Friends with a Ghost (DISCONTINUED)

Chapter V

       "Who are you?" Rebecca asked the air.
       "Don't you know?" The voice sounded confused. "This is, after all, a haunted house."
       "Wait, are you telling us that you're a ghost?"
Micah asked. "Because you can't expect us to believe that."
       "Yeah!" Rebecca said. "If you want us to believe that you are a ghost then you have to prove it."
       "That is against the laws of ghostliness," said the voice. "There is a terrible punishment for those that show the true nature of ghosts to humans. Only humans picked out by the king of ghosts can see us."
       "Oh, that's so sad, " said Rebecca. "Because I'm afraid that means we just won't be able to believe you."
       "No! But you have to!" the voice cried out in sheer pain.
       "Why would we believe a stranger pretending to be a ghost just to frighten us?" asked Micah.
       "The place! That horrible place!" the voice sobbed. It was making no sense.
       "What place?" Rebecca asked. She almost sounded sympathetic.
       "The place of horrible pain!" the voice cried out. "Where ghosts go when their victims don't believe they are actually ghosts!"
       "Wait. We're victims?" Micah asked.
       "In this situation you would be." the voice was finally calming down.
       "Would be?" Rebecca asked.
       "Well, you aren't much of a victim since you don't even believe I'm a ghost," the voice replied.
       "And if I did believe you?" Rebecca asked.
       "You would still have to be scared of me to count as a victim," the voice replied.
       "That means we're not victims. So you can't go to the horrible place. Because you go to the horrible place only if your victims don't believe you're real," Rebecca calmed the voice down a little more.
       The voice slowly became an actual figure sitting on the bed with his face in his hands. "I... I guess you're right," he said.
       "That whole rule thing is messed up," Micah said. "Victims have to believe you're a ghost to be victims, so how can a victim not believe a ghost is a ghost? The rulers are just trying to scare you."
       "Tha... That does make sense..." The two kids could see the cogs turning inside the ghosts head. But that was only because he was transparent. "Well, since the king was just trying to scare us, I don't really trust him anymore, so I'm going to tell you all about me. Starting with my name. I'm Owen. When I was 3 or 4 I broke a bone so bad that it couldn't heal. So I spent the rest of my life pushed around in a wheelchair. I had a sister named Rachel who I grew to be very close with. Then, one dreadful day when I was 13 I was doing the simplest of things: leaning back in my chair, then, it tilted too far."