I've been Horace's friend for a long time. A long time, indeed. We've spent many close years together and shared much. I was there when he first cried out to the physician who cradled his infant body. I was there when he first strode across the wooden floor of his child-hood home. When he first broke his skin and shivered from fright under the covers, I stood by him. I watched him grow, stubbornly yet surely, into the young man he has become.
We had many good times, Horace and I. The glade and adjacent woods knew of no finer warriors. Goblins and Dryads fell before our great swords of silver and steel. Over time, the number of fair damsels whose lives were saved by our bravery grew beyond an understanding of numbers; like the sprinkled stars in the heavens. Horace and I would talk endlessly for hours into the night. We would ponder the questions of life and philosophy; yet resign ourselves to a constant state of not knowing. I counseled him when school mates alienated him. I helped train him to best the older boys who teased him. I gave him the best knowledge he had about the fairer of the two sexes, that he might balance his bravery with chivalry. I was the closest friend he had and I cherished every moment of our time. But things slowly changed. Horace's parents became stern, once he aged past 13 years, and insisted he participate in both scholarly and religious instruction. As if by capricious providence, he was quickly identified as a prodigy in the realms of Scientific and Alchemical studies and spent hours researching, experimenting, and chronicling. As time passed, he had fewer free moments to spend galloping in the wilderness or conjuring truths to answer impossible questions. One summer he went to a boarding school abroad and there was no space to accommodate me. Every moment was to be spent with his head buried in intense study. I begrudgingly resigned myself to stay behind, at the family homestead, and wander the arena of nature on my own. Countless nights I spoke with him, but our conversations were imaginary. It was his shadow in my memory that assaulted ignorance with me. It felt almost real for a short time as my thoughts of him were vivid and authentic. Horace returned after the hot summer, older and wiser. But it became all too clear that he had nothing to say to me. He entered his home, strode immediately to his growing study, and sealed himself inside. Never before had I been disregarded by him. One evening, as the leaves began to blaze with the end of summer, I approached Horace while he studied in his father's library. I requested he suspend his bookishness for an evening and escape with me. I claimed that the voice of a distressed maiden could be heard upon the listless breeze and we were honor-bound to investigate. He continued reading in his father's wingback chair, oblivious of his oldest friend. I withdrew my gallantry and simply called his name, demanding the respect that was due to a friend, whose status may as well have been antediluvian. Again, nothing. When I raised my voice, the echos slapped back from the stone walls and caused a brief high-pitched whine. Still, he didn't even raise his head. It was as if I were not there. His impudence was nearly too much to bear and I was no longer willing to allow my oldest friend to treat me in such a distasteful manner. I strode over to Horace, seated in his haughty repose, and moved to knock the book from his hands. It was then my horror became complete and palpable. As my hands made to disrupt the distracting tome, they failed to make contact - nay, they passed completely through as if the book were filled with the pages of phantasm. I watched the air ripple and sparkle like the twinkles on sun-kissed ocean waves. I brought my hands to my face and briefly saw the room through them as they sparkled like the air near the book. A thousand shudders lurched through me as a wave of understanding came over me. It was I, the lifelong companion, the true and trusted friend, the ever-loyal servant, who was the phantasm. As this knowledge coursed through me like poisoned blood, I began to wither. How ironic, indeed! Weeks I spent conjuring Horace and his intellect, imagining conversations and contentions. I pretended he was inside my mind that we might continue our adventures despite his absence at study. But the truth was that it was I who were not real. I was the imaginary companion of Horace! My sparkling hands disappeared to thin air and I saw the floor gradually take form where my body should have been. I saw wisps of my form being torn from me by the fall breeze as it slithered through the house. Then, without warning, everything around me quickly dissipated into nothingne--- Where the streams trickle into dust, and the vines stretch no more, there breathes the lurking shadow in the dark. I know not when I came to bear the thought without disappearing into madness, but time, though sometimes a thief, has fiendishly granted a boon of remembrance. I will bear the pull of the void as long as I can in order to convey the inhospitable reality that has violated me. That you have no family, or close relationships that would fall into misfortune, grants you an immunity of sorts. But let's not delay too long. I don't know how wide this window will open and I venture that it will shut fast, lest the bats and locusts may fly through and destroy us...
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