Forum Thread

Kai offered the ghost of the old woman a small smile as he got inside the small cabin after Bellatrix. At least the girl had some company even though said company was actually dead. However, Kai wasn't quite sure whether the fact that Bellatrix's grandmother couldn't even remember she's dead was pretty darn tragic or a good thing. Sure, finding out you had just died had been pretty traumatizing but living a lie couldn't be that much better, could it?

Bellatrix's explanation about ghosts and mediums was more or less going over his head. So ghosts can do alive people things when they interact with mediums but they still cannot touch physical objects, which means ghosts can't really do alive people things even when with mediums. Kai frowned as he tried process what he had heard but he was interrupted when Bellatrix suddenly went silent in the middle of a sentence and collapsed to the floor.

What?

WHAT!?

"Bellatrix? Did I...? Wha- Are you..."

Kai swallowed through the lump in his throat as he hovered around the still form of Bellatrix, afraid to even try to touch her. What if he had accidentally done something to her when he had touched her earlier. It didn't seem impossible at all, there was still a lot of things he didn't understand about being dead. What if she just died and it was his fault.

"B-but I didn't... Help!"

Panic was starting to settle into the ghost head of his and Kai was on the verge of a breakdown when a small noise registered in his panicked head. Slowly shifting his eyes back on the still form of Bellatrix, Kai took a better look this time. The girl on the floor was breathing. Bellatrix was very much alive, she was just sleeping. Kai felt like laughing, crying and hitting his head with a hammer all at the same time.

But who the heck falls asleep in the middle of a sentence anyway?

---

"Oh, is everything alright in here?" Granny ghost asked, floating into the room. She glanced from Kai to Bellatrix, unsurprised. "Oh, don't mind her. She has a condition- What was it? Oh right, narcolepsy. It causes spontaneous unconsciousness." She picked a blanket up off of a conveniently placed hall table and pulled it over Bellatrix. "She told you about the Alzheimer's thing, hasn't she? That's just how I keep her from worrying. The first spirit she saw was her mother, which was quite a traumatic experience for her. Do you want some cookies?" The old woman's ghost asked, smiling gently.

---

Kai whipped his head around so fast that one might have thought his neck had broken due to the quick motion when the other ghost joined Kai and the sleeping Bellarix. That is, if the lad was alive to begin with and he could break his neck. However, before he could even start explaining how he had panicked when Bellatrix had just randomly fallen asleep and start asking questions, the ghostly old woman already told him more or less everything he needed to know.

Narcolepsy. He had heard of that before.

The dead youngster couldn't help but smile as the dead woman draped a blanket over her granddaughter. However, he wasn't as impressed by Granny's little act of alzheimer. Wasn't it pretty much the same as lying to her? Though he could somehow understand why the elderly ghost was doing what she did. Making Bellatrix think her grandmother still thought she was alive and living happily with her little girl was sweet in a way. Either way, it wasn't his business so he just kept his mouth shut about it. Instead, he focused his attention on Granny's offer of cookies.

"Can I? I mean, I'm kinda dead... Can dead people even eat anything?"

After all, he was dead. There was no need for him to eat and even if he wanted to, he wasn't really able to pick apples up to eat them in the first place. Or cookies. He couldn't really fully understand what Bellatrix had meant earlier either and he doubted he'd be even able to touch any cookies. Which also raised the question on how a ghost baked them in the first place.

"How can you touch things? Are you some kind of stage 2 or super ghost? I mean, I can't touch a thing and you can bake cookies of all things."

To emphasize his point and to check whether nothing had truly changed, Kai reached out and tried to pick up one of the cookies but his transparent hand slipped right through the baked good like it wasn't even there. Or perhaps it was his hand that wasn't there. A slightly disappointed frown marred the young ghost's face as he let his hand drop. Yep, everything remained the same, it had been stupid to expect anything else. To brush the matter out of his mind, Kai glanced at Bellatrix who was still sleeping on the floor and brought his attention back at her.

"Isn't it kind of... dangerous? The narcolepsy thing?"

---

"Well, we can eat, but it really does nothing for us at all. Us being dead folks." Grannyghost said, popping a chocolate chip into her mouth. "Touching things is actually pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. all you really need to do is remember what it was like to touch things when you were alive, and really feel like you can, believe that you can touch corporeal objects." She let out a nearly inaudible sigh. "Narcolepsy can be dangerous in certain situations. For example, when driving. Poor Bella will probably never be able to drive while feeling safe. The women in our family seem to be plagued with bad luck, up until Bella. She's the only one out of over five generations to have a happy ending, it seems. Speaking of Bella, I think that's her right now." Granny was referring to a faint yawn heard from the entryway as Bellatrix woke up. She wandered into the kitchen, sitting down on one of the kitchen stools. "Whatcha guys talkin' bout?" "Nothing much, dear. Cookie?" "Thank's granny, but I'll just have a cup of orange juice please." As granny poured some juice, Bellatrix turned to Kai. "So, I'm curious. How did you die?"

---

Kai gave Bellatrix and her grandmother a small smile as the girl walked into the kitchen and sat down. They seemed like a completely normal family, even if just a small one, if you ignored the fact that the other one was a ghost. When the other ghost went to get her still alive granddaughter orange juice, Kai took a moment to think about granny's earlier words. He only needed to remember what touching things felt like and believe he could do it again? That didn't seem too hard. However, when he tried to lay his hand on the counter, it simply went straight through it. Maybe it wasn't that easy after all.

The dead lad was about to try again when Bellatrix's sudden question made him freeze on the spot. Slowly, Kai lifted his head to look at the girl before averting his gaze again while he unconsciously brought his hand up to rest on his throat.

Uhh, I guess... I guess I just helped the wrong guy.

Kai felt oddly awkward and uncomfortable as he uttered those words. Ever since he died, he hadn't had anyone to actually talk to so no one had asked him how he died before so the question kind of came as a shock. Though he should have seen it coming nevertheless, people were curious creatures and he couldn't really blame Bellatrix for it. That didn't make him want to disappear through the floor any less though. The fact that he could actually do it made the idea rather tempting.

Ever since that day, ever since he had been left to roam the living world alone, he had just tried to forget what happened. However, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't forget a single detail. He couldn't forget that damned face, the last thing his eyes saw when he was still breathing. It was all burned into his mind.

How do you even tell someone about your death when you can't even handle going through it in you head? When all you want to do is erase it all from your memory?

---

Bellatrix winced as Kai averted his gaze, knowing that she'd hit a sore subject. "Oh, sorry, I feel so horribly intrusive now!" She said, biting her lip. She wasn't a really conversational person, nor had she ever had many friends, so she guessed that her topic choosing skills could really use some brushing up. "How about we change the subject. What's your favorite color?" She said, rattling off the first thing that came to her mind.

---

Adeline was as emotionally dead as the spirits she could see. However, there was the fact that the spirits were more social than she even would be. Oh, well. She had been a runaway for three months and a lot has changed since then. For example, she now carried a fork everywhere she went, put her own food on her 'table', and was homeless once more. As she trekked through the forest, Adeline dreamed of where she would be if her adoptive sister, Mavis, were alive.
I'd probably be at school trying to ignore all the dead people around this town, and not in a forest trying to find a freaking squirrel to eat... She crouched down behind a bush, staring at the gray squirrel that nibbled on the crumbs of two-day-old bread. The squirrel was as hungry and in despair as her, so she found it easier to end its suffering. If only I had somebody to end my suffering, too. Adeline slammed the fork into the squirrel's neck, but it acted as if it wasn't surprised at all. The look in its eyes were grateful. What has this world become to me? Adeline thought as she ate a chunk of raw squirrel meat.

---