For the damned | ✓

prologue

EVER SINCE SHE WAS twelve years old, Delilah woke up at seven o'clock sharp. It wasn't because she set an alarm or because she was that much of a morning person per se, but the ghost that had stuck to her, a big smile on his face as soon as he got her awake. He wasn't the first ghost she had ever seen nor was he the last, the language of the death one she was more fluent in than her own.

When she was younger it hadn't taken her long to realize her world was different from others and it hadn't taken her mother long to let her promise never to tell others. She didn't mind it to be her secret, not when the ghosts around her were all so friendly. They aged along with her and couldn't touch her, always floating around for a bit once they noticed she could see them.

Only one had stayed by her side, refusing to cross over, and right now he was singing in her ear.

"Good morning, Delilah," Mateo grinned at her, floating away from her.

"Good morning," she smiled back at him, rubbing the sleep out of her eye as she pushed herself up.

"Did you sleep well?" Mateo said happily," it's your first day of college tomorrow."

"I did actually," she said as she got up, opening the curtains so the light could spill in," and the eclipse is also that night, so everything aligns perfectly it seems."

The gold cloaked her room like dust, from the crystals on her table to the stacks of books about hand reading and the stars, beaded curtains with nazars intertwined between the silver hanging on either side of her bed. It was a colorful mess, but her mess, her walls the color of coffee swirled with milk, glittering with fairylights and dreamcatchers. Mateo was sitting cross-legged to her right, that white glow which every ghost she had met carried softly around him, like a halo almost around his head. 

"I'm going to miss it here," she sighed.

"Honestly, I spent so much time here I'm going to miss it as well," Mateo said, placing a hand on his heart as he looked around. "Goodbye, my second youth."

"How's your family doing?" Delilah asked as she walked to her closet, picking out what she thought would match the energy for today.

He visited them every day, watching to make sure they were safe at night and disappearing from by her side to check in every now and then. She knew their names and stories by heart with how often he had told them, an impressive feat on it's own. Ghosts usually lost all but their most important memories while they lingered on Earth, waiting for the Grim Reaper to guide them to the next life, but Mateo somehow managed to tell her detailed stories each time.

In a way it did make it easier for him to age along with her, because outside of the appearance and his family he remembered almost nothing of his old life. Even the memories he had of his family came over the years, growing stronger the longer he stayed amongst the living. He was positive that in five years he would recall everything, not just his love, but she wasn't sure if his death was something he should remember. Still, it was his choice and she would support him, Mateo having become like a brother to her over the years, even if they didn't look alike.

Their skin was both tinted, but hers was warmer, carrying the Filipino sun inside of her mother, with eyes the color of a shadowed lake at sunrise. Mateo was more like a storm with dark hair and eyes, lightning scars appearing over his skin as he grew older with her, most of them from fights he couldn't remember. He always told her he had been quite the fighter when he was alive, but she couldn't see it, not with how kind he was.

"They're doing well," he said," Ella's off to the same camp Gabriela and I attended."

It was always strange seeing him speak of his daughter and wife with how young he looked, but she supposed he probably thought the same thing when he did so. She didn't know how he had died, but she did know his children had been young when he had, one of them now even older than Mateo appeared to be. Still, he didn't want her to contact them, out of fear that that would upset them more. Watching over them meant so much to him already.