The ghost of me

Kevin

On his way home from his brother's, Kevin bought a bottle of strong liquor, he was a brave drunk. He had to build his courage up for what he was planning to do.

Once he was home, he ate a light meal, changed into something comfortable and drank directly from the bottle, he wasn't used to drinking so the liquid stung his throat on its way down and a small amount was able to get him tipsy enough to give him the needed illusion of bravery. He knew that alcohol does not make oneself braver, but it was rather the confidence.

He went to his small bathroom and yanked the cloth he had on his mirror but unlike the usual his reflection was exactly like he was and he raged and for the first time ever he acted physically and punched to mirror hard, as a result the mirror cracked from the mirror and his fist was bloodied from the impact.

He pulled his hand back to his chest wincing from the pain and opened the cabinet to look for his first aid kit to disinfect his injury and see if there were any pieces of glass in his hand.

He was thankful that there was no glass still inside the injury. He pulled out of the first aid kit an alcohol spray and sprayed it on his fist causing him to bit his lip from the burning sensation.

He chook his head from left to right. Trust pain to counter the effect of alcohol in his body, he was sober again.

He went back to his bathroom to see if he needed to clean any glass from the bathroom or the sink but the mirror was just cracked making lined starting from the middle where he punched it.

Each crack held a reflection of him in it. All of them were normal except for one which had its face tilted to the side looking at him with an evil smirk.

"What are you?" he signed to that specific reflection feeling down with all of that. He needed to face his fears or else he was going to stay stuck in that situation forever and he did not want that.

"Isn't it obvious?" The reflection signed back.

'Perfect, it can use sign language.' Kevin thought and an idea made its way into his head.

"stay where you are." He ordered the reflection feeling ridiculous and went back to his bed where he left his phone and went back to the bathroom trying to record his reflection but to his other dismay all the reflections where normal.

That thing had a mind of its own apparently and knew how to miss with him and it was smart as well and that scared him more.

He went back to his bed and sat down heavily on it, his body sagging.

He put his elbows on his knees and looked down at the ground defeated. Well? What did he expect anyway? The ghost or spirit or devil or whatever else that maybe to stay where he ordered it to be like a little child listening to there parents?

He noticed something moving on the ground and looked to find his shadow moving and he exhaled heavily. Good, so, no recording then.

"You think I will do as you say and go by your rules?" The shadow signed.

Kevin was shacking and was scared, no he was terrified, his dark shadow was moving on its own accords defying all the rules of physics and light.

"I'm sorry." He signed. "What are you?" He asked again.

"Your salvation and your peace." The shadow signed back and went to back to normal.

His shadow was normal again as if it was not even moving and signing to him a few seconds ago.

"My peace? How can you be my peace when you destroyed my life, making me scared of going outside and living a normal life because I am scared of you." Kevin signed to the ground hoping that the shadow would answer him but it did not. That was not entirely true though, it did in fact answer but in a way he did not expect. The liquor bottle that he had left previously on the small nightstand next to his bed fell to the ground, the glass shattered and the liquid inside sprayed everywhere, the ground, the bed sheet, the nightstand and him. At least it sparred the walls.

He sat back down on the bed pulling on his hair when he was a little calmer, he went to the bathroom retrieving cleaning supplies, He spent the next two hours cleaning and scrapping.

"You seem to have made a promise to yourself Mr. Ghost to make my life a living hell." Kevin signed to his normal shadow, deciding then and there that his ghost was with him 24/7, it just appeared when it wanted to.

"No, I'm trying to not make you live through letteral hell." The shadow signed and of course Kevin was not expecting that and he took a step back trying to move away from his own shadow, but it moved with him of course.

"Tell me more." Kevin signed but the shadow did not answer. "So, you just pop out whenever you feel like it and stay invisible the rest of the time?" It still didn't answer.

"Typical." Kevin signed to the ghost ignoring him somewhere in the background.

He laid on his bed staring at the ceiling thinking, but he fell asleep quickly due to exhaustion and the eventful and scary day that he had had.

.............................................................................

He went to the café the next day wanting his favorite cup of coffee and to clear his mind a little.

When the waiter came to him, he was massaging his temples as a wave of headache hit him from the lack of sleep. He had slept early the night before, but a nightmare had woken him up two hours after and he could not go back to sleep.

"Bad day?" The waiter signed and that put a smile on Kevin's face.

"Bad night, couldn't sleep."

There was a question that Kevin had always wanted to ask this waiter, so he decided to give it a shot.

"Your name is Hamza?" Kevin signed slowly and Hamza nodded smiling questioningly.

"You are as white as snow." And Hamza raised an eyebrow as a reaction but smiled afterwards.

Hamza got out his notebook and wrote something on it, handing Kevin the notebook. Apparently, Hamza could not handle such a conversation in sign language yet.

"I changed it. I converted to Islam three years ago."

"You can do that?" Kevin signed genuinely.

"Do what? Changing my name or converting to Islam?" Hamza responded by using his notebook again and Kevin took Hamza's pencil and underlined converting to Islam and Hamza nodded his head looking at the notebook and he smiled while writing on his notebook.

"Anyone can become a Muslim; all you need to do is to believe." And Kevin nodded and ordered his usual because he did not want to be anymore rude or seem racist, but he was curious. Why would anyone want to join a cult that liked to bomb places and why would he smile like that talking about it.

Hamza came back with his order and gave him a paper on it was written 'Islam is not what you think it is. Read.'