Truly Madly Ghostly

Chapter Twenty: The Fall

There was something extremely painful in seeing Ace standing in the middle of his living room.

Alex sighed from the darkness of the bedroom.

Ace didn't hear him, he didn't hear the little sigh of agony, he never had.

Being the eldest of the three siblings, Ace was always protective of his younger ones while growing up. Whenever Aurora and Alex would find themselves in critical situations because of their mischiefs, Ace would always come to the rescue. They looked up to Ace to save their backs forever. Then one day, Aurora left them. Gloom clouded over the family along with the death of their tiniest angel. And Alex found his older brother turning more attentive of him, it was almost like Ace was scared of losing the only sibling he had left now.

And then, many years later Ace lost him too.

Sadness tugged at Alex's heart seeing Ace throwing a soft kick to the floor. The dust that coated the floor flew up and swirled about Ace's feet.

Alex felt this strong urge to do something, anything, to tell his brother that he was here, so close to him. But he knew he shouldn't. He didn't want to let his brother know that he existed in this way, in this dreary permanence.

He just wished for the guy to move on already.

Ace needed to forget him.

It was visible how much Ace was still hurting. In his every visit at his home every month, he would wander about the grimy, dark place as if in search of his younger brother, but would only find scraps of memories in lifeless objects. Ace had been even not letting go of this apartment, paying the rent every month, keeping the place his younger brother used to live in, and unknowing to him still was.

When Ace finally made his way out of the apartment, Alex quietly followed suit but had to come to an abrupt halt just at the doorway.

For Charlotte approached his brother.

Standing right behind the now closed door he heard the conversation they were having and shook his head in exasperation. Why would Ace talk in that manner to Charlotte? But then again, Ace had always been that protective of him. The man was literally on fire when Alex had walked away from their family's ready fortune and towards a struggling career of a musician. For so long after that Ace had tried to make whatever career Alex had chosen a bit easier, trying to get him recording deals, offers from different studios and radio shows—but every time those stealthy attempts got caught. Alex recalled the enormous argument at one point he had with Ace because of this.

It was just a day before the accident.

The accident.

Alex clutched his head with his hands and blinked hard, his eyes turning black abruptly.

No, he didn't want to remember about the accident.

Between Ace's receding footsteps and the accelerated beating of his Charlotte's heart, Alex found himself lost somewhere.

How unfortunate he was to be stuck in this miserable state of his own existence!

We live life taking it for granted always, knowing the value of it only when we die and lose everything, knowing that things were in our control only when we were alive.

"Alex?"

He heard Charlotte murmuring his name and it brought him back from his reverie.

"Please tell me what's going on before I lose my mind."