GHOST OF THE PAST
PROLOGUE – THE HUSK
I was 29 when I died. Walking home from the late shift. The road was empty. The streetlights were buzzing. A girl was lying in the middle of it. I ran to her. Mid-twenties. Blood on her neck, two punctures. Breathing like a broken engine.
I fumbled for my phone to call an ambulance. I never made the call. Something cold hit my neck from behind. Teeth. No warning. No growl. Just a sharp, deep bite and a rush so cold it burned. Then black.
When I opened my eyes, the road was quiet. Whatever bit me was gone. The girl was still there, barely breathing. I called emergency with shaking hands. They came. Took her.
One paramedic looked at my neck and said, “You’re bleeding too.” I touched it. Nothing there. No wound. But my mouth tasted like copper. I walked home. I don’t remember walking.
She was there. My girlfriend. Just out of the shower. She smiled. “You’re late.” I tried to smile back. I couldn’t. She came closer and I smelled it. Under her perfume — blood. Warm, alive blood, just under her skin. My stomach turned inside out. Not with nausea. With hunger.
“I don’t feel good,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like me.
She touched my forehead. “You’re freezing.” Her wrist was right there. Veins blue. Pulsing. I stumbled back, hit the window. Sunlight cut through a gap in the curtain and hit my hand. It sizzled. I screamed.
She stared at me, terrified. “What’s wrong with you?” I wanted to say help me. Then the hunger took over completely. My vision went red, then white, then black.
I woke up on the floor. The curtains were drawn tight. My body had done that while I was gone. Beside the bed, she was on the floor. Bleeding from the neck. Exactly like the girl on the road. Still breathing, but barely. I crawled to her. I didn’t remember hurting her. I remembered loving her. And deep inside, the thing wearing my body whispered with my own thoughts: More.
He didn’t die that night. The original man — the soul, the witness, the part that actually felt love and fear — died on that road when teeth hit his neck. What walked away was the husk. Same memories. Same hates. Same love for her. Just without him inside.
The husk learned. It learned to close curtains. It learned to say “she left me” when neighbours asked. It learned to work nights. To avoid the sun. To feed and then cry afterwards with real tears that meant nothing. It learned to live. For twenty-five years it wore my name. Wore my face. Paid my taxes. The perfect copy of a man who had already died. Until the night the soul it replaced was born again.
Five years later, in the same city, a child was born who would dream, from the age of four, about a road he had never walked, a girl bleeding in the middle of it, and a woman in a towel whose name he did not know — but whose death made him wake up screaming.
CHAPTER 1: GHOST OF THE PAST
The rain didn’t touch her stone. Everything else in the cemetery was soaked and sinking. Her grave was dry. Warm. ELARA VANE. 1998 – 2026. She was 28 when she died. I was 29 when I died. Different days. Same empty road.
I put my palm on her name. I’m 20 now. Reborn. New face. New life. But my hand still remembers the shape of her cheek. “Hey, Ellie,” I whispered. “Been a while.”
The streetlight at the edge of the cemetery flickered. Red. That same red from my nightmares. I don’t bring flowers. Hunters bring vengeance.
**_
Three girls. Three weeks. Route 9 bus stop. Cops say runaways. Hunters know better.
I knelt at the bus stop. The air was wrong. Cold. Not winter cold. Grave cold. Vampires leave a cold trail. I found a hair on the bench. Black. Too perfect. Not human.
I followed it into the woods. To the old water treatment plant. I arrived and there it was, drooling all over. It was a Fledgling. Young. His face didn’t sit right — smile was crooked, like a mask.
It had her. 19. Mia. Tied to a pipe. Alive. He was leaning too close, sniffing her hair, whispering, “You look just like her… just like her…”
My hand went to my sword. Steel. Runes engraved, they started to glow faintly. “Hey,” I said. “Step away from her.”
It turned. Red eyes. It lunged. One cut. Clean. Throat to gut. No speech. That’s for movies. He turned to black dust before he hit the ground. No scream. They never scream.
I cut the girl loose. “Don’t look back. Run to the church. Ask for Sister Mara.” She ran.
_**
I went back to the plant alone. I was hoping to find another one, and as luck would have it I did. It snarled at me.
“Where is Mathew?” it asked.
“So that’s what you call it. Well, it’s dead.”
It lunged in rage, faster than a human could. But luckily for me, Hunters were enhanced with magic. I dodged and struck it with the hilt of my sword. It lost consciousness.
When it woke up, I was there with a picture. Weird as it might sound, I was holding the picture of my past self.
“Do you know this fiend?” I asked.
“No,” it said as it tried to break from the rope I was tying it with. The rope was imbued with magic. It made all supernatural beings weak.
“Okay. Die now.” I killed it. Another dead end, I thought.
The blood did it. Headache — like a spike through my skull. The world flipped.
I’m not in the plant anymore. I’m on the empty road. Night. Fog. I see him. A man in a black coat. Tall. Face hidden by shadow, but… familiar. That’s me. The past me.
He’s holding a woman in a bathrobe. Wet hair. Young. 28. Her face — My heart stops. Elara. It looks exactly like Elara. But it’s not Elara. Elara’s been dead 25 years.
The man in the coat — the vampire — his hands are around her throat. She’s begging. “Please… please, you said you loved me…” He doesn’t answer. He just squeezes. Cold. Efficient. Like he’s done it a hundred times. Her eyes roll. Her feet stop kicking.
The vampire looks up. Right at me. Right through the memory. Red eyes. And smiles with MY smile.
I snapped back to the water plant, on my knees, vomiting. My sword was cold in my hand. That wasn’t my memory. I could tell that what I saw was happening in real time. And why did that woman look like Elara?
