Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 14 - Haunted Things

What's so good about picking up the pieces? What if I don't even want to?

Pierce the Veil - Caraphernelia

It took me six long nights before I could convince myself to sleep again, but strength names and adrenaline only got me so far, especially when I was already weakened by my Sign. I hated winter with a passion. I wished I knew of a way to stop my dreams, to make sleep just be a dark blanket, but that was impossible and I knew it.

Instead of sleep, I focused on hunting, on losing my fears and worries in my Shift. I tried to keep it around me always, every waking moment, to keep my humanity at bay, my emotions. I had thought I could bury them on my own, like I had when I was a child, and I had, at least for a few weeks. I thought my time with my Clan hadn't changed me, and maybe it hadn't, but Jordan had. She was a weakness I couldn't seem to shake. Now I understood why the Book of Dust said our connection could be a curse or a blessing. Sometimes I could get by ignoring my thoughts of her, my emotions, but sometimes I couldn't, not unless I was Shifted, not unless I let my nature take me over.

When my Shift covered me it dulled everything, made it easy to ignore my loss, my fears. Fearing for my Clan's safety wouldn't save them, nothing but finding and killing my father could do that, so I discarded the gut-wrenching dread, the suffocating worry. I let my Shift do away with it all, so only my hunting, only my killing, remained. It was the perfect armor, the perfect way to harden myself against the weaknesses that tried to slink into my mind. All I had to do was kill, no thoughts, no emotions. But sleep was when I was most vulnerable. I couldn't call my Shift when I was unconscious, I couldn't wear my armor to bed, it was then that my emotions battered me, my fears and dreams strangling me. I was able to keep them at bay for a while, for the weeks when I thought Jordan had left the city, when I thought she was some kind of hybrid from Jevin. But then I had the vision of her, and then almost every night since was a dream, some worse than others, but all of them horrible. I dreaded sleep.

Sometimes I saw the phantom from my past, sometimes I saw my Clan, sometimes I saw myself, a monster that couldn't be controlled, without any humanity left, a rabid animal. Sometimes I saw my father, and knew I had joined him. All these things piled up inside of me, making my fears multiply, making my guilt and loss and sorrow grow. Soon I needed my Shift to even think clearly, soon I couldn't manage any emotions without it. I couldn't help but wonder if I was feeling how Jordan did, how Kael and Nevaeh did. Surely they couldn't discard their emotions like I had up until now. I'd had weeks of freedom from my sadness, in some ways, until it had grown so strong I couldn't keep it covered anymore, but my Clan, surely they hadn't been able to do what I did. They had hearts, souls, surely they had been suffering like I now was, but for weeks longer. The thought cut deeper each time it passed through my mind.

I understood why Jordan had gone to Jevin now, if that was her only way to lose the emotions she needed gone, I probably would have done the same if I didn't have the options I did. But what were they doing now? How were they coping now? Pulling their Shift around themselves constantly like I was? Letting it destroy them, their humanity? Or were they simply dealing with their emotions, compartmentalizing them in a way it seemed I no longer could? I hoped they were stronger than me, that they were finding a way to survive that didn't steal their souls. But this was the only option I could think of. Shift so I never had to feel a thing, Shift so I could be a demon, not a man, and try to sleep as little as possible.

Sometimes I forgot to eat, sometimes for days until my stomach would get my attention with a sharp pain or rolling growl. Time was hard to track in my Shift, night and day could easily bleed together, my eyes seeing the same either way. Strength names kept me from realizing when my body needed something, and my bloodlust towered over all other urges, making food, rest, warmth, comfort all seem secondary to finding another guilty one, another victim, to satiate my needs.