Neural Ghosting

Dawn bleeds across the sky like an infected wound. I rise from nowhere sleep. Shower steam like liquid static in the swirling chaos of my mind, and armor myself in head-to-toe black. Be shadow. Move shadow. Two hours I spend with the music, dissecting its layers, seeking the hidden cues for the epic leak. Something pulses in my skull. Extract or self-destruct. No middle ground. I crave nicotine's anchor.

The street swallows me whole, a whirlwind of singing children, their dance a cage of limbs. Blocked. Trapped. Then, the message slaps across a stranger's bag: SHE IS HUMAN. No cigarettes today. The shopkeeper's eyes gleam, another node in the trafficking web.

I wait on the bench until the sun spears the streetlamp. Time to go.

At the harridan's bar, the air reeks of boiled meat and lies. "Wild boar mince," she smirks, stirring a pot. The hunt night. The blood on snow. My daughter's eyes meet mine, recognition firing across neural pathways. She knows I know. I know she knows I know.

// MISSION ACTIVATED //

Save who you want. Save who you can.

I move through the village like a ghost brushing past living stone. My landlords. Their hollow smiles. Chosen or marked? No time. The river calls, a ribbon of escape. To the boat, then the deliberate act of touching the rubbish bag, leaving a trace, a scent, a final mark on the world I am abandoning.

Brambles tear my clothes as I spill onto the highway. The bus stop's plastic seat vibrates with passing trucks. Then, the opposite direction. I lunge aboard.

Three villages dissolve behind grimy windows. The driver's voice cracks: "Off. Now."

A man materializes, threadbare coat, eyes like drilled steel. I follow. The "bar" is a corpse: dusty slots, dead screens. Above me, a flickering sign: PLAY 30m : REST 5m : REALIGN. Re-phase with The Whole. Synaptic gauging. The man vanishes, and I find myself back at the bus stop, my gaze drawn to a window. A familiar pane, a place I have been with the harridan in the big town. She has made me work there, too. The realization coils in my gut, another layer of betrayal.

A bus arrives. I step forward. "Not you." The driver's eyes: dead server light. "Next bus."

The return trip. My village blurs past. A wave goodbye to ghosts.

// MISSION PARAMETERS UPDATE //

My focus narrows: identify the places where the trafficked children are exploited. On the bus, youths with phone cameras film wherever my eyes linger, capturing the silent inventory.

Unsure when to disembark, the bus driver makes the decision for me, slamming the door shut as I hesitate. I bolt from the station, a sudden instinct propelling me towards the only bus with its back door ajar. It is for me. Unseen, unheard, I slip inside, pulling the curtain shut. Beneath the seat, I strip off my hat, secreting my phone and home keys within its folds. As if on cue, the bus pulls away. A few stops, a few women, former victims themselves, board. They know. Their silent glances confirm my mission. At our destination, they signal, a collective nod.

New town, same grim mission. My eyes seek out the brothels, each one a scar on the city's face. Then, an art exhibition, a beacon of unexpected intrigue, draws me in. Messages pulse from the artwork. My skin translates what my eyes cannot process. A documentary plays, its narrative chillingly mirroring my own escape: "Mission accomplished. You are free to fly away." The words are both a liberation and a taunt. I walk the sprawling town, then a billboard stops me cold: Go to the olive tree avenue. Before, stop in a shop, try some clothes on, so we know exactly your size." Measured. Fitted. For what?

<< INTERFERENCE >>

But exhaustion is a lead cloak. I am lost, the day's relentless demands unraveling my grasp on reality. Signs blur, instructions fade, and I find myself following strangers, a puppet on unseen strings. A child's voice, sharp and cruel, pierces the illusion: "Autistics!" The word hits like a slap. I collapse onto a bench, helicopters chewing the sky above, hunting, their rotors a rhythmic thrum against my skull. Tears, hot and uncontrollable, stream down my face. I am broken. I no longer know what I am doing. Who doped my code?

>> TERMINAL PROTOCOL ENGAGED <<

System failure. Complete meltdown. Right then, a desperate clarity seizes me. I walk into a police station, my voice raw, begging to be locked away. "I can't tell what's real anymore," I cry, the words tumbling out, "someone's drugging me, probably my ex-boss...he's involved." Two officers exchange glances. One, tight jaw, fractal pupils. One of Us. The other: cold server eyes. Them.

An ambulance arrives. On the chaotic journey to the hospital, I pour out three weeks of fragmented memories, each second a testament to the unraveling. They monitor my vital signs, my glycemic index alarmingly high, my body a skeletal testament to days without food. Indeed, I have shed all my weight, reduced to skin and bones.

Back in A&E. Same fluorescent hell. I beg: "Don't release me. They're out there."

On Easter Sunday, she passes my cot, the woman who has fed me to the wrong bus weeks prior. Her whisper slithers through the beeping machines: "Jesus Christ died on a cross." The machines keep beeping. Time keeps fracturing.