haven’t found the mans left hand yet.

It was nice, a warm feeling, that boy standing up for me. Guess he saw what others didn’t. Maybe I should be clumsy in front of people more often. I didn’t get to savour the warm feeling this time, though. The minute he stood up for me, didn’t blame me, didn’t hurt me; he became an "other" to them. Like wolves, they turned and fumed. Churning him up in their refusal of him. It took me too long to get out of the bear traps to stop them. So I’ll save his parts and I’ll both thank and curse him for his small kindness. I like to think I don’t need reminders why I am theirs, why my very existence will always be theirs. But I do. It’s not to remember that truth but rather to feel contentment with that truth. Whether I hate it or love it I am theirs, I’d rather be content about it. Though I miss when I loved every second of it.

With this in mind, I head back to the subway. Filled with nothing but mental begging and pleading that I am met by an attack and not silence. Don’t let it be silence.

It’s silence.

I find his suit, smears of ectoplasm everywhere and not a movement to be found. I remove the head, radioactive green tainted purple drips out and I know. I don’t want to know, but I know. So I reattach the head and sit, allow the grief. If only for now. Eventually, I lift my head, I have to examine his suit and the writing. It may be important and no one can afford me to miss anything, ever. I’ve missed too many things already, I don’t know how I could be forgiven for everything I’ve missed. But I swear I won’t miss this. And I don’t. It takes time and I have to wipe away all the ectoplasmic mess, which pains me to do. But I can read it, all of it; and it’s not pretty.

Dear Hero, We know you will find this, hunters do what hunters do. He will find you, eventually. The fall is destroying the earth, and us along with it. There is nothing we can do but stave off pollution in solitude. We can not help you. But you are different, you, a halfa, are immune. Like humans. You will survive. Survive and fix this, fix us. This suit is loaded with everything any of us could think of, use it. Be the hero.

The suit is signed by nearly every name I know, and I have a sinking feeling that those who didn’t sign. Didn’t sign, not because they didn’t want to but because the could not. They did not lie though, the suit is packed with so much. I find myself unsure of where to begin but I don’t have time.

There’s so much more now, I knew, I always knew, that I was fighting and continuing on for everyone else. For humans and ghosts. But having that confirmed so explicitly and to know that there are casualties I didn’t even know could be casualties to this. Is horrid, to say the least, and the ghosts I can’t save any part of them. I can’t go there, if I do, I won’t get back. I know that I’ll either be destroyed by polluted ghosts or I won’t be able to make myself stop trying to help them there. The only way I can help them is to stay away, just like with humans; just stay away. I’ll just have to be satiated with the plan of going there when this is all over, save whatever and whoever I can then. Not now, but then. Looking down at the metal corpse I carry, I can’t bring myself to feel hope through the loss.

Once I’ve gotten where I’m going. I realize that in my thoughts, weighted mind with grief and gravity, I went somewhere with little underground cover. Not the smartest idea but what’s done is done. I make sure to fly low and slow, doing my best to not let a single thing hit, dent or mark the metal suit. I settle on the floor of the second story of a building. Quickly getting to my work, I’m sure that something they gave me must be able to make this ball thing able to work in some way. I still don’t know what this will even do, I still don’t care. Just do something, anything. And in my tinkering, I can't help but reread "Be the hero". I will, I promise I will, I always do, I don’t know anything else.

The first thing I make is a shoulder piece, it doesn’t serve much purpose but having those words so close to my face. Means that if my memory ever goes I won’t forget that one thing. I’ll read it every day and I’ll continue to work. Always.

Sound catches my ear. One of the humans deserted the group, which is how I found out they’re still tracking me. Lead, of course, by mother dearest. Sighing, they must have a ghost tracker of some kind. That’s fine though, if they follow me around then I can shove them out of the way of danger more easily. I’ll take the hit, no worries. Whatever it is. Staring down at the human deserter, I’m honestly not quite sure what they’re doing. Only one floor down you’d think it would be obvious but no. It doesn’t take them long to spot me, honestly though it took longer than I would have liked. You need to pay more attention to your surroundings girl! I don’t bother saying it though. Would be a wasted breath, always is.

She considers me for a moment, I get it, she’s like the boy. Young, easier to adapt, more used to the fall than the time before. Maybe 25 at most I suppose. She offers me what’s she’s holding, thinking a little I understand it’s an apple. A fresh apple. How? This knowledge alone means my hope must be true. Somewhere someone has grown food. Somewhere someone has chosen to thrive, this fallen world be damned. Though that understanding brings with it a realization, one I don’t welcome, the girl was eating. And I hadn’t known what that was.

She pulls me from my thoughts by standing and offering it more closely. Without question I take it. I must know where this came from, how it was grown, who grew it, why they grew it? This silly apple is hope in the palm of my hands, her hands. She looks confused now and is simply pointing at the apple then my mouth. So I eat it, immediately I regret my lack of food. It’s like an explosion to a mouth that hasn’t had anything for years. But I only smile, wherever this girl’s from I hope she goes back. It’s worth being there, for her, not me. I’ve still got work to do. Always more work, till there’s no more work to be done. Till there’s no one left to save. Then I’ll allow someone to save me. Only then.