Spectral Symbiosis

Just So You Know

(( TW: mental illness and death mention))    

     Well, I've always sucked at introductions, but let's give it a try anyways. My name is Jennifer Hayley, and this entire book is the chronicle of my fucked up life.

     Let's get one thing straight before we begin. When this entire thing began, I was entirely neurotypical. I did not have one single lick of depression or anxiety; let alone any hallucinations.

I didn't need pills, or a therapist, or pitying looks from dozens of unknowing but well-meaning family members. I mean, yeah, I saw things others couldn't. Spoke with people who fell on deaf ears to most. But they weren't just some figment of my brain. My ghosts were real.

     And that's just what they were: ghosts. Spirits. Phantasms. Whatever you want to call them, they were there, and for some reason, I was the only person who could see them. Hear them. Sometimes even touch them, though I made it a habit not to do this often. The dead are bone chillingly (no pun intended) cold.

     I started to see them when I was around seven. I was sitting on the floor of my room, my stuffed dragon was guarding a horde of plastic treasures, when I noticed that I wasn't alone. There was a girl sitting next to me. A teenager, and a really strange looking one at that. She had this really pale, veiny skin, and her eyes were so distant and sad. My heart kind of winced looking into those eyes. So I did the only rational thing that occurred to seven year old me: asked her what was wrong.

     The girl started a bit, like she was surprised. "You- you can see me?" she asked, voice as shaky as the rest of her. I nodded, and asked her again why she was sad.

     In this way I learned that her name was Reba, and that she was sad because her family missed her terribly, but she couldn't comfort them.

     "How come?" I asked her, innocently rearranging some plastic gems.

     "They can't see me any longer," Reba murmured, her eyes filling with strangely colored tears that dropped down her face like slime. She buried her face in her knees, shaking with those strange sobs, and I wanted to help, but I didn't know how. So I just kind of stood there helplessly until she started to sort of... I don't know. Fade? Maybe bleed? Right into the air. The outline of her body just became fuzzier and fuzzier and harder to distinguish from the blue wallpaper, and I was shaking and clutching my little dragon as Reba disappeared completely, leaving behind nothing but the echo of her awful lament.

     At that point I ran downstairs to my dad and cried for like half an hour, but you get the point. Reba was my first encounter with this new thing I could suddenly see and hear and touch, and it scared me witless. But even back then, I was smart enough not to go bragging about it. Or maybe I was just too scared of the progressively terrifying spirits to say anything. Either way, I was able to keep my new abilities under wraps for ten long years.

     And then my little brother, Mason, found all my sketches of dead people. And my life went to hell, both figuratively and literally.

I know; I know. You're asking yourself, "but how did Jennifer go to Hell in a literal way? Wouldn't that mean that she's dead? How is she telling the story?"

Well, I pity you and your naivety. No, I'm not dead. Yes, there are ways for me to reach hell without meeting some horrible demise. But before I tell you any more about the spectral shitstorm that is my life, I have to warn you that I'm not the most reliable of narrators. After everything that's happened to me, my mental state is akin to a piece of Swiss cheese that somebody has blowtorched and melted, then stuck back in the fridge to solidify. Schizoaffective disorder will do that to you.

Have I scared you off yet? No? Well, alright then. Your decision.

This is the story of how I became the Veronica Sawyer to a spectral Jason Dean, nearly caused the end of the world as you know it, and lost my sanity. Hope you enjoy it. God knows I didn't.