The young prince lately enjoys ghosting fate

Our precious treasure pt.3

Cassian woke with a gasp, his chest tight as if he had surfaced from a deep, dark ocean.
He sat up abruptly, his surroundings both unnervingly familiar and disconcertingly strange. The silk sheets beneath his fingers, the ornate carvings on the bedposts, the morning sunlight filtering through the heavy curtains—everything was just as he remembered.

But how?

He ran his hands over his face, feeling the tautness of younger skin.
His reflection in the silver bowl of water offered undeniable proof: this was his face, but not the one he had worn in his final days. The wrinkles of age, the weary eyes, the weight of regret—all gone.

He stared into the vibrant, younger visage of himself, bewildered.

“Is this…?” His voice trembled in his mind. “Have I traveled back in time?”

Hope surged within him, fierce and bright. If this was true, then Elliot—his fragile, kind, undeserving fiancé—could be saved.

He could right the wrongs he had inflicted, repair the damage done by his unthinking cruelty.
His resolve was immediate. “I must find him.”
Yet, as he turned to call for his maids, something strange happened. His lips remained still, his voice caught in his throat. He moved—but not by his own will. His body, his very limbs, obeyed commands that were not his own.

The movements were eerily familiar: rising, dressing, ignoring the knocks at the door.
Knocks. His heart leapt. “That’s Elliot!” The timid rhythm of those knocks was etched into his memory.
He tried to respond, to beckon him inside, but his mouth refused to move. “Say it!” he pleaded silently. “Say, ‘Come in!’”

But the body didn’t.
Instead, it walked past the door without sparing a glance. And there he stood—Elliot, frail and trembling, his head bowed in quiet patience.
Cassian’s heart ached as if gripped by an iron fist.
“Elliot,” he cried inwardly.
“Look at him! Please, just look at him!”

Yet his body strode past, indifferent. Cassian screamed within the confines of his own mind, a helpless prisoner. “I can’t… I can’t control this body.”

It was then the chilling realization struck. “This isn’t time travel… this is something else.”

A sudden thought pierced his anguish. “Wait. How did Elliot’s face even look? Why… why can’t I remember?”
The world blurred and shifted.
When his senses returned, Cassian found himself in an ethereal space, surrounded by ghostly figures.

Their faces were all his—thousands of versions of himself, each wearing expressions of sorrow, anger, or resignation.
Some glared at him, others turned away, and still more stood silently, radiating disappointment.
“What is this?” he whispered, his voice finally free. “Who are you all?”

One of the figures stepped forward, its eyes hollow with despair. “We are you, Cassian. Every version of you who lived, loved, and died. And every version who failed.”
“Failed?”
The ghost nodded solemnly. “Failed to save Elliot. Every life you’ve lived with him has ended the same way—with your regrets and his suffering. And every time, when you die and finally understand the depths of your mistakes, you join us here.”

Cassian staggered back, overwhelmed by the weight of their words.
“No… no, this can’t be true. I can change! I can save him this time!”

Another spirit approached, its tone bitter. “That’s what we all thought. But it’s impossible. The curse locks us in a cycle, forcing us to make the same choices. To watch the same pain unfold.”

The figures surrounded him now, their collective grief suffocating. “It’s torture,” one muttered. “Watching Elliot’s small, hopeful gestures crushed under our carelessness.”
“We’ve watched him endlessly,” another added, voice breaking. “Even when the body ignores him, we see him—the way he smiles when no one notices, the way he flinches at every touch. We see it all.”

Cassian fell to his knees. “Is there nothing I can do?”
“Nothing,” came the unified, mournful reply.

“Every time, the body won’t listen.
Every time, Elliot suffers.
And every time, another of us is born to carry this endless regret.”

As their words sank in, Cassian raised his gaze to meet their spectral eyes. He saw in them the reflection of his own despair, his own guilt. And above all, his own helplessness.

The cycle continued, and Elliot’s frail figure remained in the doorway, waiting for a kindness that would never come.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for reading!
Please like and comment