"Shut your mouth, Ghost Anton," I yelled at the wall, roughly in the direction where Ghost Anton would have been standing if he was still alive and not a figment of my imagination.

"Well this isn't very dignified at all." Ghost Anton. Smugly standing on the other side of the room to where I was shouting. That bastard.

"What do you want? Why won't you leave me alone?" 

If you've never heard ethereal laughter before, take my word for it that it is fucking irritating. Add in that it is ethereal laughter from the spirit of Anton, who was already pretty fucking irritating, even when he was alive, you can imagine how much him pissing-his-pants belly laughing at me was getting on my nerves. I put the pillow over my head to drown him out.

"Er, I'm not sure you're totally getting how this works," he said from within my skull. "I'm not actually here so you can't block me out with a stupid pillow over your ears. You don't need all the degrees that I had to work that out either."

I had to admit he had a point so I threw the pillow across the room and sat up, which was another mistake. I felt like ass when I was lying down and now sitting up, feeling like ass was such a pleasant memory I wish I could have married it.

"Who knew drowning your sorrows had a price, Son?" Ghost Anton mused. "Oh yeah, everyone."

I ignored him and staggered to the bathroom. Fortunately, even phantoms have some standards and he left me to deposit what was rest of my soul into the toilet before I emerged looking gaunt a short while later.

"Look at the fucking state of you."

I ignored him for a second time. I had tried that a lot of first and it hadn't been working. He was still here, pestering me, but at least he hadn't gone all Spike and embarrassingly tried to start a debate about what a transparent piece of shit he was in the middle of a story. Even Ghost Anton's desperation for my attention didn't quite stretch that far.

"Are you planning to go out today or?" 

Was I planning to go out? I hadn't actually given it a second thought. I didn't really feel all that much of anything anymore true be told, with days all rolling into each other. I think it had been Monday when I checked into this crappy hotel in North Side and it was now maybe Thursday? Friday? Something like that. It didn't matter. Not much did, really. I had become rather numb to almost everything it seemed like; Ghost Anton's monologues and annoying questions sadly among the few exceptions to that.

I sat back down on the bed wondered how my family was getting on. Had OctopusKellyAnne ran it into the floor? Had MG-PPR surveyed himself into an early grave? Who knew. I dismissed the thoughts almost as quickly as they had arrived. I didn't care if either of those things had happened, I didn't have too much intention of ever leaving this room again.

"Did you see where I left the whiskey?" I asked Ghost Anton, who merely tutted and nudged straight through the empty bottle beside the bed with his translucent foot. Well that was just fucking great.

A knock on the door. I hoped it was the whiskey fairy I had managed to conjure this time. Knowing my luck it would be another lame goon to bother me instead. I climbed off the bed and headed to open it. Ghost Anton coughed and pointed towards my stained boxers. Ah shit. "Just a second," I called, reaching for my pants; nobody needed to see that.

The door whipped open with a crack of snapped timber and a fat leather soul was staring me in the face. A portly pair of legs, thick gut and shaggy bearded neck set beneath a pair of beady eyes and pushed-up pig nose quickly flowed across the room. Rather large hands gripped me around the neck and rather rudely began to squeeze. I looked up into that snarling pork-face and thought about what a story this would make; me, shirtless with my pants hanging around my ankles, barely able to see straight, strangled to death in a cheap hotel room talking to my imaginary friends. I'd have laughed, but you know, the choking etc. Fortunately for both of us, it seemed Pork-Face was going to do a little riffing of his own to drown out my undignified gargle-grunts. 

"You've had this coming for a long time, you binary purging shithead!" Hey, fancy that. Someone had actually read Spike's vomit-nonsense after all. "You're going to join your buddy Anton, alright....in HELL!"

It certainly wasn't Shakespeare and I didn't think anyone would be making a movie out of Eight's last stand based on this embarrassing shit-show, that was for fucking sure. Still, as my vision started to go black and frayed around the edges, you couldn't fault his thinking. I was certainly on my way to the big beyond and, unfortunately, going to be plagued by Anton all over again.

"That's it, motherfucker. Die. Just like everyone who's ever worked for you!" Pork-Face spat, tightening his grip. "You've never vouched for anyone, you're just a dirty user!"

That wasn't exactly true. I had vouched for lots of people. Truth be told, I was the dissenting voice on many occasions that kept plenty of people alive. Ghost Anton watched on, looking disappointed.

"Oh yeah, try to fight, you piece of shit. I'm going to enjoy all that money I get. Everyone will cheer when you're dead too! Glad the horrible purging, enabling, bullying, silly, drooling, mindless, boring, mundane, narcissistic, bubble-dwelling SCUM, is finally gone!"

Now call me horrible, enabling, bullying, silly, drooling, mindless, boring, mundane, bubble-dwelling scum all you want, but don't call me purging, enabling, bullying, silly, drooling, mindless, boring, mundane, bubble-dwelling scum, that is too far. I'm not looking to have my balls licked, but I had tried pretty hard to foster new friendships and let people outside of my own circle flourish, regardless of my own past experiences with them. So I kicked out, catching Pork-Face right in the dick with my foot, collapsing him with an "oof" as he hit the dirty floor. 

"Huh," said Ghost Anton. "Didn't see that coming." 

That's right ghosty, don't write me off just yet. I clambered to my feet, still a little unsteady pulling the belt from my ankle-covering pants as I shuffled. I wrapped it around Pork-Face's neck and began to pull. His chubby arms began to flail, a picture of TylerDurden complete with shit-eating grin becoming visible around his forearm. I should have known. Another hired gun sent to kill me for crimes I hadn't committed. How terribly banal this whole thing was.

WHEEZE. I tightened my grip on the belt and sent Pork-Face an even deeper shade of puce. GARGLE-COUGH. These people were truly fucking ungrateful, after all my hard work in keeping as many people possible safe as I could, there was virtually no recognition. HANDS SCRABBLE AT BELT. What more could I even do at this point? Had I not been fair? Had I not given chances? LAST LAME LEG FLAIL. I had been invaded by higher powers, heard ridiculous accusations of misogyny and racism. I had been hounded by billionaires, taunted and baited at every opportunity. SILENCE. Woe is me. 

"I think he's dead." Ghost Anton, ever the stater of the fucking obvious.

I let go of the belt and fell back on my arse. It had left deep lines in my palms from where I had been gripping it and they were starting to sting. My throat was hurting too. And my head. And practically all of me come to think of it. I was a fucking mess.

"So are we done with the depression and self-pity now?"  

I looked up and managed to hock some bloody spittle roughly towards where he would have been standing if he was real. 

"Yeah, alright," I croaked. "Time to go home."