A Mask of Glass and Sorrow

She has been dead for nearly a decade.

Or maybe it was six years or so. Truth is, she already lost count. All she knows is that she is still breathing and alive, yet dead, unfortunately, and will remain in this place until she disappears into nothing.

A little dust in a huge pit. Easy to discard, easy to throw away.

In this pit, time does not really matter, to say the least. Souls pitifully waiting for the remained to forget their mere existence before they vanish and die happily ever after. Until they reach their end's end, life is of no weighted value. Their memories of their lives are still with themㅡ they never really go away. Like a shadow of their past clinging on to them like vines unwilling to let go.

None of this really mattered. Sooner or later, they will all be forgottenㅡ a tiny dot in the past's paragraph of lines, a distant forlorn memory that will never be recalled. When something is taken from you, all that remains is a memory to hold on to. However, memories fade. They deteriorate and become nothing. Erased. Forgotten. Replaceable.

The place was empty and barren when she first arrived unannounced years ago unaware of what she had become. Wearing a black dress and dainty shoes, she looked like a doll brought to life. There was emptiness in her, a hollow feeling she could not determine. Her heart was unusually steady, she could not feel the thumps and its constant beating.

Pale. That was how she had appeared as she gazed into a mirror in their mansion. She couldn't remember her past or what had occurred in her life before she perished. One day, she just woke up to find out that she was no longer alive. The home she used to call was still the same in this afterlife. She could manage to roam its spacious hallways and rooms with a warmth of familiarity.

Only, the mansion was the complete opposite of the home once knewㅡ empty, dull and bleak.

The first few months are always the hardest. As a young child, she almost had a heart attack when a random stranger broke the news to her, saying it in a monotone voice.

Lost souls have tried communicating with her in any way possible, approaching her as she sat by herself in the river side or offering her a few tokens of sympathy. However, she did not want to associate herself with any of them. She was afraid of what she did not know, of what she had become, because she knew and forcefully convinced herself everyday that she was not dead. That this was all just a nightmare and she would wake up one day.

Deep down, she wished it was true. She was not dead. Was.

The peopleㅡ or soulsㅡ who were trapped here were all the same. Their reactions, their faces, their words. Their expressions were frozen in a permanent poker face, cold and void of any emotion. They looked alive yet lifeless. Breathing but dead. But it was their eyes that haunted her the most, looking through hers and seeing her soul. Blank and lifeless. She feared hers where the same.

Humans, they believe what they want to believeㅡ even if it is a twisted lie. For months, she had been forcefully told not to harbor any human emotion. You're just like us, they had told her over and over.

Punishment was the worst part. Once, they locked her alone in a dark cell six feet underground with no one to talk to because she insisted she was still alive. Hours, days, she didn't know how long she was inside. They say even souls are driven to insanity. Many souls have been insane before they vanished. And she has been under for who knows how long.

Souls still approached her when she was released, forcing her to accept that she was already dead. She never really responded when they talked, looking away and pretending to not hear and just like that, they stopped trying altogether. Their gazes were all the same. Blank. Emotionless. Their silence was none of her concern.

It was okay, she didn't need them. She could survive on her own, she could manage without someone else's aid.

Her first friend was unexpected. He was a boy her age, young, mischievous and composed. They met during her first few months in the abandoned park close to the thicket. He was lifeless, like the others she had seen. With pale skin that was awfully cold to touch, she knew that he was one of them. Lost and dead.

She remembered feeling chills down her spine upon accidentally coming in contact with his skin for the first time, his hand wrapped around her wrist to ensure he was able to communicate with her before she could flee, moving a few steps away with questions clouding her thoughts. 

He tilted his head sideways. "You shouldn't do that," she could remember him saying as he looked up to meet her eyes after months of ignoring other people. He blankly shifted his gaze to the withered tree she was seated atop earlier before turning it back to her and shook his head.

She did not respond. "You are just like us," she heard him say. She pulled her hand back, freeing herself from his grasp. No, she thought. He was just like them. He pondered on what to say for a moment, surprise hidden in his features as he scanned her and she hoped he would leave her alone. She waited.

But he never left.

"You know that you can't avoid me," he told her a year later, placing an arm on her shoulder as he saw her standing all by herself. Upon noticing her plans of avoiding him, he tightened his grip on her shoulder, making sure she stood rooted in her place.

"Let go," her child voice said. 

 He handed her a colorless peach and bit into his. "You can't keep your distance forever. Souls get curious and curiosity kills," he answered, a peach still in his hand as he waited for her to take it. She hesitated but received it anyway, sinking her teeth in it and waiting for the taste of nothingness to spread in her mouth. The taste immediately filled her mouth, alive and blossoming.

She paused. It was unusually sweet. All the food here was tasteless so she wondered why she could taste such sweet fruit. He noticed her unspoken question before explaining, "That's not an ordinary peach"

"Klaus," he introduced himself, tilting his head and urging her to state hers. She was still wary and unsure. Upon hearing no reply, he turned her around, hands on both of her shoulders as he looked her in the eye. "That's odd. Do you remember your name?"

"No," was her flat reply. 

"You need to have a name," she could hear him tell her. She pondered on this for a moment.

A name. She needed a name but could not think of anything suitable.

"I know," he said, leaning in to whisper in her ear, a hand covering his mouth as if he was sharing a secret. She repeated what he had said and a smile of triumph was hidden underneath his emotionless facade. 

Escape. 

She licked her lips, feeling the coldness. Her eyes stopped on the particular word, reading it over and over again as she discarded the illegible penmanship's angry strokes. The word was written in blood all over the page of an old diary, staining its blankness with emptiness. She brought her slender fingers to the marks and creases, running it on the letters bleeding on the once blank page, mindlessly eyeing the strokes before gently flipping the page, turning it carefully in fear of tearing it. There was a faint sound, making her immediately turn her head. The door remained locked. No one was there, she told herself as she shifted her gaze back to the lamp light before resuming what she had intended to been doing.

The quarter was spacious and worn out. Cobwebs were everywhere, dust accumulating in the stack of books locked away. The glass windows had cracks all over them, a few with shatters on the wooden floor. The carpeted floor was a mess as if no one had walked inside this room for many years. Each step made a loud creaking sound that echoed throughout the whole place over and over. With caution, she slowly walked towards the mahogany desk centered in the spacious quarter, the diary in one hand and a lamp in the other, afraid to create any commotion caused by her movements.

She cannot be caught here in the middle of the night reading forbidden text by a deceased soul. She frequently glanced at the door every now and then, walking and opening it gently before poking her dainty head outside, eyeing the empty hallways and making sure that no one found her inside the place unauthorized. Occasionally, her free hand would find its way to her chest, hoping to feel a heartbeat or a pulse or anything that could remind her that she was still human, somehow.

There was none. 

Disappointment flooded through her before she resumed what she was doing.

Stop trying.

She scanned the pages carefully, reading and analyzing, noting the diary's age. The diary was very old with pages quite fragile enough that any sudden movement could tear it. She handled it with caution and gentleness, holding the withering pages with both hands.

According to various sources, the diary belonged to a young woman who came here a few decades before she did. Quite a beauty, as some had recalled. She was stunningly beautiful and kind but loneliness and silence drove her to insanity. She was able to find a lot of stationary lying around her mansion's ruined state and decided to document her days as a wandering soul. Her first few diaries all started with a legible 'dear diary' written in fancy scripts and black ink, narrating and talking about her life here and the people she met. Gradually, as time moved swiftly, her strokes became distant. Blank and driven with fury and grief. It was her mindless thoughts that sent chills down her spine as she read each word, each sentence, each memory, caught up with the words clouding her mind.

This place creates monsters, she thought. It drives the lost to madness. To a ravine until they fall, urging them to stay yet continuously pushing them away.

She was never able to find the other notes. Rumors and stories are all she has heard. All that remains are torn pages with burnt edges as if the whole diary was set to fire. Only one diary was intact and still readable. Her last diary. Her final notes before she disappeared. She glanced at the diary in her hands and felt a shudder as the wind touched her bare skin. She lighted a few more candles to aid her vision. 

She pursed her lips, pressing them to a thin line and permitting the wind to comb its way through her hair. From where she sat, she felt the candle lights turn into smoke as its flames died.

Darkness immediately enveloped her in a deafening silence, if not for the broken glass windows moving open and shut, causing the place to rock with the echoes. The torn curtains swayed gracefully, touching her heel due to its length as the cool breeze entered the old and lifeless study room. She glanced at the large grandfather clock a few inches away from the door, noting how its pendulum was moving back and forth, however, its hands remained frozen.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

The pendulum quickened its pace before coming to a halt.

And it stopped moving altogether. 

She heard a faint noise from below followed by footsteps, blinking suddenly as she stood still and waited for an icy hand to grip her heart with fear and emotion. She waited for the quick thumps she used to feel whenever she felt panic and nervousness. Nothing came. Just the silent cries of the wind. The heavy footsteps quickened. She immediately closed the diary and placed it in the large pocket of her dress swiftly. 

Escape.

She could still see the bloody writings in her mind. She stood perfectly still, waiting for the door to open. 

She shook her head. She had to go.