Random one-shot (Dark terms)
I am your average 30-year-old man. If you look at me, that is what you will think. Even when I look at myself, I feel the same. But, I am not. I was born normal. I have a normal family and a normal job. But I don't have normal friends. We claim we live in a world without magic. We claim that those who believe are insane. And just like how everyone sees me, we all believe it. But, I found out the truth when I was 14. The sane ones are the ones who are crazy.
The summer of my fourteenth year alive was, how do I say this, horrific. I don't mean that I had a bad or terrible summer, I mean It scarred me for the rest of my life. I was having fun watching tv, like every lazy teenager in the summer, when my phone went off. I saw it was my best friend, Pal. She was the same age as me and yes her name is Pal, and yes It is a girls name, why does that matter. Anyway, when it said it was her, I immediately freaked out. This was normal when she called me, she never answered my calls and never called unless it was important. Why? I have no Idea, it was just who she was.
"You Need to get your brother to drive us both to the hospital right now!" she screamed in my ear. The moment she called had freaked me out, now she was screaming, not to mention the fact she said hospital! I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. But right now, that was the least of my worries.
"Okay I'll do that right now, but, if it's not too much to ask, WHAT'S GOING ON!" I yelled back, as I ran upstairs to my brother's room.
"If I tell you now you won't have the energy to get your brother to take us. I promise to tell you in the car, JUST GET HIM!" She wasn't to be messed with at the moment so I did as I was told and got my brother to take us to the hospital. When we went to her house to get her, I saw her face. Tears were streaking down her face. No, she wasn't just crying, I had seen her cry before, this wasn't just crying. She was bawling like no tomorrow. Her hair was a mess and she was sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe properly. That was when I truly, and I mean truly, freaked out.
"I know that this looks bad, which it is, but still," she said, trying to calm herself and me down. "I want you to be able to be calm for when I tell you this." her piercing blue eyes did just that, they pierced right through me. "Ajara was shot." After that sentence, I could no longer care about anything else.
Ajara was our best friend. Her parents wanted a fancy name, kind of like pal, she never really liked her name so we called her AJ. She was the glue that held us together. She stood out from your typical teenager. Hearing that she had been shot made me think that the world truly in shit, for such an amazing person to be killed.
"She was at the park with Garth and a guy came up to them with a gun. Garth went to get his phone when the guy aimed the gun at him. As he shot Ajara moved in front of him. Luckily, because Garth is shorter than her, the shot that would have blown his head off just hit her in the chest. So if we pray hard enough, maybe she'll survive right?" she said in a freaked out way. My brother looked at me worriedly, even he could tell she was losing her grip on the situation. Anyone would be when their best friend is shot. Hell, I was close to breaking too.
When we got to the hospital It was too late, she was dead. As we started crying again, I heard this weird voice.
"ooooooh, oooooooh, oooooooh, I am a ghost why aren't you freaking out right now?" I looked to where it was coming from. There stood, well more like floated, Ajara. As I was about to scream she put a finger to her lips, silencing me immediately. "I am guessing your the only one who can see me since no one has looked or reacted to anything that I have done lately. That means you can see ghosts! That is awesome, dude!" That was when everything became different.
I thought that maybe this is a good thing that now I could no longer be afraid of someone I love dying. But, because others couldn't see her, everyone became depressed. Soon Pal completely fell apart and took her life. Ajar and I waited and looked for her ghost for a week. When we never found it, we realized that we couldn't see everyone. That is when I was at a point where the "sane" people called me insane.
At first, we thought it was because of Ajara's name. Ajara was a name that originated in India, meaning "the ever youthful, the everlasting, one who does not age, one who stays forever young". It made perfect sense until we met more like her. That is when we found out the truth. That the place known as Purgatory, the one for those who aren't done living go, was on earth. Except for no one ever saw them and they had to stay here until they found out what to do. That was until me. I became popular amongst them, and we became friends.
We had a blast messing with people and then I met up with Garth. He became a policeman in honor of Ajara and Pal. We were talking as normal when a girl approached and started talking to me. At first, I thought nothing of it until Garth asked if I was okay. I looked at him strangely asking him what he meant, I was just talking to this little girl. He then said that no one was there. I looked down at the girl and saw she was indeed floating, another ghost. As I was about to make an excuse Garth came up and handcuffing me, saying that he didn't want another crazy friend attempting to kill someone or become suicidal.
He put me in an insane hospital, where I met even more ghosts. One of the workers caught me talking to them and they filed me completely gone. So before Garth or my family were ever even told, they "put me out of my misery" screaming and punching. When I "woke up" I saw Ajara smiling sadly at me. That was the day I realized that the insane were the ones who thought that the word normal could ever describe anything.
