Writers Games: Ghost

Quarter Finals ~Entries~

"Dayta, it's not real. It's just a hallucination, I promise," Rhea keeps her tired voice soft, careful not to set me off again. "Just open your eyes and it will go away."

I blink my eyes open, brushing tears off my face and onto my sleeve. Rhea helps me to my feet, and she quickly pulls me into a tight hug.

Over her shoulder I see a ghostly grey form of my sister, watching with tears in her eyes.

I lurch backwards out of Rhea's arms and cry out, tears staining my cheeks red. She's not going away. She's still here.

"Dayta! I told you it's not real! You can calm down!" Rhea speaks sternly as she sets her hands on my shoulders. 

"But she's not going away!" I manage to stutter out a mutilated form of the words between reckless sobs, my blurry gaze unable to leave the pale, translucent form of my sister on the other side of the roof.

"She? What do you mean..." Rhea's voice trails off as her jaw drops, her eyes wide as she watches something behind me. Her voice cracks as she continues, her eyes beginning to water. "Dad?"

As Rhea continues on into the darkness behind me, Elektra slowly steps forward. She reaches out me, but I flinch away from her touch. Her electric blue eyes look devastated as I pull away, brimming with tears.

"Dayta, please," she pleads, translucent tears dripping onto her ghostly face. "I know you don't believe me, but I'm real."

"No you're not!" I snap, my voice tight with a strict edge I never knew it had. "You're just a hallucination. For some reason you're just lasting longer than the rest!"

Elektra's thin face flashes with pain as I turn away, unable to stop the tears. She's not real. She's fake. It's just a stupid hallucination, nothing more.

Yet, if it's just a hallucination how come it feels so real?

"What about Rhea then?" Elektra appears in front of me, making me stumble backwards in surprise. "They killed her father when they killed me, and she's seeing him right now. You saying she has hallucinations too?"

That shuts me up. She's right, Rhea never had the powers I did. For a brief second I believe her, but I push the thought out of my mind. She's not real. There's no way this is my sister. It's impossible.

Then again, I should be dead. I don't even know what impossible is anymore.

"I'm not stupid. The Gamemakers love physiological torment. You're just a hologram or something." I turn away again and walk towards Rhea, who's sobs I could hear from my position on the other side of the roof. "They did the same thing with the houses and Colbalt's token. I'm not falling for it again"

"Tay! Please!"

I stop midstep at the sound of her voice again. Tay. My childhood nickname. There was only two people I allowed to use it, my father and my twin sister. Nobody outside my family ever knew.

"Ellie?" My voice cracks as I turn to face her, the tears spilling onto my pale cheeks. "No, it can't be! They wouldn't, they would never-"

"They did," Elektra can't look me in the eye, her gaze cast down at her silvery feet on the rooftop. "The price for life is always death. It's been said way back since people believed in witches, who's could perform some sort of resurrection spell. For you to bring someone back, someone you love had to die."

"How the hell do you know that?" I try to laugh, but everything about it feels fake before I even try. "Witches. Really?"

"Hey, it's history. Things that actually happened. Not my fault I know it," She forces a giggle as well, except hers is much more believable than mine. It's more shy and reserved, as if she doesn't want anyone to hear her.