Phantoms Of Guilt

I wiggled my fingers, drowsily observing the different colors of pills trickle around in my palm. The capsules clicked softly as they collided, a faint sound almost too delicate to notice. Empty-headed and somber, I tilted my head back and pretended the pills were peas. The thought felt absurd, but it made them easier to swallow if I could convince myself they were something mundane, something that wouldn’t tighten my throat or make my stomach churn.

If I failed to convince myself, my throat would close off at the back of my mouth, and the bitterness would coat the roof of my mouth like a sickly film. The taste lingered stubbornly, no matter how many times I tried to scrub it away. Even water barely helped; it only spread the vile flavor further. I could only hope my imagination could keep the worst of it at bay.

The pills varied in colors—pale blues, sickly yellows, and occasional specks of red—because Pin was always working on making them safer. Less lethal, he said. I didn’t know how the colors tied into that. Maybe it was a way to differentiate the batches or track the changes in his experiments. It didn’t matter. Wondering about it was pointless. It didn’t change the fact that I was running low, and that thought gnawed at the edge of my foggy mind.

Footsteps echoed off the walls of the cramped hotel bathroom, the sound sharp and intrusive against the muffled hum in my ears. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the floor, my thoughts caught in a deepening haze. My fingers didn’t twitch, my legs didn’t shift. I barely even blinked.

Specter stood in the doorway, a familiar shadow in the shape of a man. The closest thing I had to a friend. Maybe that’s the wrong word—friend. He was the closest person I had to…human. If I could still call him that.

“You can’t stay here much longer,”

he grumbled groggily, his voice rough and distant, as though it had traveled through a thick fog to reach me.

I raised my eyebrows, feigning sarcastic shock. “Oh right. Let me pack my bags,” I rasped, my voice dry and coarse, each word scraping against the rawness in my throat.

I didn’t have any bags. Just Pin’s lab coat, a memory stick, and a bland white Servus Credit Union bank card I’d found in his pocket. The balance on it was a mystery, but I doubted there was much left. The hotel was already draining whatever scraps it held, and soon enough, it would consume it all.

“

Got any other options?”

Specter shrugged lazily, shuffling out of the bathroom. He zipped up his jeans as though he’d taken a piss. Sometimes, I couldn’t tell if he was real or not.

“Get enough material to wear; maybe the sidewalk can feel like home,” I muttered, my lips barely moving.

Specter massaged his forehead, the bandana he wore slipping down to the bridge of his nose. With an irritated tug, he slid it back up. “

Stop acting stupid.”

“Stop asking stupid questions.”

My hair clung to my neck, still damp from the shower. A cheap hair dryer sat on the bathroom counter, its cord coiled like a limp snake. I hadn’t touched it. The thought of looking socially presentable felt foreign, like something that belonged to another life. All I wanted was to stay drenched, letting the cold water soothe my burning skin. Showers had become a ritual, repetitive and numbing, the only thing that grounded me even slightly.

I rolled onto my side, the sheets rough and scratchy against my cheek. Sliding my hand under the pillow, I pulled out Pin’s bloodied jacket. The dark stains on the fabric were stiff and cracked, a grim reminder of something I wasn’t ready to confront.

The jacket followed me into the bathroom. I stepped into the shower, the freezing water pounding against my face. Grabbing a hand towel, I scrubbed at the dried blood, working with a frantic, steady rage.

Specter perched on the edge of the toilet, his hood pushed back. His hair flickered like static—brown, then bald, then buzzed. My numb fingers fumbled with the towel, dropping it repeatedly, until I gave up and used my hands instead, wringing the stiff material with a frustration that bordered on desperation.

“You’re not even using soap

,” Specter observed, flicking a lighter on and off with sluggish indifference. The tiny flame reflected in his hollow eyes. “

And even soap wouldn’t fix that.”

Logical. He was logical. Unlike me. I needed someone to remind me what was possible and what wasn’t, even if that someone was a ghost projected from the corners of my mind. A hallucination born of my fractured sanity.

I slumped against the wall, letting the water cascade over me. It had turned colder, icy even, but I didn’t care. “It feels better to try than to not try at all,” I murmured, more to myself than to him.

The bloodstains remained, defiant and immovable. I sat there in defeat, the towel forgotten in the corner of the tub.

His head went bald, and my eyes widened in puzzlement. The change was jarring, like a TV losing its signal for a split second before returning to clarity. I decided against questioning it—Specter was never truly predictable, and there was no sense in trying to make sense of him. Instead, he looked up at the cracked ceiling, threw his lighter into the sink with a clink, and leaned back like he was contemplating something far beyond the room.

I furrowed my brow, wondering what the point of that was. His movements were always deliberate, even if they made no sense to me.

“What’s a feeling to you nowadays?”

he asked, his voice low, almost contemplative, as if trying to pry something loose from me.

“Just a word,” I replied, my voice rough and distant. “I can’t use it to feel anything, but at least I sound sane.”

“

Whoever said you sound sane?”

His voice shifted. It wasn’t his voice anymore. It was deeper, harsher, scraping against the walls of my mind. Chills wrapped their icy fingers around the inside of my ribs and squeezed, sending a shiver coursing through me. My chest tightened involuntarily.

I stood slowly, my limbs sluggish and uncooperative, leaving a trail of water behind me as I made my way across the room. My skin was damp and clammy, the wet strands of my hair clinging to my neck like they had a life of their own. I scanned the room for a towel but reached instead for the pill bottle hidden under the pillow. My fingers shook as I shook one pill free, letting it rest between my lips like a secret I didn’t want anyone to find.

Clutching the glass of water from the dresser, I swallowed it in a single, desperate gulp. The bitterness clawed at the back of my throat, threatening to stay there forever. I avoided looking to my left, where Specter’s shadow loomed, elongated and unnerving in the dim light.

In my peripheral vision, his hand moved deliberately, tearing the bandana from his face. I slammed the cup onto the wooden dresser with more force than I meant to, the sound sharp and hollow under the flickering light of the mounted TV. A commercial for diamond rings played, the brightness of it garish against the gloom of the room.

“Anna, you’re not being logical…”

The voice was different now—Pin’s. It sliced through me like a chainsaw to the collarbone, brutal and unrelenting.

My hands trembled as I clung to the edge of the dresser, vertigo creeping in like a silent predator. Sweat dripped from my brow and burned my eyes, the salt stinging as I tried to focus. My hair clung to my arms, sticky and tangled, as the surface of my skin crawled with an unbearable itchiness.

“Those words are starting to get old,” I muttered, my voice shaky and uneven.

I took a hesitant step back, nearly stumbling as Specter’s face shifted into Pin’s with nauseating precision. He wore his face like a mask, and it tore at the edges of my perception.

“Specter, stop,” I whispered, barely audible over the pounding in my head.

Every muscle in my body screamed to lash out, to fight, to scream, but I couldn’t. It hurt too much to even try. My breath hitched, and I blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the vision. I wanted to close my eyes, to block him out, but at the same time, I didn’t. Pin’s face, his calm, his steadiness—it was the only place I felt safe.

The falcon tattoo on his forearm, his quiet blue eyes, his stiff posture—it was all so achingly familiar, and yet, not.

“Put the pills down,”

he said, his voice low and commanding.

My hand trembled as I extended the bottle toward him, letting it hover over his outstretched palm. I released it, but the sound of it landing in his pocket never came.

Instead, I blinked, and he was tucking it away into his spotless white coat. I stepped closer, my body moving without permission, drawn to the image of him.

“There’s something heavy about the curse of too much knowledge,”

he said, his tone softening ever so slightly.

“I get it.”

“Heavy is not how I’d put it,” I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of my exhaustion.

“

What word then?”

“It’s hell.”

He nodded slowly, as though turning the word over in his mind. “

Alright, I can understand that.”

Then, his face glitched. For a moment, it was nothing—an empty void—and then it snapped back to Pin’s, leaving a nauseating twist in my stomach.

“Can you stay?” I whimpered, trembling from head to toe.

“

You know I’m not really here,”

he said gently, tilting his head with a flicker of sympathy. His voice was already fading, the edges of him blurring like smoke in the wind.

“I need you,” I stifled an inhale, desperate.

“

That’s what the memory stick and tablet are for,

” he replied, his tone firm now. “

Figure it out. You’re not stupid.”

And just like that, he flickered away.

Specter reappeared, lounging in the corner chair, a plume of smoke curling lazily from his lips. “

My god, what a ride,”

he scoffed, completely unbothered.

I glanced down at the carpet where my pill bottle lay, the contents spilling out like tiny, colorful secrets. It never landed in his hand. That was just where I wanted it to be.

The curtains hung heavy over the windows, and for a moment, I thought about pulling them back to let some light in. But the idea of being seen, of someone catching a glimpse of the chaos in my eyes, made my stomach churn.

I couldn’t risk it. Let them think I don’t exist. At least, not like this.

And who would leave a room feeling like that?