The Hades Throne

Chapter 26 - Within Darkness

I collapse backward, falling onto the green bean bag chair that I pulled into the corner of the living room. Soft snores vibrate around the loft, leaving residual emptiness when they hush one another.

"Aaahh-ooh-shoo." I have to allow a small smile as I listen to Marli's loud snores, the growls overpowering all other sounds.

Beside her are Toby, on his bed, and Nolan, inhabiting what was once Jacob's mattress. Completing the crew is Isabelle, crashed on the second hand couch. Her skin is paler than—and trust me—a ghost. The bandage we wrapped around her head is steadily coloured by a blushing red, and the breaths she takes forces a shudder.

I take a breath in, and then release air that I don't have.

Sleep eludes me, still. It cheats the day that I've had, bypassing that which should serve as an escape. So, I watch vigil over my friends from my bean bag chair post.

My head is filled by turmoil. It boils through me like an enraged thunderstorm, an inferno of flames that singes the edges of my sanity.

It's not even possible to pinpoint the thoughts that burn at my mind. When I imagine that I can catch the tail of that which I don't know, it escapes again, morphing into another arsenal of thoughts to ponder.

My hand twitches purposefully at my side, the glitch pulling my head down from the clouds. Despite the ease with which the chair conforms to my sore body, I'm inexplicably uncomfortable.

I focus on the lift and descent of Nolan's chest. He's still in his clothes, in the upscale attire I first judged him in. Like a character from a cartoon, his clothing has stayed that consistent pair of clean pressed jeans and tidy t-shirt. Nolan's hair is the same, so is everything other aspect on might care to detail.

Even so, I can't swell true belief.

"He's real. This isn't a dream." I whisper to myself, as much as anyone.

I find myself trying to convince myself of the authenticity of Nolan's presence. He was gone. Nolan was truly and surely gone. It seems impossible, inconceivable even, that he could be sleeping no more than five meters away from me.

Partner in crime to my landslide thoughts are the constant ghosts and spirits. It seems, by their hangled cries and screams, that the spirits of the Returned and the regular residing ghosts are clashing. Like oil and water, they vie to occupy the same station, aggravating one another.

There isn't any peace to be found now, nor relief from the headache that dogs me. Relief of any kind is beyond my reach. The anxiety of the nervous spirits are mine, shared by our link.

It's dark outside. I don't have to hold the blackness in my gaze to acknowledge its presence. There is a feeling that accompanies the darkness. It is inexplicable, beyond words. That said, aloneness permeates everything. It's in my hands and heart and in the way sound echoes blandly. It's in the car that honks so far away, drowned by distance and night.

The spirits shift around me, their nervous shivers spreading in a domino. Their agitation doesn't spread to me; instead I rise up and walk downstairs.

Sure enough, a car clothed by shadows has pulled up along the sidewalk. The car lights illuminate the figure that I expected to see, and I open the door to let him in.

Chief Jones has aged. If there's a possibility that my days have been his years, then it must have come to pass. His hair is blown through with grey, the dark kind that one might see on the actor in an insurance commercial. An artist has etched lines into his skin, below his eyes and scrawled across Chief's forehead.