Again, I feel her. Faintly, hear her breath on the wind as the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. She wakes me every night. I can smell her, feel her gaze.

I can't remember who she is, but I could once. 

I throw off the quilt and retreat. My back presses the door shut. I gaze hard at the air beside my space on the bed, trying to force her to reveal herself. Nobody. Nothing. Relieved, I climb back into bed and sleep.

This town's gone to shit. Ever since those damn whispers started, it happens at the same time every night. It used to be beautiful here, lush green grass with mighty trees older than time climbing higher and higher. The faint roaring of a river was a familiar blanket of sound that let you know you were home. 

Things aren't so different, I guess. Except the greens seem duller, the river lifeless and what good are the trees if that damned mist keeps you from seeing their crowns. I think it could be me that's gone to shit. 

I leave my bed. It's neither warm nor comforting. It's where I go at the end of the day and begin at the start of a new one. It's what I've always done. It's the routine of it all that's comforting. 

I pass through hallways and rooms I've passed through countless times before, but they're new each time. The pictures in the frames are distorted and fuzzy. I put on my coat and wrap my faded orange scarf around my neck. My garden shears are on the floor. The sharp end aims at me. Did I leave those there? They've not had much use lately; it feels like it's been autumn forever. I drag one foot forward, clumsily placing it in front of the other again and again. 

I head out of my door and onto the street. I see people mulling about the town with barely a hint of purpose. Like bad actors following a worse script, they wear frowns, struggling to remember their lines. Their faces are unfamiliar. 

I stroll to my favourite restaurant. They do the best coffee in town and a half-decent omelette. I sit down, and the waiter brings me two menus. The menus are different than they used to be. The waiter tells me the owner changed years ago. Bullshit. I got the closest thing they have to an omelette, which isn't remotely close. Waffles. At least they have coffee. 

As I leave the restaurant, I feel her breath haunting the hairs on the back of my neck again. I hear her voice, but not clear enough to make out the words. I look around and see a few other people stopping, looking around, panicked. Some people smile with whistful tears in their eyes. Others hunch their shoulders and pull their collars tight, trying to keep the wind off. 

My eyes wander to the woods, and I imagine, no, remember... something...

As I venture down the hiking path, ethereal sunlight passes through a kaleidoscope of green leaves and lays on my skin. The hand holding mine warms my heart more than the sunlight ever could, and my heart races. She beams at me when I steal a glance over, and my heart skips a beat. I fight the butterflies I feel, trying not to drop our picnic basket along the trail. We - She whispers again, and it's gone. I'm brought back to this misty reality. I can only describe it like when you wake from a dream. You cling to it desperately, but it's always one step ahead, outrunning your consciousness until it's gone. I get to the treeline along the outskirts of the town and find an old hiking path going further into the woods. 

My heartbeat races, and clammy sweat coats my skin as I carefully follow the path. My insecure steps and heartbeat drum in my ears as the metres pass underfoot. I flinch. Something through the shrubbery catches my eye, causing me to pause.  

She's walking away. No, running. I follow. 

Minutes go by as I penetrate deeper into the woods. Mist surrounds the periphery, making it difficult to see too far ahead. There's no sign of her now. I come to an opening with a great oak tree at its centre. 

My fingers trace its bark, following the fist-sized love heart carved into it. 

I feel the grooves of the letters with shaking fingers.

The snap of a twig alerts me. I turn. 

Stood ten metres away is an old doe. The doe is beautiful but bleeding from slashes across her legs. I lock on to her eyes, but she stares through me. Her eyes are milky glass, and the hot steam of her laboured breath rises in the air. We are lifeless statues until the wind whispers, "Rod?"

A gravelly shout escapes me as a pain I'd forgotten resonates, momentarily stabbing a section of my brain long since vacated. Involuntarily, I drop to my knees. The doe's eyes clear, and she bolts as drops of blood hurtle from her wounds to my face and the flora around me. 

I follow after the doe, using her spilt blood to guide me. I grunt through leaves as they lash out at me, and I push forward. I am doing something between a run and a limp. The deer's injury lets me keep up with her desperate dance through the undergrowth.

 Shit!

The woods end. Wuthering winds fill my ears, and cold air fills my throat. A great chasm appears before me, and if my frailty didn't impede my momentum, surely I'd have gone over... with her. 

I peer over the edge, and the doe looks at me with a single dead eye. Is that my scarf around her ne-

 

The wind pushes at me. 

"Come to me!" She cries. 

My clothes billow violently in her anguish. I consider it. Something within me wants it, wants her. Familiarity and fear are the ropes pulling me back. My right foot lifts. Without conscious intention, I lean forward, not knowing if it is me or the wind spurring me. The floor rushes up to split my head as my left leg gives way, pulling me back from the ledge. The world is dark. 

I wake up knowing you're lying there. Turning to face you, I reach tender fingers out to feel an unfamiliar bed missing the space where you used to be. The memory of who I'm reaching out for escapes like I'm trying to catch water spilling down the plug-hole. Then, it is gone. 

I hear beeping. I see a bad pan. I'm in hospital. A doctor stands and talks to a nurse at the bottom of this bed. It isn't mine. I need to get back to mine. 

"We need to think about his safety. This is the fifth time he's been in this year, and it's getting worse each time." She says.  

She knows nothing. I haven't been to the hospital since-

"I'm going to call his social worker."

My wincing body alerts my captors as I attempt to sit up. She casts a knowing glance from me to the nurse and raises her eyebrows, smiling in that patronising "I know something he doesn't" smile. She whispers, moving her mouth by the nurse's ear, then walks off. 

The nurse floats next to me and contaminates the fluids flowing intravenously into my frail body with what? I don't know. He looks down at me and smiles. He begins to say something to me in a stoic tone, but once again, my vision fades as a non-consensual sleep takes me. 

Whatever pleasant dreams I may have been having are interrupted by that familiar whisper, followed by intense screaming. Reluctantly, I open my eyes. In the pale moonlight, I see several beds upon which my fellow inmates are writhing, covering their ears as the cacophony leaves their mouths. Mouths that are opened unnaturally wide, like snakes with screams for venom. The beeping of the machines turns to a continuous note, flatline. She's here. I lay there petrified as howling winds pushed open the windows and doors of the hospital. The doors open and slam shut. The hospital curtains look like sheets worn by beasts. The beeping of the machines turns to a continuous note, flatline. She shrieks. 

"Ooo...left...eee."

This is the loudest she's ever been. A sheet is filled and lifted like a head has been pushed into it, and the person the head belongs to rises. Long tendrils reach out from bloodied hands. Slowly, they slither towards me. A horrible cry echoes from her as I'm jolted to action. I rip the cannula out of my hand and fall down the side of my hospital bed. Scrambling, panicked, I stand and see the animated sheet now flecked with my blood atop my bed. I bolt past, fleeing the ward. She is everywhere. Screaming and wailing as every sheet was filled with phantoms. Before leaving the double doors at the end, my world turns black. She has trapped me in a blood-red stained nightmare, and I struggle to get her off. We roll around writhing, her manic breath in my ears. 

"Sedate him! Nurse, sedate him. Damn it, he's scaring the other patients!" The Doctor's voice from earlier, from right above me. 

The sheet is torn off of me. Everything appears normal. The lights are on. The regular beeping sound remains uninterrupted. People are looking at me like I'm a maniac. They might be right. 

I wake. This once unfamiliar bed has become depressingly familiar. The hospital has been getting emptier and emptier each day. The staff must be spread so thin as there are none around, and the few patients remaining are all asleep. 

Upon walking out, I realised that much of the hospital seemed deserted. Dilapidated even. This must be one of the only wards still running. 

The hospital is a microcosm of the whole town. More and more buildings are derelict and boarded up. Some look like they've been left to ruin for years. They look all the more depressing in the dark blueish hue of dawn. 

I continue my tour around town, reluctantly going to my home. I don't know why there's hesitation. My breath feels more and more erratic with every step. Rain begins to pour through the peripheral fog above as I round the last corner to my home. My eyes open wide. My heart races. 

Not only is my door open. The whole place looks ruined. Broken into maybe?

I stumble closer, my mouth agape, and peer into my dilapidated house. I pass through the door, my feet crunching the autumn leaves on my floor. I step over my shears; they're bloody now. The wallpaper is torn and dull. My picture frames are strewn about the place and smashed. Panicked, I grip my bannister and climb the creaking stairs. The matt blue paint on my bedroom door is chipped. My door is slightly ajar. I hear fevered breathing from the other side. My fingers extend towards the door. They wrap around its handle and pull. 

She is standing on the other side of the room, facing out of the window. She is in a white nightgown. A weak sunlight filters through it, revealing it is covered in mud. Her gangly arms hang loosely from her shoulders, pulled up and down by the intense rise and fall of her breathing. Her fingers extend to reveal dry, bloody nails. 

"You left me. You said you'd never leave me."

I'm alone. I wasn't supposed to be alone. When we wed, we wept our way through our vows. Like a lot of couples, we took them for granted. They seem comforting, powerful even. "Till death do us part. Sickness and in health. Richer or poorer." Sound fantastic until they're not enough. What about when one dies but one is left behind? 

I lay awake each night looking through our wedding pictures on our bed. Tears fall down my face and get soaked up by that awful scarf you always used to wear. It doesn't smell like you anymore, but I've been doing this each night since you left. I'll whisper into your scarf until sleep eventually overpowers me. Sometimes, it's amorous confessions of love or dates down memory lane. Tonight, however, it's scornful barbs for leaving me behind. Sometimes, I feel your weight on the bed beside me, but you're not there when I turn to find you. 

I can feel sleep gaining the upper hand. I turn, pulling the scarf and quilt tight around me. The last of my daily tears are squeezed out of my eyes as I admit defeat. I begin to slip into sleep as the sensations of the waking world drift away. The other world calls to me. The world of dreams, nightmares or nothing at all. A dark numbness, that's my favourite. 

At once, the waking world has jolted me back. I turn. My heart is racing. The door is shut. I always leave it slightly open. A lofty silence fills the void as I hold my breath. All I can hear is my pulse thudding and the heavy quiet of the bedroom. I stare at the door for what could be seconds or hours. I stand up and, with a trembling hand, open the door. 

Outside, I see my husband. He is young again. He's kneeling on the floor in the garden. He was always in that damned garden. He turns to face me and smiles. That schoolboy smile he always had. His fingers wrap around the handle of the garden shears. He moves them and gestures at me to sit down. At first, I'm frozen; I can't even think to move. But like a damn bursting, once I move, I can't hold back. I'm wrapped around him, sobbing. I can smell him again. I loosen my embrace and lift my face in line with his. "Why can't we stay here?"

"We? Who the hell are you? His face begins to age.  

I grip tighter, "No, no, not again! I just found you again."

He pulls back. He's old now. Frail even. I can feel I'm hurting him, but I can't stop. His fingers find the garden shears again. I can see the horror on his face. He slashes the sheers across my arms.  

My eyes flick open. I am still in bed; the door remains closed. I turn the pillow over to the dry side and, through my tears, look at the scars on my arms. That nightmare was based on a memory. It marked the first time I lost my husband. In many ways, that first time was much more painful than the last. I give up fighting off sleep; it can take me. But I'll not drift off before the pillow's dry side is soaked. 

Sickly light beams through a gap in the curtains, signalling the start of a new day. As I sit up, I can still feel the remnants of sleep clinging to me, causing the quilt to fall from my shoulders to the bed. I turn to find an open door, and a chill races down my spine as I call out, "Rod?". My voice is quieter than intended. But there is no response. Today, I need to be close to you, my love.

I dress like when we'd go to the picture house together. Your scarf is wrapped around me for company. I push through the door and head down our drive; inside, I'm skipping. We always loved picnics in the woods and adventures up in the hills, and I'd sit reading as you fished the river. People always questioned if I regretted not being a mother, but we never stopped being kids in love ourselves. 

The quiet walk through town is surreal. These are our same old jaunts, but everything is different now you've left, gloomy and bleak. I see some signs of life, people in the distance bimbling along without conviction. Curtains twitch in the houses, and crows squawk overhead as I approach the wooded edge of town. I find the hiking paths we've wandered so many times. "I wish you were walking with me again," I say. 

Everything is darker without you. The once vibrant greens of moss-covered trees are diluted hues of grey. Colours are muted as if they've been sapped by the pain of yesterday. 

Heading into the forest, I feel a weighty darkness close in. The closed-in wood has cut off the open-air sounds of the town. I hear the irregular thudding of feet coming clumsily from behind. I'm sure it's just another hiker. I am trying to convince myself, and I'm failing. Holding my breath, I stop and look back through the branches and leaves of autumn bushes and trees. The footsteps continue thudding for seconds before coming to an abrupt halt. Am I being followed? Through heavy silence, my ears pick up the sound of someone breathing that isn't there. My nerves break, and I hurry along the path. 

I clamber behind it, pulling myself tight against it and wait...

The familiar sounds of those irregular thudding feet get closer, and they stop. I hear him speak my husband's name. The voice draws me out from behind the tree. I'm pulled from my hiding place like water is pulled down a sinkhole. Stepping forward, hoping to make his image clear, a twig snaps underfoot. I stare at the emptiness before the tree where the voice came from. My breath is trapped in my throat. For a moment, he solidifies. "Rod?" I force out. 

The spectre fades and screams like a wounded animal. Waves of its noise crash against my eardrums, shattering the icy grasp anxiety has on my body. I run, leaving the declaration of my love in the ever-growing distance. Terror propels me faster than my feet should allow as branches scratch at my cold skin. Turning back, I hear him crashing into and snapping the branches as they try to keep him from me. I turn to face the direction I'm running too late. The ground has left my feet. Time is nothing for a moment as I seem to hover and inhale. Then I'm falling, terror and screams escape my throat, delivering my final cry.  

I am strewn out across the floor, looking up at you. You're dead. I am dead, too. Come to me. I'm here again. You have what you want. I feel your spirit, your soul, whatever this thing that is still you is. I feel your confusion, your chaos and your fear. This is why you have haunted me. Your manifestation brings your soul to a half-remembered memory. You're in hospital after one of your falls again. I can see and hear you but can't seem to pierce the veil to reach you. I feel so much love, so much rage towards you. The weight of these emotions allows me to infect your afterlife with my own. It's night, and the moon is full. The veil feels thinner now than ever before; I can almost pass through into your world.

"YOU LEFT ME! YOU LEFT ME! YOU LEFT ME! YOULEFTM EEEYOULEFTMEEE!" The whole hospital trembles as I scream. The mouths of the imagined patients jolt open as they sit up and cry our mutual fear and pain. The windows are pulled open, summoning the wind to burst into the room with my wrath. Using the wind, I create a physical form in the curtain next to your bed and claw for you with invisible tendrils. You recoil, you flee, and you are gone. Things aren't so different here, after all. Your dementia has followed you all the way into death, and its chaos keeps me away from you over and over. I lunge for you, engulfing you, yet the force of your confusion eventually tears me off. I know you'll come back when you can. You'll go home again, and I'll be waiting. My anger has gone, leaving a feeling of shame in its place. It isn't your fault, love. 

Time is meaningless here. It feels like days I've been left waiting in our home, longer than the last time we did this dance. I've torn apart the house in my grief and resignation that we're trapped. If I were younger, more naive, I'd console myself with the fact that we're trapped together, but the reality is we're trapped apart. We catch glimpses of one another and are spirited away again by our pain. I can feel you coming up our stairs and opening our door. Without looking at you, I say, "You left me. You said you'd never leave me."

I can feel the confused look on your face as realisation momentarily embraces you. Your hidden guilt manifests blood from the wound you dealt onto my hands. 

"Gloria?" weakly at first. 

"Gloria!?" with some of that passion I used to love. 

I turn to face you. You're scared and beautiful. 

"We're dead, Rod." I see your frown rejecting the idea. 

"You went first. Then I went after you. I fell, Rod. I fell. I swear it was an accident. You weren't there waiting for me." I tremble, trying to contain myself. Emotions can have strong effects in this place beyond the world.

"I'm not dead. Neither is my Gloria; she... this is our house." I see you looking around like you've just awakened from a bad dream and are unsure if it's over.

"It's alright, Rod, we had our time." I inch toward you, smiling a painful smile. "This was our house, but we died."

"But we're still here!" You smile that beautiful boyish smile, stepping twice towards me. 

I smile back as fat tears fill my eyes. I close the distance between us, hoping your memory stays with you long enough. We embrace and are young again. After hours of talking and cuddling one another, I can see a weariness overcome you. 

"Shall we lay down love?"

You nod and climb onto the bed atop the covers. I lay behind you, wrapping my arms around you. I feel you begin to drift off to sleep as your breathing deepens. Then you fade away.

"Rod... Rod?" I reach out, feeling for you in the emptiness. You're gone again. "Come back to me, Rod. You said you'd never leave me, remember!" My tears fall once more as I lay on our bed, in our house, in our town called Purgatory. 

Again, he feels her. Faintly, he hears her breath on the back of his neck as his hair stands on end. Her voice is in the wind once more. She wakes him every night. He can smell her, feel her gaze.

He can't remember who she is, but he could once. He knows she will always whisper in the wind for him, even though he's forgotten why.