He felt sick. His whole body shook in the pale morning light. He couldn't think straight, his mind was still clouded with unnatural hate and rage, but he was just lucid enough to realize that it wasn't his. It came from the ethereal energy inside him, tainting him. It whispered suggestions into him, telling him to hurt and kill. He could remember what it made him do, not even giving him the luxury of forgetting. He killed three people last night. The thought disgusted him, made him feel horrible. He remembered how they begged, how they pleaded, how they screamed... His latest kill sat in front of him, pinned to the door by a silver spear. His expression was the worst, by far. It didn't hold hate, nor rage, but forgiveness. This person in front of him, just a year older than Wayne, forgave his murderer just like that. And Wayne was responsible for taking this wonderful person out of the world. He would never be able to fix it, no one could. He wailed a long, forlorn cry of regret. The only one there to listen was a corpse. Despairingly, he stayed there for hours, simply moaning out his grievances. He basked in the guilt, never once allowing himself back into the darkness where the sun's light could not control him and he would lose himself again. Eventually, he quieted, and sat there in silent grief. Until finally, the moment Wayne dreaded came. He watched as the sun sank below the horizon, the darkness taking his light and his mind. Again, he felt the rage overcome him. He was no longer Wayne, just an echo of hatred, a remainder of something lost. Though, Wayne considered in the outer corners of his mind, maybe he was just a slightly larger husk of what he once was as well, even without this overflowing anger at the world.
It was then that Wayne realized what it meant to be a ghost. He was just what was left behind when Wayne McMayther died. That thought plagued him, filling his tiny little vestige of logic still there with melancholy as his incorporeal form stalked the halls of his home. He was helpless, a slave to his baser instincts. He couldn't stop Argus from killing his family. He couldn't protect himself. He couldn't even stopped himself as he killed three innocent people. His 'body', for lack of a better term, floated past the dead body of Horace, his eyes gouge out by the bloody candles laying next to him. He saw Sharie, her face a mask of despair with no visible wound on her body.
Finally, he found himself back where it all began. The abandoned tents around him hinted at their owner's untimely demise. The grandfather clock told Wayne the time, just two minutes until midnight. Just a few more minutes until he was rid of this vile curse. At least, he hoped it would go away at midnight. He was probably in this state because of this accursed day, so it only made sense he would be free when it passed. Thankfully, he was proven right, as a short time later Wayne could feel the loathing clouding his mind disperse along with the great power he temporarily wielded, and he was his own person again. If he could still be considered a person...
He shook his head, and got to work burying the bodies. He couldn't lay them to rest in dirt, as there was no dirt in reach of him, but instead he placed them under the debris and trash he cleaned out and dumped in the storage cellar. He felt guilty, not being able to give them a coffin or a proper burial place, but it was the best he could do. After, he tasked himself with cleaning out the blood. There was nothing he could do about the damage to the doors. When he was finally done, it was already morning. He floated to his room, where the piano lay. He sat down, really just floating over the seat by a centimeter, and began to play. He just needed something comforting to do right now. The song was one of his own composition. A heavily altered version of a famous musician's take on midnight blues. As he pressed the keys, not with his hands but his mind, he gathered himself. He reflected over what had happened, allowing all-consuming grief to wash through him as it did. He was ashamed of it. Looking back, he should have realized. Maybe not immediately, but it should have crossed his mind. He should have wondered why ghosts were so feared, while he felt no malicious intent. He felt that there was more to it, but he should have known that there was a reason people feared undead. So many things could have been prevented, if he had just shown some forethought. Tear-shaped lumps of ethereal energy slid down his face only to gather back inside him as they hit the ground. Likely some sort of self actualization, like his clothes. Wayne didn't care what it was, as he continued the melody. He resolved himself to think things through. To learn from his mistakes, as his parents would have wanted. He determined himself that he wouldn't overlook things anymore, no matter what he was feeling at the time. He couldn't let emotions control him. So Wayne decided then and there he would never rush into things without consideration for... the... consequences.... Wait, Beth escaped, thankfully. He was happy about that, really, but... Wouldn't she tell ghost hunters about the malevolent entity that just murdered her friends? And wouldn't those ghost hunters do their job, and hunt him?..
Well... s***
