Work Text:
Old was the wrought iron door, rusted over and covered in moss. It creaked everytime a wind blew past, telling of the weakness in the hinges holding it up. The hall behind it was almost worse to look at, in pristine condition save for the thick coating of dust on every surface, disturbed by neither time nor people. Nothing rotted, no vines nor growth covering the paintings hanging on the wall, no tears in the canvas of the portraits. It was perfect, and horribly lonely.
Contrary to the hall behind the closed entryway, the outside of the manor was truly taken over by the land around it, more akin to the door itself and crawling with vines and nature. Infestations of ants and spiders crawling into the cracks on the outsides of the walls, never entering into the manor itself. Spanish moss hanging from every branch, kudzu creeping across the gnarled pathway to the rusted over door. Unlike inside, you could smell and feel the rot out here, alongside a scent reminiscent of life. You were never alone out here, the way you were in there, but neither was ever a good thing.
There are grave markers scattered around the perimeter of the old house, acting almost as a wall separating the property from the land around it, alienating it even further from the lively but never-alone-get-me-out-stop-following-me-with-your-eyes forest. Death and decay a shield from prying eyes and malicious intentioned entities who would rather see you decay over the course of centuries.
By staying locked inside that manor, unable to affect even the dust, you save your corpse from being their entertainment, from being something’s next meal. You stay wandering inside that hall, unable to see the growth around you as the world moves on and you stay stuck. You stay forever, never moving on because you cannot bear it, and nor can I. I cannot help but miss you, out here, knowing you are in there and unable to soothe you into joining us. Into becoming one of us, the eyes always watching unhindered by even the unbroken walls of that manor, of your jail cell you keep yourself in in fear. Or is it self-preservation, knowing you’ll never be human again if you let yourself step out. If you take comfort in the inhuman, in those who wish to see you rot, you’ll be no better than those who killed you.
Am I who you want to avoid? Is it simply that we will never be the same as we were and you want to pretend that isn’t true? What am I to you anymore? Am I even something? Am I anything at all? Was it me that killed you or those who watch even me, the watcher eyes-in-the-woods-in-the-trees ? Are we even people anymore?
You shouldn’t have ever been there, I think. I should have left you crying-broken-need-a-home-please on that corner, in that alley, wherever it was. We should have never known each other, let each other in- knowing what we knew. I think we both knew, even at the very beginning, that we were fated to rot together, decay beyond each other’s walls yet in each other’s arms. And yet, here we are, we did it anyway because it was never enough, it will never be enough, we will never be enough .
We deserved better, I fear, and yet we are us, and we will always go down this path. If we were different people, if we didn’t make all the same mistakes, this could’ve been avoided. But we are us. It could’ve been changed, but it never will be. We can no longer be avoided, for we have already happened.
Do we have names, at this point? Can we claim the names we once had, before this manor was no longer a home? Back when I hadn’t caused you not-enough-never-enough pain? When you could have no-change-please-no-change healed and moved on from what I did? Were we not both at fault? Or was it only one- myself- who caused all of this? Will anything ever be enough or are we cursed to bear witness to our tragedy forevermore and until the universe goes out in a fiery explosion as opposed to our slow fading? We are not enough, our suffering and numbness never complete and never able to be put to rest.
For what it’s worth not-much-I-imagine I am sorry, I cannot undo our past, nor can I fix what we broke, but I regret the role I played in it. I can acknowledge my own guilt in our faults. Can you? Does it even matter if you can? We’re just ghosts after all, not even people anymore. A broken pair of corpses in each other’s arms and yet never able to truly interact again. We haunt each other more than we haunt the manor itself.
The manor. What was once a home, where life and people and family once took place. So many birthdays and holidays once celebrated in those cracking yet sturdy walls. Now no special decoration hangs on those walls, from that ceiling, only the vines and moss and death that come with the death of all those whom you hold dear. A family of raccoons took over the dilapidated roof and found shelter from the rain, a stag once used the wrought iron door to remove velvet from his antlers, crows and pigeons flying around and leaving lost feathers in their wake. There are vultures just waiting to get inside, though whether those vultures are truly vultures is up for debate.
Death is not a foreign concept to nature, nor is decay, yet we fear the cycle. We fear waking up dead with our bodies intertwined and our souls trapped in place. We fear what we cannot control, we fear our own fates. That fear leads to self-fulfilling-prophecy an early death at our own hands.
You-regret-me-you-regret-our-home-and-lives .
Did we not deserve better? Did we not deserve the chance to fix things?
We-messed-up-regardless-we-went-back-and-just-kept-making-the-same-mistakes .
Is that not just who we are? Are we not the decisions we make, the mistakes we convince ourselves are somehow not real, not our faults? We are what we make of ourselves.
I-am-what-you-made-me.
And I you, my dear. Can we not both be right?
We-cannot-you-hurt-me.
I did. You hurt me too, and we hurt ourselves. Is our suffering not punishment enough? Or shall we add more?
...I-guess.
Thank you, dearest. I hope, for either your sake or mine- it doesn’t matter which- that we can finally rest, let our bodies rest and let us move on.
I-loved-you-did-you-love-me?
I did, I don’t think I ever stopped.
...I-didn’t-either.
I miss you- I will miss you.
Me-too.
I forgive you, for all of it. I do not expect you to forgive me but I hope you can heal regardless.
…
How do we let go?
I-don’t-know.
I-forgive-myself-and-can-try-to-forgive-you.
That’s more than I can ask for.
We have never gone quietly, always yelling and screaming, losing parts of ourselves to each other. Now it’s so silent, a distant fading as we learn how to exist again, even if only for a moment.
.
.
.
Should I open the door? Let nature take its course and grieve as it- we- were always supposed to? Yes.
The wind blows past, creaking once again heard from the old hinges barely holding up the rusty wrought iron door, only this time, as it creaks, it opens, and nothing happens. Dust doesn’t move, the perfectly preserved corpses still refuse to rot, and the air inside is still as stale as it was only moments before. The forest is silent, no creature makes a sound, and something is heard far off. Footsteps.
Do we stop them?
No-I-don’t-think-we-do.
Well then, let us Watch.
As the footsteps grow louder, a single person wanders out of the tree line, their tall walking stick thunking against the cobbled and vine covered path. They look up from where they watch their steps, green-blue-grey colored eyes looking curiously at the opened door and the dust-lined and preserved scene behind it. Eyes our-eyes blink at them from behind trees and miraculously intact stained glass windows as they carefully start forward again, somehow not tripping over any vines despite not watching where they step. The forest stays silent apart from them, no rustling of the wind through the trees, no birds chirping or small critters chittering, just the cautious pace forward of someone who was never meant to be here yet arrived at the perfect only moment. Leaning through the doorway, they see the dust and the paintings and the unlit candles, and they step over the threshold and into the until-then-untouched-by-signs-of-life long-abandoned manor. Outside, life can be heard again, the forest no longer silent as we Watch on.
They stumble forward at the abrupt increase in noises outside, kicking up dust and disturbing the air, causing them to cough and wave their hands in front of their face. They see another door at the end of the foyer, open, unlike how the old wrought iron door had been for decades. Now, they stride forward, previous caution oddly absent, and they walk right through the door, seeing a library, a sofa in the middle of the bookcase-filled room, facing the opposite direction to the door. Something can be seen from their position, just on the couch yet they cannot yet discern what it is.
A few more steps are taken, and a scream is let out so loud it could be heard from miles off. A phone is desperately scrambled for, as they attempt to call for help with the untouched- unbothered- corpses found intertwined around each other.
We-have-been-found.
We still deserved so much better.
Yes-we-did.
But now we have closure.