The howl of the wind passed his ears in thorough reminder.

It was going to drag on like this.

Missing thought, forcing oneself to follow tracks now lost. It was hard to be a ghost– you no longer had a shadow to your name. All you could really do now was try to chase them. A no end trek along the very crevasses of time long passed. To find the person he once was. To burrow in the apathy of a man hiding in plain sight. A mirage of your own reflection trying to whisper out sweet nothings. Just a former copy of what you once were.

Seems gold always tarnished.

Heavy boots crunched along the fall of leaves. He wasn’t just a sob story. Maybe, if he could just grasp it– grasp the stories that he’d seen along the museum walls... Beckoning him to be lost to his own mind. Figure what it was he truly embodied.

What happened to James?

His lips slowly pursed together as a second set of footsteps echoed along behind his path. Tightening. Set in the ready position.

The silence of solidarity made him keen to the ear. Quietly anticipating his company’s next move. One only followed with purpose. Calloused fingers wrapped into a fist as his footsteps dropped to the sound of stealth silence. The steps seemed to advance following along his path in perfect precision. Maybe he did have a shadow to leave after all.

A reeking one.

There was no hiding now. He’d lost his opportunity. They were too close. As if their breath was along the back of his neck.

Fingers curling in tighter. Before, there would have been no hesitation. He would have sent them down in a single blow. Watched them crumble under his fingertips.

But, they no longer owned him; he owned himself.

Fingers at the ready, yet easy on the trigger. Masked behind darkness in order to become obsolete. Watching the slow crafting of this lurker. Broadening his shoulders, the shape of a revolver distorting the front of his body.

Calculating out his next plan of action.

Now he was itching. Itching to just point and shoot.

But, instinct had become his enemy. The one that muddled his mind and turned it towards murder. He couldn’t let this one be senseless.

The footsteps stopped right before the turn of the corner. Scraping boot soles down the length of the wood paneling. Might as well make yourself at home. Their body continually pivoting from one point to the next, gliding all around, yet never on him...

Searching. Searching for the target.

His breath never rose, his heart never escalated. It was bad for business. When you slit people’s throats for a living– you learned to control certain humanistic urges.

He saw himself in that shadow man. A glimmer of what he once was– a child cowering to demands. Like an animal priming itself behind a circus curtain-- all for the men that hid behind you pulling the strings.

Taking the barrel into his hands, he poked it around the corner. Waiting, watching, for the slightest nerve to set the shadow on his target.