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“Don’t tell me how to live my life!” Scarlett spat.
“Stacy, what the crap. You’re a ghost.” Her best friend looked at her with eyes full of 100% done. Stacy was Scarlett’s nickname, although Scarlett had a feeling that right now her friend wanted to call her other names.
“Fine! Don’t tell me how to…die my…death, then!” Scarlett tried to stomp off, but ghost feet don’t connect with the mortal world. Instead she opted to roll her eyes and whoosh through a wall.
Crossing her arms, she nearly slid down the wall to sit with her back to it. Then she remembered she’d just lose her balance and fall backwards. I’m about to kill someone, Scarlett thought angrily.
In the adjoining room, Riley sighed and picked up an axe. She hacked at the door. After a few swings it broke down--it was rotted anyway. Stepping through the dust and dirt she’d stirred up, she walked over to her friend. Scarlett sat on the floor, her knees up and arms crossed on them.
“I don’t want your sympathy.”
“Good, cause I wasn’t gonna give it.” Riley dropped the axe and sat down beside her friend.
“Why did I have to die?” Scarlett sobbed. “I wasn’t ready to die. I’m too young, I had plans, I…” She left the sentence unfinished and took a shaking breath.
“I know.” Riley wished to put her arm around her friend, but it would have just fallen straight through her, so she decided against it. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to join the art class anyway.”
“I know, right? Like…” Sniffing, her friend wiped her transparent nose. “Like who would have thought that art would be so dangerous? All we were gonna do was come out here to look at this stupid building, to get inspiration, or whatever, and then the floor just had to break under me and I fell two stories onto cement.”
Riley winced. “Yeah. That was so uncool. But hey, look on the bright side.” She scooted forward and put her hands on the floor, leaning toward Scarlett. “Now, you can haunt everyone who ever bullied you.”
Scarlett looked up. “I guess…” she said.
“You can…clog their toilets. And you can rip out pages of books.”
“And…and write messages in blood on their mirrors.” Scarlett began to smile.
“Woah, hang on. Blood?” Riley asked, getting a bit scared. “That might not be a good idea.”
Don’t tell me how to die my death, Scarlett thought instinctively. Wait, no. She’s trying to cheer me up. This is different than ignoring me until the ritual time of waiting was up and then trying to bribe me to find out if David likes her. Much different. “Okay, ketchup then.” She smiled.
“Better,” Riley nodded. Grinning, she stood up. “Come on. You’ve been hanging out here for too long. They threw you a nice funeral, you know. You should have seen it.”
“You know the ritual--I had to chill in this place for a month. It was creepy.”
“I know. Come on, let’s ditch this place. We’ve got work to do.” The best friends smiled at each other and strolled out of the shack--Scarlett walking through the wall, of course.
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Ehehe. It was fun to write. I'm trying to explore my abilities, write things from different perspectives, etc, etc. Practice makes perfect!
See you (hopefully) soon,
~~Zoë Wingfeather
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