"Ahhh!" Kat screamed as she felt herself falling through the sky, clinging onto Reggie's hand for her own support.
They hit the ground with a thump, Kat shaking her head and hands when she felt her feet meet with the ground. A bright white light followed them before disappearing quickly.
She looked below her, the guys all sprawled out on the floor. She laughed loudly.
"Whoa!" Luke yelled when he stood up. "How did we get back here?" he asked.
"Back?" Kat asked him, and he nodded.
"AHHHHHHHH!" A girl in front of us began screaming and freaking out. Luke, Reggie, and Alex began to freak out as well, leaving Kat to stand still with her hands on her hips and an amused smile on her face.
The girl ran for her life, and the boys finally stopped their screaming when they saw she'd left.
"Okay, what is wrong with you guys?" Kat groaned. "If you couldn't tell, we're lost,"
"You're lost," Reggie replied, sighing.
"What? I just said that—"
"No! Kat, you are lost. We aren't. We've been here before. This is our studio," Alex explained.
"Oh," Kat muttered, looking around silently. "Well, why am I here with you guys? Shouldn't I have gone home?" the four stepped out of the studio, having their conversation by the pretty bushes of flowers that Kat tried to touch, but failed, her hands going right through them. She frowned.
Luke shrugged. "We just fell from the sky!" he chuckled.
"Actually, I don't think we fell," Kat said. She gave up on trying to grab the flower, and turned to them. "It happened when you all hugged me," she mumbled.
"It's like you were meant to bring us back here!" Alex smiled.
"Thanks, Kat!" Reggie's grin made her heart jump.
"You're welcome?" she told them and herself, still confused. "Although, it doesn't seem like that girl really...wants us here? So one of us needs to go talk to her. Wait—how can she even see us? We're ghosts,"
"Not sure," Reggie said. "But it's awesome,"
"Yeah, yeah, which one of us is talking to her?" Alex asked, getting straight to the point.
"I'll go," Luke volunteered.
The girl walked back into the studio, holding a cross. "No need," Kat said, as they saw her enter.
"Are you still here...whatever you are." the girl said. "I know I saw something. I'm not crazy!" she yelled to herself.
The four ghosts attempted to walk back into the studio, but their feet were way ahead of them. The same white light that appeared earlier had shown again. They were no longer in the garden, but standing in the doorway of the studio.
"Well, we're all a little crazy," Luke smiled. The girl holding the cross screamed once again.
"Girlfriend! You need to stop doing that. You're going to burst my eardrums! And I'm not even sure I have those! I'm made of air!" Kat yelled. Reggie shook his head at her quirkiness, finding himself chuckling.
"Oh my God. Please stop screaming!" Alex said, holding his own ears.
The girl stopped. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my moms studio?" she asked, demandingly.
"You're mom's studio? This is our studio," Luke said, backing away and gradually getting louder as the girl tried to hit him with the cross she held. "Trust me, my...the grand piano is new and...and...and..." he giggled. "my couch!" he jumped on the piece of furniture, and Kat held the bridge of her nose with her fingers, sighing, when he looked around. "That is definitely not my six-string. Can you give me just one second? Just...give me a second. Thank you," he said to the scared girl.
"Luke are you okay?" Kat asked him, genuinely concerned about his well-being.
"Guys, what is going on? How did she get her stuff in here so fast?" Luke asked them all. Kat chewed on her bottom lip.
"Maybe...maybe she's a witch. There's chairs floating on the ceiling." Reggie guessed.
"Okay, there is no such thing as witches," Alex mentioned.
"You sure? I used to think there was no such thing as ghosts," Reggie argues. Kat smiled at him.
"That's fair," Alex nodded, as did Luke.
"Okay, so we're going with witch?" Luke asked, and Alex slapped him.
"No! We are not going with witch," Kat whisper-yelled.
"She's not a witch! Okay, look, she's just scared," Alex said. They turned to look at the girl. "Okay? Let someone with a softer touch handle this," he said. Alex clapped his hands together before making his way over to the girl. "Why are you in our studio?" he asked sternly.
"Way to be soft, Alex," Kat muttered.
The girl holding the cross pulled her hand back and tried to pierce Alex with it, watching as it went right through him. She gasped. "Oh my gosh, how did you do that?" she asked.
"Clearly, you're not understanding—she doesn't get it," Alex said to the ghosts waiting for him to finish, and they all shrugged. "Look, we're ghosts. All right? We're just four ghosts, and the three of us-" he gestured his hands to the boy's. "are just really happy to be home. So thank you for the flowers. They really brighten up the room." The girl looked at him like he was insane.
"We're actually in a band called Sunset Curve," Luke said.
"Tell your friends!" Reggie piped, earning a small grin from the ukulele playing girl beside him, standing with crossed arms.
"Last night was supposed to be a really big night for us. It was gonna change our lives," Luke explained.
"I'm uh, pretty sure it did," Alex whispered to him.
"This is freaking me out." the girl said pulling something from her pocket.
"What is that?" Kat asked.
"What are you doing?" Luke added.
"It's my phone," the girl replied. "No! Stop talking to them! They aren't real. There's no such thing as cute ghosts," she laughed at herself.
"Oh! You think we're cute?" Reggie questioned. The girl glared at him, and Kat pinched his arm.
"Who you calling?" Alex asked, leaning over to see her phone.
"I'm Googling Sunset Swerve," the girl replied.
"Sunset Curve!" the boys corrected her. Kat chuckled at their defensiveness.
"Whoa!" the girl said, nervous suddenly. "There is a Sunset Curve. You did die. But not last night,"
What? What is this girl talking about? They died last night, the day after Kat.
"Twenty-five years ago?" the girl asked.
"What? No. No, no, no. Th-th-that's impossible. After we floated out of the ambulance, all we did was go to that weird, dark room where we met Kat, and Alex cried," Reggie remembered clearly.
"Well...I don't think...I think we were all pretty upset," Alex defended himself. "Kat cried!"
"I had a reason!" Kat argued.
"Okay, but that was just for like, an hour. We just showed up here," Luke explained.
"Look, I'm just telling you what my phone says. See?" she showed them. "You died in 1995. When you were 17. It's now 2020," Kat's eyes widened.
"But, I-I got there the night before they did. I died two days ago," Kat explained.
"Yeah, Google her name. Katerina—" Luke paused, looking at the girl for his answer.
"Morgan. Katerina Morgan,"
"Katerina Morgan," the girl repeated typing in the name. "Wow, uh, yeah. Twenty-five years ago. The day before them," Kat leaned over to read it for herself, but the girl holding the device shut it off quickly, placing it back in her pocket. She was hiding something.
"So...this is the future?" Alex asked. Wait so..so it has been 25 years. I have been crying for 25 years? How is that possible?"
"Well, you're a very emotional person," Reggie said.
"I am not!" Alex said dramatically.
"Alex, irrelevant," Kat nudged him.
"Thought you were afraid to come out here." A young boy said, walking into the studio. "You talking to your ghost friend? How does he look? Is he hideous?"
Alex chuckled. "He can see you," he said to Reggie. Kat glared at Alex.
"No he can't!" the girl said.
"What?" the boy asked.
"Uh...what do you want?" she asked him, and he tilted his head.
"A normal sister for starters. Stop being weird and come eat," the boy said, leaving her.
A normal sister.
Kat gulped audibly, making Reggie glance over at her. She shook her head, thinking of the garden suddenly, and appearing there.
*
1993
15-year-old Katerina found herself covered in dirt by the time she made it home. She was out with her friends, digging for 'treasure'. Katerina knew she was weird, but she never felt weird around her friends.
They still did little kid things; they went to parks and played on the swings, they pulled silly pranks on each other, they danced in the rain...
Katerina would have thought all of these things were normal up until the day she died, if her older brother, Jimmy didn't ruin it for her.
She decided to pull the most evil prank she could find on Jimmy, as a joke, hoping for a laugh from her 17-year-old brother. She'd tied his shoes together, and created a concoction that would make a bucket of ice cold water fall on top of him when he tripped on his feet.
As soon as the prank was set, Katerina called for Jimmy's 'help' on a homework assignment. Jimmy came to the rescue, but didn't make it to where he wanted to go. Instead, he was on the ground, soaking wet, and shivering.
"Are you serious, Katerina? How old are you? 5? Why can't I just have a normal sister? Why do you have to be so weird!" Jimmy screamed, and Katerina jumped at his harsh words.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, before running to her room, and locking the door. She cried for hours.
She wasn't normal. And she couldn't be.
*
"Sorry, I needed to step out. What'd I miss?" Kat asked.
"Julie is kicking us out," Alex filled her in.
"Julie? The girl that screamed when she saw us? Her name is Julie?" Kat asked.
"Yeah," Luke replied. Kat nodded.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Reggie whispered, and Kat's heart fluttered. She gave him a sad smile, shaking her head.
"Trying to be," she said. He nodded, and held her hand, giving it a squeeze. "Hey, how come my uke didn't come here with us?" Kat suddenly asked, and the guys shrugged, until Luke's eye caught something.
"Maybe because...that wasn't yours," he said, walking over to the wall. There, hung a ukulele. The ukulele. The one that Kat's father had made for her, her initials engraved on the bottom. 'KHM'
Kat's eyes filled with warm tears. "My Dad made this for me.. How does Julie have this?"
"You'll have to ask her," Alex said, quietly.
"What's the H stand for?" Reggie asked, suddenly.
"Heart," Kat sniffled. "It's my middle name. I know, it's stupid,"
"I like it," Reggie said. "It suits you,"
"Thanks," she blushed.
Luke suddenly thought of something. "Let's play something. You know? Before we have to leave this place for good?" he said.
"Okay," Alex grabbed his drumsticks, and the drum set that belonged to him during his life.
Reggie found his bass, and Luke his guitar. Kat watched them play, as she sat in the corner and tuned her ukulele.
She bobbed her head to the beat of the guys playing, until Julie came in and started yelling at them.
"Guys! Guys, stop! Guys! Enough! Cut it out!" she yelled.
Kat stopped to help her. "Hey! Stupids! Stop, and listen to what she has to say!" The guys stopped playing.
"Thank you. Julie," Julie introduced herself and Kat nodded.
"Kat," Kat smiled.
"The whole neighborhood could hear you. I thought I told you to leave!" Julie said.
"Wait—" Kat cut Luke off.
"People can hear them play?" she asked, Julie nodded.
"Yes! And so can my dad and my brother!" Julie said.
"Wait wait, so only you can see us. But everyone can hear us?" Alex asked. "I mean what kind of ghosts are we?"
"Who cares, man," Luke yelled, fist bumping Reggie. "People can hear us play!" he bumped fists with Alex too.
"We might be dead, but our music isn't," Reggie responded.
"What about you, Kat? You can play with us!" Luke said.
"I play ukulele. I'm not a drum god, or a super shredder on the guitar—and I don't even know how to use any other instrument," Kat shrugged.
"You can sing," Luke said.
"No—"
"Yeah," Reggie corrected.
"Whatever," Kat sighed.
They all watched as Julie's dad walked into the studio. "Dad!" Julie said.
"Hey. Just making sure you're okay," he said.
"Yeah, i'm fine," Julie said. "I just had to turn off the CD player."
"Wait, this was the junk that was in the loft?" her father asked.
"Junk?" Luke said, hurt by the choice of words.
"Some of this stuffs i'm pretty could shape. Hey, maybe we can make a couple bucks," the man said, touching Alex's drum set.
"What? Yo, stop touching my drums! Tell him to stop touching my drums," Alex begged Julie.
"I liked that song you had on," her dad said.
"Sweet! We're Sunset Curve!" Luke said.
"Tell your friends," Kat said before Reggie could, making him chuckle at her.
"It's rubbing off on you?" he asked her.
Kat frowned. "It only sounds good when you say it," Reggie smiled.
"It's just an old CD I found." Julie said to her dad.
"Well, still, it's nice to see that you're listening to music again. Out here you can play, whatever you want, whenever you want," the older man said, throwing his arms out, and right through the boys.
"Oh! That's nice!" Luke said.
"Stay out of this," Julie snapped at them.
"Sorry honey, I didn't mean—" her father started and Julie's eyes went wide.
"Oh, no, no, no! Not you! I mean...er..uh..you know. Give me a minute." Julie led him to the door.
"Hey. Hey. Hey. We'll figure out this music program thing." her dad said, his hands on her shoulders.
"Thanks Dad," Julie smiled.
When he was gone, Julie glared at the ghosts. "He likes our song," Luke said, with a grin.
"Oh yeah. He doesn't count. He's a Dad," Alex replied.
"Why can't you guys just be normal ghosts?" Julie asked.
"There's that word again! First, I have to be a normal sister, a normal daughter, a normal person, and now I have to be a normal ghost?" Kat screamed, her breath catching in her throat as she tried so hard not to cry.
"I-i'm sorry-" Julie started but Kat shook her head, walking through the girl.
"I need to cool off," Kat said, softly, tears pricking her eyes.
"Kat-" Reggie sighed, and let Julie finish yelling at them before going out after her.
*
"Kat," he said, softly.
"I'm here," she sighed. "I'm sorry about that. I just have a sensitivity to that word. Normal. Even saying it is weird." Reggie nodded. "You know. I never was one to want to be like everyone else in school, or in general. I had my own way of doing things and I liked it. I was happy. Until my brother snapped at me one day, and then our dad died, and I never felt my kind of normal again. Nothing was ever normal for me. So the word just makes me mad. It makes me sad. It makes me so many different emotions at once,"
"Hm," Reggie hummed, looking over at the girl beside him, who still, tried very hard to grasp a single rose from the bush behind her. He touched her hand, gently.
Kat's fingers grazed the flower ever so softly, until she was able to successfully snap it off of the vine, the splinters falling right through her hand as she held the flower in her palm. She rose her eyes to meet Reggie's.
"How'd you do that?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, honestly. "But what I do know, is that there is no such thing as normal. And you, Katerina Morgan, aren't. And I like it," in a flash, the two were now stood beside Alex while he listened to Luke talk to Julie about letting them stay. Kat's face was flushed, and her heart was fluttering with happiness from the conversation with Reggie.
"Was." Julie was saying. "My mom passed away," she looked down.
"I'm so..sorry," Luke said.
"Yeah, we...we didn't know," Alex said for all of them.
Kat softly smiled at the girl. "I'm sorry," she said.
"It's alright," Julie said. "You guys haven't seen her, have you? From wherever you're from?"
"Um...no. No. I mean you're kind of the first person we've seen," Alex answered.
"Yeah, but she's not dead so it doesn't answer her question—" Reggie began, and Kat slapped him on the back of his head. He glared at her.
"I think she knows what we mean," Kat snapped.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Alex said.
"Thanks. Sorry I got mad," Julie said. "You guys are kind of good,"
"Kind of?" Luke asked. "You know that's like 25 years of rust being dusted off."
"Yeah, do you play the piano too?" Reggie asked.
"No, I don't play. That was my mom's stuff in there," Julie replied.
"No way. She's an amazing songwriter," Luke said.
"She was." Julie smiled. "Wait, how would you know?" she asked.
"There's a song on the piano. If it's hers... your mom was really talented." Luke told her.
Julie turned to walk away, Kat's eyebrows furrowed. Where were they going to stay?
"I guess...if you need a place to stay, you can stay in there," Julie said, and the boys' smiled. "There's a bathroom in the back and a couch that turns into a bed if you still use any of that stuff,"
"Dibs on the shower!" Reggie there arm up. They all looked at him. "I just really like showers, and sometimes the occasional bath," Kat giggled, while the rest just looked at him oddly.
"This...this is just too weird," Julie said, making some hand gestures, and going inside.
The band chuckled and squealed excitedly, and Kat smile faltered. "Oh, uh. It's cool if I stay here, right?"
"Of course," Alex nodded. Kat grinned.
"Okay, uh, thanks," she put her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
*
Here is chapter three! As you guys can see, I'm trying to include Kat as best as I can. I don't want the scripts from the show to be exactly how it was just because I'm adding in Kat.
When Kat has a song, I will make a separate chapter just for her. I'm trying my best to create Kat's character as best as I can.
Kat will be portrayed the insanely talented Olivia Rodrigo, which is why I picked the ukulele as Kat's instrument.
-Angelina