Phantom Recall

28 || the weight of ambivalence

Before both my feet have even touched the ground inside the spirit lounge's hallway, my body feels the effects of the sudden change. An abrupt, almost jarring sensation, as though the altitude, the time zone, the everything had been shifted within the few seconds it took me to step through that arch. I have to stand still for a time as the ground sways. Vertigo. It clears soon enough. As do the distorted voices chattering in the distance.

I make a quick glance behind me — no sign of the glowing archway. Whether it's simply invisible from this realm, or it had already been closed, I have no way of knowing now. I don't care to wait around for Noir and find out, either. I don't want to risk seeing him at all right now. My reality may have shifted momentarily but all of my memories of the border realm remain vivid and in tact. And for that reason I choose to begin making my way out of the hallway in hopes that I could put some distance between us before he changes his mind and tries to stop me again.

If he would. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe those tears were only an act. And they almost worked on me, too.

No...no, I can't believe that. Not even Noir could fake something like that...

A chill travels down my spine. I already regret returning the scarf to Noir but not nearly enough to ask for it back again. I could find a new one, I tell myself. Or even learn to make one someday. There are options. I have options. Noir isn't my only...option...

I come to a gradual stop at the very end of the hallway. Unfortunately, in this particular place I find myself, there is only one option. One exit, that is, and it's all the way across the floor next to where I can already spot Avis and Atlas shaking drinks in mixers behind the bar counter. Echo sits on one of the stools, being served for a changed. Her posture loose and relaxed, I watch her tap her fingers against her glass for a moment until someone joins her, claiming the adjacent stool and immediately falling into a slumped position.

Leon. He rests his forehead against the countertop. The coat draped over his shoulders starts to slip, but Echo catches it just in time and instead places it onto her lap.

Then he snaps to attention. Like a wild animal with honed senses, reacting harshly to the sound of a snapping twig in the distance. And that twig is me, I soon discover. The ability to distinguish spirits and their unique auras — if I didn't believe it were true before, I can't help but believe it now. I didn't make a sound. Even my breath, I hold without realizing. Even so, in this overwhelming sea of strangers singing and talking and dancing the trivial hours away, somehow Leon noticed a disturbance.

He grips the edge of the countertop and cranes his neck to peer in my direction.

It couldn't have been more direct. That being said, the slim chance I had of slipping away unnoticed crumbles to pieces in an instant.

I take one step out and Leon takes a dozen. What an intense expression I find overtaking him, not unlike what he greeted me with the time I encountered him and Iver at the bus stop; sheer bewilderment blended with an overwhelming relief. On his way to me, the man nearly runs into a chair carelessly pulled out from one of the lounge's dining tables. He isn't the only one who notices me. Echo, of course, draws her eyes to the source of Leon's panic, and thus Avis and Atlas put their bartending duties on hold to lend their concern.

Although no one is quite as open and frantic as Leon. I manage but a few more steps before he reaches me.

"Will, are you alright??"

I'm too dazed to swat at the hand that grips my arm. He must be dazed, too, I think, to have this sort of boldness despite us not leaving on good terms after our last meeting.