I didn't scream.That's what surprises me the most when I think about it now. You'd think that if someone you buried three years ago walked into your living room, you'd scream. You'd run. But I just stood there, watching him breathe.
The air between us felt wrong. Heavy. Like the room itself didn't know what to do with him.He looked… real. Too real. His skin had color. His breath misted faintly in the cold air from the open door. His shadow stretched across my floor.
"You're not real," I whispered.He tilted his head, the same way he always did when he thought I was lying. "You wrote me back into existence," he said. "Isn't that what you do?"
My knees gave out, and I sank into the couch. I wanted to close my eyes, to make him disappear, but when I did, I could still hear him. The quiet shuffle of his feet. The sound of something wet dripping, rain, I told myself. It had to be rain.
"Kane," I managed. "You died. I was there."
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Were you?"
The room dimmed for a second, like the light itself flinched. I pressed my palms together to stop them from shaking.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the faint line of dirt under his nails. "A story," he said softly. "The right one this time."
And then he was gone.
The door was still open, the hallway empty. But his words stayed, floating in the air like cigarette smoke. I wanted to believe I'd imagined it, but on my table, next to the typewriter, was a folded piece of paper.
It wasn't there before.
I unfolded it with hands that didn't feel like mine.Typed neatly across the page were four words:
"You stopped too soon."