Confessions to a Ghost

"You aren't real," Blackwood stammered, his hands gripping the edge of the mahogany desk so tightly his knuckles turned white. "You're a hallucination. A symptom of the alcohol. A manifestation of stress."

Julian merely tilted his head. A single drop of phantom water fell from his saturated hair, hitting the armrest without a sound.

The silence pressed harder against Blackwood's skull. It was a torturous, ringing void. Without the ambient sounds of the world—the wind, the fire, the creak of the old manor—his own heartbeat became a deafening, frantic drum right behind his eyes. *Thump-thump. Thump-thump.* "Say something!" Blackwood shouted. He grabbed a heavy, leather-bound book from his desk and hurled it across the room. It struck the stone fireplace and fell to the floor in absolute, terrifying muteness.

Julian’s lips remained sealed. He slowly raised his spectral glass in a mocking toast.

The absolute lack of accusation was worse than any scream could have been. It tore at the fraying edges of Blackwood's sanity. The professor grabbed his scotch, draining it in one desperate gulp, the liquor doing nothing to warm the ice spreading through his veins.

"You think I wanted to do it?" Blackwood spat, his voice cracking, bouncing dead and hollow off the velvet drapes. He began to pace behind the desk, a caged animal driven mad by sensory deprivation. "You think it was easy? I brought you into this department, Julian! I molded you! I gave you access to the archives. You were my protégé!"

Julian watched him, his dark, dead eyes unblinking.

"That manuscript was mine by right!" Blackwood roared, pointing an accusing finger at the ghost. "You used my resources! My theories! You were twenty-four years old! What did you know about legacy? What did you know about the decades I spent languishing in this rotting institution, begging for a breakthrough? You would have eclipsed me before you even received your doctorate!"

The ghost of the young man set his glass down on the side table. He did not look angry. He looked profoundly, devastatingly sad.

"It was just a few drops," Blackwood whispered, his pacing slowing as the heavy, paranoid guilt clawed its way up his throat. He remembered the small vial he had procured. He remembered slipping it into Julian’s drink while the boy was enthusiastically rambling about his thesis. "Cyanide. They said it would be fast. They said it would look like a sudden heart failure."

Julian stood up.

Blackwood stumbled backward, pressing himself against the wall of books.

Without making a sound, Julian raised his pale hands to his own throat. His face contorted in an expression of absolute, visceral agony. He opened his mouth wide, pantomiming the desperate, tearing gasp for oxygen. His fingers dug into his own neck, scratching at the skin as he reenacted the horrifying asphyxiation of the poison. His body convulsed, his knees buckling as he collapsed onto the Persian rug, writhing in silent torment.

Blackwood clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. "Stop it! Stop it! I know what it looked like! I was there!"

The professor squeezed his eyes tighter, waiting for the thud of the body hitting the floor, waiting for the choking sounds that had haunted his nightmares for weeks. But there was only the ringing in his ears. The horrific, crushing quiet.

When Blackwood finally dared to open his eyes, Julian was no longer on the floor.

He was standing directly in front of the desk.