‘Audrey's thoughts'
'Ryan's thoughts'
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Ryan's POV:
Ok, Audrey is not fine.
She has been seeing other ghosts for the past few weeks and it's scaring the life out of her.
Once was almost a week after the visit to the therapist (which went completely fine). It was Saturday afternoon, and the weather was very pleasant. The girls were walking on a crowded sidewalk enjoying their walk past fast- food restaurants, patisseries and cafes.
Audrey was smiling happily, listening to her friend's ranting about schoolwork. She glanced to the other side of the road, then froze in her spot. She looked fixedly at something afar, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Umm... Audrey?" Irene frowned. Audrey gazed down on the path in front of them, her expression turned solemn. She gulped hard and took in a sharp breath, then released it.
She clenched her fists and closed her eyes tightly, continuously taking sharp breaths in and out. She began trembling suddenly as she let out sob.
I looked over to see what made her feel like this. 'Creepy Girl Alert! Creepy Girl Alert!' Ghost kids are the worst, especially females. The spine- chilling cackle, the horrifying smile, the matted hair, the hungry look in their eyes... it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.
And there was this creep girl right across the street eyeballing at Audrey. The creep girl looks like she was beaten to death, there were bruises all over her paper white skin. Her hair was long and matted with blood, her bloodshot eyes were large, almost as if they were about to pop out. Her devilish smile and her rotten teeth was as disgusting as it was terrifying.
She crossed the road along with the crowd, still gawking at Audrey. It's amazing, how such petrifying ghosts have learnt human ways of living, she actually used the zebra-crossing!
Audrey was still stuck on her place. People around her glanced at her as she took sharp breaths and shivered, while her friends surrounded her, trying to calm her.
The creep girl approached her, grinning widely. At that moment, Audrey gained control of herself again and took deep breaths. Before I could push the creep girl out of Audrey's sight, she opened her eyes.
Her scream pierced the air, instantly the street quieted down everybody was looking in her direction.
She was trembling, gasping for breath and sobbing on Irene's shoulder, clutching her as if holding onto dear life. "What's wrong with you, Audrey?!" Irene shrieked, surprised by Audrey's sudden reaction to a thing she couldn't see.
I shooed the creep girl away, and planned on dealing with her that night, wherever she was at that time. And I did meet her, she was just like the other creeps, gone mad because their life was so miserable. They went on to be ghosts to give back to humans what they had received.
And so Audrey had to visit the therapist again. Mainly because after that incident, she became more reserved and zoned out more often. The doc said what she experienced was an acute panic attack and that she had to visit him more often to heal herself.
The second time she experienced this was earlier this week, in the drawing room when everyone was gathered and were discussing about celebrities. Audrey was daydreaming while eating a packet of biscuits.
Tasneem switched on the air conditioner, and suddenly Audrey's eyes grew wide. The packet fell from her hands while she stared into the air in confusion. She started breathing rapidly, shivering a lot, she looked at me with horror-stricken eyes, "Ryan..." she muttered. I went closer to her, "what is it?"
She jerked away from me, her eyes looking fearfully at me. "No... no..." she shook her head. Everybody else was holding Audrey and comforting her. She grabbed Irene's arm and curled up beside her, her whole body shaking terribly.
I backed out, 'she's not okay.' I went out of their building through the wall and looked at both sides. 'No other ghosts.' The rest of the day I just patrolled around her building, checking if there were any ghosts that would bother her.
After this, she wasn't the same happy, carefree Audrey that I had known. At night when she was asleep, I'd watch over her. I felt darkness inside me. I felt like a part of me was just gone. I could see that Irene felt the same way I did. Glancing at a gloomy Audrey every single time.
Nowadays Irene and I contact each other, I hack her phone and talk to her through the notes application. Being in a phone is like being in a maze, by the way, it's really complex but it's nice to be in there.
Whenever she wants to talk to me, which is usually after Audrey has slept, she'd look around as if searching for me, waiting with her phone in her hand.
At school, she'd open this book nobody reads and wait for me. But the thing with books is, she can't reply through the book, she'd have to talk. And talking to a book would seem crazy.
If you're wondering how I use a book to communicate, I just make a mess out of the printed words on the paper and clear the middle of the page, then I'd pick the letters I need from the jumbled mess of words and letters and make sentences out of them.
Most of our conversations are about Audrey's well-being. Irene believes I exist and now trusts me to take care of the ghosts that bother Audrey.
But Audrey is scared of me now, that is what makes me feel like I shouldn't have been a ghost and ruined her life in the first place.
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