Neural Ghosting

Dawn bled across the sky like an infected wound. I rose from nowhere sleep. I rose—shower steam like liquid static in the swirling chaos of my mind—and armored myself in head-to-toe black. Be shadow. Move shadow. Two hours I spent with the music, dissecting its layers, seeking the hidden cues for the epic leak. Something pulsed in my skull. Extract or self-destruct. No middle ground I craved nicotine’s anchor.

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

I waited on the bench until the sun speared the streetlamp. Time to go.

At the harridan’s bar, the air reeked of boiled meat and lies. "Wild boar mince" she smirked, stirring a pot. The hunt night. The blood on snow. My daughter's eyes met mine—recognition firing across neural pathways. She knew I knew. I knew she knew I knew.

// MISSION ACTIVATED //

Save who you want. Save who you can.

I moved through the village like a ghost brushing past living stone. My landlords. Their hollow smiles. Chosen or marked? No time. The river called, 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 was abandoning.

Brambles tore my clothes as I spilled onto the highway. The bus stop’s plastic seat vibrated with passing trucks. Then—the opposite direction. I lunged aboard.

Three villages dissolved behind grimy windows. The driver’s voice cracked: "Off. Now."

A man materialized—threadbare coat, eyes like drilled steel. I followed. The "bar" was a corpse: dusty slots, dead screens. Above me, a flickering sign:

PLAY 30m : REST 5m : REALIGN.

Re-phase with The Whole. Synaptic recalibration. The man vanished, and I found myself back at the bus stop, my gaze drawn to a window. A familiar pane, a place I’d been with the harridan in the big town. She made me work there, too. The realization coiled in my gut, another layer of betrayal.

A bus arrived. I stepped forward. "Not you." The driver's eyes: dead server light. "Next bus.”

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

// MISSION PARAMETERS UPDATE //

My focus narrowed: identify the places where the trafficked children were exploited. On the bus, youths with phone cameras filmed wherever my eyes lingered, capturing the silent inventory.

Unsure when to disembark, the bus driver made the decision for me, slamming the door shut as I hesitated. I bolted from the station, a sudden instinct propelling me towards the only bus with its back door ajar. It was for me. Unseen, unheard, I slipped inside, pulling the curtain shut. Beneath the seat, I stripped off my hat, secreting my phone and home keys within its folds. As if on cue, the bus pulled away. A few stops, a few women, former victims themselves, boarded. They knew. Their silent glances confirmed my mission. At our destination, they signaled, a collective nod.

New town, same grim mission. My eyes sought out the brothels, each one a scar on the city's face. Then, an art exhibition, a beacon of unexpected intrigue, drew me in. Messages pulsed from the artwork. My skin translated what my eyes couldn't process. A documentary played, its narrative chillingly mirroring my own escape: "Mission accomplished. You are free to fly away." The words were both a liberation and a taunt. I walked the sprawling town, then a billboard stopped 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?

<< SIGNAL INTERFERENCE >>

But exhaustion was a lead cloak. I was lost, the day's relentless demands unraveling my grasp on reality. Signs blurred, instructions faded, and I found myself following strangers, a puppet on unseen strings. A child's voice, sharp and cruel, pierced the illusion: "Autistics!" The word hit like a slap. I collapsed onto a bench, helicopters chewing the sky above, hunting, their rotors a rhythmic thrum against my skull. Tears, hot and uncontrollable, streamed down my face. I was broken. I no longer knew what I was doing. Who doped my code?

>> TERMINAL PROTOCOL ENGAGED <<

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

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

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

On Easter Sunday, she passed my cot—the woman who’d fed me to the wrong bus weeks prior. Her whisper slithered through the beeping machines: "Jesus Christ died on a cross." The machines kept beeping. Time kept fracturing.

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