She woke up.

Her childish eyes squinted in my direction, rubbing them to unblur her drowsy vision.

"Good morning, Mister."

I looked back at her in surprise, and we made eye contact.

There was no going back, the simple motion of turning my head toward her already made everything clear. She now knew that I could see her.

Two hours earlier

I placed a cross beside her and prayed. It's a good thing that my drawers have the most random things that you could imagine. I certainly am not religious, yet there was a random cross in one of them. It's quite weird, but it is what it is. I prayed with all my might, even though I don't know how to pray in the first place. Do I start with a greeting? thanks to the creator? or state my wishes at the very start? I know nothing about it, and looking up how to pray just feels a bit awkward to me.

"Please take her away, please make her leave, please give me back my normal life."

I repeated this about ten times, and when I opened my eyes, she was still there, unmoving in her sleep. Quite unfortunate, but I did doubt that a simple prayer could do the trick. I also doubt that God will actually listen to my prayers in the first place. With a slight disappointment, not because of the failed attempt but because I wasted my time rummaging through my drawers, I threw the cross back in a random drawer and started to think again.

I paced around my room, trying to come up with something. After a few minutes of absolutely no good ideas, I consulted my phone.

"How to get rid of a ghost" I typed in the search query. It sounds dumb, but if people knew the reality of my situation, no one would be laughing at me. But maybe if they knew that I was trying to get rid of a child, then they would definitely laugh or scorn at me, but it's still a ghost, so who knows what society would think. But she had annoyed me quite enough, plus this is still trespassing, so I'm not in the wrong for my attempts at making her go away. If only I wasn't awkward around people, then maybe I could just yell at her like last time and make her leave.

I read a few articles and got some ideas.

Hmmm, let's see... a Bible? Now where was it? Oh, that's right, it's in the far left corner of the supernatural section of my shelf.

Despite not being religious at all, I have read the Bible. I read it for the story and not for the healing of faith. In my opinion, the story is quite wack with a lot of contradictions in it. I once thought about placing it in the nonfiction/historical section of my shelf, but after reading it, it felt more made up than actually coming from reality. But who could actually prove the reality of the Bible? Maybe it was quite contradictory because of its long history of being passed down and revised many times, but it's still hard to prove its authenticity.

Despite this, I still grabbed it from my shelf and browsed a few random pages.

An article stated that reading some Bible verses out loud could make ghosts leave, so I did just that. My eyes landed on a verse. This one should suffice. In an almost whisper like manner, I read the verse.

"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation."

I looked at the girl. She was still here. I browsed again and read a random verse.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Nothing happened.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Nothing happened again. Seeing that this was getting me nowhere, I gave up and placed the Bible back on the shelf. I'm not even sure if the verses I read were applicable to my situation, maybe something will happen if I find the perfect verse, but I'm not going to waste any more effort on something that hasn't shown any signs of working.

I browsed another website for some clues.

Alright, so I need a white candle. Do I even have one?

I rummaged through some of my drawers again, and miraculously, I found one. It wasn't any of those fancy candles that were scented, but rather just a stick of wax with a wick inside.

Now I began to question what exactly was inside my drawers. How the hell do they have such random stuff inside. It's like there's a whole different dimension inside of them. A cross, a candle, what's next, a whole garlic?

Turning my attention away from my drawers, I continued with my next attempt. I probably have a lighter somewhere in those drawers, but I didn't want to rummage any further, so I lit the candle with the stove in my kitchen, and mounted the candle on a plate. I then placed it next to the still-sleeping girl and waited for the results.

I sat on my bed while I waited. The small ember slowly crawled down the wick, melting the wax around it. The sight of it was calming, almost like a silent lullaby.

I could almost imagine the most perfect scenario for it. Imagine the dead of night being interrupted by loud crashing droplets from the sky, the cold seeping through the tiny cracks of my home. I imagine myself in a dark room, slouched down on my chair, protected from the cold thanks to a thick and warm blanket and headphones blocking out all the noises of the world. I sat there reading a book, and beside me was the warm flickering candle that illuminated my world. A sense of peace fills my clouded mind, and despite its small flame, a surge of warmth envelopes my being.

If that doesn't sound like the perfect atmosphere for a candle, then I don't know what else does.

The candle continued to burn. The girl was still there, sleeping like a rock. Looking at her now, she seems quite angelic in a way. She looks like one of those children in movies that the main character tries their hardest to protect. Her long black hair gave her an air of elegance, her face lacks any unique characteristics yet is pleasing to the eye, and her white one-piece dress gave off innocence and purity. If only she wasn't an annoying, clumsy, undisciplined menace, then she would be alright to have around.

Honestly speaking, I do find her cute, not in a weird way or anything, just similar to a father admiring his own daughter. Her parents must be quite overjoyed to have such an adorable child, she would be pretty popular when she grows up, well... I guess that won't be happening now. Too bad. Her appearance may be pleasing to the eye, but her behavior is a menace to the well-being.

A few more minutes passed. The girl was still there, enjoying her peaceful slumber without a care in the world. Realizing that this was going nowhere and was a complete waste of a candle, I blew it out and cleaned it up.

Now what? So far, I've made three different attempts, yet nothing significant has occurred. Guess I need to research some more.

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Oh, a talisman? But isn't that for spirits or something? Actually, are spirits different from ghosts? I'm not really sure about their biology, but just from folklore and such, they're pretty much the same in my eyes, though I've only seen a real ghost and not a sighting of a spirit, so I have no real basis for comparison.

Now to make the talisman. All I really need are four things: paper, which is easy enough to find, a paint brush, which I vaguely remember having one, ink might be a bit iffy if I have a bottle or not, and a picture of what the painted symbols look like, which I can just look up with my phone. With my next plan in motion, I got to searching, or more accurately, rummaging through my drawers, yet again.

Let's see... ah, nice, I found some paper, and right over there is the paint brush. Finding these was going to be easier than I thought. The hard part was the bottle of ink, which I'm not even sure if I have one since I don't remember having a need for one in the past. Actually, nevermind, there's one right here. Again, how do I have this much random crap in my drawers. I'm starting to think the whole apartment complex had been sneaking items in here, or maybe I treated the drawers as a garbage bin and they eventually got filled with the most random of items.

Oh, and let's not forget some tape.

Now let's get to it. With the paint brush in hand, I dipped it in the ink and started copying the design of a talisman that caught my eye on my phone.

I'm nowhere near competent with using a brush, and calligraphy isn't really a thing that I've dabbled upon. Moreover, my handwriting is as understandable as sign language to a blind person.

I painted with the brush one stroke at a time, and each stroke took about 3 seconds due to the amount of perfectionism that I was trying to execute. It's my first time doing this, but I want to do it right. Who knows, maybe this attempt will be the one that would drive away that ghost girl, be it the talisman or my terrible attempt at painting.

That's one character down, a few more to go. From a glance at what I'm painting, I'm guessing it's Chinese symbols or something. Honestly, I don't even know if these are legitimate characters or just some squiggly lines that look impressive.

Now that I think about it, who even makes talismans? Do normal people casually paint these, or are only monks, spiritualists, and those kinds of people allowed to? Could making one with my unskilled hands possibly be a sin in their religion or belief? I hope not, I don't really want to offend anyone, even if there's a language barrier between us. But I have eaten a buttload of Chinese fried rice and even regard it as one of my three favorite foods, so please let me off the hook this once.

And with that, I raised the talisman in the air, inspecting my creation. It's not a one-to-one copy of the reference picture, but it's not far from it. Though it's not perfect, I'm honestly quite proud of myself, since it's my first try and all. I placed some tape on the talisman, and it was ready to be used.

I tiptoed to the still sleeping girl, making sure that my steps were as light as a feather. I'm not even sure if the tiptoeing was necessary, I've been walking normally up until now, and at one point I was even running back to the bed, yet her slumber wasn't even fazed one bit. Committing to the ways of the ninja, I tiptoed all the way to her, and with my not-so-steady hands, I stuck the talisman on the back of her dress and tiptoed a few steps away.

I waited for a bit, my eyes glued to her back, waiting for any signs of movement.

Sigh, I guess this didn't work either. All that hard work was for nothing. Now what?

After another failed attempt, I turned around to scavenge for another lead on how to get rid of her.

"mhmm hmm"

Having heard a soft groan, I quickly turned back to see what was happening. Is it actually working? Is she going to disappear now?

The girl moved, her hand pushed away the book that her head was laying on, and instead of the book, her left arm substituted for it as a pillow, while her right hand was on top of the book that she pushed away.

A few seconds of anticipation passed by, yet nothing happened.

I sighed again, disappointment fully audible from it.

You got my hopes up for a second there. I did all that work just for you to change your sleeping position, how wonderful.

"Food" she mumbled.

I walked a bit closer to her.

What now, going to talk in your sleep again?

I moved my ear closer to her face.

"Food... delicious" she mumbled.

I retracted my ear. A smug smile ran across my face. Of course the rice was good, it's Chinese fried rice, my favorite after all. If you keep that up, I wouldn't mind letting you stay around. A fellow Chinese fried rice enjoyer is always welcome.

My mood is a bit calmer now, she's still annoying, but I do appreciate her for praising the things I like. Do I just let her stay, or should I keep driving her away? I am going to die in just a few more days, so having a brat around for a little while would hurt.

I took one step without any reason, and stepped on something, a grain of rice. Remembering that I haven't even cleaned up the rice on the floor and in the closet, not to mention that my room is now even more messy because of the earlier attempts at driving her away, the fire of annoyance re-lit itself.

Nevermind then, either you clean up after yourself or leave. But I don't think I have the confidence and conversational skills to order around a brat to clean up the mess, so that leaves one option, she must leave.

What else could I try? All the sites just keep repeating the same procedures, like praying and such, yet those are getting me nowhere.

Hmm.. what about methods for driving away other beings, like a vampire. I doubt that it will work, but it's worth a try. Driving away a vampire would mean needing... garlic? Was it garlic or onions? Umm.. yeah, I think it was garlic.

Knowing that I didn't have a single ingredient in my fridge, I browsed a picture of some garlic on my phone and placed it next to her.

A few seconds passed, and I realized my stupidity. What the fuck am I doing? Am I really this dumb? How the hell will a PNG help me at all? That was so stupid that I want to slap myself as hard as possible right now, but that might wake her up, so I'm going to pass on that for now.

Obviously, a picture won't work, but the real deal is worth giving a try. I really wish I had some garlic right now, unless....

I rushed over to my drawers... and goddammit, I have one. There's a whole fucking clove of garlic in my drawer, how in the hell did it get there? I sighed. From now on, I'm just not going to question it. Who knows what other things I'll pull out of it in the future. Heck, I'm not even going to be surprised anymore if I pull out a whole watermelon. At the very least, hopefully there's nothing alive in there.

With the surprisingly non-rotting garlic, I held it near the girl's face, and nothing happened, who would have guessed. I placed the garlic in my fridge. At the very least, I now had some backup food.

What else, what else... oh, salt, maybe that will do the trick. I don't have any ingredients, minus the garlic I found, but I do have condiments. I searched inside the cupboards, and there they were—two shakers full of salt and pepper. I took the salt back to the living room and prepared to try it out.

Wait, what I'm about to do is splash her with salt, meaning that I will create an even harder mess to clean. Umm.. how about just a little bit, I doubt it will work anyway. I sprinkled a minimal amount of salt on her head, just around a teaspoon, and unsurprisingly, nothing happened. That's another failed attempt. I thought of another thing I could try while placing the salt back in the cupboard.

Where could I get some holy water? Again, I'm not knowledgeable about any religion, but I do think that it's just regular water that has been infused with a holy prayer or something. I was about to pour some water into a glass from the kitchen's faucet when a bottle of rubbing alcohol caught my eye. Seeing that it was more convenient, I grabbed the alcohol and went back to the living room. Alcohol is a mixture of isopropyl and water, so I guess it should be fine.

With the girl sleeping in front of me, I raised the opened bottle of alcohol, and with my phone in my other hand, I read out a prayer. More accurately, I whispered a prayer.

"Blessed are you, Lord, all-powerful God, who in Christ, the living water of salvation, blessed and transformed us. Grant that when we are sprinkled with this water or make use of it, we will be refreshed inwardly by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to walk in the new life we received at Baptism."

I splashed a tiny bit of the now "holy" water on the girl, and in that split second, I realized my mistake.

Oh shit shit shit! My book, did it get wet?!

I got close to the book that the girl still had her hand on and inspected it as closely as possible.

I sighed in relief.

Well, that was another stupid idea. I could have ruined my book if I splashed more. It's a good thing I didn't go all the way and splash the whole bottle. Wait, but what about the girl? I quickly glanced at the girl, she didn't even move a single inch. Well.. I didn't really expect much from that. I'm more surprised that she didn't wake up.

Countless attempts were made, yet not one did anything. I'm not saying that I wasted my time, but in fact, I did waste my time, a lot of time that I could have spent enjoying my life until my untimely end by my hands.

I only realized now that my shoulders felt like they were carrying a whole boulder while my legs longed for a break from standing and walking around. This is probably the most amount of work I have done ever since I started my new shut-in life. It's nice to know that I still have the capacity to actually focus on doing something other than reading, even if it is about driving away a five-year-old ghost girl.

My body wanted to collapse any second now, but thankfully, my one and only friend is within arms reach—my bed. The warm blanket was waiting to envelop me in its ever-reliable warmth, while the pillow longed for someone to lay their tired head on it. Just the glorious sight of the bed was enough to take away all my attention from everything that was going on, as if it were enticing me to come closer and surrender to it once again.

So I did just that and took a quick nap.