Eleen’s consciousness snapped awake. Unlike anyone else, she didn’t blink away the sleep or rub the grogginess from her eyes. Her ghostly body didn’t quite work that way. If she was awake, she was seeing. Even if she closed her spectral eyelids, she was still fully aware of everything around her.

Her eyes and ears were essentially just a facade—a memory from her human form. She could see and hear from all directions around her, as long as her existence was in the same room. Unlike an actual human, she could not hear the muffled sounds that others might through walls and doors.

But on the other hand, everything within the room was the same volume, regardless of her distance from it. Whispers were clear as day, and outburst were toned down to a pleasant level. However, if she was possessing Drim’s body, since she could now come and go as she pleased, her vision and hearing were snapped back to his chest level, and she could hear the mumbles outside the walls through Drim’s own ears.

But those weren’t the only differences she was forced to endure. Like every morning, Eleen floated up out of her son’s body and stretched her limbs to sheer disappointment. It was a habit, ingrained from her past life that she did every morning for several decades. So even in death it was a ritual she couldn’t escape. And every time she was left unsatisfied, longing for the release of muscle tension that she didn’t have.

Of her sensations, touch was definitely the one the dead dictator missed the most. Taste and smell would be nice too, but the warmth, security, and feeling of life that came with touch was irreplaceable. To make matters worse, she’d had them all just recently.

If the woman had known the consequences of her actions, she may not have killed that Fiend that was attempting to control her back at the haunted mansion. In that moment, she’d been strong and powerful, nearly on par with a Fiend herself. And while her senses had still been diluted, not quite at their full strength, she’d had a brief taste of what it meant to feel alive again.

That was something she only got to experience now when she took over her son’s body, not that he let her do it often. And he was even less pitiable to her since she now had freedom of movement, not that he had much pity for her situation to begin with. The boy seemed to enjoy not having her in his body for every conceivable moment, but that was only replaced with annoyance when he had to look at her.

In an attempt to try and be a considerate mother, Eleen tended to float behind her son so that her presence wouldn’t distract him. While she didn’t like to cater to his aggressions towards her, she could see the problem if he was trying to snipe a monster and her ghostly butt was floating in front of his face.

And she didn’t mind it much, their current degree of separation. They’d had a very intimate shared experience for the past decade or so—since she’d regained consciousness after being killed at least. So it was good that they no longer had to be fully joined at the hip, err, chest. And it meant that if her son wanted privacy, she could float off to a different room.

Eleen now got a bit of privacy of her own in the mornings. A much earlier riser than her son, it left her a good few hours to faff about and do ghost things before he woke up. This morning, she couldn’t even see her sleeping son’s face since it was buried into his pillow. A lousy way to start the day. He’d even had a good streak going of actually sleeping the whole night in his room. So Eleen was as surprised as him when they’d woken up there every morning.

But she was feeling motivated this morning in particular, not something she could say every day. Yes, she was certain. Today was the day she was going to make something move!

Another side effect of no longer being under that Fiend’s control was that she could no longer hold anything. It had been so effortless before, nearly stabbing her son to death with a fireplace poker. Good memories. But now she couldn’t move a speck of dust. This led to more regrets about having killed that mawhger, but oh well, she’d rather be helpless than someone’s puppet.

Hope was not entirely lost, however. Eleen had experienced a few ‘haunting moments’ as she called them; quite literally where she performed some activities that were normally attributed to ghosts, but entirely by accident. This included such fraughtful things as knocking items over, random bits of her speech heard by everyone—coming out as screeches due to their abruptness, appearing as a blur in some photographs around Drim.

Because of all that, there’d been a few rumors swirling around that the compound was haunted. Which it literally was. But Eleen didn’t really care about the parts where others could see or hear her. She understood that if people knew she was currently a specter floating around with free will, it could cause chaos for Drim’s plans. And the last thing she wanted was to see her son fail in his goals, especially since they were on track to intersect with her own.

Stolen story; please report.

Touching things, though, was a game changer. And if she could move items by accident, she could do it on purpose with enough focus! She could, surely… Or such was her hope. But the last few months hadn’t exactly been fruitful since her freedom from her son’s Curse Mark had been attained—which she still chose to sleep in or reside when she was feeling lazy, since floating about gave her no sense of security.

So no matter what, no matter how long it took her, Eleen would master this power! At least until her motivation ran dry and she went back to being mopey and depressed. That happened quite often when living such a helpless existence. Usually then, to make herself feel better, she’d rely on her one ability that worked every time without fail.

And that was her chilling presence. If she touched a living being, it’d feel like ice was being pressed against their bare skin, even if they were fully clothed. That could even transfer to their organs or any part of their body if Eleen felt the desire to get a bit more intimate with their inner workings.

There would always be mixed reactions, mostly a few winces and shivers, but she could always rely on a few people to cheer her up. This included such jumpy scaredy cats as Rezin, Niloy, and Kada. Surprisingly, Mallea would also crawl in her skin a bit if there was no one else around. Drim would get annoyed, though, if she attacked someone blatantly in front of him, so Eleen now had to sneak off to find a victim when he wasn’t looking. How could he blame her for enjoying the one single human interaction she got to experience besides his reluctant company?

And if she could start controlling what she moved, that could open up so many new avenues of pranks… err, human interaction! The ghost floated over to her son’s desk where he’d been signing off on some reports, a pen still laying out flat on the wood. This would be her test subject for the day.

She started off by trying to poke it. No luck. Giving it a spin. Nothing. Blowing it. Not even a bit of wind. The woman tried grabbing it, but her hand just phased through the desk. Well, she wouldn’t get anywhere if she just passed through everything. She had to focus on being solid.

But that idea went out the window quickly as the ghost started getting frustrated. Precise prods turned into furious swipes when nothing was happening. Just move an inch you Cosdamn piece of zjik! But alas the pen was not telepathic. She would have screamed if it wouldn’t wake up her son.

Okay, I just need to calm down, Eleen took some deep imaginary breaths since she didn’t have any lungs to fill. Maybe if I focus on what it was like to have held a pen before. The feel of the plastic in my hands, the straining ache in my hands after writing for hours, the callus that was forming on the side of my finger.

The woman formed a very precise image in her mind—a rather drab memory that wouldn’t be worth keeping for anyone else. She imagined taking hold of the pen and lifting it up—the weight of it, how it felt, wanting to click it a few times out of boredom. And then she opened her real-fake eyes again.

It seemed that was the catalyst which broke her focus, and the pen she’d actually been holding dropped back down onto the desk and rolled around a bit. It made the smallest noise, not one anyone would hear, but she herself couldn’t contain her excitement. “Holy zjik! I did it, I really did it!” Eleen screamed openly in the room.

That would certainly have woken her son, so she repeated, “Drim. Your mother finally did it! I- Oh, he’s not here.” Even though she could see around her in every direction, the ghost had been so focused on her menial task that she hadn’t even noticed that the boy had left the room.

And right then was when she felt a tug, like her essence was being ripped from her. The woman knew better than to fight against it, since it was a battle she couldn’t win, and would only leave her exhausted for her efforts. Eleen chose to voluntarily return to Drim’s body, something she could do instantly from anywhere, rather than be dragged against her will wherever he was going.

Her perspective suddenly shifted, locking into Drim’s chest level just as he was sitting down at a table, the additional motion making her figurative stomach a little woozy until she could recover. That was when she saw the plate of food right in front of her, and the table it was on wasn’t the usual one.

Eleen slipped back out of her son’s body and found herself floating in the restaurant at the headquarters building. That made sense, because their limit of separation was right about that distance. From this location, Eleen could just about go anywhere inside the compound, able to get a few feet away from the barrier on any side. But if she tried to reach out and touch it, she’d be sent flying back to Drim’s body, and likely forced asleep from the recoil.

She’d learned slowly after a few different attempts had led to unconsciousness that she shouldn’t try and push further once she felt her tether. Originally, she just believed it to be part of the annoyance of her situation, but figured out over time that it wasn’t hurting her, it was saving her. If she got too far away from Drim, she would sever their connection and cease to exist. Or that was what she believed to be the case, at least.

As a result, any time he was traveling anywhere quickly, she’d hop back into his body, not wanting to risk being left behind and purged if she couldn’t keep up. The boy didn’t always make it easy, though, and would go everywhere without telling her. She now took great care not to fall unconscious outside of his body, not wanting to test whether it would forcibly suck her back in or just leave her there to die… again.