mirsovea

❝ mirsovea (n.) — to have mercy on yourself; to forgive yourself. ❞

Vesper heard Lilith approach him long before he saw her. She didn’t move like she was trying to sneak up on him; feet dragging a little, no lighter or heavier than usual, but even so, he probably would have heard her anyway, what with his enhanced hearing and the tall, swishing grasses of the meadow.

He could have gotten up and left the moment he heard her enter the meadow, but he didn’t really want to. He was tired. And some part of him hoped she hadn’t actually noticed he was in the meadow, and that she wasn’t going to come talk to him.

That probably made it his own fault that he was still there when Lilith sat down next to him. Still, Vesper felt a flash of annoyance towards her. He was paying her for her services, yeah. It was...convenient, to have the voice of his ghost cast upon someone else. They’d been traveling together for a while, and he should have been used to her existence by now. But she was so bland and awkward. She never said much of anything, just seemed tired all the time and gave one-word responses. He couldn’t tell if she was extremely socially challenged or extremely apathetic. Talking to her was like talking to a f**king rock.

“What do you want?” he grunted.

Lilith shrugged. She did that a lot. It only added to Vesper’s irritation. “You left camp. It’s like, four in the morning.”

“Your observation capabilities are indescribable. Limitless. Beyond human comprehension.”

“Why?”

Vesper pressed his lips into a thin line and stared straight ahead. It was pretty in this place. Towering green trees edged the meadow. A stream trickled enthusiastically nearby, its flow sounding like laughter. The tall grasses were peppered with flower patches every now and then. The sky was wide-open deep blue, stretching on forever, like an endless blank canvas. Stars twinkled in the sky.

How he hated it all.

The trees looked as though they were glowering at him. The stream seemed to laugh mockingly at him. The grass was sharp against his skin, the flowers pretty but pricking with thorns. The sky looked like a yawning mouth, ready to swallow him whole. The stars were cold and unforgiving in their gaze.

“Does it have something to do with your brother?”

Vesper turned his head to glare at her and opened his mouth to say, It’s none of your business shut up you dumb b*tch you couldn’t ever understand—

“His ghost is louder tonight.”

F*ck. He couldn’t say it was none of her business, not when she was...taking care of his ghost for him.

He stared down at the ground and ripped up a little bit of grass. Where could he start? How could he start?

Lilith waited.

Tell her, Cayden’s voice whispered in the back of his head. He thought the voice was supposed to be silent when he passed it off to Lilith—maybe she was right and his ghost really was stronger tonight. Tell her what you’ve done.

Vesper didn’t want to tell her.

“It was in a meadow like this,” he said roughly. As he said the words, the memories he’d tried so hard to suppress began to come back all at once, sudden and sharp, stabbing through the shield of numbness around his heart he’d adopted as a way to cope.

He didn’t want to tell her, but he did.

Cayden’s demon had seized control of him once again, woken by the sight of the bleeding wounds some of the others had borne after a fight. He’d widened their already-present wounds, tearing the gash on Dawn’s wing, ripping open the cut on Caia’s arm. They should have been more cautious, but they were already tired out from the fight, not quite thinking clearly, and they’d been foolish enough to think that Cayden was getting better. Xavier had to hit Cayden on the head hard enough to knock him out before he would stop. When he’d woken, he’d been horrified and ran off. Vesper had been the first one to come to find him.

He could still see the meadow he’d found Cayden in. It had been a lot like this one, all pretty and peaceful. Some part of him had marveled at it as he’d gone to talk to Cayden. “Cayden?” Vesper had called, stepping tentatively into the meadow.

“Hi,” Cayden replied, wearily. Vesper found his brother slumped against a tree, handcuffed to one of its branches.

He stopped at the sight of the handcuffs.

“What—” Vesper’s voice shook with rage. He was going to kill whoever put the handcuffs on Cayden. “Who the f*ck—”

“I did,” Cayden interrupted.

“Aw, Cayden…”

“I had to, Vesper.”

“Cayden, no.”

“I had to,” Cayden repeated, speaking over Vesper.

“Cayden, no, no, no…”

Cayden sighed, actually seeming older than Vesper for once. “Vesper, don’t argue with me.”

Vesper sat down across from Cayden. There was a pause. “Oh, Cayden.”

“What?” Cayden asked.

Vesper didn’t know how to answer. Mostly he had just spoken in an attempt to shatter the silence.

“What’re you gonna do now?” Vesper finally asked.

“I...I don’t know.” Cayden sighed again. “Do you still have that sleeping potion?” Vesper shrugged, starting to pull it out. “Yeah. How much you want?”

“A bottle.”

Vesper stopped and remained motionless again. It was as if he could stop time by stopping himself.

“Cayden.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t a question.

In a very low, very careful voice, Vesper said slowly, “That much will kill you.” Cayden said nothing.

“An entire bottle will put you out forever.” It was as if by rephrasing the sentence, Vesper hoped to change Cayden’s mind.

Cayden didn’t respond.

“Tell me how you feel. Come on.” Vesper was pleading now. Desperation, that many-legged monster, was starting to crawl up his throat.

“I don’t care.”

Cayden barely whispered the words. His voice was hoarse and hopeless.

“What?” Vesper’s vision was clouded. He blinked, trying to clear it. He gritted his teeth. He’d always prided himself on his excellent hearing, but now Vesper fervently hoped he’d heard wrong.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing if I died,” Cayden went on.

“Do you really believe that?”

Cayden’s silence answered Vesper.

“I almost killed them,” Cayden pointed out. “I’m—I’m too—too feral. I’m too out of control. I’m...too dangerous.”

“Cayden…” He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t cry.

Cayden took a deep breath. “It’s alright, Vesper. I’m not afraid.”

But I am, Vesper whispered in his head. I’m afraid for you, and what will happen to me… “At least lemme take the cuffs off.”

Cayden didn’t protest.

But Vesper did—if not with his words, then with his hands.

His hands shook as he picked the cuffs open. His hands shook as he took out the bottle. His hands shook as he uncapped it.

His hands shook as he held it to his brother’s lips.

Cayden smiled faintly at Vesper. “I love you.”

“I-I…” Vesper couldn’t remember the last time he stammered. He didn’t think he’d ever done it.

His hands were not the only things shaking, Vesper realized.

“Love you too,” Vesper managed at last, steadying his voice for his brother’s sake. Cayden was dying to leave behind the guilt of being alive—he didn’t need to feel guilty about Vesper’s reaction to his death.

Cayden closed his eyes and tilted back his head. At that moment, he looked both younger than Vesper could ever remember and older than Vesper had ever seen him. His face was content, untouched by his hard fifteen years of life, almost childishly innocent again. His face was quiet with an aged peace, a peace more mature than Vesper could ever dream of. The peace of a man who has lived his life and is satisfied. The peace of someone who has seen and has had enough.

Vesper was shaking harder than ever, but he forced himself to tip the bottle into Cayden’s mouth. His brother drank it.

It must have only been a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity to Vesper, watching his brother die, helping his brother die.

Vesper’s hands failed him at the last few drops remaining in the bottle, and the bottle fell from his grasp.

Cayden’s eyes opened again blearily.

“I’m sorry.” Tears were pooling in Vesper’s eyes as he choked the words out. He wrapped his arms around his brother, holding as tight as he could before he had to let go.

Cayden reached back to Vesper, patting his back, an unspoken gesture of forgiveness and acceptance. He closed his eyes again.

And he was gone.

Vesper had dug the grave the same night. He’d ripped open the earth, torn aside the flowers, wishing that it was Cayden’s demon instead, wishing he could tear into the unfairness of it all, forcing the earth to feel his pain. He’d laid his brother to rest with beautiful company: flowers to blanket him, trees to watch over him, a stream nearby to always sing lullabies to him. As he’d finished, he’d looked up and seen the sun rising, burning the sky around it orange.

At that moment, Vesper had hated it all. He’d cursed the flowers, the trees, the stream. He’d screamed at the sky, demanded answers from the fading stars. Why did you have to make him this way? he’d shouted. Why couldn’t you have just let him be happy?

The sun was rising now as Vesper finished telling the tale. His hands were shaking, just as they had been when he’d tipped the potion for his brother to drink.

He supposed some things never changed.

Lilith was quiet.

“Say something,” he said to her, just as he had asked Cayden so many years ago.

Lilith shifted. “What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. Something. Anything.”

She closed her eyes. “It’s complicated. He wanted to die. You didn’t want him to, but you respected his wishes. He was too dangerous to live without harming others.” “I know that.”

“I think you want forgiveness,” she continued. “But not from me. From your brother, maybe. From you.”

“What do you know anyway,” he grumbled. “F**king b*tch. I don’t know why I told you anything at all. You think just because you carry his ghost for me, you have a right to—” “You know it’s not real, right?”

Vesper stilled. “What do you mean?”

“His ghost,” Lilith said flatly. “It’s not real.”

Vesper stared at her, and then it turned into a glare. “Are you f**king kidding me? I’ve had enough. Go away—”

“It’s not really him.” Lilith snapped, and much to his annoyance, he fell silent at the sudden loudness. She folded her arms. “I told you I deal in ghosts. When I say ‘ghost,’ I don’t really mean the spirits of the dead coming back. I mean the parts of your subconsciousness that remind you of your sins, that bring up your shame and the worst parts of you, day in and day out, following you and weighing down on you. Sometimes they manifest as a person we’ve known. That voice in your head—it’s not really Cayden, Vesper. It’s you. It’s your mind, talking to you in Cayden’s voice.”

Vesper considered this. It felt very true. He didn’t like it.

“So when you say you can take my ghost away…”

“I guess you would say I have—some form of telepathy. I can kind of sense what people’s minds are thinking, but only the negative subconscious parts. When I ‘take it away,’ I bring it upon myself instead.” She paused. “A lot of people have paid me to do it.” Vesper didn’t like this.

He was beginning to think that maybe Lilith had her reasons for not talking much. He was beginning to think that her head must be full of the angry ghosts of other people. He was beginning to think that the reason she seemed tired and distracted all the time was because she was too busy drowning in an army of mental voices to pay much attention to real ones.

“Cayden forgave you,” Lilith continued. “He forgave you when he said goodbye to you. He forgave you on your behalf.” She tapped her head. “Your mind doesn’t accept that. It never has.”

Vesper wanted to snap at her. He wanted to say shut up. He wanted to say she had no idea, she would never have any idea, she would never understand. But her words struck a chord in him; he had a horrible feeling that they rang true.

“Give it back,” Vesper replied at last. “Give his ghost back to me.”

Lilith met his gaze. “Are you sure?”

“For—for a moment, at least. If it gets to be too much, I’ll ask you to take it back.” Lilith dipped her head. “As you wish.”

Almost immediately, the voice flooded his head again. It didn’t yell. Cayden had never yelled. But the words it said were subtler and cut deeper than they would have if he’d yelled. At least if he’d yelled, he would have an easier time convincing himself it wasn’t Cayden. You killed me Vesper you killed me how could you I don’t want to believe it I thought we were brothers how could you let me get this way you said you’d protect me why didn’t you try harder Vesper Vesper why why why you could have stopped me before it got this bad and you didn’t why Vesper why Vesper’s shoulders sagged.

You’re not him, he said to the voice. You were never him.

You can’t even give me this? You can’t even believe that I’m real? The voice paused, sounding hurt.

You’re me. He closed his eyes. You were always me.

You just have to keep hurting me, huh? What kind of sick, twisted creature are you? I died, Vesper. Isn’t that enough for you? Can’t you be nice to me for once?

You’re not him, Vesper said again. He would never do this. He would have told me I did the right thing. He was a better person than you—than I could ever hope to be.

The voice dimmed.

It was still there. It would still be there on sleepless nights, whispering into his ears. It would still be there when he saw beautiful meadows and starry skies giving way to sunrise. But it wasn’t real.

It never had been.

He opened his eyes.

Lilith was studying him carefully, her expression sharp.

“I’ll keep it,” he said to her. “The ghost.” He stood up, pulled out a few coins from his pocket, and offered them to her. “Your last paycheck.”

A strange expression crossed her face. Wordlessly, she accepted the coins from him. Vesper glanced back at the meadow again. In his mind, he saw his brother’s body, forever at peace beneath the earth. The voice rose again.

Goodbye, Cayden, he said to it. The voice fell silent.

It was just him now, in his mind. It had always just been him.

He held out his hand to Lilith, who was still sitting on the ground. She seemed surprised at the offer, and even more surprised when she took his hand and he didn’t pull away at the last second. If he was being honest, Vesper was even surprised with himself. Then again. It seemed that nothing was quite what it seemed tonight.

Vesper pulled Lilith up to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get back to camp.”