The Lone Ghost

For many long years I stayed in this dark, stony castle. I wandered through its many halls, I passed through its scores of walls. However, due to my very nature after death, it is impossible for anyone to hear my calls. For centuries this place has been abandoned by royalty, without such characters about it, not even a vassal. Only commoners appear to visit my abode, but I do not mind their company. They look around my former home, but they never mention me nor anything else. And as I feared, I have been forgotten.

The only thing that I ever wanted, even in life, was a true friend. No matter what I did, no matter who I knew, no matter who I fought for, no matter what I could have possibly done to help anyone and the kingdom, I never met anyone that thought that I was worthy of anything. And now, no one really knows me. No matter how many visitors come to my castle now, there's no way to really get their attention, as I cannot speak. All that I can do is watch them. However, whenever I do this, I know that I bring them a sense of unease, even though I mean no harm, nor do I mean any invasion of their privacy.

All I wish for them is to be fulfilled while in my former home. My home and abode does seem to become Hell on Earth for me, even if it never really was that way before I died. When I was still among the living, this was a place of extreme, lavish luxury. This was a place of power. This was a place that displayed my family's Legacy, its divinity, as well as its dominion. At one point I was this castle's heir. However, everything in the past eventually crumbles apart just as the walls of this castle have over the centuries since its construction.

Even as royalty, nothing truly ever made me feel anything. No concubines’ kiss, nor any embrace of my comrades of battle, or any princesses ever parade me about to their powerful parents. In fact, it was obvious from the start that I had no real love to look forward to in life. Even as a ghost that has surpassed death, and now without the ability to speak, communicate, or manifest myself in any meaningful way to any of the guests of my rightful property, I feel dreadfully lonely.

This was all that I could ponder in my eternal unrest, until one day when I saw someone that had caught my ghastly, ghostly eye. Her skin was golden brown, and smooth like the skin of an apple. Her hair was curly and a deep shade of red. Such a shade could be easily mistaken for brown hair if one looked at it in an improper light. Her face was sharp, with a pointed chin and high ears. her cheeks were well defined, and her sapphire blue eyes right about them were absolutely heavenly.

Just as an apparition like me, I don't believe that I ever heard her say a single word the entire time that I was studying her. She was always so quiet, so reserved, and that drove me to become absolutely, completely and utterly infatuated with her. I felt like if I had control over what I had in my past life once more, that I would give it all up. I would give up my fiefdom, all of my gold and other riches, as well as this damned castle itself, all to be able to spend one single day with her. and during the single day, I have no idea what we would do, or what I would even say. However, what I do know is that I would be able to speak to her, hold her hand, and confess my undying love to her.

It was not long until I was staring off into space, wanting to get somewhere beyond the dreadful bore of the castle. Through one of the upstairs windows, even when I was still alive, I could have stared out into the lush green of the castle grounds for hours on end, just pondering existence. Now, it was even as if that meant thinking about my death, and the life that I had once had. However, as soon as I had decided to look back within the castle itself, inside of the room that was once mine, I noticed her.

She was sitting at the foot of my old bed. Her eyes darted around the room, as if she were looking for something. I remember looking at her for it felt like an eternity, which felt like exponential eons of my pained existence, all to keep my eyes on her. Then, her eyes had somehow managed to settle somewhere. Her lips had parted slightly, revealing her mouth’s pearl white teeth. As I tracked her pupils, I knew what she was looking at. I swayed from side to side, and her eyes followed.