Micheal woke up, sweaty, hungry, and for the first time, he could remember pain-free. Even without opening his eyes he could already tell that something was wrong. An alarm went off next to him, an alarm he had never heard before and it was extremely obnoxious. Who had set an alarm up in his room? The night nurse? He refused to open his eyes, afraid to open them even his dream though terrifying had ended. Strangely enough, he could remember it all clearly.
The alarm continued, an obnoxiously cheery song that sounded like a mix between Brittney Spears and Justin Beiber. “God damn it!” He yelled far louder than he had expected. He opened his eyes and stood up out of bed and that was when he realized what was wrong.
The room that he now stood in was nothing like the room that he had been in for the past 10 years, and beyond the problem of his room was the fact that he was standing… STANDING!
“Oh my god,” Micheal said tears welling up in his eyes. This had to be a dream. The annoying alarm was still going off switching to a different track but Micheal was too busy looking at himself. The arms that he was staring at were well-muscled with a healthy amount of fat, a far cry from the twigs that he should have with the network of veins and scars from the IV’s that had riddled his skin; and they were his arms!
Twisting around feeling the limberness of his body he spotted a mirror and with it his reflection. A man that looked barely old enough to be an adult stared back at him. The man had his jawbone, eyes, and nose but few would recognize him from the skeletal remains that had stared back at him only a few nights before. His elation felt more like inflation, like that he would explode from the feelings welling up from inside.
“This is impossible.” He mumbled to himself. “People can’t grant wishes, it’s impossible.” He remembered the girl, her touch, the feeling of dis-ease that she had around her and he shivered. His elation momentarily dampened. If this was real then so was she.
A jolt of cold to his right like something icy had touched him made him turn and right next to him a young woman seemed to be staring at the mirror too, a mirror that showed Micheal but not the girl.
“What the fuck?!”
He stumbled backward away from the girl his bottom slapping against the carpeted floor. The girl turned towards him, “You can see me?!” She asked her face lighting up in glee.
“Of course I can see you, why wouldn’t I be able to?” Micheal said, recovering from the shock of seeing someone unfamiliar in his room.
“Hick, hick,” she started crying then, dry sobs. “You can hear me too,” She rushed over to him and wrapped herself around him sobbing in his chest.
“Umm,” Micheal was at loss for words just then and looked down awkwardly and that was when he noticed that her feet were somehow going through the floor.
“Huh?!” He started trying to crawl backwards but the girl was stuck like glue to him and moved weightlessly with him as if she didn’t weigh a thing.
Clunk clunk clunk clunk
The sound of someone running up a flight of stairs alerted Micheal in time to look over in time to see the door to his room open, and the face of one of the prettiest girls that he had ever seen show up. Her face…
The mysterious girl was far less terrifying in the light, no longer was she garbed in black but now had on a cute one-piece black skirt. When their eyes met he no longer heard the screams but he did still feel the sensation that he would get sucked into them.
“What’s going on?” The girl asked having slammed open the door. She looked down to where Micheal was and her face immediately turned to disgust. Micheal realized then that the strange girl was still hugging him and crying. “Uhh, it’s not what it looks like?” Wait why am I trying to explain myself to this woman? He couldn’t help but look away from her but that meant looking back at the other girl in his room clinging to him. Her breasts now nearly suffocating his face as she continued crying. Wait is she translucent?
The girl stopped her sobbing, her eyes red and puffy she looked over to where Micheal had been looking. “Eeep,” she squeaked seeing the girl that had just entered the room and like a leaf in the wind, she was gone suddenly dropping through the floor as if it weren’t there.
“What the fuck was that?” Micheal murmured blinking in surprise.
“Obviously a Ghost human, I know you’ve seen enough anime to know what one was.” The pale girl responded, her voice devoid of emotion.
“I figured as much, wait how do you know about that?” The girl shrugged. “Never mind that, what the fuck is going on? Why am I suddenly seeing ghosts? Why am I healthy again? Am I dreaming?”
The girl grimaced. “Did you already forget about our Kiss last night?”
Kiss? Then he remembered, right before he had blacked out.
“I thought it was all a dream.”
“Nope,” The girl said back plainly.
“Nope? That’s all you’re going to say?”
She grimaced again and looked away. “You humans are so difficult.”
Honestly, her reactions seemed more difficult than anything Micheal could imagine.
“So what was the deal with that ‘Ghost,” he asked
The girl looked at him blankly as if he was stupid. “I mean why is she here, hell where the hell is here?”
“Here is where you and I will be staying for the remaining 364 days, 15 hours, 10 minutes and 32 seconds of your life. The Ghost may have been the former inhabitant of this residence.” She said grimacing.
He shuddered, just then remembering what she had said “One year; one life.”
“Ok first off it’s a little creepy when you put how long I have to live into numbers. Second, do you just keep track of my life span constantly or something? Third don’t you feel bad about taking that girl home from her?”
Her eye twitched a little. “You humans are so difficult.” She turned and walked out.
“Wait!” Micheal yelled and chased after her, tripping on his way back up, unused to having his full mobility again. He caught up to her halfway down the stairwell and again tripped but was able to grab her on his way down causing both to fall down the stairs.
Micheal blinked and realized that a very warm body lay on top of him he could feel a dizzying sensation at the girl's touch, opposite to the disgust and cold he had felt when she had touched him last night. The girl groaned from above. “Difficult.” She said before sitting up and rubbing her head where she must have bumped it.
“Sorry,” Micheal said. Wait she felt pain from falling down stairs but not from a stab wound to the foot?
She sat on him rubbing her head unaware of where she sat. “Uhh,” Micheal said growing increasingly embarrassed by the situation. Umm miss…” What was her name? Had she even given him her name?
“She looked down, her clear now ivory eyes seeming to look through him.”
“What’s your name miss?”
She sighed, and looked up as if thinking, “You can call me Chrys.”
“Like Chris?”
“Yes.”
“Ok Chrys, could you please get up, I would rather not continue to be on the floor and the spot you’re sitting on is kind of uncomfortable.” He didn’t want to say what really was going on.
She sighed, “You would think that a man in your position would enjoy having a pretty girl like me sitting on him.” She grimaced leaving Micheal confused as hell. Had she said a joke or was she serious? She looked like she was about to punch him but acted otherwise. She stood up, her skirt bunched up revealing something else odd. Chrys apparently didn’t like wearing anything underneath her skirt.
“So difficult.”She grumbled.