POV: Grey
Huddled in my corner, dazed and half awake, I'm not prepared when the hatch screeches open and a harsh line of light shoots up through the opening. What on earth is going on? Am I dreaming? Is this a nightmare?
"Is anybody up there?"
Oh god. This isn't a nightmare. It's my worst dreams coming true.
"You need to come down right now."
His voice is shaking, he must be enraged. Why are humans so aggressive?
Grey, you have to move. Focus. You've planned for this.
I look at the faded dresser that the alarm clock is perched on. Time and again I'd practiced pulling out a drawer, hiding in the gap and closing the drawer behind me without knocking down the clock. No human would think to look for a ghost there. Rising to my feet, I start to sprint across the attic.
And a hot beam of light hits my leg.
I drop to the floor behind one of the many boxes up here. My leg tingles and stings where the flashlight focused. God, it hurts worse than any of the overhead traps the human's left for me; those were aching and annoying, but this light is sharper, closer, brighter. At that distance, it felt like putting my leg against an overheated hot pack. What the hell will it feel like when it's close?
"Hello? Is anyone up here?"
The human is in my space. He's going to find me. No, no he won't. He doesn't know I'm here.
Easing myself onto my hands and knees, I start crawling forward. I never liked being short as a ghost but I'm damn grateful I am now.
My breaths are unsteady and quick, but I risk a glance over the boxes. His face is hidden, blinded by the horrid brightness, and he towers in the entrance of the room. Something metal glints in his other hand – is he holding a knife? I can't help but laugh at the irony. The flashlight is more painful to me than any weapon he could carry.
Wait a minute, does he think I'm a human?
I don't have time to wonder about that now, as his light sweeps above my safety barricade made of cardboard.
"Hey," the human shouts; too loud, too close, "this isn't funny. If you're here, come out."
"If I come out, you'll burn me," I hiss silently over the thrumming panic in my chest, "Just leave me alone!"
The boxes are packed tightly here. The dull ache in my leg makes it harder for me to contort myself like I usually do. My shoulder brushes against the dusty cardboard, nudging the box forward. His flashlight trains on the movement. I freeze and shut my eyes.
Footsteps come closer, until the light is hovering over the boxes. But slowly, ever so slowly it moves over to the right, and the human walks past.
I won't let him find me. Humans are easily distracted. I can use this.
As luck would have it, the sheet is close to me. Stretching my arm out to full length, my fingertips just touch the cool fabric, and I yank it over.
Balling the sheet up in my hands, I crouch up and wind my arm back to throw across the room. Due to cursed human weighted objects it doesn't travel nearly as far as I wanted it to. Instead it smacks the human's leg and falls a few feet past him. He squeaks, and judging by the sound of another yelp and a crash, he tumbles back into a pile of boxes.
"Who's there? Where are you, what are you-- Huh? This is crazy. It's just a sheet. Wait a second, it's my sheet? How did it even get up here? What...?"
His back is to me and the dresser is barely a meter away. Now is the time to run. I rush forward towards the drawer that I've always left cracked open. But my throbbing leg hits the wooden side as I crawl into the gap. A yelp escapes my mouth before I can clamp a hand over my lips.
The dresser shakes, ever so slightly. In any other circumstances, the human wouldn't notice. I know he wouldn't. But he's on edge, paranoid. I don't need to turn around to know the sudden dull heat on my leg is from his nearing light.
Keep moving! Have to keep moving! Move! I grit my teeth and hoist myself deeper into the dresser, until I can squeeze myself behind the drawers. Tears spring into my eyes as the sharp edges scrape my leg.
Did he see me? He couldn't have, he would have shouted. Doesn't matter, keep going. Go, go, go!
When I finally manage to right myself in the gap, I press myself into the dresser's backing, my chest heaving. Fear rises in my throat, begging to escape in a scream. I just wanted to get back at him, to get him mad, not make him hunt me down.
Go away. Leave me alone please.
He opens the drawer, pulling it out slowly. He reaches his hand in, the light beam poised into the dresser, sweeping from front to back.
No no no too close too close too close close it close it--
I grip the drawer's edge and tug it back violently. The human shouts and jerks out his hand. "Son of a--" is all I hear before the drawer rams into my face and I squeak a curse myself.
He gives a bone-chilling yell and starts pulling on the drawer again. But I don't let him open it; I'll stand my ground.
"Why can't you look through the rest of the dresser, damn it?" I whisper.
"Urghhh! come on--damn drawer--GAH!"
His voice sounds weird and high, not like he's sounded this whole time before. It takes me by surprise so much that I forget to hold as tightly for a moment. The drawer lurches forward violently, dragging me with it.
"Aaahhh my god!" the human screams. My head is crammed behind the drawer but it's pulled so far out that I can see just beyond it. The flashlight is nowhere to be seen, but the human is moving about frantically, clutching one hand in the other and saying a bunch of noises I cant understand with more expletives in between.
And there are deep red lines carved into the fingers of one hand.
Oh. That's why he wanted to reopen that drawer so badly. His fingers were stuck. It looks kinda ...yeah, yeah it looks pretty bad. In the moment, I forget myself and lean forward, craning my neck over the opened drawer.
"Ouch, that looks like it really hurt. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to hurt you, I was just--."
The dresser creaks ominously. The weight of the drawer tilts the whole furniture forward on this slanted floor. Something rumbles above me, slides across the top of the dresser and plunks down in front of me.
Now I know where the flashlight went: it's shining in my face. Pain sears my eyes, burning my face. Screwing my eyes shut, I tug on the drawer but it's leaning too far to be able to pull it back on my own. Every second that passes more pure light pierces my eyelids. It feels like they're being melted to my eyes.
Was that a trap? Did the human pretend to be hurt to lure me out? Am I going to go blind? Will I ever be able to see again is this all I'll ever know oh god I need to close the drawer take the light away help me!
As if in answer to my panicked thoughts, the light vanishes. I crumple into a heap, palms digging deep into my eyes and tears streaming down my face. Thousands of stars pepper my vision, like a meteor shower on a crisp, cool night. The burning dulls to a soft throb in my eyes, but the deeper hurt inside aches and swells.
This is why you don't talk to humans, Grey! My brain screeches at me, making my chest constrict in panic. Humans never listen, never want to see us, and trying to be nice will just get you hurt.
Everything over the last couple days has been building up inside me, and that final thought breaks me. Huddling down tighter, I wrap my arms around my knees and burst into sobs. Why don't ghosts ever cry in movies? Do humans even think ghosts can cry? No, we're only ever angry, scary creatures in their stories.
"Why am I so scary?" I hiccup through my sobs, burying my face in my knees. "Why does the human want me to leave so bad? What makes me so dangerous to people? Why I can't I have a normal life without being scared of everything? Why can't I just have a friend?"
I keep crying harder, rocking myself back and forth, until the weeping turns into quiet sniffles are there aren't any tears left to cry. It feels comforting in a way, the sadness settling around me like a blanket across my shoulders and I feel like I could stay here forever, sitting in this numbing grief, in the darkness behind some dresser drawers. But I know I have to face the situation and plan my next steps. Who knows what the human will think of next.
How long is it before I open my eyes again? Minutes? Hours? It doesn't feel quite as long as hours but much much longer than a couple of minutes. But at last, I manage to open my eyes; they aren't sealed shut forever, thank god. Gathering all my energy, I slowly uncurl myself and peer my head up, over the drawer's edge. The drawer is still open but there isn't any sign of the flashlight. The human must have taken it away.
I tense up, listening and watching, waiting for another sudden ambush by the human, but there's nothing. The world is dark and silent, and I am alone once more. Gradually my thoughts start to untangle and I let my shoulders relax. At least the human closed the hatch behind him.
Despite being so light and mostly unaffected by gravity, I still need to be careful worming my way out of the dresser so that it doesn't topple over. When I finally crawl out, I push the drawer back in and look over the state of the attic. It's a bit worse than a few hours ago. The digital clock is hanging off the dresser by its cable, boxes are opened, overturned and shoved all over the place, and the sheet I had brought up this afternoon is rumpled in the corner. The human must have kicked a bit of stuff around.
Why he was looking through the boxes? I wonder absently as I set the clock back on the dresser, It's not as if I could have been hiding in any of those. Did he think he'd find a clue in there or something?
A smile crosses my face while I fold the sheet and put it down, remembering how I got the human good with it. I'm glad humans think of ghosts with lightweight sheets and not fluffy blankets, because that would be so much harder to throw.
Come to think of it, where did I put the throw? When I went to sleep earlier I had placed it carefully next to the dresser, but now its nowhere to be seen. Maybe it got pushed somewhere else in all the ruckus? A small nugget of anxiety lodges in my throat as I scour all around the dresser; above it, under it, even through all the drawers to be extra sure. The nugget grows as I start searching the whole attic, moving boxes this way and that. By the time the clock's red numbers change sixty times, that nugget has become a full-on boulder of fear. There's no way I could have overlooked something so cherished and bright-colored, not when I've turned over every foot of this thirty-foot space. If I can't find the throw, that can only be because the throw isn't up here, and that means...
...that the human took it. And I couldn't stop him. I didn't have the strength. Oh my god, what is he going to do it? He's already damaged it once, why does he have it out for the throw?
I want to cry, but instead an angry helpless laugh spills out of me. Did that human seriously come up here with a knife just because I took one tiny blanket that he ripped? He wants me gone because of that???
No. This is my home. I don't have anywhere else to stay, but I'm certain humans can find new homes easily. I won't lose this space and I won't lose that throw. He can find somewhere else to live and another blanket to claim for himself.
Get ready, human. This apartment isn't big enough for the two of us.