It would have been easy to believe that Bane was a ghost, or a verbal hallucination. Though he had never seen him before, even as a child, the hybrid could picture him there now, an adult, two years old (god, only two years?), dark like his mother, built like his father, standing out stark against the snow, but black against the forest. And he found that he didn't want to listen to anything the ghost was saying. They were words that did not belong there anymore; they old sentiments, old conversations, old scenes and memories that had become faded and obsolete with time. Laruku had not touched a piano in years now, and the singing only came in raspy bursts that he later tried his hardest not to remember. He had not seen fireflies that summer, hadn't looked for them or thought of them at all. The truth was that Laruku had died a long time ago, and all those things with him. His body was an immortal corpse, and his voice was only the wind. The zombie didn't want to remember the life it had lived.
He was here,
the voice said, quietly, Last winter. Briefly. Not since then.
The words had become more punctuated, and his body shook from beneath the blanket. His ears rang with laughter, with voices, his own and others, with conversations they'd had. His throat throbbed where the scars were. You haven't seen him either?
Suddenly, Laruku wanted to stand and attack the man, wanted to tear him apart and devour him like he had his brother. If he killed him somehow, then that would be the end of it. No more ghosts. No more survivors. Phasma was dead. Willow was dead. Ire was dead. If Bane followed them, then there was only the grey wolf that remained. And if Tsunami came back again, one or both of them would surely die. The hybrid's fingers twitched though he still couldn't feel them. He closed his eyes, and tried not to give into the laughter.