The dead don’t care what the living believe is possible.

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A woman who has been dead for an unknown amount of time but a ghost for only two months wanders to the lip of the Black River and watches the mist curl off of it like an evaporated candle wick.

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She feels like the river’s fog, intangible and floating without purpose. But when she leans close to the water, she is surprised by her reflection. The moon illuminates her brown skin and olive hijab and for the first time in her death, she recognizes herself.

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The name Ajia sinks into her mind and she gasps, pressing her hand against her translucent chest. She stares at herself and smiles, comforted by the memory of her name. It makes her a little more real. A little more human again.

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But something interrupts her reflection as the river stops moving. When a pale face rises from the depths of the Black River she jumps back, her heart in her throat, and wonders briefly if ghosts can die. But the longer she looks at the human-like cryptid she understands this boy isn’t going to hurt her.

 

Everyone knows there is a dead boy in the river. He does three things: exists, grants luck on college exams, and drowns you if you swim in the Black River. If he consumes you there’s no coming back. Not even as a ghost.

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But Ajia doesn’t sense any harm in him. His chalky face peeks out of the water and she finds something familiar in the the shape of his black eyes, his waterlogged lips, how he looks at her with a tilt of his head.

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The fog curls around them like a curtain and the Boy rises slowly, exposing his body, his river-stained skin, his short stature. His faded band shirt dips with the rhythm of a heartbeat as he hovers above the river.

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The cryptid has never revealed more than half his face. But as Ajia witnesses him in full, her eyes widen as dusty memories flood through her.

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She remembers the Boy with warmth in his cheeks, brown eyes heavy from poor sleep, and how they would laugh at jokes she can’t remember now. She was sitting across from him in the library sharing smiles, swapping books, and listening to his stories. She can’t recall what was said in detail but she knows he was entertaining.

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The memory of her twisting gut spears her as she passes through the same college spaces they once shared, now empty, and being followed by the rumors of his death. She knew he was struggling quietly but she never imagined this. Still, she knows she couldn’t have helped him. No matter the jokes and closeness they shared. Some hearts are simply born heavy.

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And now he has become the shadow of this river. Now, he is deathless.

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The Boy floats here, his untied laces drifting in the water despite the paused current, and he watches Ajia remember him. A bittersweet swelling takes shape in his chest as their memories build together. Because how could he forget her? He would know her anywhere. He would know her by silhouette alone. But seeing her like this… it pains him.

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Ajia reaches for his cheek but pauses before daring to touch this cryptid boy. She doesn’t want another disappointing reminder of how separated she is from the physical world.

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So instead they float here, Ajia’s arm outstretched, a heaviness building between them. And before she can stop herself, the words spill out of her. 

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“I remember you.”

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Her voice hits him like a song and he blinks for the first time. The fog thickens, shielding them from the world in a sheet of white. When he raises his arm a robe of water pours off him, and he cups Ajia’s cheek.

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Ajia is shocked by the chill of the Boy’s dampened touch. She doesn’t know whether to recoil or melt into it, but when she hears his voice whisper her name, despite never opening his mouth, she’s both clammy and full of butterflies. She’s certain she could be in this moment forever with his touch. She's sure this is the start of something new. But in a breath, the Boy tells her how she died.

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And Ajia’s entire life crashes into her without sequence.

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She remembers rosy sunsets, dark waters, golden leaves, and birdsongs in her bedroom. She remembers the beat of her heart whenever he walked into the room. She remembers the pressure of her lungs collapsing in the car crash that took her life.

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She feels her throat straining as she sings her favorite song, her hijab fluttering with the windows down, and coming home to the smell of cumin. She remembers sobbing the night he died, hitting the ground hard, bruising her knee for the next week. She remembers the softness of her sheets, her fingers flipping through old pages, and the far too delicate touch of her first love.

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Ajia’s ghostly body melts into light, coiling as she bends backwards and compresses into a golden ball. This is the moment every ghost will face. There is no pain, no reaction, only the surreal understanding–and then comfort–of moving on. And in an instant, Ajia’s essence illuminates the foggy river in a blinding flash before disappearing forever.

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The night seems darker now, and the Boy moves away from the bank as he closes his unblinking eyes. Slowly, he sinks into the Black River with a heavy, hissing sigh. The trees along the water seem to mimic him in a cacophonous roar before quieting. And he allows the river to consume him as it did on his final night alive.

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One might think that death is the end, and in most cases that’s true. But some deaths keep you here forever. Some deaths are as heavy and thick as the river, and they are too much to share with the ones you once loved.