You've forgotten why you're still here," the girl said. "You keep trying to vanish into small things. Into dust and silence. But silence is not peace."
Harry didn't speak.
"You think time means you've healed. But all you've done is rot slower."
His throat tightened.
"Stop pretending to be a ghost."
Then, softer: "You owe it to them. All of them.""
She stepped away, and the pocket watch slipped from her sleeve, clattering to the floor.
When Harry looked up, she was gone.
The hands on the watch spun wildly.
Outside, the air changed.
The street had shifted.
A metallic crash. Screaming. The kind that punctured instinct and rewired it with panic.
A pretzel cart sailed through the air, striking a parked car with bone-cracking force.
Harry turned. Slowly.
The man—if he could be called that—was large. Unnaturally so. Muscle stacked atop muscle. Sweat slicked down a neck too thick to support the misshapen head. Veins glowed faintly. Blue. Artificial. Serum-enhanced. Bad batch. Sloppy work.
The creature grabbed the vendor by the front of his shirt and flung him against a lamppost hard enough to dent it.
People screamed. Phones came up. Feet scrambled.
Harry set the broom against the shop wall. Straightened his coat. Took one breath, shallow and even, the kind taken before necessary things. And walked.