Story Prompt: The office building seemed normal enough when you came across it in the dead of night. You shrug off the feeling of dread as you enter the doors. There’s no receptionist and no security, simply two doors: one is green, the other orange. Which door do you take? Why are you there? What happens next?
This silence was a poison. In that void of sound, the shallowness of their relationship had been laid bare. What used to be an intellectual banter of politics, and culture – intertwined with comedic moments that could be both purposeful and accidental – was now utterly vapid. After a while, their conversations became recycled, re-hashed, like the kind of twitterized garbage worthy of Fox News. And without so much as another word, Rutherford had vanished.
Myk compared the Wraith’s absence to a never-ending winter, to a dawn devoid of bird song. Although he had never seen Rutherford, never felt more than a cold shift in the air that could be described as a passing ghost – and sometimes spent days at a time without knowing Rutherford was there – Myk had missed the spectre as vividly as a lost limb. He had begun a search, but it was difficult to track a creature that lacked a physical entity. Besides, how would he know if he had found him? Myk didn’t have the foresight to perceive ghosts, so if Rutherford simply chose not to speak to him, Myk would never even know if the creature was right there. Calling on the aid of others would have been a great solution, if Myk wasn’t the type to aggressively stand on the notion of fending for himself, that is. Really, he just hated the idea of being a burden to anyone – even those who considered him a dear and beloved friend and would genuinely find it a pleasure to assist him. Jezebel and Noelle knew Rutherford, and they could spot him with ease, but he didn’t want to trouble them. They would tell him too – “It’s really no bother at all!” – but it would be a bother to him. He would feel indebted to them, chained, imprisoned – it was irrational, but it was the truth. So Myk patrolled the streets like an alley cat, mewling and howling out that same tune to the dead man’s name: Rutherford.
He was certain that if he continued to search for Rutherford, his persistence would at least pester the Wraith into appearing even if it was to tell him to take a long walk off a very short pier. Rutherford could be rather poetic, even when he was basically telling you to **** off and die. One of the easiest ways for Myk to pester the grumpy Wraith was to wear one of his outrageous frocks. For once, Myk kept his appearance subtle and flattering. His attire was rather basic, as if he’d been given the words “black”, “red” and “leather” and had ran with it. Myk paired a typical vest top with a cropped leather jacket with red satin lining, and jeggings – the kind that were high-shine and skin-tight like a street walker. Scarlet and charcoal shades framed his pewter eyes and a similar shade of red stained his lips. His bone-white hair was kept long and straight, pouring down his shoulders in sharp, tapered tresses. A single line of burgundy was drawn into his hair on the right side, just behind the ear; a little bit of drama in so much consistency. Myk did his best to sweep the lengths back behind his shoulders, but the slightest breeze or movement would have the tresses disobey. In the end, Myk would give up brushing back the shorter lengths that tickled his collar bones, having much more pressing matters to pay attention to.
Walking the streets yowling out a single man’s name while dressed like a prostitute was – apparently – an effective way to draw the wrong type of attention. Reactions to the Telepath were always mixed. Some found him scary – either because they were afraid anything not normal, or of psychopaths in general. Others found Myk to be quite striking – he had this gothic, Victorian, androgynous, crazy thing going on that could be attractive to the right audience. Some found him provocative – like a tabloid headline that screamed out for an extreme emotional reaction while giving little away about the actual contents of the story. And then there were the people who ignored him because they were so absorbed in their own world that they weren’t able to see beyond it, or they ignored him because they simply didn’t know how to deal with him and couldn’t establish the effort. Myk didn’t need these people to deal with him, and while he was always entertained by the many reactions he found in people, he wasn’t strung like a puppet to their whims. Myk dressed as he wanted to, to express whatever he was feeling, which apparently was “depressed whore”. Most people rarely saw past the surface of things anyway, and rarer still was the ability to see past what one wanted to see. If people were used to seeing anything abnormal as terrifying, then their reaction was avoidance or hostility. Myk had no time for these people at all and if they chose to start a fight, he wasn’t opposed to finishing them. It wasn’t his first instinct – to annoy people into fights, or to even start a fight at all – but he was compelled by his emotions.
While some people had given him a wide birth, some rude gestures, some looks of curiosity and some disgust, Myk had only wandered past them with a crooked smile and vacant pewter eyes. On his walk, those metal eyes narrowed as if the street lights and the cold air were painful, but were determined in their search for some semblance of a ghostly figure, convinced that they might be able to see Rutherford just this once. It was a futile hope. Myk understood the reality of the situation, that he would have to access the required abilities in order to see the dead – to see Wraiths and Spirits as cleanly as he saw Humans and Vampires. Myk was also reminded of the Wraiths he could see too – the Wraith Guides – and how unlikely it would be that Rutherford would be different than a shadowy apparition. Still, he couldn’t escape the niggling worm of anticipation that had him convinced that one day he might blink and open his eyes to a man’s face staring down and smiling wickedly at him. The Telepath had an overactive imagination, and from the sound of Rutherford’s voice, and his behaviour, Myk visualised a perfect white face with cerulean eyes surrounded by flaxen curls and dressed in a butler’s attire. Myk imagined a face not unlike the youthful Tom Cruise embodying Lestat de Lioncourt, one that had the facial structure and beauty of an aristocrat – high, sharp cheek bones; a long, straight nose; one proud, square chin; a high, flat brow and slim, curved lips. Only Rutherford didn’t strike Myk as an aristocrat himself, and more an aesthetically gifted servant – one that took his duties very seriously.
Maybe it was just because of the tenuous bond they shared that Myk felt this way about Rutherford. Wraiths summoned from the Shadow Realm were quite often regarded as servants, weren’t they? Myk had given Rutherford a few commands in his time, but it wasn’t as if Rutherford was obliged to undertake them. Quite frankly, the Wraith did his own thing most of the time and didn’t respond well to requests, not even harmless questions. Rutherford gave more commands than was given, as a matter of fact. He was always whispering in Myk’s ear, giving unwarranted advice; he fussed and fidgeted over Myk’s life like a seamstress hen-pecking over every fibre and stitch in a dress. It was almost as if he had to make Myk better if he was going to tolerate him as a superior. Rutherford took the initiative to ensure that the Vampire’s life ran as smoothly as possible – rather like a butler managing an Earl’s estate. The Wraith’s accent – that very upper-class British snobbery that was prevalent in the time of Queen Victoria – was simply the glue that forced all the pieces of impression in Myk’s head to squish together and become a face he recognised as beautiful, vindictive and utterly unflappable.
A little unexpected thrill ran through Myk once he’d crossed the street, closing in on the doors of an innocuous-looking building. It was very much like being magnetised toward the spot, an electrical pressure that drew him in and charged every hair on his body to stand straight. An anxious thought crept in almost immediately after that tug, reflecting on the possibility that something dangerous just might be hidden behind those doors. After a quick shrug, Myk pushed the door with unintentional force, sending it swinging back into the darkness. He peered in, his body drawn taut with expectation. Pushing his head through the door felt like he was sticking his head into an icebox or walk-in refrigerator. There was a soft pressure against his flesh along with so much cold, and a strange, muffled sound coming from deep within. Myk rolled his shoulders, sagging slightly, and then told his feet to move. After a little contesting, they did so, bringing him through the dark narrow corridor that reminded him of far too many sex clubs, before he happened upon another set of doors. Here the chill in the air and that strange buzzing noise were far more potent. Myk felt like the liquid in his eyes were frosting over and his whole body vibrated as if invaded by the sound and energy of stroboscopic music. This room was not dark like the hallway, but bright and clinical almost as if he had walked into a dentist’s laboratory from the future.
The floor was bleached white tile, the walls were made up of some kind of dentine, and there was a check-in centre with no receptionist. Everything was an eerie white and looked abandoned, untouched. Yet, there was not a single speck of dust. A slight breeze stirred the unrepressed filaments of Myk’s hair, and he watched the tiny white strands dance lightly and pull like they were rushing away from him. Pewter eyes followed their lead, finding that behind the little abandoned check-in area was a pair of doors: one green and one orange. While their appearance might not have been suspicious in themselves, the fact that they were the only burst of colour in a room as white as the sclera of an Angel’s eyes made Myk’s brow knot. What was the purpose of this building and why had he felt a familiar tug drag him here? He had been looking for his long-lost Wraith, his mind set on tracking an invisible aura, and it had led him here. Why? Well… perhaps the answer lay behind one of these two doors.
“Heads or tails?” Myk murmured to himself, his breath billowing out in front of him in hazy blazes. “Right or left? Green or orange…”
A shrug of the shoulders, a flick of the hair, and steps proceeded toward the green door.
