…Welp, let’s pray!

Dear god of knowledge… You suck. I will bite your toes. If I see another of your churches I will give you a lesson in pyrotechnics. Less than three, less than three, less than three. GG.

There! Prayer: complete. Here’s to hoping it works.

I tuck myself deeper in, trying to find the softest spot to lean against Grandma. I think, if I lie like this, and sink just a bit further down… Yeah, I can just barely see out the window. It’s real dark out there, but the fog seems to be breaking up, so the moons are starting to peek through. Very nice. Someday, I’d like to learn the names for the constellations here. I think that would be—

A shadow passes over the window.

Hm? Sniff sniff sniff. I can’t smell anything. That’s… Weird. I sit up straighter. But I can still only see the sky, and the tops of the trees. No shadow. Nothing like that.

But I’m sure I saw something.

Slowly, taking care not to disturb Grandma too much, I get to my feet. Stepping closer to the window, I peer out.

There, in the middle of the overgrown garden, are two shadows. I can hardly tell their silhouettes, hidden by the faint mist. But they’re small. Jumping around… Laughing. Children? One has long, goblin-like ears, but the other doesn’t have any at all. The earless one does, however, have a really long, spiky nose. They seem to be playing, but, as mentioned before, I can’t smell either of them, and all I can see is their silhouettes.

It’s ghosts. There are ghosts. Nobody told me there were ghosts in purgatory. What the hell is this.

I open my messages again.

OMG THR R GOSTS WTFFFFF?????2

HLP>

I send it, but when I look back up, hands trembling, I find the garden empty once again. No shadows. No ghosts. Just… gone.

…Well then! This is… fine! Totally fine. Ghosts are… Heh, ghosts are real, I guess? Or not. I don’t know. It’s fine. I’m immortal now, aren’t I? No need to fear stupid ghosts! Yeah, that’s it. Totally nothing to fear. The reason I’m trembling is just because it’s a little chilly. That’s all.

…If the ghosts disappeared, where have they gone to?

Okay, see, I’m not saying this is what happened or anything, but… In movies… In spooky movies, when a character sees something spooky, and they look away, and the spooky thing is gone… Usually, the spooky thing has teleported, and is now standing behind them. Waiting for them to turn around. Breathing down their neck. Eagerly awaiting the opportunity to jump-scare them. To eat their soul. To, to, to…

I swallow dryly.

B—but, surely, that can’t be the case. Can it? I would’ve been able to tell. By smell, or touch, or…

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Unless it’s ghosts. Unless it’s spooky, scary, immaterial ghosts.

Sweat trickles down my back. My tremble is worsening.

The only way… The only way I can tell if a spooky scary ghost is behind me is to turn around, and look, and…

There’s a rush of footsteps pattering across the garden, and suddenly there’s a new person out there—someone who smells alive and existing, her shining eyes fearlessly surveying the scene as she crosses the garden. Finally, her gaze falls on the window, on me, and although my appearance initially startles her, after only a moment, she sprints up to the shed, throws open the door, and bursts inside. “Prince!” she shouts. “Prince, are you—”

I can’t bear to turn to look at her. My hands folded into tight fists, I ask, in a voice that definitely isn’t doing a vibrato, “Rice? Is there a ghost behind me?”

“What? No, there’s nothing like—”

“Please. You can tell me the truth. If there is a ghost… Take Grandma and leave. Our journey was short, but I enjoyed it. I can rest.” I take a trembling, uncertain breath. “Tell Moleman I—”

She stomps up to me, grabs me by the shoulders, and spins me around. Huh. No ghost!

“See?” she says. “No ghost. Geez, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume you were terrified of the…” She looks me up and down, eyes widening in realization. “Well, I’ll be… Really? You’re that scared of ghosts?”

“Of—of course I am!” I say, squirming out of her grip. “They’re spooky, and scary, and you can’t kill them, so they just…” In my effort to step away from her, I accidentally bump into the window frame, making me leap about two feet into the air. I look back, out into the garden, fresh fear freezing my veins, shadows playing in my mind, silhouettes in the foliage… “They—they just kill you. Yeah. Ghosts… I hate them. So OP.”

Humming, she leans over, glancing out of the window as well. “I guess I can see your point. However, wouldn’t the presence of ghosts imply the existence of afterlife, making death ultimately superfluous?”

“Yes, of course,” I agree, still scanning the garden for the silhouettes. “However, it also implies that some people turn evil upon death. And if they can kill me, why not kill each other? There’s a lot to it, okay?”

“Right, right. Of course.”

She lets me keep scanning for ghosts for a few more seconds. There’s nothing out there. Did she scare them away? Did I scare them away? I hiss a breath through clenched teeth. Who knows? Who knows. After a moment’s hesitation, I turn back to her. Somehow, the way she’s looking at me has changed a little. I can’t tell in what direction or why, but… “What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” she says. “I’m just wondering if you’ll be able to fall asleep out here, what with the ghosts and all.”

If my heart was still pumping, this is the moment when it would have ceased any such operations. Apparently, I even forgot to breathe, as when I open my mouth, no noise escapes. I do a retake, take a deep, conscious breath, and say, as deliberately as I can, “Hell no.”

“Right. That’s a bit of a problem.”

“Ghosts,” I say, in my defense.

She hums for a moment. “Do you think they’ll notice if we switch places?”

“Absolutely.”

“No-go, huh…” Still humming, she begins pacing around the stable, eventually finding where Grandma’s still lying, gently snoring. “She should be fine alone…”

“Even with ghosts around?”

Rice snickers. “She’ll eat them as a midnight snack.”

“It’s past midnight,” I feel some irrational need to mention. She gives me a look. “But, yes. She will.”

Kneeling down, she gives Grandma a few pats and scritches before standing back up, smiling at how the oversized lizard snorts and rolls over in joy. “Right.” She turns to me. “Looks like we have no choice but to communicate with our hostesses.”

“The ones that hate me?”

“The ones that hate you.”

“Ah. Okay.” Two options in hand. Either I go communicate my needs to a pair of girls who loathe me enough to kill me, or I stay here and face a pair of ghosts who will definitely kill me if presented with the opportunity. Hmmm. “You know, I just realized that maybe ghosts aren’t that bad after all.”

“Absolutely,” she says, and in three steps, she strides up to me, grabs my shoulders again, and guides me to the door. “There are worse things out there.”

“One hundred percent. So, really—”

“I fully agree.”

She leads me out of the stable. “Yeah, so, that’s why I was thinking, that…”

“Uhuh, uhuh.”

Now we’re crossing the garden. The spooky garden. “As—as I was saying, I really think…” My eyes follow the ground. In the light of the shining moons, we pass the exact place where the ghosts had played. I step through it. Below, abruptly, I notice, in the freshly shorn grass, a footstep not belonging to me. Approximately the size of a child’s. Just the right size for a g—g—g…

The world starts to wobble.

“Right, yes, of course, I fully understand what you’re… Huh? Prince, what are you—hey, are you oka—”

The world suddenly gets a lot darker, and I no longer have the strength to stand.

Everything goes black.