Running With Ghosts (H2OVanoss)

Chapter 14

Thanks for coming back to read this dispite my hiatuses and inexcusable laziness. I appreciate you so much. Also nothing in this story is medically or scientifically correct.

(Listen to: You're Somebody Else by flora cash)

I'll be peppering in more song suggestions as we go. I hope you enjoy! -walk

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The sound of his broken cry faded into nothing and his world stopped spinning. Evan's fingers turned cold and his vision blurred with tears and he realized he had never felt anything more real than in that moment looking up at the center of his universe as he died.

Nothing had ever felt so solid and tangible.

So clear.

All his life he had walked along, living each day wondering why nothing felt real, debating if he was really there or not. Colors were muted no matter how bright and wonderful they were. There were days he found himself walking down a sidewalk, air cold and crisp as it filled his lungs, watching the dead leaves falling around him and crinkling beneath his feet. No matter how much he focused on the world around him or how hard he stared at the sky's overcast reflection in the puddles at the curbside, he never felt like his feet were really on the ground. He never felt attached to time or space, he only felt like he was in a bland daydream with no way out of it.

The daily routines were monotonous, he'd blink and be right back on that same sidewalk crushing the same leaves, taking the same cold breath of air that made his throat ache, staring at the sky in wonder and he always tried to figure out why the world was so beautiful but he still couldn't see it. He tried to learn why reality felt so vague yet so fucking painful.

The term 'friend' never meant much to him. No one ever stuck around and the only people that pretended to care were the ones he worked with at random jobs that were forced to see him every other day. It was the only reason they got to know him. But after he left there were no messages asking him how he'd been or them telling them they missed him. No invites to get together. Nothing. He faded back into the grey.

Distant laughs plagued him as he cut through parks full of people with lives that had been solidified and figured out. Lives that meant something to them, lives that were full and colorful, whole.

He wondered why his chest was always so constricted and how it managed to hurt even more as he took the steps and walked into the hospital where his father lay dying while his family's judgmental eyes stared accusingly when the fate of the family business fell into his lap. The beating of the heart monitor droned out a single note.

Evan wondered why he was even still there in a world that didn't feel real.

Until the day he learned how to live.

The moment he walked out of the airport in Indonesia and took a deep breath of warm air and the colors flooded his view, he wanted more. More adventure, more breathtaking views, more of the world, and more of the feeling that filled his soul as he kept moving on. He wanted the ache in his chest to keep fading and over time it was almost gone.

Lucah filled his heart to the brim with a kind of love only a dog could give. He'd never loved anything quite like he loved her. She taught him how to be kind and taught him how to run and never look back even if there was a waterfall ahead and no indication as to how far it actually went down before the water below enveloped you in weightlessness and safety.

Evan had never felt drawn to another human being before. Not before Jonathan and from the very first time he'd met his eyes in the mess hall after Lui had shown him around once he woke up from his coma, he felt a tugging in his chest. Something new.