Realistic or Modern Wilhelm Lichthaus: The Fisherman King

The Day After...
Bell rings. Chairs creak. Chatter starts. Class dismisses.

You're left on your own again as the majority of the students disperse into the halls. Many of them are headed out to lunch since it is only just after noon, but your fulfillment of your duties is complete, leaving you free to return to your home for the evening if you wished it. The tidy collections of papers and canisters on your workshop desk are all that remains to be cleaned up of the class you had just finished, as well as the presence of Linsay fluttering around the back of the now-otherwise-empty chemistry lab. You know she's only waiting for you to start to leave so she can tag along behind you, peppering you with invasive questions until she's blue in the face. You aren't in the mood today, especially after the cryptic and disappointing evening at that fortune teller's shop last night. What were you thinking? That there would actually be answers? A way to talk to Amalia? All you got out of it was a headache from the smoke and that flimsy little playing card with a mini painting on it. It was detailed and kind of intriguing, but nothing more than a parlor trick to get you to spend your money.

You had to have been imagining it was warm in your hand when you touched it, right?

His eyes flicked over to Linsay, fooling around at the back of the class, burning time until he'd collect his mahogany cane and desperately try to limp out of the room before she could reach the door. It was always a usless effort, however, and he spent a solid five minutes pretending to organize papers on his already freakishly tidy desk. Everything was where it should've been: A silver mesh container filled to the brim with pens, the dustless phone in the corner, and some cracked florence flasks he had meant to throw out. He had already erased the board up front, and there had been no lab work that day, meaning he had nothing to wash or clean.

Linsay wasn't about to leave.

He sighed in defeat as he filed essays into his well-loved briefcase, moving over the nearly-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's that was already inside before shutting it with the reliable click the locks always made. He took care to slip his wedding ring off his finger to hopefully deter Linsay from asking, slipping the plain silver band lovingly into his gray peacoat pocket where his full flask already was. His fingers brushed against an unfamiliar object, and he pulled it out slightly only to remind himself that he had payed a fee to a scam. A scowl momentarily graced his face as he tucked it back to where it had been. He bitterly wondered why he hadn't just tossed the damn thing out as with one last glance to the girl in the back of the room he grabbed his briefcase and reliable cane, pulling himself up and walking as fast as he could manage to the door, which wasn't terribly slow, but usually left him at the back of a crowd.

He cursed his limp as the sound of her light, jumpy footsteps met his ears.

"Hey, Mr. Lichthaus!" Linsay's voice grates like sandpaper on your ears from directly behind you, it sounds like she's only a step from your heels every moment. "I had a few questions about what you said the other day. Is it really true that-" Her voice cut short by a deeper, more booming, more dreaded voice, "Pardon me, Ms. White, I have some business to discuss with the professor, I'm sure he will be able to answer your questions before you seem him in class again." Harold Sonnenberg, Dean of Education, the man who holds the axe over your neck waiting for a reason to drop it. You hear Linsay call out, fading away as she skirts down the hall, "See you later, Professor!" Now you feel a firm hand clasp your shoulder as Harold pulls his weight next to you to walk by your side. He is a large and grotesque man, some of the other faculty have made snide remarks behind his back about him being an escaped subject from the biology lab. You somehow wouldn't find that hard to believe if the biology lab were able to cross-breed a hairy gorilla and a pregnant hippopotamus. His face is close enough to smell his too-fresh breath, like he guzzled a bottle of mouthwash to cover his natural stench, and his greasy hair is slicked back with his fingers, you'd be surprised if the man had heard they invented combs and personal hygiene in general centuries ago.

"Will, I've heard some things going around the teacher's lounge about your little pet project." Sonnenberg must be referring to the traces of a new element you were experimenting with, he likes to rub it in your face that you hadn't found anything definitive yet. "How can a man as busy with teaching as yourself have time to play scientist with your boxed chemistry set? I'd hate to see your students suffering in their studies because you have other priorities. I thought it would be sporting to let you know I'll be tightening the surveillance on your records in the school system to make sure you aren't wasting academic time and resources for personal gain. All in the name of education, of course, nothing personal." His dirt-eating grin reveals that it is in fact entirely personal, you feel like it would kill him to have to acknowledge your discovery as a possible scientific breakthrough."And I'll be personally monitoring your classes' grading, so we can maintain integrity in case you decide to give undeserved rewards to students just to make the administration think you're doing your job. Because if we discover that you aren't doing your job, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find someone else who will." A meaty finger pushed into your chest makes the point abundantly clear, he wants you to give up your research and become another one of his mindless drones or he will drop you on the curb like this week's garbage can.

He pauses a moment in his walk, giving you a pointed look as if he was waiting for you to kiss his rear end or beg at his feet, both of which you are sure he would enjoy immensely.

Wilhelm had barely made it out the door, readying himself for a rather painful walk across campus, her biting at his heels with questions she had probably already asked. They started with "What's the outer shell of an electron called again?" To which he'd give simple, correct answers, "The Valence shell, dear." wanting to encourage her enthusiasm for such things, but he was smarter than that, and he knew it was the equivalent of awkward small talk. He remembered with horror her first questions that made him look away in discomfort, it all started with her pointing to his ring finger and going "Wow, I like your ring!" It still puzzled him, why would she care so much about such a plain ring that meant nothing to anyone but him and Amalia. "Thank you," he had stammered, gripping his cane so hard his knuckles went whiter than they already were. "Are you married then?" She sighed happily "What's she like?" His heart had started to pound at her assumptions that he actually stopped to look at her through his thick glasses. "You... You misunderstand, It's not..."

His tangled thoughts were smacked away with a broom of a voice that set him right on edge. "Harold." He greeted the other man, glancing over at Linsay briefly. It was like looking from his job to his mental health, and he gave the girl a curt smile that was creased with exhaustion. "I'll answer your questio--" Sonnenburg's greasy, grimy hands all over his new coat made his lips pull down as he was herded like a kindergartener down the building's hall and away from Linsay, getting a few passing glances from students. Wilhelm scanned his face briefly, perfectly masking his feelings of disgust so he looked nothing but totally neutral as Sonnenburg talked down to his near achievement, treated him like a child and implied that he didn't take his studies seriously, which stung, but aside from the very corner of his mouth twitching, he said nothing, as much as he would've liked to reply with "The admins think I'm doing my job and they're correct." He was too preoccupied with the massive man leaning on his left shoulder so heavily that his knee was shaking through his dress slacks uncontrollably. He tried to lean back, slide his dead ankle away, do anything to get him to stop leaning on him because he knew his knee couldn't take it much longer. His arm and fist, wrapped around the handle on his cane began to tremble, and loathing briefly flashed through his eyes at what Sonnenburg was making him go through.

"I understand." He said bluntly, hoping that his lack of emotion would make him back off as he wrestled with the shudders and trembles that rocked now most of his left side. "And I prefer Wilhelm if you don't mind." It was a genuine request, not rooted in snark or disrespect, but as he struggled to adjust the grip on his cane, his body couldn't handle all the weight that was being pushed onto it, and as he relaxed his grip just slightly, the cane seemed to pop from his hand, clattering a few feet away, just out of reach as his knee and ankle gave out simultaneously, sending him to the floor in a heap. His face burned in horror, but his face briefly reflected it as he realized that his flask, although undamaged, had slid from his pocket, and he shot his hand out to grab it, fingers brushing his wedding ring as he returned the metal flask to its place, returning his expression back to neutral as he grasped for his precious cane uselessly. There were only a few students in the halls of the science building, but the only ones who noticed (or cared) didn't glance twice and either hurried outside or to their next class.

As you fall to the ground in a painful mess, Harold Sonnenburg looks around from side to side to see if anyone was watching the episode that just occurred. He glances down at you and makes an effort to stoop down, grunting heavily in the attempt, not to offer you a hand, but to take your cane from the floor, then noticing the card that slipped out of your pocket with the flask, taking that in his grubby hand as well. He stands slowly and walks back towards you on the floor, offering the head of the cane downwards to you as if it was a royal proclamation of your incompetence. "Sorry about your leg, maybe you should take a long vacation. Might do you some good to take some time off, or even consider retiring early." The words might be comforting if they came from anything else, but coming from the Dean, they can only be heard as menacing and convictive.

He doesn't even hand you the cane properly, setting the end on the ground and half-heartedly pushing it towards you on the floor so it teeters on end for a moment before toppling in your direction. He then takes a moment to examine the card in his hand, peering at the image curiously. "What an interesting picture. Your ideal home, I suppose," he says sarcastically, before palming the card and putting it into his pocket. "It figures you'd be looking at some crumbling old ruin, you can play mad scientist all day long." He chuckles to himself as he turns back down the hallway you both came from. "Good luck on your dream home, Will, send me a postcard when you get there." And without waiting for a response or a parting shot, he turns the corner with heaving steps and lumbers heavily away, leaving you to pick your self up and continue on your way.

Getting up is hard with old age, it's nearly impossible when you're crippled as well. With the card gone from his pocket he could only manage to huff a "Good riddance," before paying attention to the familiar heft of his cane. The hall he was kneeling in was wide open, no counters or chairs where he could pull himself up with relative ease, grasp his cane and limp off with a look of mild annoyance shaken with a touch of sadness. He looked around again, as if a reliable way for him to stand up would suddenly appear; from his current position, his cane simply didn't have enough purchase to get him up off the floor. All he needed was to get up without having to resort to asking another professor, or worse a student to help him up. Talk about a run of nasty luck. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a quick second, kneeling up as much as he could, grasping the handle of the cane with one hand and the shaft with the other, where he slowly hauled himself up until he could stand again, not hunched over his cane.

His knee continued to shake as he walked towards the exit, pushing open the doors that led him past the stone-carved sign marking the building as the "St. Claire's Science Hall and Special Labs." He paced himself towards the nearest parking lot which he had gotten special access for, by the history complex. He admittedly liked walking through the path by the history buildings, as many different types of trees all grew beside one another.

A few dedicated students would give him a wave or a nod that he would return, debating with himself where he wanted to go. He had nothing much to do, so maybe he could make up for the lost sleep he had been cheated of last night. After what had happened it seemed rather appealing. He wanted to forget about the mistake he made in going to talk to that old witch who gave him a card he didn't even have anymore.

He unlocked his car and rested his briefcase and cane on the passenger's seat. "Ideal home," he scoffed, starting the engine. "My ideal home would be a small one back in Germany, and my dearest wife would be waiting for me when I stepped through the door."

You settle into the seat of your modest car for the drive back to your apartment across town. You bought it some time ago secondhand at several years old already, but it has always proven itself reliable and steady, if slightly less than economic in the fuel department. But the major functions are all there, though the windows have gotten stuck in the door frame more often than not, better to leave them up than to risk a bout of arguing with the sheets of stubborn glass. Only a few minutes into your drive and a buzzing sensation from your your pocket catches you off guard. At first you pass it off as your cell phone vibrating, but a quick glance across the dashboard shows it peeking out of the outside pocket of your briefcase where you always secure it. The sensation continues, now accompanied by a noticeable heat and within several moments, it feels as though it will catch fire, the tingling warmth pressing against your side from your coat pocket. The heat seems to course through your body from the point of contact, flowing through your veins and turning your blood to fire until you start to wonder if this is how spontaneous combustion begins. It continues to flow until it reaches the top of your head and the tips of your toes, simultaneously giving you a raging headache and momentarily making you forget the pain in your crippled leg. To continue driving is a terrible risk, you can barely hold open your eyes through the pain, but the traffic keeps rushing past you on both sides. You have to decide quickly what action to take, whether to attempt to blindly pull over to the side of the road or stop in the middle of an active highway, or something else entirely.

Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and rolled down his face. It felt like there was a second layer under his skin that shimmered and bubbled with heat, or as if someone had replaced his blood with molten steel, and by God, it hurt. It made his toes curl in his shiny loafers and caused him to grit his straight teeth and forcibly suck air in and out between them. His entire face was bright red, contorted in pain that made his white eyelashes flutter erradically. He could only wonder if he was having a heart attack, it seemed rather logical. He only really knew he had to do one thing, so engrained in his memory from rereading the driver's manual after the crash that night: he needed to get off the road.

He struggled his head around to check his blind spot, beginning to panic. The cars to his right a fair distance away from what he could judge, and he swung his wheel so he could pull off the the shoulder of the highway, pressing the gas forcefully.

He pulled his car into the actual shoulder as much as he could, and after giving the steering wheel a slight pound with his forehead all at once he collapsed back in his seat in exhaustion and intense pain. At first, he thought that the sudden oncoming of heat could be fixed by taking off his jacket, but now he knew there was no use, and he would still be gasping for air even if he had just been tossed into an ice bath.

The even the air around him seemed to became muggy and hot as he willed his hand into his pocket to try and figure out what the hell was going on. His flask and his ring, and he looked betwen them in agony and what could've been borderline betrayal. All he wanted was for this to stop as he dropped the flask onto his lap so he could put the ring back on his finger. If he was about to die of what he thought was a heart attack on the side of a highway, there was some sort of comfort in him sliding the familiar band back to where it belonged, but not enough comfort to distract from the anguish that was making his bad knee shake.

The burning inside your body reaches a searing pinnacle, where absolutely every inch of your body feels like it is being incinerated from the inside out. Then as suddenly as it began, it stops entirely and completely, immediately replaced by a refreshing coolness throughout, as if you had taken a peppermint and then drank a cold glass of water, except through your soul. It is not exactly cold, you have no sense of freezing or temperature dropping, though your entire body is covered in goosebumps from the tingle running down your spine. It passes in a moment, and you are left feeling shaken and altogether confused over the episode that just occurred, but otherwise unharmed. The pain in your knee has subsided, even feeling a bit better than usual actually, and your headache has instantly vanished. The only trace that you hadn't imagined it is the fact that your ring appears to be glowing on your finger, not a blinding glare of sunlight or glittering shimmer of new metal, but the dull smoldering of molten iron pulled from the furnace which quickly pales to an ocean-deep blue before fading away altogether and your ring is the simple silver band it has always been once more.

You only have a few moments of silence to contemplate the happenings of the past few minutes before a voice reaches your ears from your back seat. Your heart nearly jumps out of your chest, you haven't heard her voice in nearly a decade, though you would recognize it anywhere. "Hello, Wilhelm." Amalia. "I've waited a long time for this moment."

It was over just as soon as it had started. Hell, he could barely remember what the searing pain had felt like as he was overcome with a wave a relief that left his pale hair standing up on the back of his neck. He exhaled, running his hands up under his glasses and up to his forehead as the throbbing of his headache vanished. Was this old age? It seemed so much more than that, but he panicked when he saw his ring again, it was a dull red that glowed with warm. What had he done? He blinked, exhaled and his precious memento of his wife was back to normal, safe even. He brought the hand to his chest, trying to bring his breathing back to normal, which seemed near impossible, but he slowly managed, pushing his head back onto the headrest in exhaustion.

"Ohhh, Amalia." He groaned softly, his words dissolved in the now-quiet atmosphere of the car. the only thing he could could feel was his heart beating through his jacket.

Then he heard her voice. It was like he could feel it, real and tangible fire on his ears, so different than the her he watched in his dreams. It made him jump in his seat, his name spoken by her sending fire up his spine. He gasped like he had just foolishly stuck a finger in a wall socket. It sounded like she was right behind him, but he had to be hallucinating. He couldn't bring himself to turn around, so he bowed his head in shock and managed a few words. "Hello... Amalia Sweetheart..."

She wouldn't reply, he knew it, and when he finally turned around his backseat would be empty and he would come to his senses and realize that those words weren't hers, just some sort of delusion he had had after that experience of being filled with fire.

A sort of fuzziness in your head seems to lift, like suddenly losing a bad hangover, and you feel a slight pressure on your shoulder, light and somewhat pleasant. "Wilhelm, I am not your Amalia," the voice spoke again, but you have a hard time believing it is not your dear wife, it is exactly as you remember her all those years ago. "We mustn't linger here. There are foul airs and you have not the time to spend carelessly." There. You heard a slip, a distortion in the voice as it wavered. It was as if you had been listening not to your wife, but a recording of her being played underwater that trembled to your ears. "Get you to your home and make haste!" Then you see it, a hand reaching past you from behind you towards the passenger's seat, though it is like no human's you have ever seen, ghostly and nearly transparent, with shimmering golden flecks hovering around it like sparks from a fire. It drops something onto the seat next to you then retreats into the back again. "I cannot provide protection while you are so careless with your fate. Keep this safe or you shall not last the day." There on the seat next to you is the card you had lost, though now the image facing you appears to be moving, and you can almost hear the sound of ocean waves as the painted water swells against the sanded beach.

His heart, which had been poorly mended and glued back together slowly over the course of a decade felt like it was breaking all over again, as her beautiful voice distorted. He was confused and upset all at once, it just had to be her, it just had to! But he knew all too well that it wasn't, yet something still told him that things were awry. Whatever on earth had just transpired he wasn't sure he wanted a part in it, but as an umistakengly heavenly hand stretched past him to flutter the card he had lost minutes earlier down onto the passenger's seat, he had a feeling he didn't have a choice.

He longed to see if the hand connected to anything past his blindspot, yet he was frozen to his seat, his eyes flicked downwards to watch the apparent movement of the sea drawn on the card. He pictured Amalia sitting in the backseat, legs crossed, her golden wavy hair tied up into a bun, a few loose strands hanging around her face. He realized that he'd do anything to peer into her
pretty amber eyes even once. She said that she 'wasn't his Amalia,' which just... Didn't seem true. An emotion that reflected anger glanced off his face. His curled his hand around the gear stick, however he didn't shift it from park as seemingly a thousand questions stormed inside of him.

"Then who are you?" He asked. "If you aren't my sweetheart, how do you know my name?" He paused. "And what on Earth just happened?"

The voice pauses for a moment as you throw question after question at it, waiting for you to complete your line of thought without interruption. When you finally collapse back into your seat, it takes the opportunity to answer. "To explain in the simplest manner possible, I am you. Rather a fragment of you, one that has not yet come to be. When you accepted the Image of Fate you see before you, I was borne of your destiny. We are the same being. I simply took the form of one close to your heart to better communicate with you, taken from your memories. I see I have made a mistake in my choice."

You feel and hear a shimmering, like hundreds of tiny notes ringing on the longest windchime ever created, and the voice changes, taking on an unpleasantly familiar tone that brings to mind overbearing mouthwash and greasy hair slicked back, "Anger. Resentment. Resolve. Interesting, though I feel this is also a wrong choice of form." The shimmering noise comes again, now the nagging tone of a certain classroom pest. "Embarrassment. Pity. Superiority. Again, not ideal qualities." Once more, the shimmering, followed by the most luxurious voice you have ever heard, as if liquid satin were being poured into every word. "I suppose a new form could suffice just as well." The gentleness of your wife's voice is gone from your ears, replaced with words that sound like velvet covering iron, delicate but firm. "The burning you felt shortly ago was Sonnenberg burning the card he took from you. In doing so, he released me from it and I was forced to bond my essence with yours much sooner than we should have. I apologize most deeply but it was necessary to save our lives." A slight pause in absolute silence, then, "Wilhelm, if you wish to remain alive past this day, or even to see Amalia, we must-"

The voice is interrupted by a rapid series of panicked, sharp knocks on the window of the car, a police officer standing outside the door and peering worriedly into the vehicle, shouting out in his booming tones, "Sir! Are you hurt!? An ambulance is on the way!"

The being's explanation saddened him unbelievably. It was understandable, he had been through a lot in the past days, and this seemed to be the final nail in his emotional coffin. He had been so close to even just hearing his wife, and now he knew that he had nearly been burned to death. It was unbecoming, but hearing the damn thing go from his precious wife to such hated people... He slumped forward, forehead in his palms, sobbing dryily and gasping for breath. He couldn't manage to summon any tears, it was like he had spent each and every single one the first year after she'd died, leaving him to feel close to anger. He had spent more than a decade in pain and agony. The pain of losing Amalia would never, ever actually go away, but it was as if every day of every year he spent a little more time cleaning up his scar and mantaining it until it faded. He had hoped that one day he would be able to look at her pictures or talk about her but only remember the good, like pointing out the funny story behind the scar but not the pain you went through. But with Linsay and now this, it was too much for him to bear, and it felt like someone was reopening his scar with a hot knife.

"Why..." He managed to croak. "Why are you doing this to me?"

It claimed to be a fragment of him, but right now he saw it as nothing but an enemy who had tortured him with the sweet voice of his wife. "How could you? I never asked for this," he spat, clenching one into a fist and gesturing accusingly over at the card that may or may not have been the source of his pain mere minutes ago with his other hand. His distraught cries and gasps had gone just as soon as he had come, and aside from the clear shake to his voice and the redness on his face he had gone back to nearly neutral. "I thought my one and only wish had come true by some stretch of the measure." Aside from the shaking, he was eerily calm. "And instead? I never asked for yo--"

The sharp tap on his window drew his attention the left, where his stomach momentarily churned at the sight of a police officer outside of his window, which was never a good thing. He didn't appear to be in any trouble, and instead the officer was asking if he was alright. He unrolled his window and apologized profusely.
"Apologies for the disturbance, officer. I simply had to pull over because I just experienced a sudden headache. There and gone." He half-lied "Old age is starting to get to me," He grumbled. "I'm alright though, so I'm terribly sorry that an ambulance was summoned."

He wasn't very sorry at all. One half of him wanted to pelt the now-disappeared hand his questions, one half wanted to give it a piece of his mind, but all of him wanted to say, "Go back to her voice and sing." He wanted to hear her voice so fresh in his mind again, but he knew doing so would be torture, so he focused on giving the officer his best old-age-is-starting-to-catch-up-but-I'm-still-competent look.

The officer nods to you and looks you over to be sure of your state of health. "We got several calls that your vehicle was madly weaving through traffic before swerving into the ditch. I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly certain that's not your ordinary headache, even a migraine isn't that bad. The paramedics are still on their way, I think you should let them check you over once, just to be sure it's not something more serious. Even for a man of your age, heart attacks happen, ya know." Though his words could be taken as insulting regarding your age, the officer is only a young man and he seems to be genuinely concerned for your well-being. "Or I could drive you to the hospital in my patrol car if you'd rather not sit here by the side of the road, it is still a busy highway. We can have your car towed later or you can get a taxi back to it, if you prefer. I insist you don't drive until you're able to be seen, for the public safety as well as your own."

The voice in the back seat chimes in once more, a solemn tone taking over where it was soft before, "Wilhelm, we cannot stay here, danger nears. It is not safe to be in the open any longer." Despite the sincerity, a tone of panic underlies her words. It pauses a moment, as if contemplating a way to motivate you into action, then suddenly exclaims, "If you ever want to see Amalia again, we must leave. Now!" The officer appears not even to notice her words or recognize there is someone other than yourself in the car. He simply leans towards the open window and peers in at you, shading his eyes with his hand at the sunlight coming from the horizon behind you. "Well sir, what'll it be?"

He had been swerving? He narrowed his eyes slightly, flicking his gaze around the dashboard. If as long as he had the card and kept it safe no harm would befall him, he didn't have time to sit around and contemplate. What did "in the open" even mean? He was beginning to silently loathe the disembodied arm and hands as he kept moving his gaze from the offier to the card. Then the voice played the Amalia card. He knew exactly why, to give him the motive to drive elsewhere, but the instructions were so vague it felt like he was combing through tiny puzzle pieces to find a few that fit into a solution.

Then a thought came to him.

He hadn't gotten a ticket. If he had been weaving through traffic and breaking laws, he would be holding a ticket and maybe a short jail sentence right about now. This officer was new if Wilhelm had ever seen it, and just his luck. He forced his eyes to light up, knitting his eyebrows in a panic and bringing a hand to his mouth. "Officer!" He exclaimed, "I just remembered what happened!" He quickly led the officer on a swift yet confusing and rambling explanation, setting the foundation for his story of his sister who he was trying to help, and ending it curtly with when someone started tailgating him and he began to panic. If he was going to run into the police, might as well have a first time for ignoring what was argueably police instruction. He carefully slipped his card into the pocket of his briefcase, before turning back to the man. "Officer, I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart, but I have to go, go or I risk being the one to make my sister miserable."

All at once he prayed that these hands could get him out of any trouble he might get into as he gripped the stickshift and forced it into the D slot. The engine kicked up again and he stepped on the gas, pushing the boundaries of any speeding laws, leaving the policeman far behind him and taking the nearest detour-filled route to his house, shoulderchecking whenever he could, paranoia eating at him that he was going to wind up in a jail cell with the same type of people who inject smack into their eyeballs or drag people from the back of pickup trucks.

"Alright." He demanded, flipping his sights back over his shoulder as he took a left. He was clearly tense and on edge, simply by the way he sat and gripped the steering wheel. "You have five seconds to tell me what I should call you, and a minute to get anything and everything I need to
know out of the way, capisce?"

As you tear away down the highway, just narrowly avoiding a passing minivan complete with soccer mom and blaring horn, the officer in your rear-view mirror takes a brisk jog back to his car and swings himself into the driver's seat. He pulls away from the grassy median and follows you at some distance. When you look closely in the mirror, you can see him occasionally pick up the radio handset and talk into it, but you can't read his lips from this distance. The only sign that he is not actively pursuing your arrest is that he has not turned on his sirens, it appears he is acting more as an escort at this moment, ensuring you are not endangering your life with another episode on the road, though you doubt he would hesitate to pull you over if your driving was in any way dangerously erratic. And you gave him plenty of opportunity to do so, pushing the speed limit to the point of panic and taking turns at speeds worthy of a NASCAR highlight.

Soon it is only you and the police officer on an open stretch of road lined with dense trees on either side, off of the highway and apparently through one of the backroads leading through a state park on the edge of the metropolis. He hasn't lifted the handset recently, now it might only be a coincidence that you are traveling in the same direction, there haven't been any turns he could take for a few minutes. It is at this time you turn to your passenger and give your demands, she has remained surprisingly silent through the duration of this little trip. You take this moment to look back over your shoulder at the voice, and the body that accompanies the hands, and it is unlike anyone you have seen before. She is slender and pale, the purest white skin ever imagined, like new fallen snow flaked onto her body. Her hair is golden, glowing with a metallic sheen that matches to crown set on her head, flowing past her long thin neck to rest on her slight shoulders. The outfit she wears would be an outrageous costume by modern standards, but somehow you are not surprised to see it and it seems to suit her perfectly, as if she had always worn only that and it had become a part of her.

"At last you see me, Wilhelm Lichthaus. What I am called you do not have a word for. The closest you would comprehend would be Artisan-Protector-Mother-Unmaker. But that is what I am, not what I am called. We do not have names as your body has, only what we are. You may call me as you wish, I will know it is to me you are referring." Her tone of voice seems to acknowledge your disbelief, almost like she is expecting you to shake your head and tell yourself to wake up. "You are a man of what you call science, but even your observations cannot reveal the true natures of the worlds beyond the one you see. There are levels of existence you cannot even comprehend and some would destroy the others. I am here because there is a war which you cannot see that has forced two of these to collide, yours and mine, a war which has been in the making for longer than your lifespan will allow your kind to remember." She pauses to let this sink in before continuing, "And you were chosen, by what you would call destiny, in the attempt to save both of our worlds. I am the Fate that was chosen for you to aid you in the war ahead." Her lips purse in contemplation, obviously waiting for you to comprehend the magnitude of what has been laid upon you, by your will or not.

Her explaination was spoken and had words used in a way he actually had to pay attention to understand, and when It, or rather now she was finished, he burst out in rough yet genuine laughter. "An intergalactic 'war,' hilarious! Is it across dimensions? Where do I get my lightsaber? I'd prefer a green one, if you don't mind." He gave his steering wheel a laughter-filled hit, all the stupidly over-the-top things she had said pushing thoughts of the officer behind him out of his mind. "Okay, okay, this is amusing, I'm going to call you Leia. So Leia, tell me, if our worlds are the ones that are colliding at war, would that not make us enemies? Are you a spy? There are better people to look after than me." He informed her, his tone momentarily turning condesending, unable to rid himself of the bitter taste of the idea that this freakishly white woman had dared impersonate his beloved wife.

The old way of speaking miffed him, she was just acting smart, he decided, hating the feeling of what he took as being talked down to, a slight look of disgust tugging at his lips. "You're right; I am a man of science, so you can call me Prof," he said with a nearly unnoticeable snarl, never wanting this woman to use any real name of his. He hated that she had decided to use his wife's voice to try and get him to do what she had wanted, and he was hung up with that fact.

He turned into the street with his apartment complex, not sure how he felt anymore, but one thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to get buzzed. Maybe this really was a hallucination, numb shock was preventing him from currently accepting anything he was hearing. "If you want to convince me of anything, I require proof."

She sits through your mocking humour patiently, her expression never changing from one of somber contemplation. When you settle for a moment to catch your breath and calm your nerves, she takes the opening to answer you. "You misunderstand me, Wilhelm. The pages of a book are separate even when they touch, but they are still joined to the entire book. This world is only a single page in the book of existence, mine is another, but some evil wishes to takes the words of both pages and rewrite them as a new story, one dark and terrible. I am one who does not wish this to happen, and neither should you. I did not choose you, you chose me for yourself." She points past you to the card barely peeking out from the pocket of your briefcase, "When you decided to ask your destiny, you decided to let destiny define you. I am simply the fate that you asked to find, whether it is the fate you wished for is another matter entirely." She leans forward in between the two front seats, looking to you with an expression of pained understanding. "I know what you truly desired, to know of your wife, of Amalia."

She leans back in her seat again, hurriedly beginning her next sentence before you can angrily object about bringing her wife into the conversation. "Wilhelm, my powers are not those of a Communer, I cannot take the form of a spirit of the dead. And yet I first appeared to you in the form of your wife. Tell me what that must imply... Prof." The last word is sharp and almost sarcastic, a piercing insult that is very nearly the closest to anger you have heard her express thus far in the conversation. "Amalia is alive, rather, her soul still lives. Do you not think it is peculiar that the very first instance you decide to travel with her a tragic accident occurs? This war has affected you for your entire life in ways that you will never understand. It has taken things from you that you never thought you would lose, the enemy has seen your role and has tried to defeat you before you even enter the battle. I have no proof to give other than the fact that I am bonded to you, I read your thoughts, I feel your pain. If you accept my aid, when all is said and done, I swear to you that I will find a way to return your beloved Amalia to you." There is no pleading in her voice, it is stone-cold and serious. "You cannot unchoose your destiny, Wilhelm, but you can choose to ignore it. I will no longer seek your aid, but I cannot unbond from you. I am a part of your life that is separate but the same. I may wipe your memory of our meeting, but I will always remain as a portion of your soul." She has given an ultimatum, believe her fantastic tale and trust that she can provide what you truly wish, or allow her to remove your memories of your meeting and live your life as normal in blissful ignorance.

As he killed the engine and took his keys from the slot, he actually wasn't actually sure what her showing up as his wife implied. He had a few ideas, none of them really made perfect sense though, so out of pride he didn't ask. "You don't need to tell me about that night." he began dryily, hauling his cane and suitcase out of the car and stepping himself out, looking at the woman through the backwindow. "I was there." Cold, factual, and as far as he was concerned, back to normal, back to the normal of what he had become over the past decade.

He was biting his upper lip in thought, However, thinking well and hard over all of her words. Bring Amalia back. A phrase that tore him. What if there were strings attached, like she came back empty and emotionless, or as a demon that tried to drag him tooth and nail down to the underworld for messing with the order of death? He exhaled heavily, and more thoughts crossed his mind. What would he even do to greet her? Do you just run up to a once-deceased person? And just because he wanted to see her... Did she want to see him? He was hardly the same. Would she care they couldn't ride their bikes together because of his knee? He was at the point where people stopped contrasting his cane to his age, but he still wondered if she'd care. Would she still try to dance with him even with his bad leg to the stash of old records they had spent time collecting?

He leaned down from his formidable height, closer to the backseat's window, speaking loudly enough so that she could hear him through the glass. "You called me a man of science. Whilst that's correct, some days, like this one, I become a man with an unquenchable thrist for knowledge. You've given me threads of new knowledge, and as such, I now refuse to be blue pilled so easily. But." He emphasized, "like any big decision, time has to be taken for me to decide."

He gestured over to the apartment's shiny glass doors. Being one person certainly had its perks. "So, Leia, are you going to accompany me to my home? Or would you rather take up residence in my car?"

Leia's face moves to the tinted window as you exit the vehicle, and through the darkened glass, her blank-white face appears like a death mask, blank and void staring out at you. It sends a shiver down your spine that reminds you of something of your past, but the exact memory slips away like a polished marble held in a velvet glove. Then she moves her entire body for the first time, more than just the hand motions you observed before, and the action terrifies you. She does not make the motions a human would make, open the door, step out, straighten herself onto her feet and stand. They are eerily static, as if you blinked and suddenly she has positioned herself to be standing up inside of the car, then what can only be described as floating, she phases through the solid door as easily as you would surface from underneath a pool of water, the material of the car seems to melt off of her as she passes through it until she is standing face to face with you, her body mere inches from yours.

And worse, though her mouth does not move, frozen into an expression that somehow brings thoughts to your mind of infinite solitude and endless sorrow, her haunting words drift out, "I am afraid that time is one thing you cannot afford to waste anymore, Wilhelm. you have done far enough of that already." She drifts past you, you can see the motion of her legs pushing the long skirt forwards and backwards, but you swear that the smoothness of her motion is not possible for any human to attain. "Let us go into your home, I am certain you have much you would wish to show me." And she turns and walks directly towards the building, not even veering course to make towards the entry doors around to one side, simply passing through the brick wall and out of sight. Suddenly, your mind feels light, as if you had taken medicine for a severe headache and it was only now taking effect, your thoughts seem to float freely in your head and for a brief moment you wonder if you had a fit of insanity the entire car ride home and now it was over.

Wilhelm inhaled, sharp and heavy as he made his way over to the doors. She was scary and unnatural and her way of speaking was stiff and wooden, but it didn't discount her words. He knit his brow slightly at her mentioning that he had wasted time. Time enjoyed was not time wasted, he believed as he pushed a button to summon the elevator. It came a few seconds later, shiny and steel and he stepped inside. Anxiety shot up his spine and made the hair of the back of his neck stand up. Did she know where his apartment was? The idea of him opening the door to find her sitting pallid and impassive on his couch in front of the large TV was mildly scary. He didn't like the idea of her looking at his wedding photos that he kept faithfully on the mantel, or wandering through his home, maybe trying to play an old Beatles record or daring to touch Amalia's old perfume bottle. He'd spray it on her pillow whenever the days got particularly rough, at least letting him go to sleep to the familiar scent.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid away giving him ample time to walk down the hall a few doors until he reached his own: 319. The idea of her potentially being inside to meet him unsettled him so much he placed his briefcase down and ran his fingers through his white hair, pulling out his wallet to look at the small picture he had inside to stall for time. He looked like he had won the world, giving the camera a playful wave as Amalia kissed him on the cheek. They had laughed about it for hours but whenever he looked at it now he could barely manage a smile. It didn't make him sad, he just wasn't sure if happiness was a concept that had abandoned him or not. He put his wallet away, digging in his other pocket for his keys, pulling them out and sticking them in the keyhole with a long inhale. He twisted the metal fragment until he heard the click of the lock and was able to push the door open.

The door swings open to reveal everything exactly as you last left it this morning, down to the half-empty mug of coffee sitting on the table just inside the door. For a split moment, all seems nearly normal compared to all that has been going through your head in the last hour or so. Then the voice that has followed you all day speaks up, though unexpectedly it comes from behind your back. "At long last, the throne awaits its king no longer." She is standing there passively, her arms by her sides, hands tucked forward almost crossing fingers at her waist, as if she were a maid answering the door for you. The edge of her dark eyes gleam in the dim hall lighting, and you swear you can see a tear trickling down the corner of her eye and onto her cheek. You blink and the impression is gone, left staring at the same pitch-black shark's eyes she has always had, though a sense of sadness remains lingering in the air. Leia takes another of her ghostly gliding steps towards you, motioning for you to enter first. "I cannot cross the threshold before you. You must invite me in." Her blank expression reveals nothing, though the thought crosses your mind of stories of monsters and vampires having to wait for permission to steal unwitting souls. "If you would rather the time alone, I can leave you to yourself for the time being. There are matters we should discuss shortly, but I feel I cannot force you into a conversation against your will. If you wish to be left at peace for the evening, I can understand your apprehension at having my ever present company."

"Ever present company." That's a fun one, especially for a man who has eaten, slept, shaved, and lived, alone for the past 15 years. He couldn't bear to glance back at her pallid, inhuman face again and he quickly walked inside, closing the door on her in an exhale. He longed to just be able to think to himself for a moment, but he feared she was reading his thoughts as he propped his cane up by its usual place and placed his suitcase next to the coffee he hadn't had time to finish, before he slipped off his peacoat, placing it back on its hanger, and used a shoehorn to take off his loafers.

He limped into the main area carefully treading on hardwood in socks, and not needing to flick on the lights as generous amounts of light flitted in through the white drapes. It was a tidy place, decorated simply in muted colours, the type you'd see on a magazine cover. There were too many places for one man to sit: a black leather loveseat and couch facing the well sized TV, and four shiny grey barstools along one side of the small marble-topped island. He walked into the kitchen, glancing back at the foyer and door and going right for the liquor cabinet: the one right beside his framed degrees he had hung on the wall.

Opening the coffee-coloured door and pushing aside wines and vodka, wrapping his hand around a bottle of apple Scnapps that seemed rather appealing at the moment. He set it down safely on the counter and went to his room, loosening his tie with the intent to change into something more comfortable. A pair of well-loved jeans and an old Atari shirt would do nicely. He returned to the main room, grabbing the alcohol bottle and setting it on the white coffee table next to the minty green turntable straight from 90's that they had saved money to get, all of their collected records were in their covers in wicker baskets underneath the table. Wilhelm located the TV remote and pointed it up at the mantle for some white noise to listen to as he unscrewed the bottle's cap, the terms "glass" and "portions" relatively unknown to him.

He glanced back at the door, feeling guilty and actually standing up to go and let Leia in. He didn't apologize, but he was clearly somewhat remorseful as he gestured inside. "You can come in." He paused in thought. Telling her not to look at his pictures seemed a little on the nose, so he went with, "There's plenty of room to sit," in hopes to further indicate that he had not had company in a long time, and to drive home the fact that he was a lonely man that she (he would've said) tormented him.

The door swings open once again, this time with you on the opposite side. But Leia's pale face is not there to greet you, only open hallway and the fading light of the setting sun that streams in through the window at the end of it. Not only is she not there, but it feels like there's a blank space where you last saw her, as if some cosmic artist had erased that portion of the world and squished the rest of it inward to cover up the mistake. After a moment, the feeling passes and you're simply staring down your hallway on a Monday afternoon, just having got home from a long day at work.

A noise to your left startles you, but it's just Mrs. Renault closing her own door, the kind little old French lady with her teacup terrier on a leash out for their evening walk. "Gud day, Monseiur Lichthaus. Beeeyootiful weather, no?" Her thick accent has a charming lilt to it, and she gives you her best grandmotherly smile as she touches her quaint hat to you. She is dressed as if going out to dinner, but you know she hardly ever leaves the grounds at all except to walk her dear Rufus, her son Georg comes by with her groceries and to help her maintain her little house. The little black terrier scuttles towards you, wagging his stump of a tail in a wildly friendly manner as he totters closer to sniff at your shoes before scurrying back to his mistress' heels. "Ah, Rufus eez so cheeky today, he usually doez not like ze others. But I suppoze you are hardly a stranger, no?" She smiles again and stops in front of your door to give you one last beaming smile of sheer good will, apparently waiting for some response.