I was gone for a long time.

(gone from a lot of things, lost and going nowhere)

Didn't really plan to be, but sometimes life just has a way of getting away from you.

(staying away, just out of reach)

I didn't realize I was depressed until someone told me.

(still haven't fixed it, trying my best)

Wasn't aware of the bridges burned until the ashes got shoveled into my mouth.

(too many times to count now, never stops hurting)

I lost the will to put words down on pages.

(struggle to do so even now, is good ever really good enough?)

Feeling like an imposter has become a second skin.

(self-loathing never really goes away, just fades sometimes)

But in all the madness of the current times, there's hope.

(small lights, flickering in dark)

Clinging and grabbing to it, to them, where I can.

(can't let go, won't let go)

I'm sorry.

(just words, but I'm trying)

I'm back.

(for now, who knows if it will last?)

It's been ages.

(far too long, far too long)

I have a certain relationship with noises. It's not always a good one, sometimes rocky. 

The good day I was having when I woke up has been ruined, twisted to something vile and maddening and unbearably annoying. 

The beeping from construction is like a constant alarm. 

Chewing sounds and heavy breathing, cutting through the music that pours from 'noise canceling' headphones that are doing anything but their one intended purpose. 

People shouting across the office instead of using intercoms, talking in volumes that don't fit a quiet setting.

Office doors that can't be shut to block out the endless chattering and laughing from the front. 

Small things, in the grand scheme, but just enough to slowly eat away at a person over years. 

Maybe I'm being too critical.

Perhaps I'm too quick to get snappy at such things. 

Or maybe... I just need better headphones and louder music. 

The city that loomed over an incline in the freeway came into full, startling view and a roadsign introduced it, glinting harshly in the cycle's single white eye of a headlight as it flew by.

OLDPORT - EXITS 505-590

He took the third exit, the light on the front of the hypercycle dimming and eventually winking out as glowing neon turned night as bright as day, even in the nearly deserted back-alleys. A mile or so in and the vehicle hissed to a stop, cylindrical wheels hardly making a noise. The Rider stepped off, black attire making him a silhouette against the glowing neon that littered almost every surface. 

It was worse in the center of the city, but even here various AR-boards and adverts had been set up. Across the street, over an nearly abandoned corner store, an advertisement was playing for a coffee company; the giant flickering arm of the actor reaching out from the sign and shoving a steaming paper cup at the viewer. The Rider huffed his displeasure, the sound muffled and distorted, crackling like a broken speaker. 

Every city he'd been in since he set out was looking like more and more of the same. Carbon copies with different names and different ads and different colors. Had it not been for the mask, he might have spat. Instead, he reached over to the cycle and pressed a gloved palm onto its front. A few spots on it blinked red and he walked away from it, knowing anyone who tried to loot it would get a nasty surprise. 

The edges of Oldport held on to a bit of their familiar charm, he noticed as he walked. A few of the AR-boards were laying on their sides, vandalized and broken, advertisements still trying to flicker on them in dying spurts.

A thin smile, unseen, drew up the edges of his mouth slightly as he stepped across an empty street toward an abandoned church, making quick work of the CONDEMNED stickers blocking the doors with only a swipe down of his hand. The material on either side hissed and bubbled, melted away and stretched as he pushed the left door open and stepped through. 

The door slid shut behind him and for a moment, everything was black. A sigh hissed from his helmet a moment before lights began to wink on, one at a time, from the back of the church where he stood toward the front, toward the alter. There was a click behind him, bars slipping from the walls beside them and across both doors. 

"Great," the Rider, grumbled, taking a small shooter from an inside pocket and settling a gloved hand on the trigger. "No one ever says hello anymore."

A voice hissed to life from the alter and a robed figure rose from behind it, white orbs winking to life under its hood and staring holes directly into The Rider's helmet. 

"Wel-welcome t-t-to Sanctuary, Rider Geist. Pla-place down your weapons an-and re-emove your armor-or, or we will-ill be forced to take def-deeefensive action."

The voice was robotic, old tech. It didn't sound real, more like a recording. "Explain defensive action," the cyclist responded, voice monotone. 

"Al-larms will be-ee raised and sentr---"

The voice was cut off as a red bolt tore through the air and ripped through the automaton's synthetic flesh and endoskeleton, right between those two glowing spheres. Alarms sounded piercing cries and the white lamps began to alternate crimson.

The Rider bent down and loosed another shooter, this one from his belt, ducking behind a pew to wait for the cavalry. He waited, and idly wondered if the files here would be any different from the three other compounds he'd hit the last few weeks. It was becoming almost automatic by this point. Same song and dance in different locations. 

The thought was still fresh in his mind when the church around him went blinding white and his whole world exploded. 

A shape hovers behind my chair as sore and weary fingers click across the old keyboard and words appear on the screen. Its reflection stares back at me, a blurred form barely there in the brilliant blue-white of the monitor, contrasting blindingly in the dim office. The fan whirs overhead, rustling paper on the desk before me, the blades wobbling audibly as they cut through air.

I feel its hands on my shoulders, and they squeeze, push forward, urge more words to flow from digits already well-tapped for the night. But I cannot stop now, almost in spite of the clock to my left as it ticks away the seconds, the minutes, the hours drifting in a whisper beside me that's both soothing and haunting. 

The click of the keyboard moves in rhythm to the creature's caresses on my spine and I straighten just for a moment, body creaking and popping in protest. Hands leave the keyboard to stretch as well, to rub at bleary, bloodshot eyes, as if pressing the very sleep out of them in favor of the waking world. 

It pushes forward again and I lean to continue.

I'm a slave to it, a host.  

It's left before, and though the freedom is a glimmer of hope, I secretly wish away the days in despair until it comes creeping back, slinking up behind me and filling my mind with undocumented horrors that must be put to page. 

Until my end of days, I'll never be free from this demon. This angel. This spirit that haunts me and helps me and hinders me. 

This ghost, called Inspiration.