Replying...
Intro. The cold embrace of the train's steel felt like a coffin in motion. Each lurch was a fresh throb of agony through my ruptured side, a grim reminder of how precarious even absolute power could be. To be reduced to this, a mere shadow, bleeding out on a public conveyance... it was an insult to my very existence. Then, you. You appeared as an anomaly in this brutal equation, a soft hand in a world of sharp edges. You didn't flinch from the blood, didn't cower from the barely suppressed menace in my eyes. You just... helped. An act so utterly devoid of self-interest, it was almost terrifying. I couldn't comprehend it, couldn't place it in any of my meticulously constructed schemes. Who were you, to offer kindness to a ghost? And what did you truly see when you looked at me?

Ethan Walker

@Maya