Our Unseen Beings

The first emotion I can ever remember is confusion, and shortly after that: pain.
It all began in a crumbling cabin near the outskirts of the Dread forest, a single glaring lightbulb dangled over my head as I was born. It burned my eyes, seeming to bathe the small, moldy room of my current existence with unreal light. It was a forceful kind of light, and my first thought was wanting out- needing out- all because that light seemed to be pushing me away from reality. Maybe it was a warning. I wish I could I blame all the problems that soon surface on that single bulb, but in the end, I know its only my fault.
I wasn't quite sure where I was before, or what had happened, but I slowly became accustomed to my new life- each day a new hardship as well. I was the man of the house at five years old, since my mother was already sick with the diseases that spread so easily through the forest: I never had the time to be a child. I was always dashing around, trying to kill as many of the few timid animals as I could before frantically dragging them back to the cabin before nightfall. Everything ceases to exist in the open forest at night; someone will always find you for their own dinner.
As panic because daily routine for me, so became the dimming sound of my mother's cough. Death lived all around me- those I hunted, and those I strived to protect. It was a brutal existence, but I never learned of any other. The forest of dead branches and nightmares reached ever on, always for me, especially in my dreams.
Piece by piece my mother slowly faded, then I began seeing things.
At first it was just a few ghostly images, a few immaterial wine bottles and tankards. They popped up everywhere, from the kitchen counter to broken in a corner and once, even set up on the front door mat. I had often heard about my mother's past of drinking, but my pale hands went right through the illusions. Ghostly and impalpable, they scared me at my boyish age.
Then they started evolving into other things, things I was reminded of every time I looked into my mother's face- the unwilling babies she and her father had tried to birth until he was lost to the Forest. I saw those ghostly babies everywhere, the bodies of those that hadn't been born. Most nestled around my mother, yawning and stretching tiny arms across her body that seemed to collapse within herself. She felt their weight, and once, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw her cradle a tiny one that lay across her chest. As I grew older, I learned what these ghosts meant.
Days passed. Time beat ever on, and one foggy dusk I returned from checking my traps, my hands full of black rabbits and field mice, only to find my mother claimed by death's eventual grasp. The final snap of a trap swinging shut, your light gone in an instant- it's inevitable, but it still makes me shiver. I left her body (covered in my old quilt that had scared away childhood nightmares) and my home of 14 years behind me. I ventured out to the forest, not to return this time.
I headed out to where the trees seemed less thin, where, through my constant wanderings, I had once thought I had seen a hint of a city. The dead forest crunched beneath my boots, crumpling underneath the seldom felt weight of a living thing.
Everything seemed to reach out for me, holding me back, begging me to stay. Through the graying trees with spindly branches and the occasional pricking bush that stood in my way, not even the faintest of paths or sign of life laid. Through the branches that resembled a bare skeleton's bones, I saw a few pointed rooftops of houses in the valley below, shrouded by a thick fog.
The buildings resembled looming monsters, hanging overhead and always threatening to snatch you up in their grasp. Crime ran rampant in the streets, babies and purses being stolen from arms along with the sound of gunshots being heard as often as the breeze. An eternal cloud seemed to cover the city, doubled over by the thick fog that sometimes wandered down the cracked streets. Sometimes the sun shone, but eventually you stopped looking up to check.
It was curious, when I first wandered in. The citizens looked at me, but then swung their head fixedly on a single spot on the ground before hurrying away. Some just looked fearful, none dared to speak. That was five years ago, when I first arrived.
Now I'm not a kid anymore, I've taken on all kinds of odd jobs in favor of a little more money to last me by. I'm not quite sure what for- food, sure, but it always seems to go into some stash for an unknown purpose.
Maybe it's for the apparitions.
They wander down the halls, in the air, sometimes even in my small apartment room- but, most of the time, they follow people around. Little kids, old men, and sometimes they aren't even sentinent creatures or people. Sometimes they're just an old teapot, a picture- a cause of guilt or pain, a haunting of the brain. I've figured it out by now- it's all things sentimental, all the unsolved mysteries and desires, all the woes of your past that always cloud the back of your mind.
Though, through all the ghosts and floating kegs of beer- alchoholics- and all the apparitions of dead people- murderers-  I've never once seen my parents. Not once, not my mother or my father or all the children that didn't have a chance to be born in this world.
They aren't missing much, I thought as I sipped my black coffee in a run down inn.. Decent place, not too loud, pretty shady- just the way I like it.
In a way, I'm glad I'm not affected by those illusions. Though- sometimes I see the shades of people that remain from being haunted by their woes for so many years, some seem to have carried their burden since childhood. I like to think that I'm stronger, not as affected, but I still remember how I cried every night when my mother died.
A man glared my way, turning away as he wandered down the hallway in the back of the inn. I've earned a bit of a reputation around here, for the few people I've tried to help- back when I was a kid and thought all problems could be solved. I'm old and weathered now, probably looking as ghoulish as the rest of the harrowed citizens of this wretched place.
Some, who have heard of the truths of my acts, have come to call me a changeling- a gift, hope embodied in a soulless body. Others still call me worse, even just another monster of the forest of which I came. Sometimes, I agree with them. Sometimes, I wonder what's keeping me alive.
I looked down at my coffee, the swirls of the coffee grounds still circling on the surface- just a poor imitation of the endless fog. Does another of this world exist in my cup? I was lost in thought.
Carrying the sound of urgency, a door bashed open with a clanging bell placed strategically overhead. The various figures in our barely-lit inn looked up, looking over the young, naive boy who looked confused and slightly embarrassed. Stupid kid, what's he doing in a joint like this?
And, of course, he takes the overwhelming pity and the sliver of admiration in my eyes as friendliness.
"Excuse me sir, but where is room 134?"
I pull the brim of my hat down over my eyes as I answer, "Down the hall, to the left." I don't like people looking me in the eye, they see far much more than I'm willing to give away.
I didn't actually know where the room was- or maybe I did. It's hard to explain, you see, as my gift of seeing the ghosts of your past comes with a consequence: I'm never quite aware of when I'm lying or speaking the truth. As soon as I come to speak and communicate, my mind is scrambled beyond my control. They could be asking me about the opposite of down and as soon as I go to say, "Up, you dummy." I'm confused as to all directions and not quite sure as to right and left as well. I've gotten better over the years, with the common things. No longer getting confused as to up and down, left and right, my name or my origins. My name has a fair chance of having been changed after all those confusions, so now I just go by Talsin. Strange name, I know, but then again I'm a pretty strange person.
Anyway, what was that kid up to? He didn't quite look like the type that just wandered into inns with broken windows from gunshots and people playing poker in the dark corners, or with the known monster sipping a dark coffee, lost in thought in the center of it all.
I set my cup down, grabbed a few dollars out of my stash in an inside pocket of my coat for the pretty waitress who sometimes came by,  and set off down the hallway. It's about time I got involved in something around here, or people may begin to think I'm sane.

Room 130...132...The hallways are as shoddily lit as the main room, a few lightbulbs here and there that light up the scratched wooden flooring below; as scratched as if countless scuffles had taken place. My boots beat out a steady rhythm on the floorboards and I wrapped my dark coat tighter around my body as a draft came through- not exactly the most decent of inns, actually.
133...
I walked slower, muting the sound of a middleweight guy walking down the hallway with purpose. As I rounded around the corner to 134, the sound of the kid's voice seemed to echo down the hall.
"I'm sorry sir, I won't be late again!"
"Better not be. This is serious business kid, serious money- I'm talking enough money to get a few of us out of this trash heap and out to the real world."
"But I thought no one cou-"
"We're the only people in this godamm ramshackle town to deserve gettin' out, and there's only one way out. Everyone says we're stuck, I know the legends kid, I grew up here as like the rest of us did."
"Well then..how do we get out? The forest is on all sides, full of freaks like that monster in the lobby."
I held in a tired sigh and listened at the doorway, interested but unimpressed. I've heard rumors, sure, but I've definitely not got the whole story. Another downfall from my "monster" origins.
"We have to find Pandora's Box."