I can't cry. If I do, Anne will see just how fragile I am but at the same time, this would be the perfect time to blame all my tears on Cole's injury instead of my own fear.

My hand hovered over Cole's arm, nearly twisted out of place at the elbow while blood as red as a strawberry dripped down his chin, mixed in sweat. He shook as if my fingers had brushed the wound ruddy with dried blood right under his elbow. If he was fireleaf, I would have thought he was having a memory.

But royalleaves don't have memories, not even the ones like Cole who wholeheartedly believed he was like me. A brother to my kind with no regard for his blood or the standing fact that he wasn't a reborn. In many ways he was lucky, but seeing the frail fifteen-year-old lay stretched out on the old couch covered in more blood and wounds than I could recall in my life brought me back to the realization that none of us were lucky.

"Cole, hold on buddy. Anne went to find something to fix you up with and soon we'll get you back home." My fingers caressed his face, wiping away a stray tear dancing in the dim light of the lamp above his head. A hardened black mark under his eye sent his body into a spasm, a hiss loud enough to rattle windows vibrated through my body.

I snatched my hand back, fighting back the electricity from his skin that was throwing itself against my ribcage as if an animal was trapped inside my body, clawing for freedom. Closing my eyes against the pain, I could see electricity, jagged streaks against my eyelids violet in color. A vivid sheet of white blared out the black with each bright purple haze that entranced me with its beauty.

Opening my eyes seemingly on cue with the steady creaking of the staircase, my heavy breathing seemed to block out the soft crying of Cole. His left eye was half closed, particularly swollen, and only revealing a disk of gold dotted with his enlarged pupil. Scorch areas like the one on his face were already starting to shift into a dark purple at his fingertips, leaving traces of its marking under his nail beds.

"Ash? Is that you?" The younger boy's voice is strained against the pain of his blood-covered wounds. His right eye, seemingly unharmed gathered fog as he searched my face, placing his palm on the back of my hand.

"Yes, it's me. It's your big brother." No matter how hard I try to tell him that he'll be fine and make it into the break of dawn, I fall short.

Warm tears, hot like blood formed at the corner of my eyes, falling down my cheek and landing on the boy's skin. This should not happen to someone so young and nearly defenseless. Still, at the same time, I'm led back to the fact that I have no clue who or what caused this.

"I was able to find an old first aid kit in the upstairs storage, though, I'm not sure if it's any good though." Anne's frantic whisper only was making Cole's current situation worst than it already was.

The case was slowly fading into a ghostly brown from what I guessed was once strong leather divided by a bright red imprint of a cross and the words: First Aid. The bag, even though torn and slowly heading into a state of decay might be the very thing that saves the life of our young friend.

"Anne's here? Why do you have scars on your face? Both of you?" His breath turns shallow as he forced his head up from the armrest, turning his head from Anne to me.

Even after what seemed like a memory, Anne seemed focused, "We're fine, Cole. It's nothing you can do to help us now."

And she's right in more ways than one. We can't even help ourselves, the best thing we can do is save the one with at least a grain of innocence. He doesn't need to know about the tunnels, and quite frankly it's best if he doesn't till he's rested.

Anne reached into the bag by the wide exposed hole in the leather, ripping open the remaining strings keeping the leather pieces attached. Tin and glass clanked at her touch, but despite it, she began to pile objects out on the empty space on the couch. A tin can was first, a red mixed with brown tarnishing the rim, slowly reaching down to the bottom case.

Pulling away, with a little struggle, the top popped wide open revealing contents that were nevertheless covered in a grey dusty cast but very well from first glance appeared to be in a relatively good state. A few bandages, not even large enough for the scars on my face lay in the silver square can. Dried cotton swabs found themselves under the bandages, unused but affected with the inevitable fate of age.

Separating them, I reached for a wintergreen-colored bottle marked in a written word that was the half spelling of Alcohol. Left without a swab or cotton ball to wet the only option was to use a substitute. Anne reached the bottom of the bag, filling the empty space beside Cole's scared feet with things that were either useless,  damaged badly, or coated in so much rust that attempting to use it would be foolish.

Anne, clutched something in her hand, a wheel of gauze. The roll was a light yellow, aged but good enough for use. A half weak smile far from reaching her eyes appeared holding what was a small victory.

"Anne, you care for him till I get back some rags to clean his wounds. I won't be long."

She nodded, "Don't fall asleep on the way there, I'm sure the sun will be rising soon and with the-."

Anne hesitated, but Cole seemed intrigued by her sudden pause. She glanced towards him but kept the uncomfortable silence going. Her hand clamped down on his, lightly grazing his small scratch. He squirmed against the sting, hissing under her touch.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Cole." Her words are low and resounding, dark eyes looking deep into the honey-colored ones still begging for an answer, "When the wounds don't sting I'll tell you."

"They don't sting- as bad." Cole lifted himself, pretending to be strong. Royalleaves always seemed to be on death row one minute and the next holding entire conversations. That only meant he was healing by their powers, scabs covering over the infection. That was worst.

"Stop moving around before you rub infection into one of those wounds." My hand rested on his shoulder for a moment, before moving his sleeve up from a dark, hardening burn from his flames and electricity.

His shirt was an infection on its own, rips in the fabric revealing raw flesh and cuts that weren't as deep as the ones on his shoulders and arms. Whatever it had been really put up a fight and wasn't afraid of powers. They knew what they were doing.

"Like the way you did with Storm?" By the time that the voice latched on to my mind, Anne was already waving me off with the back of her hand.

"Are you going or not?" Anne turned away from me with a curl of her lip, reaching again for the same hand that Cole's stinging scar was on, barely visible besides the bright red mark that ran from in between the flesh of his thumb to the back of his hand.

Cole, this time bit his lip against the pain, probably combining with the horrid pain of the other wounds that made their mark on his ebony skin. I wanted to ask what did such a number on him, but Anne's eyes had shot a warning at me before I could even get a chance.

"A monster like you."

Kurt.

His voice makes me tremble, it's like hearing myself talk about things that would never leave my lips. It's a snarky tone full of empty sarcasm and hatred. No matter how hard I want to believe he's Kurt, I can't do it. I was once Kurt Cobain and no memory I ever had of his past painted him in such a way. Maybe spirits change with time.

"We don't change, you changed. So much." The Kurt spirit moved, swishing air around the area. Yet, Anne had a less bothered reaction, smearing some salvaged ointment on Cole's burns, scolding him with her eyes each time he shrunk into the couch cushions.

She shivered at the gust, pulling her arms together against her chest for only a moment before returning to her work. Anne was so content, so calm even after I finally woke her, she came off as a person who was rather up from resting their eyes instead of having a memory.

I lifted myself from the floor, particularly to fetch the clean clothes in the upper bathroom and the other to confront the spirit. My mind roamed back to the alleyway again, that grim look of dissatisfaction as I sat on the solid ground.

I couldn't tell Anne. In the situation, it was best if she stayed as clueless as Cole was to the tunnels. If the spirit wanted her to see him, I without a doubt knew that he would have already spoken to her instead of toying with her.

Each step I took was echoed by another one, heavy and uneven steps that could only be achieved through purpose. The hallway of this building always reminded me of my old apartment. It held the rounded build, two strange-looking pillars on either side of the room seemingly holding up the second floor.

A clock, left dead on the wall had exploded its strange filling in the inside almost shaped a miniature aloe plant around the hands. Right in the middle of two pictures that resided in almost every complex in the city, the clock, once our trusty timekeeper after coming from the attic had met it's death.

Kurt passed me, gentle tapping on the wood and avoiding every crack in the planks to keep quiet as if he was avoiding catching the attention of Anne and Cole. The fear I felt towards him once was starting to drain into annoyance.

I couldn't grasp if he was Kurt or not. If he was powerful or only had pull in the memory scape and if he was after something from me before disappearing forever. He definitely wasn't an afterghost, they were too mindless and on top of that, Kurt Cobain was reincarnation.

A force, stronger than a bull slammed into my shoulder. I grabbed the rail of the wooden staircase, slamming my knees into the sandy-colored bars. A flash of light blurred around the top of the staircase, dimming as the glow took shape into a human.

Shoes, jeans, shirt, a golden unruly crown of hair and eyes that could kill. He glitched out, blond coils of the tips of his hair shifting black for a second before shaping back into the normal form. He stood at the top stair, wild eyes watching me.

"You are weak." Kurt pressed his lips into a tight frown, crouching down to reveal the mud-stains on his clothing. Grey dust left its mark on his shirt. His expression was so jumbled that it was nearly impossible to know what his next move would be.

"Don't speak, you impostor!"

Kurt, turned down the passageway before looking back down at me, "Imposter? That's cute. Both you and I know that you murdered an innocent kid, am I right?"

"No! I didn't do it and you can't prove it either. It's just a ploy!" I snarled, fighting down a wave of anger so raw that it was burning my stomach from the inside.

"Yes," Kurt cooed, "You did."

I pushed up the staircase, ignoring the weak screams from the wood under my feet. The wood snapped under my weight right on the first stair, sending half of my body through the decaying wood. My fingers grabbed onto a ridge on the overhanging stair.

Kurt moved like a snake, his awkward walking shifted into a unique grace. He paused right in front of me, looking me straight in my eyes. A crooked grin hardly reaching his eyes made me sick.

A thick piece of wood pushed into the soft skin of my stomach, right above my naval as if they were working with Kurt. All waiting for me to fall to my death in the dark abyss below. A splinter caught my palm, but only a curse could attack him.

"Anne can't hear you? I thought you thought I was only powerful in the dreamscape but I don't live in your mind, I live below you. Remember that every time you walk on New York concrete." Kurt ran his nails down my cheek, blood gushing from the new wound.

I yelled out in agony, kicking out against masses of what felt like mounds of slowly rotting wood. I fought to keep my grip, a thousand thoughts running around in my head. For some reason, Anne wasn't running around the corner, taking on Kurt despite failure.

And if it was the doing of this insane spirit, I was grateful.

Blood splattered against the dark-colored wood, the air rising from the boiler room making the cut worst. Kicking up, my shirt tore but with two strong kicks against the wood stack and holding on to the stair lip, my body was thrown against the ridged wood. Kurt didn't move once, just cocked his head slightly. Bloodstained fingers hung right above my head, a taunt.

My lip trembled when I tried to speak. Kurt stood up, turning his back to where I lay bleeding on the staircase. Using my palm as a stable crutch, I wobbled on my legs like a child just learning to walk. Every inch of the floor felt like an unstable plank of wood because, with Kurt, one, if not all of them probably was.

The spirit waited at the end of the hallway, hand-pressed on the striped peach-colored walls that had always given me some peace. My mother's favorite color but watching him stand against the wallpaper, glaring through blue eyes that were an exact copy to mine. His raspy voice was like knives sticking into my skin over and over. Too much like me. Way too much.

I lurched after him, nearly falling over on the hound tooth patterned runner carpet stopping at the end of the hallway, the black and white well-made fabric mixing in my eyesight as an unpredicted wave of dizziness hit. Out of three rooms, only one of them had his attention. The bathroom.

He disappeared inside the room, opening the door and flicking on the light with a gentle humming of the electrical wires still holding on by not paid bills but the lacing of both Anne and I, using our ability to fill the wall with electrical power that had nearly left us both powerless for a month.

If I could do it again, I might terrify Kurt but I don't even wanna think about it. Twice is the charm but the pain that erupted from my throat, nearly splitting my stomach wide open was enough to persuade me that this bastard wasn't worth dying over. I'd rather fight him.

A knife in my pocket that had once been in my old clothing felt heavier than ever with each footstep when my mind remembered the weapon's existence. I slipped my hand around the hilt, watching as the hanging lights glinting against the long body of the blade.

Cracks of brown poked out of the white margin around the door, gold light escaping from the room and illuminating the dark entryway. A large painting of cattle grazing in an endless pasture under a blazing ball of fire that made the sun.

Walking forward, my feet locked to the floor out of terror as Kurt slammed the bathroom door shut just as my fingers touched the cool painted wood. His deep-throated laugh echoed behind the door, mocking my voice even though he didn't even have to try.

Turning the knob, the door creaked open while silencing the spirit at the same time. But even an idiot knew he was far from done playing his games. This washroom was smaller than the one at my old childhood apartment, only a small white toilet to the left of the fall, blue and grey tiles stopping at the tiny bathtub that was still wet after my shower.

My clothes hung over the railing of the bathtub, wet with water dripping from their fabric. The new clothes were found in a box right at the entryway of the costume room on the other end of the hallway. They fit tight against my skin, but it was that or nothing. The water echoed against the ceramic, hitting the metal drain in a song.

I don't wanna see him, but there he stood glancing out the window overlooking the city on one end, allowing you sight over the alleyway leading into the night of pale streetlights and a reduced number of cars lighting up the road every few moments.

"The city is beautiful at night. It's such a shame that people like me have to be alone." Kurt pressed his palm to the small glass window, crossing his fingers down each light reflecting in the glass.

Closing in on the spirit, he stifled, glitching again. His size shrank a bit but sparks of violet hid anything under the ghost's near-transparent haze that enrolled his body.

The spirit shook the closer I got to him, he pulled his lips back in a warning grimace. I moved back, pressing my neck to the hanger. Kurt turned back to the window, lights shimmering in his eyes like all the stars in the sky had found their way into his pupils.

"Why did you try to kill me back there?" I could almost still feel the uneven planks tearing into my skin, the swift rush of air drowning my toes. It still wasn't as terrifying as the alleyway's hollow.

"Because every second that passes, Anne loses faith in me. The first attempt was a test of fear, the second was a blind warning."

I'm left dumbfounded. What does any of that mean and why would anything Anne does affect me?

He kept on, avoiding all questions, "I live on in more forms than this, Ash. Loneliness has taught me tricks and trades of both tables. The table of royalleaves and the one of fireleaves. But only Anne has seen my true form."

True form. Then that means that this isn't Kurt or is in another life. I didn't speak, just waited for Kurt to keep on.

"She made me promise that holds your life and the life of everyone else you care about on an extremely thin rope." With a flick of his hand against the curtain, the white fabric crashed to the floor.

"She wouldn't dare. I've seen her prove herself to me too many times to trust the likes of you or any of these so-called forms." I thrust my face towards where he stood, the air stinging the slowly healing scars.

He was surprisingly calm and out of character for a moment, "It wasn't a matter of proving anything or loyalty for that matter. Remember that childish pact you two made all those years ago, she couldn't break it so she sold her loyalty to me to protect you and that pact."

For the first time, I believed Kurt, or whoever this person was. Whatever this thing is. Only a person who spoke to one of us could know that pact. It seemed that only he could know things I thought of the moment and the pact was far from my mind.

"Who are you?"

"Only Anne can know that. Even if you attempted to pry, she's too afraid to tell you or anyone else. And if I were you, I would have that same fear." Kurt grinned, running his fingers through the tips of his hair.

Kurt reached out, I ducked away before I could even notice that he was only paving his way for an exit. A creak from the stairway snapped my eyes away from where the spirit walked down the hallway. Gentle creaks followed him.

"Ash? Where are you?" It's a frenetic tone in her call, less asking where I am and more so that something was going on. Something horribly wrong.

Almost like my mother when the landlord came to our to handle the adding of our expense after one of us lost control of our abilities. Burns in the walls, nail marking from one of frantic panics when a royalleaf was visiting the building. We had become like animals and our nature was something to fear, to be embarrassed by.

Living with royalleaves for so long had earned a special respect for them. The decent ones anyway.

"I'm up here, Anne." I honestly don't wanna know the next thing to come out of her mouth. I just wanna slip into a nap right here and forget everything. Forget the ghost, forget the pact, forget life and death, maybe Anne too.

I should have been born human, terrified of dead spirits instead of treating them like comrades, not sure if they are true or imposters because as children, even our guides didn't truly understand the life of a fireleaf.

The shadows seem to dance around the bathroom walls, gaining their own lives in the haze of my blurry vision. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

My muscles lock under the weight of the exhaust, eyelids fighting against my protest to keep them shut and slip into a long deep sleep. Only if worries could wait till the morning. I could almost feel hands cradling my head, singing away my pain with soft lyrics. My father's voice.

It's only my imagination, the voice feels too delude to be his. I don't remember the words of the song that he would soothe me to sleep with, only the warm glow in his eyes held it's grip on my deepest memory. That was the only thing I had left of him in my psyche, every pleasant compliment he whispered to my mother to make her smile, the warm scent of coffee in the morning filling the kitchen on Saturday, and each light brown freckle that marked his arms.

Who knows how many more siblings I would have had if it wasn't for their death? How many road trips taken and jokes told. Maybe Anne and I could have met under different circumstances and I could have treated her the way-

No! I don't even let my mind go there. It hurts too much. My jaw clenched tight as I pushed back tears, grabbing the locks of hair just to feel something that isn't empty. A sweet aroma of cinnamon and vanilla bean wafted from the threads. Anne's old shampoo, the only thing that I could use without worrying about harming my sensitive scalp.

Turning towards the door at Anne's steady calling, I winched at the touch of her thumb tracing the skin close to the scarlet-colored wound. "Oh, Ash."

Her voice melts like butter, crushed under suppressed anxiety. Scars on her soft skin make me sick, every one of them accounting for an event that nearly left one of us dead even if I don't quite remember them.

"Oh, Ash. Oh, Ash." Her voice trembled with each trace her fingers took down my face. My eyes met hers for only a moment, tears building up their own army in the corner of her wide eyes. She shut them tight to keep them from falling.

"Is it Cole?"

She nodded, "Kinda, but it's more of the strange royalleaf that keeps circling the fence. On top of that, Cole was beaten up by that old man on the north alleyway."

"You mean Wolf? That bastard tried to kill my little brother!" My tone came out more sluggish than angry. She doesn't know that he is the one person who knows about us, that I'm transporting packages of who knows what just to keep him from telling the humans about us.

Counting how many times I've restrained myself from leaving him dead in his old target shopping cart would be useless. He isn't worth losing my career over.

"Cole doesn't want you to do anything stupid and I'll enforce that." She grabbed my hand tight, pulling it to her lips to kiss the back of it.

I snorted, "Cole has never had a backbone. Of course, I appreciate his consideration but let's be completely honest-"

"He wants you to be safe, Asher. We can't lose you, especially with Mr. Crawford getting older and you being the eldest child and strongest left."

Ha! I'm not strong physically or mentally but if that's what you think. I fight the urge to say it out of respect for her.

"Just this one time and that's it." I lied.

Cole thankfully nodded as Anne finished cleaning his final wound, folding the blood-stained rag up and placing it on the floor beside her.

"I find it quite strange that everything seems to want to swallow you. The stairs have never been stable, but why didn't I hear you fall?" Anne watched me from her seat on the floor, using an old pillow to sit on.

I didn't answer. Not because I can't but if I do, I'll confuse her and myself. At this point, I'm starting to strongly believe that the spirit is nothing more than a figure of my imagination. But it knows Anne and claims to speak with her.

Asking might put her in danger and I won't take that risk. "Just a weak plank, I guess."

Two men walked close to the white fence, the one in the front seemingly the youngest, and from his heavy presence that outweighed the human's that followed close behind him in a tight blue police outfit. The policeman yawned about ten times since I've been at the window, his eyes red with sleep as the royalleaf relentlessly pushed on.

"Can we continue this search in the morning? I don't see the point of pushing everyone in the department off the hinges for an old murder case, Dale." The officer placed his tiny notebook back in his pocket, still keeping the bright yellow glow ahead.

"I can't believe those two ditched us right before we could even get to the intersection. It was almost as if they were afraid to confront these two. I hope you filled out a report before you left the station." Dale paused against the fence, pressing his back to the jagged arching wood.

The officer halted as well, scanning over the mess that made up the nearly overgrown area strangled with giant grass locks and weeds. He was practically falling asleep on his feet and honestly, I could definitely join him. His short height made him look like a midget in the height of the other man.

"If you ask me, they seemed like two pranksters that got you good, and no I didn't file a report when you were in such a rush."

They were looking for us going by the words of two other people. Or with my best guess, we might be the ones they are after.

Who could possibly lead these idiots to us?

"Teddy, I thought I told you to file. You know how dangerous it is for both of us to be out here without a report." Dale faced the officer as if he was having a conversation with his minor.

"As I did when I told you to let me sleep. I have another shift right after the clock hands hit twelve. But I'm the only one who puts up with your stupid hallucinations and ideas. You can't trust everyone!" Teddy exclaimed.

It's a soft silence that makes my stomach put as the two men walked off, a silent agreement between the two. Straining my eyes against the huge shadows of the row of building concealing the better of his face. A shallow glimmer in his eye was the only thing easily noticeable through the night.

Anne joined me, her head held high as a way to combat just how much a dangerous situation that we were in. Her finger scaled the ridge of the window, eyes peering into the darkness with a squint. "Why are they here?"

"They are investigating, I'm guessing Storm's murder, the officer said it was a recently closed case that the royalleaf keeps picking at." I hunched down as the two returned from the end of the plot, looked at the windows for any sign of life.

Anne pressed herself to the floor, gripping the carpet for dear life as they neared our building, speaking in hushed tones. The flashlight illuminated a self-made path, their footprints fading in with ours in the deep tangled roots.

"But how could they possibly find us without finding the shallows first and we have no address telling them where we live in the city. How?" Anne marveled at the relentlessness of the royalleaf.

Cole watched from his place on the couch, pushed by Anne into the corner of the room best concealed from the lousy window. He looked with an empty glare with the same hostility that a fireleaf would hold against a royalleaf. All in good reason despite that he and the royalleaf were of the same kind.

His gaze softened for just a second, mouth gaped at the royalleaf who turned his face to the light of the moon. What was unfamiliar to me seemed like a lost memory to him.

"That man-, I know him! His daughter helped me up through the passage."