Talking To A Ghost (Jyrus, Jamber)

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Cyrus' POV
Buffy and I walk into the mental facility, holding our papers in our hands.

"Of all the places you wanted to go and volunteer, why'd you pick a mental facility?" Buffy asks.

"This is a teenage mental facility," I say. "The patients here are around our age, and they've gone through something horrible that made them this way. We should be helping to take care of them."

Buffy makes a small smile. "Ever the guardian angel, aren't you?"

"You know me so well!"

We walk to the front desk. "Hi. I'm Cyrus Goodman. This is my friend, Buffy Driscoll. We're here as volunteers to help take care of a couple of the patients."

The man at the desk looks at his computer. "Yeah, we have your names here. We just need your permission forms."

Buffy hands her paper in, then I go next. "Thank you very much. I'll have a staff member escort you to the patients' rooms. We've made sure to place you guys with safe people, and you'll have another member watching you in case things go wrong."

A member of the area came up to us. "Hi. I'm here to take you to your patients. You'll each be sent to talk to a schizophrenic person. They usually talk to themselves, so all we ask is that you respect what they say, and don't be too disturbed if they start muttering nonsense."

Both of us nod our heads. "We understand."

"You're both very brave. We don't get many teenage volunteers."

He leads Buffy into a room with a person writing on the wall, and a guard. "Here I go," she says a bit nervously.

The guard and I walk through the hallway. Despite the supportive smiles coming from everyone, I couldn't help but feel a chill down my spine as we strolled deeper through the hall.

The two of us stop at a room labelled "Beck." Here we are. Jonah Beck's room. He's one of our more serious members. He faced a real traumatic event, but I promise you, he's harmless."

"Is there anything else I know about before I meet him? Things I should or shouldn't say?"

"He talks to imaginary people a lot. We just ask that you play along with it."

"Alright. Here I go." I enter the room to see Jonah talking to the wall. The door creaks a bit as it opens.

"Yeah, I'm going to be meeting someone today. They said he's around my age, so I guess that's good. What? He's here?" He turns around and smiles at me. "Hi. The doctors told me that I was getting a visitor today. Are you him?"

"Yes. I'm Cyrus." I hold out my hand for him to shake, but he just continues to sit in his bed. "Alright, not much of a handshaker, I suppose."

Jonah's hands were twitching a little bit. "Sorry. I'm just not comfortable around anyone other than Amber."

"Who's Amber?"

"She's my girlfriend. We're really close. She comes to visit me everyday and we talk all the time."

This was probably the imaginary girlfriend he was talking about. "She sounds like a very supportive person. What is she like?"

"She's really pretty. But she also cares about me, even though I'm stuck in this place. After my parents died, I didn't think anyone else would be there for me."

A small frown appears on my face. Seeing someone so innocent losing his sense of reality is heartbreaking for me. "If you need others to talk to, I'll be here, okay?"

"Okay."

"So, is Amber the person you were talking to?" Jonah gives me a small nod. "Where'd she go?"

"She left to do something. But she should be returning soon."

As he said that, the door slid open, and a blonde haired girl with a red pleather jacket comes in. "Hi, Jonah."

"Hey, Amber."

Amber's eyes shift over towards me. "You must be that person the doctors were telling us about. I was with Jonah when they told him this. I think it's great that you're helping others like this."

"And you're a great girlfriend for being here for Jonah." Amber's eyes seem to be fixed on me as I say that.

"I can't just leave him alone. The doctors may be helping him, but Jonah still needs other forms of support."

Jonah's cheeks turns a light pink. "One of the many reasons you're the best."

———

I exit the room, waving goodbye to Jonah and Amber. I can still faintly hear them talking as I walk away.

The power in this hallway starts to short out, leaving a somewhat flicker in the lights. Once again, a chill slides against my spine, and I begin speeding up.

Buffy's sitting and waiting for me in the lobby, reading a magazine. "What took you so long?"

"I got caught up in the conversation. It was surprisingly interesting being in there. They had so much to talk about."

"Let's just go sign out. This place is scaring me a bit, to be honest."

"Same."

We come back to the desk and the man gives us a clipboard to sign out on. "The patients didn't give you too much trouble?"

"Not at all," Buffy replies.

He turns to look at me. "How about you? Was Jonah okay?"

"He was perfectly fine."

"I'm glad. After the incident, he hasn't been himself."

Curiosity overtook me. I ask, "What happened?"

"There was a car accident about a year back. Jonah was with his family and his girlfriend. He was the only one alive. It was so bad that he starting talking to himself to cope with it."

The sentence echoed in my head. Jonah was with his family... and hit girlfriend. "What was his girlfriend's name?"

"We don't know her real name, but we know she likes to go by Amber."

The next thing I know, I pretended to feel nothing in my pockets. "Shoot, I forgot my phone in the room. I'll be right back."

I don't know what came over me, but I feel like I need to know if what I'm suspecting is true.

I come back to the door of Jonah's room, and peek through the window. Jonah is looking at the wall, talking to it. "I'm excited for tomorrow. They said they were going to do guitar lessons with us. You're going to be there, right Amber?"

He wasn't talking to anyone, but as I looked at the wall, my hair was standing on end. Nobody was there, yet I knew that she was staring right at me.

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I'm not too good with horror/creepy genres, but I thought I'd give this one a go, since variety is a good thing to have.

There was an alternate ending where Cyrus gets scared so much that he ends up in the mental facility as well, but I feel like that would've been too dark for this. If I do another horror theme, I'll try for a darker ending.

As always, thank you for your continued support. With me being busy with volunteer work, drawing (more of a hobby that I'm really bad at), and writing other stories, I can barely find time to write these oneshots. I hope you continue reading these, and check out my other stories for some extra content.

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