By: Emma Yuan

Between an expanse of mountains and forest, stories tell of a valley of ghosts. A river runs through, resounding with voices of the lost—water remembers all, they say. Even as the willowy thicket of trees sing with their spirit the water retains it long after they dissipate.

But even after death ghosts have one last journey to make.

Formed from regret, vengeance, love, they lin-ger with one last wish for the living before departure.

While now an empty plain devoid of presence, she could recall life too.

There had been someone there once. He had been smiling—smiling at her, hands reaching out for her to grasp. There had always been a smile for her, even as others looked at her with eyes ridden with loathing.

She would have been alone then too, if not for him. It was because of him that the solitude now felt so empty.

She was a ghost. A hollow whisper of what had passed. And yet she remembered him. The final string attaching her soul to the world.

She wondered what had become of him. Where was he now? Why hadn’t he come back? She couldn’t seek him out herself.

A tether was meant to draw her to unfulfilled desire. One that would allow her to leave the valley for a few precious moments to have it unfold so she may finally disappear. Surely, even while dying she would have wished to see him again.

Memory was shattered after death. Scattered into nothingness to be reformed in the next life. The only fragments remaining would be those important enough to her in life, hovering over the abyss for her to reclaim.

So what was it that she had stayed for, if in her memory there was only him?

It was lonely here. Others like her had come and gone as she stayed behind, bound to the valley. Decades had passed now. Long enough for most of her tormentors to pass. Long enough that perhaps even he would soon leave her. She had pieced together snippets of news from other ghosts, mere wisps, the extent a soul’s remnants of the living could contain.

She learned the river had run dry once. While it had run as long as she’d existed, before it had been said to be a canyon a hundred feet deep, extending further than the bustling town below. When drought had hit, the villagers had resorted to a blood sacrifice. Now the roar of water was the only cry of life that remained with her.

Suddenly, she felt a pull. Something akin to a heartbeat pulling at her phaseless form. The river’s cry had changed, settled into a whimsical calling to ‘follow.’

Like a leaf caught in wind she obeyed, gaze pulled to a place beyond what she could see. Leav-ing the valley made her feel limitless. Infinite. And yet her path never split. Past trees, past val-leys, past people that would never stop to look. Even after she divulged from the river, the pulse remained, growing slower yet stronger.

Passing through the walls of a peeling house she came across a sallow, decrepit old man. Thin grayed hairs lay splayed across the bed sheets, framing the skeletal figure. She would have as-sumed he was dead, but…

She could feel his heartbeat.

Slowly, the man’s eyes fluttered open, landing on her. His lips lifted upwards.

She smiled back, reaching out. The pulse was barely there. Soon it would be nothing.

She could remember now. The condemnation of the villagers. The precise curve of the boy’s lips. His outstretched hands, reaching, as she plummeted.

The fall of a tear between them.

And her world turned to ash.

‘I wish that I too, will be the last thing you see.’