Phantom

1.

Eddy

This had to be the strangest day of Eddy's life. After waking up in a backyard he didn't recognize around midnight and wandering around the city for hours to find his way home, he realized he was walking in circles - the circles taking him past the same little square a few times. 

The first times he passed it, the sunlight looked like magic as it bounced off the pool of the fountain that worked as the center piece of the square. Children were balancing around the edges of it, an old man read the newspaper on a bench facing it and the café on one of the surrounding buildings had an outdoor area where new parents enjoyed their time with their babies. Eddy felt out of place there, and even though nobody really seemed to notice him.

The last time he entered the square, it was empty all except a police officer checking parking permits down the road. The café chairs were neatly stacked under the striped awning, the children playing were likely asleep and the old man had left his newspaper neatly folded on the bench. The moonlight as well as the streetlights had replaced the dancing sunlight on the surface of the water in the fountain pool.
He placed his hands in the pockets of the white trousers he was wearing, even though they didn't feel cold. They didn't really feel warm either, but he just didn't know what to do with his hands.

He could hear the police officer move closer to the square and decided to try an make himself look less suspiscious by sitting down on the wooden bench where the old man had been hours earlier and attempted to read the neatly folded newspaper he had left under the streetlight. He hadn't even gotten as far as past the front page before he realized something was off. The picture of a guy he thought looked awfully familiar filled the page, and the headline that came with it was chilling to say it least. 
"Missing, presumed dead", he read out loud to himself before studying the picture again. It kind of looked like him in the picture, didn't it? He could even remember being out drinking with Ray when the picture was taken. How could there be a picture of him in the newspaper?

He stood up quickly and hasted over to the fountain to look at himself in the reflection. He compared it to the picture in the newspaper, but the boy in the water mirror looked nothing like the guy in the newspaper. Their features were the same, but the colour of their skin differed. The newspaper showed a tan guy with red cheeks and a wide smile. A very much alive person. The guy in the water reflection was pale, almost translucent. His cheeks weren't red, his lips were almost blue and he had heavy dark circles around his eyes. The guy in the picture had a lively spark in his eye, which was completely gone in the reflection. He moved his hand to try and feel his own pulse, but found none. He pinched the skin lightly, feeling no pain.
"Huh", he mumbled as the realization hit him, not really sure how to feel about it. He didn't really feel much in the first place. "Presumed dead, alright."

He could hear steps approach the square behind him, but he didn't turn around. He assumed whoever was approaching would ignore him just the same as every other person he had met that day had. How they could possibly have done that with the state of him was a mystery. Maybe they simply couldn't see him?