For a joyous water elemental that just wanted to sail through the air, jumping across the rooftops of Beaconsfield like a frog from lily pad to lily pad was the ticket.

The higher peaks of downtown– buildings three floors and more– called to Ghost Thing, though, and he found himself shifting in the direction of the place where arrays of skyscraper windows reflected sun like big mirrors. He meant to take it easy that afternoon and he knew that the closer he got to the core of Toronto, the bigger chance he would be attacked again, but jumping around the east side of town reminded him of how great the jump felt a few metres higher.

It had been so long since Ghost Thing got to express himself with his moves. Yes, they were practically dances he did as he hopped, jumped and soared over top the pedestrian world. During his time of suspending himself from his water form, Ghost Thing fantasized (with great yearning) about cool moves he could do. Now was the time to test them. He did flips, somersaults, and other agile manoeuvers that felt like him copying things he saw on the Matrix. Moves he never really did before.

There was a puddle on one roof and when he landed on it, he slid. It required concentration, but when his liquidy foot hit water, he could make it so that the two substances repelled one another, denying friction, and Ghost slid like he was skating on ice. And when he came to the edge of the puddle, he dropped down into a blob and then snapped into the air, using the forward momentum to toss himself into the sky. With a jump that powerful, he went a few metres into the air and cleared the area of an entire building like he was skipping a stair. Oh, it was those moments– those moments where he nailed a jump so well it could have gotten him Olympic gold– that felt too perfect. He felt at one with his body, the air, and all the physics that kept around.

He had all the room in the world to try out new tricks, so why would he have not? He tried sliding back on his foot and then tossing himself upward to swing his legs overhead. It was a hard trick whenever he landed it, it was stylish and impressive. It was a showcase to how resilient his aquatic form was, though, because out of the several attempts he tried of the acrobatic feat, he only landed it twice. Every other time he bit it. But he would shake the minuscule pain, get up, and try again!

If he had the chance to look at himself, watch himself perform like he was part of Cirque de Soleil, what would have Ghost thought about himself? He might have looked graceful. He might have even looked deadly. As he rode around the rooftops of Queens, he thought to himself why couldn’t he have displayed such agility and prowess when he was fighting that lady with the psychic powers and the stick?

He saw great potential within himself. In fact, as he jumped around the old brick monuments of his hometown, he wondered something he hadn’t in quite some time: how powerful could he get? What were the limits of his aquatic body? Was his ability to smack someone with a heavy fist of water the peak of his power? How would he even attempt to test how to strengthen his abilities?

In his midair escapade, wind blasting his face, a sliver of melancholy broke through the rush of euphoria. He could have sighed but sighing was an activity for the still.

Usually, he could ask someone and get an easy answer. But his liquid body was his own world and there was no one to question about it. He was the top researcher in his field and he had no skills on the matter.

Ghost Thing looked around at buildings flying underneath him as rollicked towards downtown. Soon, the vicinity that had three storey buildings at the highest was replaced with a neighbourhood where buildings rose higher than the platforms Ghost Thing chose as his runway.

He didn’t know how to bolster his fighting ability, but what he was doing that afternoon– really cutting loose with flips and jumps, practising his gymnastics routine– probably helped him become a better fighter.

Another strike of melancholy hit him. Fighting? Was that something he wanted to continue to do? Heck, the fight at the loan agency was the only time he fought and won, and even then he didn’t feel great doing it. But as that thought rolled out of him, he realized fighting probably wasn’t going to feel good.

No, why would it? Ghost wasn’t going to fight criminals because it felt good. He was going to do it because it was right.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. He was dead set on not being a superhero anymore.

That thought didn’t pass through Ghost Thing quietly. It tugged at something. He wondered, Do I... do I not want to be a superhero? At all?

Ghost Thing got so lost in thought that he didn’t realize, that after taking off from a coffee shop, he was going to land on a rooftop with a spread of large, plywood boards on its surface. No big deal. The boards weren’t going to break if there was something underneath.

Except there wasn’t.

When Ghost landed on the shuffled plywood, maybe it was the way he landed with a single foot out, or maybe his centre of gravity was positioned in such a way that made his body hit particularly hard, but Ghost Thing’s foot broke through the wood, and tugged his body down through it as well.

The water lad crashed through the ceiling and dove to the floor, toppling across the ground while the wooden boards fell after him.

Okay, that landing hurt.

“What was that?” cried a lady’s voice from below.

Ghost Thing looked up and got his bearings. He had fallen into a dark attic (he assumed it was an attic) with old, unfinished walls and tools hanging around on hooks bolted in between the studs. The ceiling of the room had a big hole in it and those wooden boards Ghost crashed through; they were keeping it shut. Light from outside shone down into the room. The place was scattered with discoloured chairs, furniture draped in tablecloths, and stacks of weathered cardboard boxes. About the only thing in that room that looked intact was a poster for the movie Clerks hanging above the stairs. And just as Ghost Thing noticed it, a light came on from below and footsteps thumped up towards the room.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Oh no! thought Ghost Thing.

He had to get out immediately, and a good jump would do the trick. He got on the floor and squished himself down into a ball, but when he snapped out to shoot himself up into the hole, a piece of wood slid underneath him causing Ghost to misaim the jump and he fired himself right into the corner of the room, knocking over a few boxes with another big crash. Reverted back to his humanoid form, Ghost collapsed behind the bunch of toppled cardboard artifacts.

“Was that you?” a man’s voice called upward.

“No,” said the lady. Her voice was clear so Ghost knew she was up in the attic with him. The water elemental kept low, hiding behind a couch. Shoot, what do I do? he asked himself, but he had no answer. He crawled along the floor, and peeked over the couch to see where the woman was.

Angeline was a thirtysomething woman wearing a blue bandana over her bright red hair. She stepped out into the centre of the floor and looked up at the open roof.

“Aw, great!” she said.

“What is it?” asked the male voice, footfalls stomping up to join everyone in the room.

Patty, a chubby fella with a fuzzy field of facial hair, got up to join the woman in the attic. He took her side, staring up at the same hole in the roof she had her eyes on.

Patty sighed. “Guess we gotta patch that up.” He checked around the floor. “What caused it?”

“I don’t know!” said the woman, her voice abrasive with irritability. “Do you think an animal got in here?”

He would miss the humanoid form’s sharper eyesight and hearing but Ghost melted down into his puddle form and slid across the ground, hoping the puddle’s more compact shape would do enough work to keep out of sight and touch as little as possible. He made his way around the room, circling around the two house owners, as he looked for an escape. If he couldn’t hop back out the way he came in, there had to be another way.

It was then he knocked one of those boxes and rattled the insides– metal tools or maybe plates. The house owners turned towards that corner of the room, wary.

“Oh god,” said Patty. “You think it’s a bird or something?”

“Sounds heavy,” said Angeline. “I think it might be a raccoon.”

“Man...” said Patty with his word overtaken by his breath.

Although the water lad flashed his form in public where anyone at a window could spot him, Ghost Thing didn’t want to be seen– not up close. He slowed himself down to mute every squeak and pop that his puddly body could produce as he crawled along the edge of the room and hoped that soon he had left the area that the humans had their eyes on.

Where to crawl? Where to crawl? Ghost couldn’t think of any ideas on how to get out, but then the light of the staircase caught his eye. If the two of them were up there with them, maybe Ghost’s exit was the way they came. Ghost slid over to the edge of the floor to the banister. He peeked from under a couch to see which way the human’s heads were facing– away, it looked like– before he snaked through the columns of the rail and landed on a staircase with a dusty red carpet. He went down to the bottom of the staircase where a door lied.

The door was much newer then the building around it– and it had weather stripping around the bottom. It was sealed like a plastic container! Ghost couldn’t slink through it.

“Hold on,” said Patty. “I’m going to get the broom.”

Ghost panicked and slid back up the stairs quickly and bolted through the columns, back behind the couch. Ghost could see Patty’s slippered feet still on the floor, the man likely heard Ghost’s scurry back into their room. Patty’s steps pivoted away from the stairs and towards the couch Ghost hid under.

The puddle had to be slow enough to not make any more noise but fast enough to get out of the range of Patty’s sight before the slimeball was spotted!

“You see something?” asked Angeline.

Patty looked behind the couch. Nothing. He turned to his wife. “Apparently not.”

Ghost Thing had slithered away once again, but he was still stuck in the room with two humans keeping an eye out for him. What to do?

But just then, he saw a vent. Vents; his saving grave. How did he not notice earlier? Problem was the vent, an old vent with decorated bronze grating, was out in the open and in plain sight of Angeline. He couldn’t slip in without being seen, and Angeline’s eyes were right in that direction.

He needed a distraction, and saw an unused headlight on the floor, something that toppled out of a box, maybe. He could have tossed it, but in order to give it a good toss, he would have to turn into his much less compact humanoid form. He didn’t want to expose himself like that, but he found a spot in the corner that was behind a few boxes and a draped dresser or something and he turned into his humanoid form.

It seemed alright until he saw his leg had light shining on it, reflected off the centre of the room. He pulled his leg out of view and looked around to figure out how to fold his body so that Patty, over by the couch still, wouldn’t see him. It took him a few second to give up and concentrate on making a distraction away from him. The quicker he threw the light, the quicker he could return to the safe compression of his slime form. He took the headlight, and when Angeline turned her head away just enough, Ghost tossed the headlight across the room.

It hit the ground with a thunk and got Patty and Angeline both to jump in fright.

Patty stiffened up. “What the?”

Angeline’s eyes were off the vent so Ghost Thing returned to slime mode and slid over to the vent. Pressing his body through the bronze workings, he entered a vent. Patty and Angeline’s frantic chatter faded into silence.

The vent was open for him to travel through, but boy was it filthy. There was black soot on every corner. Ghost could feel himself being dirtied with every waddle through the corridor.

He followed the vent, not sure where it led, until he felt a draft. He took a turn towards the chill and saw outside light shining up into the vent. It was his exit. He squeezed through another grill and dropped into a lane outside between tall brick buildings. The sounds of the city hit his ears once again. He should have peeked that it was all clear before he dropped out but he got lucky and he fell into an empty alleyway. By the time someone around could have looked into the alleyway to see if a soot-covered young water elemental had just fallen out of a vent, Ghost Thing had shot himself up on top of the roof’s, out of public site.

Ghost Thing distanced himself from the building he had fallen into before he purging the grime off of his body. He would have to let parts of his body drip off onto the floor, taking the dirt with the jettisoned liquid, to clear and purify his form. He didn’t have to purge too much of his liquid to do a good job, though. After splashing off a lot of the dirt, he continued on. There was still more cool tricks and awesome flips to be done that afternoon.

Hopefully, that couple wouldn’t have been too troubled with a hole in their roof.

Perhaps to not tempt fate, Ghost Thing thought about cutting his outdoor splendour short at six o’clock and ended his joyous return by watching the sunset. He found a rooftop to relax upon– a solitary spire with a nice air conditioning unit to lean up against– and directed his eyes at the sun. Even with the day closing off, the sounds of the city still roared. There were cars, people and music. Horns honked and chatter rattled through the air. Someone had their subwoofer on max because a car drove by and Ghost could feel the thump of the bass through his whole body.

Ghost Thing looked around. How could so many rooftops be so beautiful? The dull heads of a crop of buildings had become such a lovely sight to him. Ghost’s youth got the better of him because that view represented something he lacked the words for.

He had missed being on top of the world. It hurt him to think that he was neglecting this, even if only for a week. Not even a week, actually.

As he glanced at the sun, he took a big breath in like he was pulling air from every corner of the world. "No way am I giving this up. I'll do whatever it takes."

Ghost waited until the sun was nearly gone before he got up. It was time for him to head home, but it was the most triumphant day he had in a little while.