Ghost in the Machine (Undertaker x Female Reader)

A ghost in the machine.

Trigger warnings:
Trauma
Illness and death
Depression
Dysfunctional/abusive familial relationships

A ghost in the machine.

It was quite some time before we recovered from that day, if we really ever had at all. My mother seemed to be recovering far more slowly from the shock of my grandmother's death than from other instances of "It" happening. Perhaps it was the sorrow she felt for my father's broken heart, for he had no chance of finding a compromise with his mother that would please her, and little opportunity to find the same with my uncle, either.

I thought of these things much later, though; during the period of mourning that followed The Incident, I became acutely aware that the coughing fits my mother experienced then had occurred again and again, increasing in frequency until it was apparent that something was wrong. Medicine told me that nothing she had gone through that day had "broken" her, but it had certainly exasperated the tiny cracks we never saw in her constitution until that point. The blood that appeared on her handkerchief was surely the manifestation of the curse that she'd now brought upon her own family, it was said. I was sure that it was more likely my uncle rather than the servants behind the spread of those cruel words.

The spring came, and with it, the expectation that my father be in attendance at the Parliamentary sessions that began around that time. I knew little of "The Season," as it is called, except that we would spend several of the warmer months of the year in our London mansion. Since we were in mourning for my grandmother, it was not expected that my parents would participate very much in the extensive social events that punctuated this time of year, and it was just as well. My father attended to his political duty as a peer in the House of Lords, hurrying home each day to look in on my mother, who was more and more confined to her room as the days passed. Together, we sorted through the remedies that might make her more comfortable. Neither of us spoke of what we knew: My mother was dying, not of spite or contempt from the assails of others, but of consumption.

The disease was widespread amongst the poorer members of our community, especially in the coldest months, although this had not stopped my mother from continuing her efforts to care for those afflicted by it. Although I was quite young, the prevalence of the illness in that time made it widely-known; my understanding of it was black and white, reflecting my thought patterns. People coughed, and there was blood, and then they went to Heaven. It sounded so straightforward, the way I had arranged it in my burgeoning trough of child knowledge, but watching my own mother move through this process was anything but. It did not help me process the sight of my father's tears as he sat at her bedside late at night, nor my mother's hesitancy to let me near her when she was feeling her worst.

One afternoon in July, when the weather was surprisingly sweltering for an English summer, my mother bade me sit with her for a while. I pushed her windows open a bit wider, feeling unsure about approaching her: her face was gaunt and the color gone from her cheeks. After a moment, though, I recognized the light in her eyes as they met mine and invited me closer.

She opened her arms to me where she lay, and I was pleased to feel her closeness for the first time in a while. She talked with me of my studies and of the sheep I'd seen in the market, stroking my hair and arms all the while. Then, suddenly, she released me to roll to the far side of her bed, struck with a wave of coughing that left her digging her fingers into the bedding, as if it took that to keep her clinging to this lifetime.

It was at that moment that it happened.

The horrifying, icy tickle, the chill walking up my back to my ears. The whispers had occasionally come and gone since my encounter with them months ago, but they had been faint and far less consequential, tied to people of my parents' acquaintance whom I did not know. Now, they came upon me, wickedly sharp and strong, a rain of needles in my soul.