Part 1 written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)
At 4 am, I saw a ghost of the past on a chair. It had the slightest grey tint of a shadow with white hands resting on the armrest. Completely still, it bore an air of ill displacement and sad misfortune. It’s frayed old attire suggested someone from the 1930s or 40s period, but I couldn’t even tell for what decade the dress code was as a person dropping out and having flung history lessons. I narrowed my eyes, fixated but drew it back as I got tired identifying the clothing’s era on that apparition. Learning and remembering history was mundane pain in class even as a college freshman who bothered to pen notes on paper on the side. Yes, call me dumb in my head, but truthfully honest and innocent at heart. You may perceive me as pure, I don’t know. And oh, by the way. I hate ghosts. Not because I fear them, but I see them all the time. Most days, they just have a little unfinished business and keep a distance. This one though, had a grieving darkness I could not quite grapple and understand. Something like a thicker fog, which never clears the path but grows heavier till it wolfs down everything. It had an overwhelming tenacious weight that could suck you in instantly, like a magnet being pulled into the unknown which likely kills in a second without warning, if one may imagine.
Now, you may ask me. Why the hell am I looking at this ghost right now? Well, I was, working on my term assignment. It was homework at the ungodly hour, burning the midnight oil away. I had troubles sleeping so I got up to work on it two days before the deadline was due. I needed to get it done now, so I could use the extra time for a new part-time job at the ice cream store that just opened two weeks ago. I’ve nailed the interview for that, and it starts tomorrow, after class. Jolly great. Saving more money to move out of my step-parents’ home. Right, my current mom and dad are not my real parents. Just my parents’ friends who had indulged in collective sympathy, adopting me home into their household one day after the car accident that left everyone in my family dead, including my baby brother, here I solely survived. I was not at the scene, and I wasn’t really crying my balls out even then. Staring at the ceiling for almost a year and remaining practically mute throughout wherever I went was all I did, basically, for mourning.
Gawd, this ghost looked a gruesome dead. It reeked of a peculiar sour stench, like a decayed dumpster of overexpired carcasses and all foul things in a morose. As I sniffed and unassumingly let out a leaky outlet of nasal sounding, the ghostly figure turned its face at me as though it heard. That thing revealed its eyes in a split second, parts of its eyelids exposed in convulsing flesh while registering my presence. Stunned to the bone in sobriety, I let out a scream. Bolting across the living area, tripping over my sleeping dog (this one’s absolutely too stoney for it’s own good) albeit balancing my fall with sturdy arms aligned to a pivot crawl up the stairs, I darted straight to my room, ducking right away into the covers of my bed. Trembling and fumbling at any pillow to hide my head properly well, to brace contact if it arises. That…….that, that, tttthhhh, that…that was a hideous, Machiavellian face of resentment and rancorous destruction which lost the whole damn darn way, possibly a hell’s league from anything quite remotely good. Or should I say already tarnished the sacred? I panicked, heart racing in action for a fight or flight. The whole night I quivered in fear and did not shut either eye for an hour. By morning, my drained energy drove me quite insane but I picked myself up for school anyway. Shit, I’ve actually hustled to school on time. On both numb, jellied feet.
The event of a ghastly encounter last night kept me awake all the way till lunch. It made me irrationally pacing back and forth, destabilised and frightened than ever at the mere thought of it where our eyes met, discharging a repulsive terror none the least anticipated or preferred. My lunch tray which was a sandwich and a milk carton was left untouched as I huddled alone in a corner at the noisy canteen. That memory of a creepy insidious face compelled my turtle-shell life to end ruptured in chaos to confront and vouch if whatever that entity was in any, anyyy bit normal. Sure didn’t look like Halloween rehearsal! Hours later, when classes ended, I rang up the ice cream store with the best excuse of being sick in period pains, scoring the day’s off successfully, the smartsy bailed part-timer. I must investigate that nightmare of a figure I saw. Now, my curiosity is leading the madness in my head. Going towards the school hallway and into the library doors, I removed my laptop from my tote swiftly turning it on and sweatily start looking up on that evil with monstrous white hands. Mentally hungry for clues, I banged in the keywords that came to my mind and a pool of related search results appeared. A linked article caught my eye instinctively at interest, insinuating me to select a news headline which said, “Scientist, dead in hill’s house found with collection of murdered hands”. As I begin to read on hastily, an intense wave of fatigue caught on, snapped me off and before long, my body caved in as I collapsed on the floor of the library.
Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.