Luke sits and pets Bastet while waiting for Aurora to come back down the stairs. “That girl seems a little on the strange side. I like her.” He says and scratches Bastet’s head.

“Of course, and you should. She is a very nice girl.” Bastet says to Luke, even though she was purrfectly aware that he wasn’t able to understand her.

“Aurora made a comment indicating that you and Anubis talk. I’m on to you.” Luke says and pets between her ears. He gets a few more good pets in before he starts sneezing.

“And that is about all I can take of that.” He says and moves away from Bastet. “Do you think that Aurora is a ghost? I mean, some people don’t realize they are ghosts. Or is that something that just happens in movies? I will have to analyze and document her behaviors in the journal. Yes, I shall have to observe her very closely.

After all I already know that we supposedly have been here for days without running into each other. So, clearly… wait am I a ghost, no that is silly. Be a ghost Aurora, please be a ghost.” He says with his fingers crossed. He stops saying it to himself just in time to look up to see Aurora coming down the stairs.

*********************************************************************************************************

Noah wants to follow Luke and Aurora outside the cabin and talk with her some more. “It’s not like I’m jealous. I just like spending time with her and talking with her. I’m sure that is only because I haven’t talked with anyone in a while. I haven’t, right?” he says and pauses.

He has the smallest thought in the back of his head of there being a few others that had been around, and they talked and played games with each other? Was that something that happened or that he had read in a book? He honestly couldn’t tell sometimes as even when he was alive, he had a habit of falling deeply into fantasy.

“They can go have fun walking around, I have something else to go do anyways.” He says out loud to himself as he makes his way to the library. “Okay so I need to find the occult section… Occult… I know that it’s around here somewhere. This is silly! I am a ghost that needs to do research in the occult section. What is this, some hokey web novel?” he shakes his head and begins to read the titles.

“’Cooking Up Some Witchcraft: Devil’s Food Cake and More!’ Unless I can cook up a new body that won’t help.” Just in case Noah opens the book, but alas there was no recipe for making a body. Which after seeing some of the recipes he was glad for, it would likely require a heart or some other organ, just eww.

“‘Get That Body Back! How to Possess Your Body Before It Decays!’ I don’t know where my body is, or how long it has been there, so I don’t think that this one is going to be helpful either.”

Noah had decided that he was going to keep talking out loud. He figured that the more he practiced that easier that it would become.

“Is there really nothing here that is going to be of help to me?” he says in frustration, flipping through book after book. It was only by taking one book out that he was able to see one shoved behind the rest of the books in a hidden alcove.

“’Closer to Human, Closer to Whole’. This looks promising.” Noah takes the book and makes his way over to his little sitting area and begins to read.

I hope that this book is of help to all who find it. Even the dead can find thigs to enjoy about life. It is only being near and having strong, positive interactions with the living that one can feel alive again, inside and out. In these pages hides truths and knowledge about learning physical manifestation.

“There really is a book in here that can help me! I thought that this section only existed to be ironic. Jokes on me. Yay.” Noah says with a small, sweet smile.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

*********************************************************************************************************

“Okay, show me that book so that I know what it is that I am looking for.” I ask Luke when we start heading away from the cabin.

He pauses and holds it open. “Okay, I need you to hand it to me because you are a bit too tall. It’s hard to see it the way you are holding it.” I say and hold my hands out for the book. This causes him to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“You are Little Rawr. Now you aren’t just a dinosaur you are a small cat trying to roar. It’s so funny. And standing like this shows me how much shorter you are than me. It’s cute, that’s all.”

I didn’t think that I was that short, honestly. I was 5’3”, which… Okay I am short. While some people think that it is too short for a dancer, that isn’t entirely accurate. Some of my favorite dance styles include tricks and being tiny I got to learn and perfect those tricks. For partners that wanted to show off my shortness was a boon.

“I don’t know whether to argue against you or take that as a compliment. If you mix them then it just seems like I am arguing against your compliment, which seems a bit silly doesn’t it?” I ask him. “Well are you going to let me see the book or not?”

“The only thing silly is how you phrased that, and here you go.”

I take it from him and look through the book trying to commit each plant to memory. Taking a few minutes on each page as I slowly flip through it.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take pictures on your phone for reference?”

“No. My phone is currently dead to me.” I say and flip to the next page to try to absorb the information on that page as well.

“I am guessing that I shouldn’t ask the reason. In an attempt to keep things light hearted I will restrain myself from further inquisition. You know, since we only one reference book, let’s stay together, okay?”

“That sounds good to me.” I tell him, and we begin to walk around. It became clear to me very fast that this was going to be much harder than it sounded. We would walk over to the trees, and look at the fungi growing around it and compare them to the ones in the book.

“Does this look edible or poisonous?” Luke asks me. “It could be a Paddy Straw or… a death cap, shall we risk it?”

“I have no idea, and I value my life just enough to not try it.” I respond. Of all the ways to go, poisoning sounded like one of the most awful, hands down.

“Yeah. Hmm, well then… Let’s look over here. Apparently, there are ferns that grow around here that are good for eating, I have a wonderful idea for a stew if we can find them.”

“That sounds a lot safer than looking for mushrooms.” I say, and let him lead the way, although walking on this uneven ground was starting to cause me some pain.

“Although I don’t know how much longer I can keep walking around out here like this.” I say, feeling frustration wash over me. I know that rehabilitation takes time, and that I won’t be able to quickly get back to the health and energy levels I was at prior to hospitalization, but this is still really awful.

“Okay Little Rawr. That sounds good.”

We trek around a bit longer and to our satisfaction we are able to find some fiddlehead ferns. Luke was grinning from ear to ear and heaping praise on me as I was the one to spot them. It felt… Really good to be praised. It wasn’t something that I was used to. This thought brings up some bad memories for me.

*********************************************************************************************************

“What do you want me to do, praise you for that performance. You do know you need to be praise worthy to get praise right? Ugh, I really thought better of you, or else I wouldn’t have chosen you as a partner. I mean, you don’t even put out.”

“What do you mean? We came in first place, so what is your complaint?”

“You were supposed to be helping me get a scholarship you dumb bitch. Use your head!” he says and slaps me upside the head harder than could ever be considered playful.

Unfortunately, I knew that this was something that I would have to put up with when I partnered with him. Sadly, he had chosen me and wouldn’t even let anyone else ask to partner with me for this competition.

“Yes, and like I said we came in first place. You should be praising me and not hitting me. If not for me there is no way that you would have been able to get first place with your sloppy performance.” I hissed at him. That caused him to actually slap me across the face instead of upside the head.

“My sloppy footing? Seriously? If you had just slept with one of the judges we would have gotten perfect scores!”

“We were only a few points off from perfect. You should be able to get a scholarship. And if someone should screw the judges it should be you. You are the one looking to get something out of it. I just had to place to be able to keep my scholarship. They see actual potential in me after all.”

He raised his hand at me again, and I wasn’t fast enough to dodge and it hurt.

“Potential, you? Are you that stupid? And how do you think we got that score, some of us carry our weight.”

I was so done with this. I planned on never partnering with this piece of crap again anyways so before he knew what was happening, he got my knee in his crotch. As he doubled over I spat my bloody spit on his face.

“Normally I would say something witty, but I fear you wouldn’t understand. So how about something you will. Fuck you.”