Death; is an often limited signification only affiliated with a corporal state, which only happens once, but people would totally be mentally absent from other phenomenons, in which, each person could die severally… once when he is heartbroken, another, when he is totally invisible among crowds…
When a person experiences loneliness around the people he loves, and when a person get totally forgotten, or worse! he himself forgets who he ever was!
*** Chapter one: Who am I?***
This world can’t just explicitly belong to us. Fairies, phantoms, spirits, and all the superstitions we learned in our childhood didn’t just stem out of nowhere, nothing definitely indicates their credibility, they always remain as superstitions, but, these ideas stemmed from believing in the “hidden world”. People; although they differ in color, culture, religion, they still believe in hidden power, unexpected or paranormal events that never had scientific explanations. Science itself includes sometimes volatile theories that people might follow and believe today, but tomorrow they entirely reject!
While we all practice our lives normally, go to work, have dinner with family and friends, celebrate a beautiful occasion, mourn, and suffer, we might see a spectrum passing by our living room couch and try to deny its existence, probably will say “I haven’t slept well”, “It’s just stress”, “confusion”, etc… but never will admit it might be a spectrum, never will admit that some brutal accidents happen to people and they still survived with a miracle! We will never admit that some noises, movements, and other presences sometimes actually make sense as they are, mysterious and unexplained in a formal scientific way.
Lizar was wandering the streets, witnessing the houses change in appearance, and in time, looking at people’s necks tilting slowly, they looked half dead, half alive, their eyes are severely wrinkled even at young age, some of them looked just as lost as her, and some looked totally immobilized, staring into the void with their shiny scary eyes, no one would dare focusing their gaze at them for longer.
In a world full of the dead as well as the living, where the dead can be actually seen, everyone is desperate to keep their memories alive, in order not to die entirely. Lizar was sent on another mission from Telma’s castle (Thelma’s castle), impersonating another ghosts identity, to prove her loyalty to Thelma; the queen of darkness that inhabits the hidden world, but does actively have a hand in the one where the living ones also linger. Thelma left the chamber of the queen, walking with her simple Victorian white dress, that blends well with the bloody carpets and ignited candles filling the walls. She was questioning everything, how she ended up in that castle, how she died, where her family is, and where she used to stay. All she could remember are just scents she loved, the wet dust during rainy days, red roses, and certain perfumes, as well as her favorite colors, maroon, brown, black, and purple, and eventually… fragments of memories. These memories could be depicting her childhood, when she used to play with her cousins creepy games like the Halloween version of monopoly, watch horror movies and scare them out, play hide and seek in the school’s background and laugh, and get themselves dirty jumping and playing all day on the rooftop. They also show her scenes of her partner with no face hugging her playfully from behind, kiss her and touch her shoulder while she is working. The rest are just part of probably another ghost’s memory now, since they all impersonate each other for missions.
Lizar’s role is being “Jara”, another dead young woman who used to sell flowers in front of a residential building, where a group of apartments are inhabited by somehow elite people, she died in a mysterious way, but no one in the building even noticed, she always stayed in a small bedroom on the first floor, beside the elevator. Lizar went to the real world that parallels theirs to tempt a ghostwriter named “Nizar”_ a successful writer who published 2 books about unsolved crimes and one of the crimes mentioned in his first book had an analysis that correctly led the cops to actually catch one of the murderers basing on his theory. And because he is a ghostwriter, he wasn’t the one praised for it, but he definitely preferred it this way.
Nizar is relatively a rich man, in his mid thirties, he has a car, an apartment and can go anywhere and buy anything. But he doesn’t belong to the millionaires league. He fell in love with a lady from an extremely rich family, and told her about his profession, but she rejected him, not because she didn’t like him, it’s because of her parents who surely wouldn’t agree with her choice, so it ended up miserably. Shortly after that, he moved to that building Jara stayed in, to startover, he knew her before she died, but never that much engaged in long conversations. But in real life, Jara always admired him secretly, always gave him flowers for free, and he thought she did this because she is kind and lovely, and on a rainy day, where the electricity was cut off in the building, and the elevator is stuck on the 5th floor, Jara just disappeared.
Lizar as Jara is just there to kill that ghost writer, not knowing the reason, which always made her hesitate to do so, and she was ordered not to just kill him instantly, but slowly, after a heartbreak down, and making him lose his virginity, for higher entities, orders are based on reasons that their servants including Lizar have no idea about. Could be a ritual, could be for employing more lost spirits, for domination, jealousy, or empathy.
“Hello, Jara, good morning! I’ve noticed you disappeared for a while, I’m glad to see you back!” he said once he saw Lizar as Jara standing for the first time in front of the building, he hugged her, took a flower and went outside. In Jara’s memories that Lizar had been given, she could sense in her heart that she loves him, loved other colors, scents, including his, and food. Lizar waited him in her small moldy bedroom, where no window existed, only a single metal bed with a thin spongy mattress, a table, chair and old cabinet she uses as a wardrobe. She only has access to the food in the dumpster, she awaits the inhabitants to throw their trash bags and at the end of the night goes and eats. She had a diary where she wrote everything about Nizar, she had copies of his books, she read them everyday and decided to discuss him for the first time when he came from outside, full of sweat, his glasses removed and it’s almost midnight.
Lizar knows that he prefers going to the gym at night and starting most of his activities at night too, she stopped him and said, “Mr. Nizar, I’m sorry to interrupt you from whatever you were about to do, I just wanted to ask you if you could discuss me about your books whenever you feel available?”
Instead of him continuing his path to the elevator, he changed his mind and decided to stay with her. “What do you want to discuss?” he asked in discreet joy since no one ever lively discussed him, because, it’s only one person who knows about his book, Jara (Lizar). And she was the one who actually captivated him, never in his life was more interested intellectually or sentimentally in Jara until Lizar became her.
And maybe that was the trigger for Lizar to know that somehow her character is intertwining with Jara, despite the implantation of the latter’s memories in her brain. Lizar spent the night discussing the book, that he invited her to continue at his apartment. Whenever she felt closer to him, she felt scared of the duty of ridding him. Every time she got closer she felt alive, wished to be with him, and stay in peace further from the castle, its rules, and enslavement.
She started drinking a glass of wine, one glass after another, gulping her guilt as much as the liquid, and both were burning her throat and soul, the wine was to make her forget, more than what she already forgot, and the guilt was erasing the previous effect, tormenting her, and telling her to give up on Thelma and her vile missions.
Nizar wondered why she went all silent, but she told him she was tired and she needed to sleep. She promised him to come back with another review once she reads more.
And as she was entering the elevator she suddenly felt a strong creepy feeling, a hand that grabbed her foot and dropped her on the floor then tried to grab her outside. Nizar heard the noises after he closed his door, he went immediately outside to check, and he found Jara (Lizar) lying on the floor, semi-unconscious and panting. She couldn’t exactly explain what happened, she also thought he wouldn’t believe her, so she just mentioned that it’s merely tiredness and once she sleeps she will wake up better.
He left her unsure of her stability, but he intended to check on her next day after he wakes up. Lizar entered her bedroom, tried to squeeze her mind, hoping desperately to remember what this might have been in their both memories (her and Jara), or fathom if this was a memory or another ghost messing with her because she was thinking about withdrawing, but to no avail.
She slept deeply and woke up more fatigued, hearing her door being knocked. It was him! with a tray of food, asking to access her tiny space. She allowed him in, decided to share food with him, although he insisted not to, but they both ended up eating together.
“Feeling better today?” he asked,
“Ah, yes! As I said, it was just tiredness, and thank you for the food.”
She responded, tapping on his shoulder kindly… he held her small palm and told her the truth about him seeing her eating from the neighbor’s trash. And a situation as such could make someone think she would feel embarrassed. Somehow, deep down, Lizar liked the feeling of being fragile next to him, to be well taken care of, and to experience people’s empathy towards her.
She went silent, then he apologized and asked her to move with him until they find her a better job and place to live, Lizar pretended that she never wanted this to happen, and her final decision was rejection, nevertheless, he gave her an open invitation, “you’re always welcome! Whenever you think you’re ready to take that decision, here, take…” he mentioned as he was bringing out a key of his pocket, a copy of his apartment’s key. He promised that the relationship between them would remain platonic and that he would never harm her. All that she could do was taking the key, smiling and continuing to eat in dead silence.
But she said nothing more until the end of the visit.
He left the room and went upstairs to nap a little bit, and Lizar was summoned by Thelma quite shortly, even before the smell of his perfume disappeared.
She went back to the castle, where the smell of Nizar’s perfume switched into the smell of candles, iron, and a mixture of unfamiliar scents. Could be herbs, could be flesh, could be even mold. She ascended the stairs, heading to Thelma, who actually praised her efforts and told her that it was a guard of her that tried to grab her foot in the elevator and her guess was correct. But Thelma lied. Lizar left her office and went to the castle kitchen, she entered and ate as if she never ate in her life, then she went upstairs again after she saw the queen leaving. It’s another pact she was making with a living evil politician, new people will continue to die, get sacrificed, and power. And lost souls were exempted that day from going back to their missions until she finished the pact, then offering rites afterwards.
She took plenty of guards with her and left only some, guarding the castle, she was so confident that nobody had enough guts or memories to doubt anything, hence to rebel. And Lizar was actually her favorite, the most trusted and loyal one, not for her efficiency, but for her weakness. But seems like the experience of the dead living around the living ones gave them more life, consciousness and warmth. It enabled real interactions, positive or negative to enhance the senses and memories of all wandering and enslaved ghosts. Lizar went into Thelma’s office again, vigil, suspecting that there might be another person disguising as her, she really felt the need to understand about her past and her identity. Thelma keeps plenty of papers and books in her library, which is also located in her office. While Lizar was looking with frustrating at the size of Thelma’s documents, she heard a whisper saying “you’re looking for this?”, then a book fell from a particular shelf. The voice got further, and Lizar got closer to the book, lifted it up and opened. A sentence follows another, symbols, illustrations, then names, and missions, she sat on the floor looking for her name and Jara’s name, and the surprise was that Jara was the one impersonating her!
She was deployed to a war zone, to help the transgressors defeat the innocents and murder them. But the exact location wasn’t mentioned, but, Lizar on the other hand thought about visiting a median who could help. Before she leaves the chamber she heard that voice coming closer again, “You’ll have to help me too, but occurrence has its timing… and… don’t eat at the castle, you never know what she puts for you” the voice said, but Lizar thought it was her mind and the book fall was nothing but a good coincidence.
She went downstairs minutes before Thelma came and ordered everyone to attend the rites, everyone’s eyes got blindfolded, then the blood goblet passed by each one of the servants to sip from it, but Lizar just put her lips on pretending to drink, then the rites finished and everyone got back to their missions. The time zone was different between the two worlds, also, the world of the dead was darker, more melancholic and less colorful although it has day and night just like the normal one.
Lizar was afraid to visit a median because she was afraid she was being watched, but she thought it would be at all cost, she desperately wanted to know who she was, but she exactly looked like Jara before everyone’s eyes.
She visited a place full of antiques, clocks, tables, chests, all vintage and not for sale, just for exhibition… The median left her dark spot where her table was located, and stood closer to Lizar, sniffed her, then said,
“A dead one! Not even real! Come in.”
Lizar entered and asked her to help her find Jara, her home and family,
The median responded,
“That will cost you, I’m charging all morals, alive and dead”
Lizar gave her a candle from the other world that was made by human bones, and other things and was casted upon. Lizar knew she should’ve brought something, but she didn’t guarantee that the lady’s eyes would shine this much seeing something like that in her hand! “Come in” she (the median) said.
The both went to the table, sat, and the connection happened faster than it usually took with two human being on the table.
Jara came in a transparent form and her voice was vividly heard,
“I live where you used to be before you moved abroad”
“I’m sorry, I had to, just like you are doing right now.”
Jara said in total shame, but Lizar didn’t come to blame her, she came asking for her help, and Jara found it a good deal, they both could co operate to find out their background stories. Jara mentioned a face of a man she remembers, but she doesn’t know where he stays or where she saw him, she drew his face on a paper for Lizar to keep with her, and mentioned where her birthplace was, but she never saw her family, not as ghosts and not as humans.
Lizar got what she wanted for now and by the door of the median’s shop, the median told her, “it was a memory, your feeling was real, there are no guards around you and no one is watching you, she just gets some visions sometimes, just like the rest of you guys do, but she is not as strong as you may think.”
Lizar left the shop lighter, and went back to the building, she found few handymen working and fixing the electrical box, pipes wheezing and painting the walls. The neighbors came down to give pamphlets about their political campaign, a man and his wife, inviting all other neighbors to join their party at night where the location is mentioned on the pamphlets. Then Nizar came with his friend and publisher, Vladimir, who looked exactly like the same person Jara portrayed!
Nizar came to say hi to Lizar and once she shook Vladimir’s hand, he shook and sweated and he started to act weirdly! Then he decided going back to his car. Nizar apologized and followed him to see if he was okay, but Vladimir drove his car before Nizar could even reach him.
Lizar went to her room, felt so awkward, and decided to dig more about the publisher to know the truth behind his confusion witnessing her as Jara in blood and flesh.
Either he was a lover, or hater.
Between both, a passion murder.
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