Idk if you're still doing prompts? If yes, what about a ghost who protects kids instead of trying to kidnap/murder them? If no, I've loved your past stuff, great work, take care of yourself, you're awesome!
Sorry this took so long! Thanks for the compliments! Been saving this for a special occasion!
“Murder?” the spirit asked, hovering above the ouija board in the old, abandoned attic. “But, why should I want to do that?”
Claire, a 13 year old girl with dark brown skin and twists, shrugged. “This house has a rep, you know. People died here.”
“People die everywhere, all the time. It’s what people do. It’s what made me, after all.” The ghost chuckled, as if it had told a good joke.
“What’s your name?” David asked. He was 12, and scrawny, with short buzzed hair, and medium brown skin.
“Oh, I don’t remember,” the ghost said, waving what might be a limb. “What’s a good name for a ghost?”
“Spooky?” David suggested.
“He’s not a cat,” Beryl said. She was 15 and nominally in charge, so theoretically this whole thing was her fault/responsibility. She was David’s older half-sister, so mostly she followed them around and intervened when it looked like they were going to hurt themselves bad enough she’d get yelled at. She had streaks of purple in her long, black hair and light brown skin.
“I’m not even sure I’m a he,” the ghost said.
“Alex,” Claire suggested. Everyone looked at her. “It’s gender neutral. Boys and girls can be named Alex, right?”
There was some grumbling agreement, and the ghost nodded (probably) slowly. “Okay, I can deal with that. So, what are we doing today?”
“Well, we were going to talk to a ghost, or try,” Claire said.
The ghost gave a hearty bellow of a laugh. “I believe you have succeeded in that. What’s next?”
“I dunno. Lunch?” Claire shrugged.
“That seems wise. Growing bodies need sustenance, I know that much. Did you bring anything to eat?”
“Naw,” David said.
Beryl sighed, and pulled out her bag. “I swear,” she muttered, and pulled out a handful of snacks and some capri-suns. She was glad that Callie had gone home sick, her supplies would be a little stretched across four.
Everyone sat down and started snacking.
“What’s it like, being a ghost?” Claire asked.
“Boring, mostly. Nobody lives here. Sometimes I watch the squirrels and raccoons who nest in the winter.”
“You don’t remember being alive?” Beryl asked.
The ghost hesitated. “I have some... vague, memories. Distant. Pain and fear. I remember some things about human life, but not why I know them.”
“Can you do cool ghost stuff? Like go through walls? Moaning?”
“Anybody can moan,” the ghost said. “As for walls, yes and no. They renovated at some point, downstairs. Where no walls used to be, but walls are now, I can pass through.”
“Were you mad about it?” Claire asked. “I heard sometimes ghosts get mad about people changing things.”
“No, that room really was too small for their family. I think I’d have to remember more about living, or living here, to care about what they did.”
They talked for the rest of the afternoon, and then for the rest of the summer they kept going back to the house. They brought toys for Alex to move around, and a sheet to see if they could carry it (sadly, the sheet passed right through Alex).
One day, Alex met them at the door, and shushed them. Very quietly in each of their ears (simultaneously, somehow) they whispered “If you want to see some fun ghost stuff, hide in the front closet and be very quiet.”
They hid in the coat closet in the front room, and with the door cracked open, they waited.
There was a man creeping through. Just a regular college-aged white guy, and they all went real still.
Alex appeared, out of nowhere. Instead of being somewhat amorphous, they looked horribly real. They seemed to be coated in blood, and they screamed something awful.
The guy shrieked, threw his flashlight, and ran out.
The kids came out of the closet, laughing, but Claire stopped. “Alex, are you okay?”
“I think I used more energy than I had,” the ghost said. It seemed to be fading. “Hard to manifest.”
“Maybe you just need to rest,” Beryl suggested.
“Yes, rest,” Alex said, and faded.
For the rest of the summer, and the summer after, there was no sign of Alex.
Eventually, they all kind of forgot, like it was a shared dream, rather than something that had happened.
Beryl, driving home from school one weekend, was nodding asleep at the wheel and not realizing it until someone shrieked “WAKE UP!” in her ear.
She jerked awake, pulled off the road, her heart slamming in her chest. She turned to the passenger seat, and saw a faint glimmer. “Alex?” she asked.
The faintest, almost-not-there touch to her forehead, and then the glimmer was gone.
“Alex is back,” she breathed. She pulled her phone out. She had to text her little brother.