What they say about us is wrong.
Not completely. We do show up where we died. That part’s true. But the bit about returning for unfinished business? Total nonsense.
I barely remember life. It’s a dream recalled two hours after waking—fuzzy sensations with no particulars. But trust me, sensations are enough to know there’s nothing I would’ve returned to Earth for. My life sucked. I was lonely and sad and exhausted by existence. There’s no way I tagged back in voluntarily.
Actually, I’m trapped. I looked for answers but only found another ghost swirling in a storm drain. Said the only ticket onward was scaring the living daylights out of someone. I tried to get it over with right there by screaming at drain ghost, but apparently the ‘living’ part is pretty key.
So I wait for a human to wander by. If drain creep wasn’t pulling my leg, a quick yell and arm shake should bring sweet release. Adios, world. For good this time.
But it’s taking forever. A few cops snooped around early on, but zilch after that. Not even my family, curious to see where I breathed my last. I float forgotten.
But finally, on a hazy, pitch-black night, someone crawls through my window.
I waste no time.
Graaaaah! Graaaaah! I yell, waving my limbs like a freaky inflatable.
The someone dims a headlamp and stares.
It’s a teenager.
She doesn’t look scared at all.
“Wow,” she whispers. “Found one.”
I stare back, spectral shame stewing in my ghost-gut.
She’s carrying odd devices.
“What are those?”
“EMF sensor and night vision camera.” She shrugs.
I frown. “You aren’t scared of me?”
“No. I was ghost hunting.”
“Why?”
“Bored. And curious.” Her thickly lined eyes scan my home’s bare walls and cobwebbed chairs. “You died here?”
I blink.
I nod.
The girl scratches her head with her camera. “You’re not going to hurt me, right?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” Another myth busted.
She squints, then nods. “Cool.” Her eyes scan the room and all the bare sadness I left behind. “You wanna come to my place?”
I spasm. “Your place?”
“Yeah.” Another shrug. “We can chill.”
Chill.
The gall of this girl…
But I suppose I’ll follow. Maybe she can lead me to someone scare-able, and I can earn my earthly exit.
I’d believed leaving my property was a no-go, but turns out that’s a lie too. The girl escorts me a few streetlit blocks to a single-story home.
So we’d been neighbors.
She climbs through a window, beckoning, and I drift into what must be her bedroom. Its walls are plastered with posters of goth bands I’m sure I’d never heard of.
“Sit,” she says, patting the end of her bedsheets.
I remain floating.
She snorts, then picks at her chipped black nails. “So… what’s it like being dead?”
I’d rather not say. But whatever. I’m here, aren’t I? And the girl’s nonchalance, so jarring at first, now feels somehow comforting.
“It’s not great. Lonely. And boring. I’m ready for it to be over.”
“Really?” The girl crawls under her sheets and wraps her arms around her knees. “Damn. I thought being a ghost would free you from that feeling.”
I drift to the floor, reappraising her. There’s a pill bottle and an open journal full of scribbles on her nightstand. I smell the sorrow in her pores. “Are you…you’re in high school?”
She scoffs. “Not by choice.”
“What made you go ghost hunting?”
“TV, mostly. Wishful thinking.”
“Hoping ghost life would be a big party?”
She smiles. She’s looking up at me, not like a phantom, but like I’m real. Like she believes in me. Like I’m a friend. She’s got these striking eyes, sharp and unyielding. They sing of a mind filled with gem-tangled thoughts.
She pulls in her feet. “Anything for an escape, right?”
And I feel sure I’ve found a kindred spirit. Someone I can understand, someone who understands me back. If anyone in life made me feel this way… I can’t remember them. And that would explain why I—well, I’m not positive how I went. But it’s a lingering suspicion. If I’d made a friend like her, maybe…
“Hey,” she says. “Are you cold? Sit next to me.” She lifts the corner of her sheets and scoots over.
I flush. “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s so appropriate.”
“Come on,” she says, laughing. “You don’t even have a body.”
I guess she has a point. Tentative, I drift over, then settle onto her bed.
“That’s okay, isn’t it?”
It’s more than that. Even without skin, being near to someone so pure and kind and misunderstood—it jolts lightning through me. Any desire to vanish is gone. How lucky that she broke into my home and wasn’t scared to see me! How beautiful that I can stay and find a second chance at joy, at feeling something other than dull, dusty dread. She wraps her arms around my phantasmal shoulders.
“Will you stay?” She’s getting choked up now, close to tears. “Will you help me through it all?”
I imagine myself her loyal guardian, her mystical protector. Can she see the way I’m smiling?
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be here.”
Her door pops open, and two pajama-clad middle-agers storm in. One wields a golf club.
“Ariana!” they say. “What the hell is going on? Who’s—my god, Ariana!”
She clutches me tighter, but an invisible hook is yanking at my nethers. And I know, instinctively, that I’m going. I’ve terrified them, her parents, and that means I pass the test. I have no choice. I’m soaring onward, I’m going, I’m gone, just when I’d learned how it feels to be alive.
“I’m sorry!” I shout through my funneling form. “It’s not my fault! I wanted to stay! I wanted—”
The last thing I see is the empty space I left in her bed. Her crossing arms and wrinkled blankets. Her despondent glare as she wonders why she expected any different.