Duncan

“He’s just trying to use you, please!”

The words hang in the thick night air, awkward and out of place and much too forgiving for how much blood is scattered across the rotting brown grass. But even when the boy shouts, as hopeless as it is, the other, taller boy doesn't answer. And he has gotten so much taller these past eighteen months, and his arms now are thick and sturdy, holding out the blade with an impenetrable strength and resolution. The other boy, his arms held out less firmly, breathes heavily, red already staining his wrinkled suit. He can see the older boy moving again, but he can barely keep up the strength to stand.

“All of those times you said you’d follow me to the end of the Earth! Duncan, were you just lying-”

Blood spits from between his teeth instead words now, and his mouth is open wide with shock and horror. His eyes glaze, pale, staring up in disbelief at the dirty face of the boy he thought he used to know. “You-” His voice cracks, dies in his throat, and the boy lets the corpse go so that it crumples in a heap to the ground, leaving the bloody sword hanging limply in his hand.

“That’s it.”

He turns to see the tall man, his stick-thin form wrapped in the shadows as it always is.

“There there Duncan, this is all for the best now.”

The boy flinches.

“My name isn’t Duncan.”

The boy takes a step, two, three, and now he’s by the tall man’s side, staring up into his hollow black eyes. The man holds out his hand, fingers thin and long and monstrous, and the boy takes it with barely an instant’s hesitation. Even now blood is warm against his face and skin, and although it isn’t his own blood he can still feel the pain.

Without another look back at the fallen corpse, the small boy follows the ghost into the darkness.