When he wasn't thinking about it, he half-believed that he was already dead. When he thought about it, it seemed like a fantasy cure-all, like it would solve everything. When he thought about it, he half-believed that death really was the end, and that ghosts had never been real, that there would be no confrontation beyond it. When he was faced with it; when the blade was really pressed against his wrist, or the claws to his throat, when he had seen the sun rise that day, he had been scared. The unknown was the most terrifying thing at all, the fact that he didn't know whether it was really be the end, the fact that he didn't know if death was really just another life. What he wanted the most was an end; what he feared the most was that the ultimate end was not an end at all.
The stranger's voice shouldn't have been haunting because he shouldn't have been thinking about it that much. It shouldn't have sounded like people he knew because he knew no one. A ghost,
he answered, because it may as well be the truth. Laruku, if you want me to be.
That Laruku didn't want to be Laruku never seemed to matter. People drew it out of him, demanded it out of him. They expected things, words, reactions, the things that they had perceived to make him him. He was only as much of anything as anyone perceived him to be. They fooled themselves. They saw things that weren't really there. Faith, leadership, strength. Invisible things. He saw himself as nothing, and a shadow, a cackle in the darkness, and a bitter smile. When no one was there to behold him, he was nothing. The stranger would see what he wanted to see, and that would be what he was. Who are you?
Another ghost, most likely. Ships in the night.