image [https://i.imgur.com/AvowD7z.jpeg]

Benjy the ghost floated nervously in the empty living room. His first official haunting assignment and he was ready to make a terrifying first impression. The house, though, was oddly quiet—no signs of life, not even a whisper. He'd expected to find a family quivering under the sheets, ready for some top-notch haunting. Instead, there were boxes everywhere, half-packed, and labeled with things like "Kitchen Stuff" and "Dad's Junk."

"Great," Benjy muttered. "First day on the job, and they’re moving out."

He sighed, shoulders slumping, and hovered onto the lawn. That’s when he spotted it: a box labeled "FREE BOOKS." Benjy hesitated. He was supposed to be wailing in the walls, rattling chains, and flickering lights, not leafing through paperbacks. But the box seemed to beckon him.

"I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to just take a peek," he rationalized.

Before he knew it, he was knee-deep in novels, flipping through pages. There was a dusty old mystery, a classic sci-fi, and even a tattered romance novel with a ridiculous cover. Benjy couldn't stop himself; he got lost in the stories.

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Hours passed. The sun began to rise, and Benjy found himself on the grass, surrounded by a mess of books. He knew he should have been out there, doing ghostly things—making eerie whispers in hallways, appearing in mirrors—but how could he leave these stories unread?

"It's not my fault," Benjy mumbled defensively to himself, halfway through a detective thriller. "What kind of person just leaves a box of perfectly good books sitting around?"

Just then, the new homeowners arrived to take a look around. Benjy jumped up, trying to shake off his bookish daze, and attempted his best ghostly wail, "OoooooooOOOoooooh!" But instead of terrorizing them, he ended up spilling out a few literary quotes by accident.

The couple blinked at the sight of the ghost surrounded by their old paperbacks. "Is that a ghost... reading our books?" one of them asked, baffled.

"Hey, don’t mind me," Benjy said sheepishly, floating up. "I’ll get to the haunting in a second. Just—uh—did you guys buy the sequel?" He held up a novel.

They stared at him, a little too stunned to be scared. Benjy knew he had blown it, but he couldn’t help but shrug. "What can I say? A ghost's gotta feed his mind too."

And with that, he dove back into the mystery novel, muttering, "Tomorrow, for sure. Tomorrow, I'll be terrifying."