I can see my sister's ghost

chapter 4

"Emma! Emma! You gotta wake up now," a voice says as they shake my shoulder.

I open my eyes to see Nick standing over me, looking concerned.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answer him, confused.

"Okay, cool," he says as he stands up. As he does, I see a bunch of other kids standing around staring at me. Oh, gosh, what did I do?

"You started screaming your head off," Natalie tells me with a smirk. Oops.

"Really?" I ask her as I get up. We start walking and I feel something poke into both of my sides.

 "Yeah, really," says Nick from behind me.

"You scared the poop out of me!" I tell him. He chuckles.

Natalie rolls her eyes and starts walking faster. "Hurry up, mom said to be home before midnight."

"What time is it?" I ask Nick.

He shrugs. "How should I know?"

"I don't know, you used to know the time without thinking about it. And you were usually right." Seriously, he could always tell you the specific time, even if he wasn't wearing a watch, it could get kind of creepy.

"You remember that?"

"No."

"Liar."

"Same goes for you," I remind him.

He laughs. "Yeah but you wouldn't know I'm lying unless you're lying."

"Fair enough."

He laughs again. He has a nice laugh. It's the kind of laugh that makes you want to laugh along, even if you don't know what you're laughing about. It was cute.

Natalie turns back, looking annoyed. "Hurry up!" she pretty much yells at me. "If that girl would just stop flirting," she mumbles to herself. I don't think it was meant for me to hear, but I hear it anyway.

"We aren't flirting!" I call. Why does everyone think I'm flirting today?

"Well hurry up! If we get home any later she's gonna have my head!"

"Well that's my cue to leave. Nice seeing you, grizzly," he says as he walks away. Huh, he still remembers his nickname for me.

"Hurry up!" Natalie calls again.

"I'm coming," I call back, rolling my eyes.

I run to catch up with her and we walk to the car in silence. On the drive home I feel like someone is watching me, but every time I look back, no one is there.

"What's your problem?" Natalie finally asks me.

I shrug. "Nothing."

"Okay, you just look like a big turd. Seriously, don't keep checking behind us every five seconds, I'm a safe driver."

I laugh. ""Of course you are, Nat."

We continue on in silence. By the time we reach the house it's two in the morning, seeing as we're two hours late, we try to sneak in.

"Hold it right there you two!" my aunt says as we (unsuccessfully) try to sneak in.

"I'm blaming this all on you," Natalie whispers to me as she passes me. Uh-oh.

"Okay, sit down," says my aunt, leading us into the kitchen. She sits down opposite us.

"So. Tell me what happened," she says.

"I thought you were going to rip our heads off," I tell her, relieved.

"Oh, if we just have to tell you how it was, I'm going to bed. Night ya'll," Natalie says with a yawn.

"Sorry, but I think I'll head up too," I say to my aunt.

"Okay then, night."

I go upstairs and brush my teeth. I flop into bed and a few seconds later, I'm asleep.

I'm running through the woods again. This time I'm not alone.

"Who are you?" I try to ask. Nothing comes out of my mouth.

"Shh," says the person next to me.

We run in silence for a while and get to a clearing. When I see what's happening in the clearing, I'm confused.

There are three men in white and about forty children. They are all lined up in prefect rows and are all transparent. On the edge of the clearing are ten more transparent things, they aren't in perfect rows and they look more like teenagers than children.

My first thought is that the ones on the edge of the clearing are the bad ones.

"Finally, what took you so long?" says a voice in my ear. I jump about fifty feet into the air.

"Whoa, calm yourself," it says.

"Didn't know she would be so jumpy," says the person next to me.

They both laugh. I turn around and find myself face-to-face with one of those translucent things and what looks like a normal human boy, but no boy is normal so you never know.

They both grin. "Wow, you look scared," says translucent boy.

"Bet you're wondering what's going on," says the other boy.

I try to say "Yeah," but the words just won't come out.

Translucent boy laughs. "Jimmy, what'd you do to her?"

Jimmy chuckles. "Paul, I didn't do nothing."

"That's improper grammar," I say. Whoa I said it!

Paul smirks. "She speaks."

"She has a name," I say "And she would like to know what's going on."

They both smirk. This was getting irritating.

"Paul! They're almost done!" says another voice from behind me. I whip around.

"Alright, Sean," Paul says. What's going on?

"She ready?" asks another voice.

Paul sighs. "No."

The other voice sighs. "Jimmy, get her ready next time, will ya?"

"Yes, sir!" Jimmy says.

"Alright, bring her back," says the voice with a sigh.

I turn to Jimmy. "Tell me what's going on!"

"Next time, princess, next time," he tells me as I feel myself slipping into darkness.

I wake up and find a figure standing over me. I open my mouth to scream but they're faster. Their hand whips out and covers my mouth.