GHOST CABIN ☆ EARTHMIX AU

Part four: worth the death

"If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Earth was sitting at the same chair, staring at the same spot for a week. It felt strange to see the bed so empty. The bed was carefully made after sheriff LeBlanc found the lifeless body of Earth's closest, the only friend, in the morning of her death during his weekly visit.

Earth was sitting there not thinking about anything in particular just waiting—there was nothing else for him to do anyway. Praewa's death seemed so familiar to him. At the moment of her death, Earth felt the closest to her, no matter how ironic or dark that sounded, it was true.

Because for that split second after Praewa released her last breath and her heart stopped beating, for that one split second that it took for her soul to leave to the better place, she knew how it was to be dead. She felt the cold hands of death choking her, drowning her, pulling her to nothingness and she knew she was helpless against it. Only at that moment she really felt the way Earth did that night when he decided to step in front of her and her wailing baby.

Earth never regretted doing it—saving two innocent lives, by giving up his own.

He had nothing to live for anyway. He wasn't suicidal but there also wasn't anything that was keeping him alive. No one who would be the reason for him to wake up every morning, no one he could think of when a slow romantic song came up on the radio, no one who would wait for him home after a long workday as a journalist.

And being gay in the 1960s wasn't making his life easier either.

So he was alone, always alone.

He didn't want to die, but there wasn't a reason for him to live either...until he really died.

The bullet pierced through his heart, taking the life out of him almost immediately. His body hit the dirty tiles of the convenience store with a loud thudding sound, his head feeling the coldness of the floor. He chocked out a weak short laugh—dying with the bullet straight through your heart, how poetic. A splash of dark red blood left his mouth, the iron taste of it was the last thing his senses registered before he could see everything clearly again...

He wasn't inside his body anymore. Earth was standing next to it. The drunk robber—his murderer, dropped the gun and with a horrified expression and no words ran out of the store...the 1000 baht falling out of the plastic bag.

The gasps and cries of everyone in the store were mixing together creating unbearable chaos. In the mids of all of that, Earth saw the woman with the baby. The baby wasn't wailing anymore, its eyes were wide opened, a tiny smile on its tiny face, looking right at Earth.

The baby could see him...but children usually do. They can see what adults can't, or just don't want to. Earth remembered as he once wrote an article about how there was a theory that children are able to see ghosts, because their perception of the world is clear and because they are not influenced by reasoning and what others think is right or not. They just look into the world and see, whatever it is, no matter if adults deem it possible or not.

But then Earth's eyes skipped a little bit higher to the face of the baby's mother—she was also looking at him. She wasn't crying or screaming for help like others in the store did. She was standing there, next to Earth's dead body but she was staring at Earth's dead? alive? ghost.

Are ghosts dead? Or are they alive but not in the humanly way but some kind of spiritual way?

It had been fifty-six years and Earth still hadn't found the answer to that question.

The woman looked around herself, her eyes stopped for the last time on Earth's dead body and then she made her first step towards Earth. She could see him too, that was...Earth was thankful, happy for some reason. At least he was not going to be alone as a ghost after he had spent all those years alone as a human.

Or maybe he will. She didn't look terrified, but no one ever knows what's going on in one's mind until they say it themselves.

Earth turned away and walked outside through the glass door...through it...without actually opening them. A somehow tickling sensation erupted in his...in his...ghostly existence, but that was it. It didn't feel so awful.

Going through objects—the first point on the list Earth could do as a ghost.

He could hear quiet steps and giggling baby right behind him.

Earth walked across the street, into a quiet dark alley, where he was mostly sure that no one would see a young woman with a child, in the middle of the night, talking to no one. He stopped, turning around, watching as the woman held her baby close to her, looking on both sides of the road before she quickly, in her light brown heels, crossed it, making her way towards him.

Earth was in awe of how brave the woman was. Seeing the man that saved the life of her son and her own, laying dead, covered in blood and then immediately after seeing the same man as a ghost...and even following that ghost to the dark alley, alone only with her vulnerable baby, that takes a lot of courage.

That made Earth feel a little bit better about his sudden death. Saving someone as brave as her and her child, wasn't that bad. Earth was sure that she was going to live a great life. And her son too. Who knew, maybe one day her son would become someone significant.

"You are really brave, following a ghost like that," Earth said as the woman entered the dark alley.

The woman's eyes were big round, as her child's. Earth was right, she wasn't terrified per se, she was more...shocked.

When Earth spoke up, the woman broke, her tears started falling down her pale face, sobs were resounding through the quiet night, "Oh, God...I'm...I'm so sorry. You...you died...for us," she rocked the baby in her arms. "Thank you, thank you, I...thank you for saving the life of my son."

Earth stood there, watching the woman sobbing, rocking her baby while being thankful but...but also sad, very sad that he died. That was when it really dawned on Earth. He was dead. That was it. His life was over. He was dead and stuck as a ghost. Ghost because people who die in a violent way cannot move to heaven, paradise, another world...any of it.

There was only one way to save people like that...

When Earth wasn't saying anything the sudden rush of fear engulfed the woman, scared that Earth would leave. He couldn't leave, not before she did everything she could to help him. "No!" she screamed out of the blue, "please don't leave, I...I can help you, I will help you!"

Earth looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

"Mister..."

"Earth is enough," he said.

"Earth," the woman choked out through her tears, "do...do you know the legend of true love?"

To be continued...

P.S. Praewa has some cards up her sleeve 👀