I stumbled forwards as a ghost brushed

by me, proudly sporting a bright

orange stain on his sheets, and almost

tripped over Frankenstein's monster's

shoes in the process. the costume here

we're cheesy and ugly but the lack of effort

had it's own charm. In the corner of the room

was my closest freind Mark who had showed

up covered in toilet paper, that was his costume, sellotape and toilet paper, and

the toilet paper wasn't lasting as long as

the tape was so it beginning to look more

like he'd had an accident in the bathroom and

ended up with more than the toilet paper

attached to his shoes.

I wanted to head over to him and make some

sort of joke about him being the toilet paper

fairy or smth but when I look in his direction

and he saw me he turned away.

I frowned. So Zackary had got to him first.

That said more about Mark than it did about Zackary though. I'd always know Zackary was

the sort to say whatever it took to get what he wanted, I hadn't minded, he was handsome and

nice to me and I'd never really held my partner to expectation higher than those.

and even though I felt some annoyance at the

fact that clearly Mark had been told Zackary's

version of our break up which I was sure

villainised to maximum, and Mark had simly taken him at his word, I still want to clear

things up with him.

of course I would, right? He was a friend,

I wanted him to think well of me.

but the moment I took a step towards

him I saw him narrow his eyes and be made a

pivot, turning around and heading straight

into the kitchen.

I couldn't if that was a chance or he had been

watching me out of the corner of his eye

but I didn't care. I didn't care if they where roommate, he was close enough to me that he

had no excuse to believe over Zackary over me

to such an extent that he wouldn't even allow me to explain myself.

So when I turned back around and walk away,

coming to terms with that fact that this ridiculous end to my four years romance with that idiot had ultimately lost me more freinds

than it had ever been worth I wasn't Massively pleased.

**THE DAY PRIOR**.

"You're cold and you're selfish."

"You.. I don't even know how you can say that.

you should be begging me to forgive right now

and you're saying I'm the problem?"

"You don't actually care. "

He was right, I didn't actually care.

Somehow the fact that I had gotten home in the morning to see him in bed with another definitely ***** man who was, at the time, cuddling mi pillow with his ripped hairy chest, it didn't matter to me. It was a shocked though.

but in terms of a boyfriend to a boyfriend I knew I should have cared more, I watch enough

badly acted soaps to know that I didn't care nearly as much as other people did about the people I dated.

"I do care." I Lied.

"You're lying. and that's the problem.

you never actually care, that's why I did this, that's why you ever date will always do this."

"Why the h-

"Testing boundaries,lake, no one knows what the hell your boundaries are!"

"You're not-

"You don't get mad when i flirt with people

but you don't flirt with people but you don't care If I leave in a month and say nothing you don't

take down our picture. If I broke up without this happening you'd probably say goodbye without a second galance. You don't care anyone except yourself and you know what? That sucks, it really sucks, it sucks!"

If I'm such a shitty person why did you ever date me in the first place. Even more of a question, why date me for four years? I thought we were good together. do I have to hunt you across the earth and pin you down and tattoo my name into your neck?"

"You could at least-"

"No.you-"

"Let me speak."

"Let me speak.", I snapped. "You're spouting excuses right now. If you felt this way you could have talked to me about it. I don't need some guys balls rubbing up against my bed sheets just because you don't know what I'm thinking. That's next level messed up. "

But even as I was speaking I felt a twing of guilt

settle inside me. He wasn't wrong, though,I didn't care. So what right did I have to try to make him guilt for cheating on me? Thought

I'd readly admit any day that hygiene aspects bothered me. I didn't even want to touch the mattres after there bedtime Olympics in it.

Surely,if anything, me guilt tripping him

and getting mad at him was what he had been seeking for some time, by his own account.

So I had no reason to feel bad about putting him on the spot like that even if it was probably

just a method of deflection.

But when I looked from the mattress up at

Zackary's face and saw his tears swimming in

his eyes eventually

tumbling over and down his cheeks I wondered if those where my fault or his fault.

I don't know what to do.

I felt a little helpless like a, big giant lumbering around accidentally ruining and breaking things

as I attempted to make my way through

dense undergrowth.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly, his low voice breaking briefy, making it squeak like

a rustly wheel. "I didn't- I don't...

Terrible, I was a terrible person.

without thinking about it I drew him in

close to me and hugged him tightly.

"It's ok." I said quietly.

"It is?" He asked, all the hope in his voice bleeding out into the quiet room.

I frowned, pulling away but keeping my arms around him. "I'm not angry at you-" I quickly

amended the sentence; "anymore...but I'm obviously breaking up with you."

I saw the spark of anger in his eyes flash

like a sparkler before he shoved me half

and I stumbled backwards, my footsteps loud

on the hardwood floor.

"**** you!" He glared at me.

My eyebrows pointed towards the centre of

my forehead, my forehead creasing in response "Why I'm forgiving you but Zack,

of course we're breaking up, why would we stay together at this."

"Why the **** do we have to break up!"

He screamed at me, more tears threatening

to fall from that big brown eyes of his.

There was a brief pause before I recollected myself. "Because.. I...well I don't know, that's

what people do, If you cheat at me once what says you won't cheat at me again kind of thing."

He glared at me fiercely. "What's the point in you saying you forgive me if you still want to trash our whole relationship at one little mistake that doesn't even bother you." He stepped forward and shoved me hard, But my taller form didn't go backwards as easily as maybe he hoped. "I hate you. You want to break up with me? Fine. clearly you don't cared about me. I'll found someone way better than you

out there... I... "

I watched him silently as he was marching towards the door and he turned around dramatically but couldn't find the word

to slice me in two with.

"You..." He wiped the tears off of his reddened face,seemingly infuriated, and then swung his fist out, swiping the lamp I'd had since the third year of primary school off of the desk beside the door. The poor lamp that had been so resilent for so long, seen so much and survived so many beatings, smashed into the ground in more than a couple of pieces, the wood splintering in every direction like every individual had just been for an opportunity to make it's own way in life.

The sound alone was enough to make me

believe that he was angry but he still seemed convinced I didn't understand.

"I can stand you." he bit out. "Don't come near me after this. Lose my number."He opened the door. "And lose Mark number too. Don't contact me or my friends."

I frowned, I've known Mark longer than you, I

wanted to add. But it didn't matter I was convinced he would make sure Mark would be the one sticking to his rule of me not contacting him or his friends. This wasn't up to me.

It was why I tried to call him Immediately

after but his phone didn't ring, out of battery, as usual. So what did it matter, I would be at the Halloween party tomorrow evening with him and I could explain everything that happened then.

Mark was definitely annoyed with me, but probably not nearly as annoyed at me as I was with him...still I wasn't unhappy, but then again

I also wasn't flying off of the walls in glee or shouting, red-faced and getting really invested in Mario Kart with the others. Maybe this was just because I was drinking the non-alcoholic punch, the punch they had coloured a very appealing green brown, it looked like mulch

and tasted just as shitty as the mixed one

which was a jelly shade of red.

It made absolutely no sense for me to me thinking about Zackary tonight.

Aside from Mark being a **** to me this whole thing didn't matter. Tonight I would scope around for some buddies to hang out with, get all festive with the lads and enjoy myself, and really that was more likely to piss Zack off than me getting irritated over Mark all night.

It was time to forget it, forget that I be going home tonight on my own for the first time in a long time without at least the knowledge that there where someone else coming home eventually, someone else that I shared the large apartment with that I never particularly wanted to move into anyway. For once I would return and see more than half the possession, which were his, in the house missing, and my lamp.

for once the light at the kitchen will be off, which it never was, even when Zack wasn't home because he always left it on.

But like I said. Time to forget it, time to invest myself in other people around me rather than my own life, and the slight niggling thought at the back of my mind that reminded that a failed relationship was a great indication that my life was failing into pieces around me without me caring and noticing.

I headed towards the lads in the corner and

chugged the rest of the punch down as I walked. They were laughing between then, red in the faceand cackling, they looked like like they were fun. I like fun.

~﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏~

It was thoughts like that, that landed me in confusing situations like this.

As I was sitting there in the slab of stones

that was sticking out from the grass beneath me and I looked around, hearing the quickly fading laughter of some guys off in the distance, who I couldn't even discern from my friends or some random blokes, that I realized I

maybe wasn't as sober as I had initially thought.

It was a weird blur, remembering how I got there, but the memories hadn't yet gone... it was more like they had been misplaced, shuffle out of order.

First I had been in the party, I'd drunken punch

and remember laughing about something or other with a bunch of guys there. We'd resolve to go trick or treating at some point, I think, which I had agreed to for no other reason then I was very blatantly drunk.

Looking back I thought perhaps the clear red punch had probably been the non-alcoholic one, and not the other way around. That made more sense, it hadn't tasted great.

We had knocked on a couple houses and two houses hadn't come to the door, a lady come and laughed and given as sweets from the bowl she prepared for the kids and... I wasn't sure... I think three was a fourth house we went to where an old lady threatened to call the police or something, considering we were drunk I wouldn't have blamed her as a sober man.

And then we had scattered? The question mark was relevant because I really didn't remember.

In the end I had come here for whatever reason,

I had ended here in the park in the last fading minutes of the blue hours.

Everything was dark, the bushes and the trees

and the jutting stone slabs from the ground

all completely pitch black in contrast to the sky that actually pretty bright blue, for how dark earth seemed to be.

Stone slabs... I stood up slowly and turned to

inspected the stone closer.

Was it... I couldn't see any writing on it but it was to dark to tell. Looking around at the similarity sized slabs of stone, one was clearly a child statue of an angel on a podium, the wings of the angel clearly recognisable through the silhouette.

This were graves.

shit. I covered my mouth dramatically.

"Oh no, I've just sat on a person." I exclaimed, brushing the gravestone with my hand as though that might help remove some germs.

Wha did Christians do when they accidentally sat on dead people? was there a etiquette for that?

I'd been raised in an atheist household and decided growing up that I couldn't care less, agnostic I guess, and when I died I was happy to be left on compost heap to rot, I was unlikely to care about my torso's wellbeing at that point.

But I'd always had a feeling that offending someone else version of God was an exceedingly shitty thing to do, for some reason, for the God's sake more than for the person

It was the sort of thing I really never thought unless someone asked me about it, because I was infinitely bored by the subject. If there was a god he never messed with me and if there wasn't it still didn't sound like it would affect me.

I was so busy thinking about this I almost sat back down on the gravestone and I was looking up suddenly noticed a large figure in the distance. Still as a statue. Pich black, somehow even more pitch black than everything else around me that was pitch black.

I saw the form shift in the breeze as thought it was just a dark mass hovering about a grave, like a blanket that had been flung through the area and impossibly suspended mid-movement. There was a loud strangled moan that come from that exact direction. A moan like someone is in pain followed by a strangled sob. It was a human, definitely right?

Those were the sound that only human can make....

A chill ran down my spine which I easily shifted

to side and ignored. There was fear there, settling inside my chest, but I still felt warm from the alcohol, and felt as though I was secured by it too, like it was anchoring me to the earth beneath my feet so that I didn't run off

in my head and start daydreaming about it being some kind of violent beast about to come running, bounding towards me with fangs out.

I took a small step closer, which might as well have been no step at all. And even then I could see nothing that could logically reassure me as

to what it was.

I hadn't been there before, had it?

The form contorted once more, raising so that it was impossibly tall. It made me doubt how far away it was, but how dark it was hard to tell.

Another step forward, one of my shoes sinking slightly into muddy pathways between the graves.

The resulting sound was enough to alert whatever it was in the distance, unless I was mistaken, because it seems to freeze. It's form,

that had almost been fluttering in the breeze, completely froze, looking more as thought itself

that had frozen it, and not that it was a simply lifeless stationary subject.

I rubbed my eyes. Maybe it was a trick of the light. It really wasn't moving, and I was slowly convincing myself that anything that didn't move no matter what, either didn't exist or never move to begin with.

But I had seen it moved.

A trick of the eyes? Or had that punch really messed me up like that.

For whatever reason I had desperate pull in my heart,as though I was being dragged towards it in my mind. Being drawn forwards. Maybe it was curiosity or stupidity, following some messed up instinct to comfront the whatever might hurt us. It didn't matter, I was itching to move towards it.

Well, nothing better to do than interact with the huge black mass lurking in the distance in the middle of the night, In the graveyard I found myself otherwise alone inside.

I was a pretty wise drunk, what can I say.

As I was slowly crossing the distance between me and the strange figure I stumbled on a short gravestone that had slanted diagnolly over time and seemingly sunk into the earth enough to be almost hidden.

I cough myself out of a chance and my arms hovered in the air for a moment afterwards as I

attempted to stay upright. There was the strange smell of ash and burning floating in the air, and it was getting stronger.

I looked around, trying to move forwards. The mud sucked my trainers back down and there was a squelching sound as I freed myself. Definitely not a route I'd recommend for any hikers out there.

It took me a moment to realize that i had been walking in a general direction and completely forgotten where I was walking to, why or what for? My head felt like it had just reset itself. I wanted to keep going, but I had forgotten where I was heading to.

When I looked down I noticed this weird mist resting on the floor. Similar looking to the sort of clouds you see settle on the floor when people vape, but instead of dissipating this fog just swirled around my legs as I moved through it as though I was moving in some sort of above cloud Lake.

There was a loud screech somewhere off in the distance and I swung my head around almost to fast to look. The world shifted slightly, the combination of alcohol and motion made me dizzy. What had i hoped to see anyway? The blue hour had just passed, the sky was just becoming a very deep dark blue, the light of the day had almost fully dissipated.

The branches of the trees curling their thin, bony little fingers around the moon as though they were trying to take possession of it, leaves rustling in the faint breeze that passed through.

Another loud screech, could have been a bird, or a fox, or person.

The only left was that reflecting off of the moon, and the tiny blinding little circle of light somehow never seemed to reach the part of the earth I was standing on.

But when I looked up in front of me I remember what it was I had been walking towards and i

swallowed loudly.

The giant black form in front of me was so still I could barely believe it was alive, but I knew it was, somehow. Call it drunken fantasy or idiocy

or whatever I was convinced for no reason that

this strange black hole inside the world was alive in some capacity.

I stared for a moment longer and then suddenly the creature moved, growing taller all of a sudden, hunching over me. The rippling torn edges of a black fabric spreading out into the air and waves running through it in semi-slow motion. There was a dark fog that spread around me and it that seemed to grow thicker and denser and curled at the edge of its form, dark tendrils that seemed eager to reach out for me. A long stick stretching out from the darkness, a long curve blade attached to the top that gleamed in the sunlight which winked at me as I looked up at it in shock.

I stumbled back a step in slow setting surprise, looking up and seeing, for the first time, a face peak out from the hooded figure.

My heart hummered away in the quiet.

I held my breath.

{A/N} OMGG TY Y'ALL I HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT TIME READING THIS 😭BIG HUGS TO Y'ALL!