Imprint (22 page)

“Sure, and then you go crazy like most of the others.”

“Well, it depends if you’re mentally str
ong enough to handle it or not.” Sean was beginning to sense an imminent lecture.
“
Most people aren’t really, it eventually gets too much and they start to lose touch with reality, but I’ve known a few who have been able to pull through.”

“Like who?”

“
You!” Penny piped up,
bubbly and smiley like little girls her age were supposed to be.
She wasn’t that different from them, really.
“And Drew. And grandpa and me.”

“
It’s hard, being
who we are,” Brian said
. “But it hel
ps to have people to rely on
.”

“Pff,” Sean scoffed,
irritation
managing to creep
into his voice
despite how awkward he felt
. “I can barely call Drew someone to rely on. We fight constantly, and dammit he
stole
my body. I have a right to be pissed.”

Penny boldly sent him a disapproving frown. “You shouldn’t say bad words.”

“Being angry won
’t change anything,” Brian added. “
You’d be better off spending your energy on trying to find a way back.”

“I’m not sure it’s even pos
sible anymore,” Sean frowned slightly, but stated the facts with little emotion. He had no emotion to mask
anymore;
he had resigned himself to one day fading out a while ago
.
It no longer bothered him.
“I can feel myself getting weaker each day. I don’t have much long
er, probably only a few weeks
at the most.”

There was a flash of some foreign emotion – surprise, maybe? Sadness? Pain? – in the man’s blue eyes for a second, but it was enough for Sean to know that it didn’t belong there. “How?” he muttered quietly to himself. “How can you fade so soon? Yo
ur
body’s still alive, you should still have plenty of life energy left, this is wrong…”

Sean shifted his feet guiltily. He had a good feeling what was taking up all of this ‘life energy’ that was supposedly keeping him existing; his various attempts to make parts of himself solid. It was the only plausible
explanation
he could think of. Drew had warned him.
“Don’t worry about it, o
ld man. I’m fine with it
. It’s not like I have anything here I need to stick around for.”

Brian shook his head. “What about Ali? Hayden? Your mother?”

“They don’t need me. They need Drew, now.”

“You don’t honestly believe that.”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“So you’re just going to give up?”

“Pretty much.”

In a moment Brian had crossed the distance between them, raised his hand, and hit him across the f
ace. Sean, eyes wide and startled
, was rooted to the ground and unable to lo
ok away from the livid blue orbs that bored into him,
suddenly no longer dull and lifeless.

“What the bloody
hell
was that for?” Sean ground out between clenched teeth, once he had gotten over his shock.

Brian
looked
disappointed,
and it was much worse than the previous fury.
“Stop being so damn self-pitying, Sean, and remember. Remember whatever it is that you li
ved for, and keep living for it,
”
he said simply. Then he
took a step back, his expression fading into guilt when he saw the scared look on Penny’s face and the tears brimming in her eyes. “Sorry,” he added gruffl
y, gesturing vaguely at Sean’s face
. “I k
now you couldn’t feel it, but still
…sorry.”

“What ri
ght do you have to tell me those
things a
nyway?” Sean snarled, pointedly ignoring the apology
. “I don’t know who you think you are, but this is really none of your business.”

The man had that strange look in his eyes again. “Maybe, but I’m doing this to try and help you.”

“I don’t
need
help,” Sean spat. “I’m fine on my own. I’ve always been fine on my own before all you freaks started interfering in my life.”

Penny, terrified by the shouting, was now cowering behind Brian and her eyes were wide and moist. “Stop it…” she whimpered. “Stop fighting.”

Sean felt a wad of guilt in his throat when he caught her gaze. The anger diminished slightly and he raised his hands in surrender. “Whatever. I don’t want to stand here arguing with you all night, old man. I’m going.” He was about to walk away in the opposite direction, when he heard the hoarse voice behind him.

“Wait.”

“What now?”

The man shrugged. “I doubt watching Drew sleep is really that interesting. Why don’t you come with me instead?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Sean spun around to give him an incredulous look. “You just attacked me, and you expect me to follow you to god-kno
ws-where at one in the morning
?”

“I did it for your own good, and I’ve already apologised. I
just want to talk
.”

“Like hell.
We have nothing to talk about.”

The man’s
face
cracked into a
n odd
smile. “Sure we do. You can tell me about yourself
, about your life, everything.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m curious. And bored.”

Sean shook his head in exasperation, silently mulling
over
his options. Conversatio
n was definitely more appealing, even with someone he currently had a strong dislike for.  A part of him knew that Brian had been reasonable to hit him, and he deserved it. He couldn’t blame the man, really, for knocking sense into him.
“Fin
e,” he agreed hesitantly
.
I
t was not like Brian even
could
hurt him if he wanted to.
He really had nothing to
lose
.
“Just until the sun rises, though.
Then I have to go back.”

The older man
nodded. “I know a nice place to rest, follow me.” Holding on
to Penny’s small hand, the two I
mprints began to walk slowly down the street. Not
knowing what else to do, Sean followed
.

It took about twenty minutes, but the three of them eventually came to a large,
green clearing. The small field
, somehow hidden among all of the urban development, was like an escape from reality. It lay on top of a mini plateau and, on one side, provided a breathtaking view of the city lights
blinking in the night. Like fireflies. Sean could almost imagine a hundred of them filling up the air and illuminating the dark sky with their soft glows. Brian led him over to a large oak tree, the one with the best view, and they both sat down beneath it.  Penny seemed to be entranced with idea of just being there and spun in circles giddily, giggling and trying to crane her neck up to see the stars above.

“It’s pretty nice out here, isn’t it?” Brian murmured quietly. “I used to come here all the time when I was alive. I still do, and Penny loves it, but it’s different. After you die, you begin to view the world differently.”

Sean nodded in understanding. “I know,”
he provided, leaning back and tipping his head upwards.
“It kind of
makes you realise that you always took everything for granted, and you only realise that after it’s too late.”

“That’s the point of it,” Brian said. “Drew said something like that to me as wel
l when I first met him. But then he added that it was something he wanted to change.”

“Well, he managed it. I’m the evidence.”

Brian smiled sadly. “Do you really think
its
called living, though, if it’s only in the place of someone else?”

Somewhere in the city, a few lights went out and it seemed to make a drastic difference to the overall view. Penny, her hair a silver tint, had giving up twirling and lay in the grass instead, muttering quietly to herself.
Sean stared at her dark form
for a moment, before answering. “No, I guess not.”

“Exactly,” Brian said. “Drew didn’t take your body just because he wanted to be alive again. He wouldn’t want to live everyday knowing that he unfairly took it from you, have to think about what he did to you every time he looked down at his skin. There’s another reason he did it.”

He’d heard those words before.
He tore his gaze away from the little girl and focused it on her grandfather, eyes wide and, although well hidden, scared. “What does he want with me
then
?”

Brian shook his head. “There’s no use asking a stranger like me. Just wait and see what it is that he wants.
I’m sure you’ll find out eventually, and c
hances are that it’s not what you think.”

Sean sighed. “So you don’t know?”

“No, I don’t. Sorry.”

Silence fell again, as thick as the blanket of darkness that covered the clearing as more of the lights in the city went out. It was late, even the pubs were beginning to close now. Nearby Penny had fallen quiet. Sean knew better than to think that she was asleep, but if she were an ordinary girl he knew she would be. The silence was a comfortable one, only broken by the occasional owl hoot or the rustling grass. He didn’t know how
long
it lasted for, until eventually the gruff voice beside him spoke up again.

“I heard about your friend, Ali,” he said. “Is Drew handling the situation okay?”

“Better than okay,” Sean replied. “I’ve never known anyone to be so patient. Seeing him with her fools you into believing that he actually has a heart.”

“Technically it would be your heart,” Brian chuckled.

“Funny,” Sean deadpanned
.
“It’s strange seeing him with her, though. He’
s not
the prick he acts like when I’m around him.”

“You two just provoke each other, it’s a cycle.”

“
I
don’t do anything. It’s always him who acts like he’s so superior to everyone else, that jerk.”

“You know he doesn’t mean to, right?”

Sean
scoffed. “Maybe you’re
right;
his superiority complex is pretty much built in.
”
Pause
. “What about you, anyway? Do
you
have anyone you left behind?”

The ma
n gave a cryptic smile. “Every I
mprint does, Sean,” he said.

“Does it bother you?”

“
Of course,
b
ut you can’t let things like that get to you. We all die for a reason, and we can’t do anything about it. We just have to endure it.” Endure it. Was that really all there was to death?

“So tell me your story, then,” Sean said. “We’ve got all night, you know.”

“How much do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Brian laughed. “We would be here for an eternity, not just a night. Something even the dead don’t have.”

“The condensed version, then.”

“Fine
. I’ll start from my childhood.” He paused, and his eyes grew distant, as if he was reliving those memories all over again. “
I grew up in a poor neighbourhood, you see.  My father left when I was young, to have another family. I used to hate him for it, and it would keep me up at night. That stupid question, circling around in my head until it nearly drove me mad: ‘why wasn’t I good enough?’ I felt like that for most of
my
life, always wondering what I had done wrong, always hating both him and myself, always wanting to prove that I was worth something. I had a twin sister, who seemed to excel at everything. She was top of her class, beautiful, liked by everyone. Compared to her I was mediocre at best. My mother adored her, and
despite my jealousy I couldn’t help but love her too, because even though she had the world at her feet she did everything she could to help me.

World War two started in 1939, as you know. I was nineteen at the time. In the beginning I had never planned on joining the army, but that was…before the bombs began. We lived in the heart of London, in my opinion it was the most beautiful city on earth. Always a new street to explore, a new adventure to discover. But the war destroyed that fantasy, turned something that had once been so breath-taking into a mess of flames, shrapnel and collapsed buildings. It left some places charred beyond recognition, covered in this horrible black soot. There were times when you could smell the stench of burning bodies; I hope you never have to know what that smells like.
This was the blitz of 1940, when London was bombed by the Germans for 57 consecutive nights. I remember every single one of those nights spent in the bomb shelter, but most of all I remember the night my sister died.