✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

FIVE | TWO WORDS

❝ There's a stream of what I've done,
where I've been it's not clean I'm not sober, 
and you are in my head. ❞

───────

FIVE | TWO WORDS

After managing to get up and walk, wincing, touching my side and breathing heavily, I reached the machine. I didn't know anything about machines, but I could tell that the harvester worked perfectly, probably like the first time it was used. I wasn't feeling well, I felt like I could pass out at any moment, I was bleeding, my knees were shaking, my head was pounding and the fact of trying to understand everything only confused me even more.

The cold wind hit my face, cooling the tear that had just rolled over my cheek. Slowly and holding my injured hand, I turned around. I startled when my eyes met the white and ghostly silhouette of a man that appeared two or three steps from me. At first, he looked like the wind was taking him away but then he began to look more tangible. He had a wound in the cheek, I stared stunned at how it seemed to bleed but the blood that came out of it didn't stream down his face, it floated in the air and then vanished. Fear overpowered me and my body started to shake yet again. I thought he would do something like the woman inside the house, I thought he'd jump on me and somehow I would die there.

The stories were real. All my stubbornness was gone by then, I had just seen and been attacked by a violent and angry ghost in there. The spectre raised his gaze to me and I couldn't fix my eyes on him anymore so I just closed them and stood there, weeping and begging under my breath in front of another ghost, if the ghost inside the house didn't kill me, this would finish the job. Nobody would find my body, not until Josh got really worried and decided to look for me.

Something cold touched my face, making me flinch and let out a shaky gasp, I was going to die, it was the only thing I could think of. His hand ran through my hair and then I heard the voice, the same voice I had heard two decades ago in the workshop.

"Edith . . ." He said almost in a whisper and my eyes opened right away, between tears I looked at him and when I did, he dropped his gaze, staring at the ground again. I tried to remember the man in the workshop, but memories were totally blurry and the only thing I remembered were his cold fingers brushing my hands and how he had disappeared in a blink, I couldn't recall more about him.

"What do you want?" I asked in a whisper and waited for the answer that never came. I don't know, but I began to feel bad for him as I wondered what had happened to him, why was he dead and why was still there. The locals said bad things happened there and the first thing that popped up in my head was murder, "Who killed you?" I felt the tremor going down my body when he looked up at me. His face contorted, he looked sad, like something was hurting him so bad. My jaw dropped when I saw him tilting his head a little and one silent tear running down his face. He said the name 'Edith' before reaching for me with both hands, making me gasp and step back. His movements were slow and smooth and the mask of sadness on his face grew thanks to my reaction.

"What are you doing here?" I asked and saw how the wind was really taking him away this time, he became light and thin, returning to his insubstantial form again, vanishing.

"Help me." He whispered, with that my fear towards him decreased. I thought that if that was the same man/ghost I had seen when I was a kid and he was asking for my help again, he wasn't going to hurt me. He would have already done it, right?

"How?" I asked but he didn't answer, instead, his hand reached for my face and caressed my cheek before disappearing completely, leaving me staring into nowhere and listening to the machine's engine.

I turned to see the house, going into that place and get my stuff back wasn't something I was thinking of. My hand went to my pockets, looking for my phone, it wasn't there anymore but I still had the car keys.