Prologue

I tend to tell my fellows, if they ever ask, that I didn't really notice at first when I'd died. I guess it's somewhat deceptive to say so, though. I certainly noticed that things seemed terribly strange all of a sudden. I definitely recognised what I was feeling – confusion, and needlepoints of fear. I understood that it felt like my life was draining away from me, blood spilling onto white tile and breaths expelled in short, sharp bursts, feebly assaulting the chill air. Yet these moments of weakness didn't last long. Soon enough, I felt strong again, strong enough to walk on my own two feet.

And speaking of walking, I walked then across the platform as if I had not a care in the world. A train had pulled out into the tunnel moments earlier, and the sound seemed to echo in my memory. But where moments ago I had been bleeding my life into the crevices, now I felt strong and balanced.

Perhaps I sensed already that I'd soon have cares aplenty. I simply couldn't put my finger on them. And I felt that I'd been terrified not long ago, but I couldn't say why. My mind had gone blank. It was a mind that seemed to ache slightly, because I'd forgotten who I was. I felt different, but I didn't yet know that it was death that had changed me.

I stopped there on the platform, poised to look over my shoulder. Then I closed my eyes as everything brightened. I opened my eyes to see a dimly lit room, and became aware of familiar scents that permeated my consciousness. Holding a hand to my temple, I frowned. I didn't quite have a headache, but my head hurt nonetheless. First the train platform, now this room that I hadn't seen for twenty years. I had grown up in this room, and it was where my heart resided. Still, I couldn't conceive of how I'd travelled two thousand kilometres here in a split second. I tried though, and the attempt was starting to make me dizzy.

When I saw my mother walk into the room, wearing the same dress she'd worn on a summer's evening back in 2016, I felt the need to die again. Shock jarred me as I stood invisible before the mother I still loved. When all else was stripped away, when memory of certain treacheries dissolved, all that remained was love, white and pure and blinding. I loved the one who had nurtured me from birth. I watched this rerun of her now, twenty years of age and glowing. She leaned down to tend to a small child nestled on the couch. The brown-haired, blue-eyed child was one I knew had since grown into a man – he'd grown up to be me – and even more recently he had died. I knew for certain that my life had been changed forever.

I was soon to realise that what I had left was not life, but something much more terrifying.

--

I already see that you know what it means to be in love. But things are different in this world. Let me tell you that it's hard to be in love when you're a ghost.

The love of my new world existence once told me, in a flat cold voice, that I had to 'get over it'. No sooner had I looked at her with eyes full of love than she held up a warning hand and said: "Love is a fate worse than death for us, Kinsail. Do you want to burn for eternity, no relief at all?"

I'd swallowed, rubbed at my jaw as I felt my heart breaking once again. "I already do."

She shook her head. "Not like anything you'd feel if you gave into this." Her eyes burned as if in demonstration of what I might expect to experience. And her choice of words speared me: 'you', not 'we'. Clearly she wasn't intending to give into anything herself, so I was the only danger here.

Everything about her was a warning to me. "I'm telling you, for your own sake…just give it up."

But that was easier said than done. I shook my head as she walked away, knowing that I loved her and it wouldn't ever end.

It still hasn't. Even today, my love for Kora simmers. I haven't seen her for almost eight years. I could drag her to me, I know, or myself to her. But I haven't given into the urge as yet. Perhaps I love her too much to hurt her that way. I will continue to protect myself, and her, from that eternal torment she spoke of. And yet I'm tormented.

And therein lies the torment. Sometimes I wonder if she was wrong after all. Perhaps making love die is worse than letting it live.

--

There is so much to tell you, so much to say. It makes me feel distinctly schizophrenic. How do I decide where to start?

I feel the urge to speak of Kora, but there are others. Emma, and Jade, Andrigan and Emmett. There are adventures to describe, and there will be more I'm sure as future events unfold. Still, I have to start somewhere. Luckily we have all the time in the world.

So first I'll tell you about Emma, and how I came to be saddled with one hell of a pesky mission. And then perhaps I'll get into how I got saddled with you.