There is nothing more beautiful than strolling through a forest.

The crunch of my feet over a path of fallen leaves. The rich smell of earth. The bright leaves rustling over my head. It calms my racing mind and grounds me in what once was.

It ends far too soon, when my quota runs out and the scene vanishes, replaced by the harsh shine of an underground tunnel, metallic air stinging my nose.

I sigh and press the implant in my temple, logging into my morning meeting. My colleagues appear as if on a round table in front of me. “The simulation is perfect” I say, after a brief good morning, “But why so short?” Five minutes felt like nothing. After so long without nature, that small taste only intensified my longing.

“Well we can’t have people walking through nature simulations all day,” says my boss. He is front and centre of our digital round table. “Nothing will get done.”

I’m not sure what needs to get done. After we destroyed the earth and raced to build an underground fortress, the only thing that needed doing, was to wait and see if nature would heal. “People are going to want more than five minutes.”

“Yes, exactly,” he replies, and everyone else at the digital table nods in agreement. “Free sample, to convince them to buy.”

“How much?” I say.

He shrugs his narrow shoulders “Hundred a minute.”

I clench my jaw, biting back anger. Greed got us here in the first place, and yet it’s still rampant. “Sir, don’t you think it should be accessible to everyone?”

“No,” says a collogue to my right. “Why should it? It’s a luxury, not a necessity.”

A luxury that used to be free, I think, but that doesn’t matter much, anymore. This is the new reality, and I have to adjust. Employee discount is the best I can hope for “Right,” I say, “And how much for us?”

“Complimentary half hour every day,” says my boss. “After that, you get half price.”

That was good enough for me. I zone out for the rest of the meeting. I only took this job for the nature simulation. There are a variety of landscapes available: Beaches, fields, parks and cities. But I always come back to the forest. It was my favourite place ten years ago. Now it can be, again.

I think about it all day and night, until I can wake up early in the morning and turn on my half-hour of forest landscape, walking through the cold tunnels as if it’s a brisk fall day, feeling a fresh breeze instead of stale air. Only a simulation, but it feels so real.

There is nothing more beautiful than strolling through a forest.

"I'll carry on your legacy." I promised. I wouldn't fail him.

I couldn't believe it, my fiancé had to go. I looked around the room, everything broken and messy. Those bastards took him by surprise.

"Now, be careful, and be cautious. People can be very unpredictable, and we have to account for that. You have to account for that. I don't want to go, Sumara, but I have to. The assassins said I had to, or you and our friends could be in danger. King Beckette sent them, and he always gets what he wants. If I could stay here with you, I would. But there's too much at stake. Someone has to stay alive to keep the tests going." Said Rei. I sighed, and nodded.

"I will. I love you Rei, don't die on me." I said, hugging him tightly. He hugged even tighter, and then let go.

"I love you, too. I'll probably be gone for a few years. But when I get back, we'll get married, ok? I promise. Cross my heart and hope to live," He said. He handed me one of his wands, and one of his hex blades. "Here, in case you ever need them. But I have to go now, so this is goodbye." He said, giving me one last hug before he left to fight a war in a world full of magic.

Four Weeks Later

I was constructing a machine for practice, when I heard a knock on the door. When I opened it, nobody was there. But on the ground in front of my door, there was a letter. It bore the crest of New Monochrus, the country Rei was helping in the war. Maybe he's being let off early?

I read the letter out loud to myself, barely managing to contain my excitement as I opened it.

"Dear Sumara Young, we regret to inform you that your significant other, Commanding General and Head Tactician of the Imperial Army, known by the name of Rei Miyamura, is…dead. He was...slain in battle thirteen day ago, and…and was given a p-proper burial. We’re sorry for any sorrow this m-may cause you. Sincerely, Cerelia Wesley, King’s Assistant."

I couldn't believe it. Rei, my Rei...was gone. The letter fell out of my hands, and I fell to my knees, sobbing. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We were going to be happy, and keep our tests going. I need you, Rei. I don't know if I can do this without you. If I can live without you. I stood up, and I saw a photo of me and Rei working on our first test together. I looked over at the table, and saw the device that I was making a few moments ago. I had learned everything from him. Without him, I wouldn't be here. I picked up the device. It looked like a piece of metal rope, but it was much more deadly than that. I activated it to see if it would work, and it began to get smaller and tighten. It needs to go faster, but that's for another day. Looking at this device, it reminded me of one of the last things I said to Rei before he died. I went to the mirror, photo in hand, and wiped my tears. Rei wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want anyone being sad for him. He'd want everyone to act like nothing happened, like he was a stranger. I just know it. I look in the mirror, and make my promise again to Rei.

"I'll carry on your legacy." I promised. I wouldn't fail him.

Fire tears the dark dust

A boom echoes in the night

A bullet is wildly hungry

For the bravest in the fight

Into the broken silence

Another child is lain cold

pure soul flies with angels

The story must be told

What is freedom to you?

Willing your child to give?

Leave your parents behind?

How long left to live?

No blood is shed in vain

No name will be lost

In heart of ones still human

Fire tears the dark dust

I belong...

but why do I feel alone?

We all are of the same feather and yet,

why do I feel like

no one notices,

no one understands,

no one feels?

I can't talk about them

about things that I love

because they would just be

IGNORED.

Is that even how friendship works?

I'm okay being in the back

of things yet,

it just doesn't feel right

that they are so distant.

And so I ran away.

I escaped their company.

It may seem bad but

it gave me freedom.

I felt serenity after my escape.

It's as if I had grown wings

and my flight led me to

a better land

to which I can voice out myself

to people who are dear to me.

With this new environment,

I learned how to love myself more.

I learned that I don't have to be

uniform to be in a group

but be unique in my way.

Now these people

who welcomed me

became my new family

inside a world

where trust and friendship

is difficult to attain.

Now I can finally say:

I belong.

Vultures, predators, scavengers waited.

Patiently perching, waiting for me, the regular supplier of dead bodies. A properly dead naked one was rolled to them, and they went to work. I was now assured that another enemy mine, will never stand in my way.

Drive back was long, but my mood was happy. So happy that I did not see the car, following me all the time. Car with a nosy TV journalist in it.

When home, I barely sipped my copy and ate a sandwich, when I heard voices before my house. I took my cigs, to light one, and went to see what was going on.

Noisy newsman reported my private cemetary and reaction was immediate. TV, press, bloggers, noisy one, rights groups, all saw it and starter pouring in my direction.

I stepped out.

Vultures, predators, scavengers waited.

You held my hand.

You told me you loved me.

You held me close.

Promises.

Kisses.

Life.

We tumbled through separate lives.

Living apart but always together.

Our red strings never severing.

Time marches on.

It stops for no man.

It reaps the youthful

and the old alike.

I will die happy.

knowing.

When death parted us.

You held my hand.

"Switch clothes?"

"Why?"

"Why, because I find it funny. Wouldn't you? I mean in some way, we're practically twins. Heck, we even sorta have the same blood."

**************************

"Just what am I Dei, hmm?" Danny rounded, as they sat at the edge of a skyscraper. Dei taking deep gulps of air, steadying the glow in his chest.

"Danny," he said, pity in his voice.

"No, no I'm genuinely curious. Am I the first and foremost servant to the grand Prince of the Infinite Realms? I do serve and eager to please you my King."

"Nooooo stooooop," he complained, shrill in his laughter.

"Consider me your sword to own!"

Dei continued to shriek, half coughing as he inflamed the wounds across his sides, still leaking green.

"You know what..."

One day we could just switch our clothes. You the Hunter and me the Ghost...

"Do you think anyone would notice?"

"I think they'd hardly care in the first place."

Dei didn't laugh with him.

"Danny," his friend murmured, weak and in pain from not only the sting of ecto-weapons and slurs, but of the destruction around him. His haunt and kingdom, the flower of his cohabitation philosophy who welcomed and adored him when none of his home did, swallowed by flame.

"I'm right here, I swear. I'm here and I'm alive, I won't go anywhere."

"I-- I never thought... I would be so scared of your parents," he admitted blubbering. "They want to kill me."

He simply frowned.

So long had it taken Dei to figure that out. That feasibly, there would never be any change. Unlike ghosts, humans were static and set in their ways.

So sure they knew everything.

Then again, was he any different?

"I cannot accept anyone else to die for me! I want to keep you safe so let's--"

"Strip."

"Huh? What! Danny how is that--?" Dei's eyes were blown wide. "That won't help anything! What we need--"

Danny clasped his shoulders.

"What we need is time. For you to take the throne and command the powers of the Zone, send away the armies, show them a new way, a better way. That humans don't have to suffer or be lesser in life and death. So, switch. Clothes."

"But Danny--"

"We have the same blood. Amity needs someone to blame and... well I opened the damn thing in the first place."

Dei simply shook his head, silence and horror capturing his voice.

As his lips moved, a grim spark ignited in Danny.

Tackling Dei to the floor, with some effort and some dirty tricks(namely a knee right at what he'd once told him was a human version of a dog's tail) the black and white jumper was flung into a fire.

With his only option being orange spandex and streaks of black in snowy hair.

Danny knew, it was all the same.

A ghost not knowing his place.

A human daring to side with him, green blood running in his veins.

Noxious green eyes, a streak of ethereal white.

No one would know the difference.

His parents certainly wouldn't care. And so why would they stop?

Once they realized the costume was pleather and his chest bled red.

It was obvious to Danny.

Shoving Dei aside so he would fall, just another scrawny, hapless teenager in the way, whilst he ran into the jaws of cruel, callous hatred.

Sunk to his knees with hands to his head.

"NOOO! NO! NO!! LET ME--! DANN--mmph-- DAPHY! DAMPHY!"

He continued to struggle against Sam and Jazz.

He paid them all a sad smile, ultimately closing his eyes as he was hauled away.

Strapped to a table, Dei and his friends in awe as yet another portal tore through the air with concussive fanfare.

Though this one, different as the hiss of snakes and bulbous red slit pupils lined the way.

He the Hunter and Danny the ghost.

Switch roles.

In the chambers of a long forgotten castle Dei went to his knees. Bent his head down, and a crown was placed, doing away with the human costume.

Authority and gravitas resounded from his voice. Suddenly generations of Living Born, Manifestations, all-- clanging and borrowing his body to form a single will.

"UPON MY HEAD SHALL IT BE WRITTEN

THAT THE KING WORE THE CROWN OF AMNESTY AND THE RING OF EQUALITY."

Simple. As switching clothes.

I laughed as I fell.

I was trying to be brave you know.

Like my sister.

So I made myself get on that bicycle and was punished for my silliness.

The world doesn't want bravery, it never did.

So I sit still, keep quiet, learn my lesson and conform.

I learn to sit and read and smile and nod and play along.

I am an actor on a stage who never knows if they are playing their role perfectly enough.

It takes a toll on me.

Heavy, sinking shoulders, tired desperate eyes.

I search for light in the dark as I prance about on stage with a plastered smile to my face.

It's much harder to see a person struggles when they know just how to hide it.

But the play got exhausting.

Slowly, surely, I began to fail.

I got so bad at playing pretend that the world began to snarl at me, asking for more, more, more

But I had nothing left to give

My body sagged at my sides

Perhaps that's why depression is called deep rest

A void took over my flesh and bones and the puppet strings couldn't bear the weight of a lifeless corpse

So I was snipped away, left to float about in the abyss for some time

Left to die because I wasn't quite good enough

The days stretched to weeks and months and the play went on in the background, cursed by my empty symphony

And then one day, everything changed.

My mind had me at the brink of collapse

My body urged me onwards to make a visit to Death, one I would never return from

I found myself ready too, tears clouding my vision, exhaustion taking me into their gentle arms

I weeped and I weeped until softly, slowly, the strings began to untangle themselves from my neck and my ankles

I saw a light I'd never seen before and by God, did I run to it

I could finally breathe.

There was a leap to be taken.

One little leap and I would change the entire trajectory of my future...

Just one small leap of faith, screw parents screw law screw the life they'd planned for me to have

I hope to God I fly but I still remember those days

The pain it took.

The agony twisted around my heart like dark thorns that I can never truly explain

Until I simply gave up and decided that if my life was to be a joke, I would make it the most hilarious thing it could be

Rewrite my story, fill the empty cavity in my chest with song and laughter

Real or fake

After so long spent gasping for breath

I had no idea things would be so different

When I first allowed myself to plunge into the air

Like Icarus reaching for his sun but

I laughed as I fell