Dead Men and Living Ghosts

Leaving his phone number with his family had been a last-minute, practical decision. 

The moment he turned eighteen and packed his bags, Micah had every intention of cutting them off completely. The plan had been brewing in his head for as long as he could remember: leave and start fresh. New city. New name. New number. New life. 

But starting fresh required money, and Micah had too little of it. Part-time jobs at the mall and burger chains didn't pay enough for him to start completely over. It barely paid enough for him to get out. 

A bus ticket to the next city over. That was all he could afford. 

Changing his name would have involved paperwork, fees, sitting in government offices, and he doubted anyone would take him seriously. Who cared about a scrappy teenager with ripped jeans and bruised lips? Plus he'd developed some kind of sentimental attachment to it; 'Micah Liu', it was a good a name as any.

So he kept his name. 

But his number— that was the one thing he did change.

Even before he walked out the door that night, he'd gotten himself a new sim and tossed out the old one.

And yet, as he slipped out of the house while his parents slept, he'd scribbled the new number on a scrap of paper and left it under the old ashtray.

Not because he expected them to call. Not because he had some lingering hope that one day they'd wake up, realize what they'd done, and beg him to come home. 

No. Micah had never been that naïve. 

The truth was simpler, colder. If he died alone in some city street, and the coroner called the last number in his phone, at least someone would know where to collect the body. 

His parents didn't answer unknown numbers. His mother was too paranoid. His father had too many debts to settle. 

So Micah had left the number behind knowing they'd never call.

And they never did. 

Not when he left. Not when he was struggling. Not even when he was in the hospital after the explosion. 

They didn't give a damn about him. 

Until now.

It hadn't been his father's voice on the phone. It was his mother's. 

Her voice was tired. Hoarse. Like a woman who had spent years crying and inhaling her husband's secondhand smoke. 

"Micah," she had said. "It's your father. There's been…" Her voice cracked. "He's… it's… stage IV small cell lung cancer. The doctor says he doesn't have much time left." 

A pause. 

"…Please come home." 

Micah should have felt something. Relief. Satisfaction. Justice. 

The bastard was finally rotting from the inside out—the way Micah had spent his entire childhood wishing he would. 

But he didn't feel anything. 

And yet, somehow, he still ended up here. 

Standing in front of his childhood home. The rundown bungalow where he had spent eighteen years of his life, where the walls still carried his worst memories like his body carried the scars of them. 

The stairs creaked under his weight as he stepped onto the porch. He raised his fist, knocking three sharp raps against the door. 

There was a doorbell, but he didn't bother pressing it. There was no way in hell anyone had bothered to fix it. 

The door opened. 

His mother stood in the doorway. 

She looked older. The grey streaks in her hair were more prominent than they had been the last time he saw her. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes were deeper, her face gaunt, loose flesh hanging off her bones. 

She looked tired. Pale. Like she hadn't seen the sun in years. 

And yet, the moment she saw him, her dull eyes lit up with something Micah hadn't seen before.

Joy. 

"Micah…" she breathed. 

Micah opened his mouth. The word was on the tip of his tongue. Mom.

But it stuck in his throat. 

He couldn't say it. 

So instead, he swallowed hard and said, "Hi."

This was the same woman who'd stood by and watched silently while his dad turned him into a punching bag. The one who rarely bothered to feed him meals, who left him to raise himself, who hated the green eyes in his face. He was filled with the inexplicable urge to yell at her. Yell what exactly, he wasn't sure. But before he could react, her lips trembled like she wanted to say something else, but instead, she took a shaky breath. "Thank you for coming," she said. "Your father just woke up. I was about to bring him his breakfast." 

Before Micah could say anything, a voice—that voice—croaked from somewhere down the hall. 

"Rachel, I'm gonna die of hunger before the cancer kills me." 

Micah's breath stopped. 

That voice froze him in place.

It had been years since he'd heard it. Years since he'd forced himself to forget it.

And yet, the moment the words reached his ears, something deep and instinctive in Micah curled in on itself.

His mother didn't notice his hesitation. She turned and started toward the back room, expecting him to follow. 

Micah's feet moved on their own.

His parents' bedroom was exactly the same. 

Same creaky metal bed. Same old drawers stacked with newspapers. Same yellowed, papery curtains that barely let in light.

And there—on the bedside table—sat his father's prized possession, an old Colt Buntline pistol. 

The man himself was lying in bed, an oxygen mask over his face. He was peering at the back of a medicine tab, reading its instructions. Then he scrunched his face in disgust and set it down. 

Micah barely had time to register it before his father looked up. 

For a long moment, they just stared at each other. 

Then Jian Liu exhaled, uninterested. 

"Oh. It's you." 

Something burned in Micah's chest. 

After all these years. After everything.

That was all he had to say? 

His mother said, "I'll leave you boys to talk." And removed herself from the room.

Jian chuckled, coughed into his sleeve, then said, "No need to look so angry. I'm already dying. Suppose you're here to say good riddance, eh?" 

Micah said nothing. Slowly, he stepped further into the room, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His fingers brushed against the edges of an old newspaper on the nightstand. 

Jian's eyes followed him around the room, watching. 

"You could say you're sorry, you know," Micah said quietly. "You could apologize for what you did to me. There's still time. I might even forgive you." 

Jian let out another deep, throaty chuckle. "I'm not gonna apologize for trying to toughen my son up." 

Something inside Micah snapped.

"I WAS A CHILD," he yelled. "I didn't need 'toughening up'—I needed a father who cared!" 

"Oh, I cared," Jian said. "Cared enough to make sure you weren't soft. You were always an odd one. Head in the clouds, drawing those silly little pictures. The world doesn't take kindly to your type." 

Micah's hands clenched into fists. 

"So that's your justification?" His voice was shaking. "You beat me. You humiliated me. You mutilated me. For sixteen years. And that was supposed to be helping me?" 

Jian exhaled. "Abuse is a strong word for it." 

Micah's jaw clenched so tight it ached. His hands curled into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. His father's presence—his very existence—made his skin crawl, like an open wound being pressed down on by rough, calloused hands. He took a slow, shaky breath, forcing the words out before they burned a hole through his throat. 

"I wouldn't call constant beatings, verbal beration, and bodily mutilation for sixteen years—give or take—anything but abuse," he said sharply, his voice slicing through the stagnant air of the bedroom. 

Jian scoffed, unimpressed. He leaned back against the pillows, his frail chest rising and falling beneath the thin hospital gown. "It was discipline," he said with an air of finality, like the matter wasn't up for debate. His lips curled into something halfway between a sneer and a smirk. "And I should've done more of it. Now look at you." His gaze dragged over Micah with slow, deliberate disgust before landing on the barely healed burns on his face. "A fucking fairy still painting silly little pictures." His nose wrinkled. "Shameful." 

The words hit Micah like a punch to the gut, but he didn't flinch. He refused to give Jian the satisfaction. Instead, he smiled—a humorless, razor-edged thing. "You say that like I didn't turn out exactly how you made me." 

His father didn't respond, but the way his lip curled told Micah everything. 

Micah's vision blurred with rage. He reached for the bedside table. His fingers closed around the pistol. 

His mother walked in just as he cocked the safety.

"Micah!" she gasped. 

Jian didn't even look surprised. 

Micah's fingers flexed around the cold, heavy metal of the gun. His breath was steady, but his pulse pounded like war drums in his ears. He lifted the pistol, the barrel aligning perfectly with Jian Liu's forehead. 

"I should end your pathetic life right now," he said, his voice void of emotion. 

"Micah, please!" his mother cried, her voice cracking as she stepped forward, her hands outstretched like she could physically pull him back from this moment. 

Jian laughed—actually laughed, a deep, wet, guttural sound that rattled in his chest. He pulled off his oxygen mask and coughed violently, thick and phlegmy. Then, with a slow deliberation that made Micah's stomach churn, the old man raised his trembling hand to his mouth and spat a wad of blood into his palm. He wiped his lips with the back of his wrist, smearing red across his paper-thin skin, and put the mask back on. 

"Don't worry about it, Rachel," he rasped, shaking his head with amusement. "He won't do it. He's too soft." 

Micah shivered. Jian's gaze locked onto him, dark and bored and utterly unaffected. And suddenly, he wasn't looking at Jian Liu anymore. He was looking at the other man—the one in his dreams. The one with the fumewort in his mouth, exhaling smoke while watching Ashur swing that goddamned dull axe. 

Jian let out a slow, rattling breath. "My discipline was meant to help you," he said, and for a split second, Micah almost laughed, because what kind of man could say something like that with a straight face? "Not like it did you any good. You were too weak. Never tried to defend yourself. Always looked defeated, like you were already used to it." 

Micah's grip on the gun tightened, his finger hovering over the trigger. His breathing was shallow, his chest tight. 

"Maybe if you kill me now," Jian continued, tilting his chin up ever so slightly, "it'd be worth it. Go ahead, kid." His lips curled into something like a smile. "Pull the trigger. Show me how much you've grown." 

Micah's heart was a wild, caged thing, beating against his ribs like it was trying to break free. His hands trembled—not with fear, not with hesitation, but with the sheer mass of everything. All those years. All that pain. And for what? 

To be told it was all for his own good? To be told it didn't even matter because it was like he was already used to it? 

Maybe he had been. Maybe that was the worst part. 

He thought about Ashur. About himself. About a boy who swung an axe until his hands bled, who collapsed in the snow and screamed without sound, who accepted his suffering because there was never any other choice. Turns out Micah's spirit had been tired long before he even realized he had a past life. 

Micah exhaled, slow and sharp. Then, with a flick of his thumb, he switched the safety back on. 

The gun landed on Jian's chest with a dull thud. 

"Go fuck yourself, Dad." 

Jian blinked, surprised, before he let out another choked, wheezing laugh. 

Micah shoved past his mother, ignoring her frantic whispers, and strode toward the door. But before he stepped outside, he glanced back over his shoulder. 

"If I come to your funeral," he said, his voice flat, "it'll be to piss on your grave." 

Then he walked out and didn't look back.