6/I look over my shoulder at the ground. Nothing is unusual. Everything is normal. How it should be. All I brought to this village is pain. Pain and grief and nothing more. But no, I find that I cannot leave. I cannot stay but I cannot leave. I am tortured with the pain./
/I gather up my cloak and haversack and lantern, leaving the room as it was. Before I came. This village does not need me. It never needed me. I have to leave. Pain and turmoil burnt fierce imprints in my mind. They won't heal for a long time. All right. I'm leaving./
/Go on. Take a step. Towards the door. Good. And another. Another. Now you're out. It's ok, it's for the best. The street is dark, no lights are lit to fare me well. Of course not. Nobody knows I'm leaving. Nobody would care./
/Except him./
/He knows me, too well. I cannot say how he does. It's just he. he knows me. What I am, inside. Nobody should know me! I have fallen too far to be known as I am./
The being leapt out of the girl's body, gasping in pain of her dark and tortured soul. Is this what she's been feeling, all along? It was such a mistake to bring her here, if this is all she got from him. The wispy spirit darted through the alleyways to the light. It was him. He was awake! The spirit-being entered his body. It was always harder to merge thoughts with one who wasn't your allocated human. This one was strange. his thoughts were penetrating. He knew the spirit was there.
"What do you want with me, possessor?"
The spirit was startled. No human it had ever met could mind-bond!
"Mayaku is leaving. She is breaking fate-paths. You must stop her, or go with her." The spirit's mind-voice was husky and soft.
"Why?"
"You are the only one who can save her."
He got up from the desk chair.
"Where is she?"
"At the south gate. Go quickly"
He nodded, then ran out the door, feet padding silently on the gravel pathways. Dark houses and shops stared unseeingly out onto the street. A bobbing light in the distance told him where the girl was. It wasn't that far off. And she was walking slowly. The spirit kept overhead of the boy. It hoped feverently he would make it. If he didn't, it would have to return. To the Void.
"Mayaku! Please, do not leave!" He was breathing heavily as she turned around. Hands on his knees, he panted in the darkness.
"Why do you follow me? I cannot stay at your village. I am unable to bring anything but pain and sadness. Please, for your own sake, leave me to return to wandering. That was what I was born to and that is my fate." The girl turned back around to start walking.
"No! Please, you cannot leave!"
"Why are you pursuing? I have told you, no one can benefit from my presence."
"It is not your fate to die!"
Mayaku stared at him.
"I never said anything about dying. What gives you such an idea?"
"Please, listen. I don't know how, but I know if you leave by yourself you are destined to die."
"You may come, but I can't go back. Your village is hurt because of me."
"All right."
The two set off through the night-time fields, not talking, and lost in their own thoughts.