There were two concerns presented on a silver platter to Wilfred.
The first and foremost being the presence of a figure beside him.
The second being what the figure had murmured.
A rational person would immediately lunge for the door and call the police due to an intruder in their private space. But Wilfred couldn't classify himself under the category of 'rationality'.
At this point, any thought of common sense was non-existent in Wilfred's mind.
Screeching incoherently like a banshee, he bounced around and frantically whipped at his shoulder, hoping that he'd whip off the spider. Wilfred wasn't entirely stupid despite lacking the preferred number of brain cells, he knew he would have to confront the owner of the voice before being concerned about the contents of it's sentence, but his arachnophobia began to act up and toppled his fear of intruders.
After watching a National Geographic documentary on insects back in middle school, he grew inherently scared of tiny little gremlins with more than two legs. Even though the documentary was situated in Australia, he wasn't going to take any chances.
Spiders were horrifying, possibly more mortifying than any demon to Wilfred, whether it be one from hell or his sleep paralysis one.
Maybe that's how he would be tortured if he were part of a horror movie – trapped in a room with numerous spiders of different breeds.
"How about you calm down?" The voice exclaimed over his shrieking, yet that didn't calm him down.
His glasses were knocked off due to the continuous swatting and gently bounced on his mattress yet used that as a propeller to slam into the wooden floor beside it.
"The spider's gone! You need to calm the hell down!"
Now that calmed him down.
"Is it re- is it really gone?" He exasperatedly enquired, his voice coming out squeaky as if he just finished a marathon.
The voice gasped – or perhaps a sharp intake and a pause. Wilfred's ears were fuzzy and incapable of picking up any detail from the environment around him until his heart stopped thumping rapidly against his ribcage. The adrenaline that set his heart on fire was simmering down, but a sudden bucket of gasoline was poured on him, setting him on fire once again.
A thought finally settled in his muddled head as his eyes frantically searched the floor for a blurry image of what seemed to be glasses among the piles of boxes in the darkness.
'There's someone in my house,' was all he registered, followed by a loop of, 'I'm going to die, holy shit, I'm going to get stabbed.'
Once his fingertips glazed the cold wooden floor and hit the frames of his glasses, he struggled to place it on with one hand and used his other hand to feel for the light switch that he recalled being directly beside the dresser. Was it the dresser or the door? He wondered how idiotic he looked from another perspective since he was breathing undeniably loud, feeling for the light switch with his right hand and biting the handles of his glasses to try open it with his left one.
"Du- dude, the light switch is uh, near the door?" The person piped up; slight intrigue mingled in the voice with a hint of anticipation.
Wilfred didn't have time to be confused as to why this intruder was helping him and almost immediately lunged forward to switch on the light. The yellow shine blinded him, squinting his eyes through the rims of his glasses as he grabbed the first hard object in the box below him and pointing it to the corner of the room accusingly. As the light finally settled and the corners of his eyes stopped tingling like a static television, he attempted to focus on the figure.
He paused.
"A… a child?"
The 'child' let out a confused murmur that he couldn't quite pick up on, watching him cautiously as his foggy vision attempted to focus on it. Given the size difference between the two, he assumed it to be a preteen girl, her attire undeniably casual as if she were lounging at home, her expression strange.
Strange because her eyes weren't normal – they seemed oddly rounded, as if she were wearing a mask with a painted on frown and furrowed eyebrows, with large circular dots as eyes, devoid of any detail.
"What… what are you doing here, kid?" He coaxed lightly, lowering his 'weapon'.
"Do you plan on attacking me with a batman figurine? If so, you;re a dumbass." She groaned, followed by a slight mumble of 'adults are dumb' or 'I need rum,' and to be honest, both sounded questionable.
It could either mean she was a kid or an adult posing as a kid depending on which one she uttered.
His face burned red with embarrassment as it trailed down to his fingers, a deathly and cautious grip on his batman figurine he had bought from a comic-bookstore not that long ago. Letting out a nervous chuckle, he dropped it back into the cardboard box he had yanked it out of seconds prior and let it make a satisfying 'thunk' as it impacted the rest of the figurines.
"If you're trying to rob me, I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you…" He trailed off from his pathetic sentence as his vision actually began to focus on the girl.
Blue.
The girl was blue.
Not exactly blue, various shades of grey and white clashing together so that she seemed blue from the light outside the window. She was somehow radiating a light hue of white and blue, yet fairly hard to decipher, almost like an outline. But people don't have outlines.
He was ashamed of the first few thoughts that ran into his mind as to make sense of the unfamiliar scenario.
The first being – 'Am I that old? Technology really makes Halloween costumes unnervingly realistic.'
But it was the middle of February – what ungodly creature would prepare a Halloween costume this early in advance and then flaunt it by breaking into a depressed university graduates crappy one-bedroom?
Trailing his eyes to her eyes, Wilfred paused. Could he actually call those eyes? It seemed to be hollow and empty, in which large holes replaced the position of her actual eyes, somewhat like a bottomless pit. They seemed to be ovals that slanted downwards could be mistaken for a saddened expression in an old Mickey Mouse cartoon that Wilfred constantly watched, but her eyebrows were perked upwards, as well as presenting a lopsided grin that diminished the assumption of sadness almost immediately. She seemed so real but so fake.
He paused momentarily and attempted to swallow a wad of anticipation that lay in his throat.
"Ah u-um… what're you… you doing here?" He slowly sounded out as if trying to make sense of it himself. The girl paused for a moment before the corners of her lips curled up.
It almost seemed sinister under the blaring LED light.
"Oh, how lovely."
If he were uncertain about it before, he could now say with full confidence that she radiated a sinister aura.
".. Love… lovely?" Wilfred choked out, his mouth dry and forehead drenched with sweat, so much so that his glasses grew foggy and eyelids heavy.
"You can see me."
"Should I not be… not be able to?"
The girl paused and proceeded to cross her arms over her chest, her hollow eyes widened to stare at him with an incorrigible emotion.
"What do you think I am?"
What kind of question was that?
She leant forward, her smile growing strangely abominable and horrendous the closer she got to him. Wilfred's pursed lips began quivering, sweat momentarily fogging his vision as he stumbled back.
"What do you think I am?" She laughed, her monotonous voice receding into a mocking tone. Wilfred didn't know whether to nervously laugh or cry out of confusion and fear.
"I… u-um…"
Wilfred couldn't respond.
Maybe it was because the question was too bizarre, or perhaps it was because his mouth was too dry.
"It's not a difficult question." She grinned sardonically, "Walking all the way home must've been tiring, but I'd assume some blood would rush to your head."
"It's not… I…"
"C'mon, what do you think I am?"
As Wilfred backed away further, she leant forward with her revoltingly mocking grin.
"Ohoho, you're scared shitless!" She cackled lightly, her tone unlike any a young girl should have.
"Aren't… aren't you a little girl? Sh… shouldn't I be able to see you?" He stammered, his voice seeming higher pitched and croakier than usual. He wished he could back up further or run out of the room, but his feet were rooted to the floor which was now warming up due to his constant shuffling.
"Yes, I suppose you'd assume that." She sighed, shrugging lightly to herself.
Without another word, she reached her hand out to lunge at Wilfred's chest. His mind flashed with a thought for a split second – 'does she have a weapon?'
Jerking back, he attempted to lunge out of her grasp but failed to realize he was practically backed up against the wall at this point. Knowing there was no way around it, he shut his eyes and braced for impact.
The impact of her hand on his chest never arrived.
After a few begrudging seconds, Wilfred pried his eyes open and found the girl had actually placed her hand on his chest. Not just on his chest, right through his chest.
He couldn't even begin to fathom what he could see before an icy sensation crawled its way down his skin originating from his chest, particularly the area she had her hand through. Goosebumps decorated his skin, and his eyes were widened, glancing between the hand impaled through his chest and the girl with the strange grin.
Mouth agape, he began making strange sounds of confusion and vivid shock.
"As you can see-" She began, purposefully ignoring the flabbergasted expression on Wilfred's face whilst removing her hand with ease, "-I'm not exactly someone you should see."
Wilfred was morbidly curious between his laboured pants and fear-ridden expression.
"I'm not exactly... alive, I suppose," she let out a laugh, shrugging and throwing her arms out in either direction to emphasize her point and the scale of how serious she was. Wilfred couldn't help the small gulp he made obvious.
"S-so... you're a..." He trailed off and watched her purse her mouth shut and send him a tight-lipped grin.
"Ghost."
"Hologram!"
"What?" They both exclaimed at the same time, watching each other with an intense stare.
"You think I'm a hologram?" She accused, pointing a light grey finger in his direction and her eyebrows furrowed to make it seem like an angry animated character since her hollow eyes also slanted in a way that made her portray anger.
"You're fuckin' dead?!" He was shrieking at this point, his voice turning to a slight slur due to his constant incoherent mumbling but clearly heard from afar.
She sighed.
"Yeah why don't you scream louder; I don't think hell heard you." She sarcastically scoffed, and although she couldn't portray it, he felt that she rolled her eyes. His breathing was now frantic.
"You're a demon?!" He whispered harshly, finally lowering his voice when he realized that he was far too... expressive of these newfound facts.
"I'm a what? What made you think that?" She was taken aback by him clawing the wall, hoping that he could dig a way out.
"Y-you just said hell! Are you from hell? Are you gonna kill me? Oh shit, I haven't even done everything on my bucket list!" He cried out, jamming an index finger in her direction as a way of saying 'demon, demon, demon'.
"Oh, you really are a dumbass... I'm not a demon, relax. That was just a dead joke." She let out a snicker and repeatedly hit her hand on her knee while beginning to erupt in laughter and seeming like she was almost dying – again.
Her prior sadistic grin and morbid expression seemed to melt away with her laughter, yet Wilfred didn't dare lower his guard.
A ghost?
His body was pumped with adrenaline and his mind was bombarded with scepticism, not daring to believe her word over the virtues he lived his whole life under.
Throughout high school, he constantly berated people for believing stupid things like astrology, voodoo dolls and the paranormal. Especially ghosts.
But now, some teenage girl is claiming to be a ghost? If Wilfred had not spent years researching ghosts and how to prove his side of the argument against the ignorant occult club in high school, he might've felt the urge to believe her.
But he refused to admit it.
So he reached his arm out, refusing to let his mind wander out to the 'what ifs' of this interaction.
His hand went right through her face.
His hand grew icy cold.
"What're you doing?" The girl deadpanned, her hollow eyes narrowing on Wilfred.
"You aren't a ghost." He murmured aloud, mainly to himself, "I have to- I have to be hallucinating."
"Wow, you really aren't going to believe me?" She enquired, her smirk growing wider.
"I don't know if I'm hallucinating or just going insane." He numbly mumbled. It didn't feel like he was hallucinating, and he seemed like he was in control of his own body, but then again, his brain wouldn't immediately set off an alarm and screech 'You're imagining this bullshit.'
He's watched enough psychological documentaries to know that he could imagine her up, magic up a history which would result in her lack of backstory. Maybe he was just so heartbroken and confused with his life choices his brain made up a whole character of a ghost, due to meddling with fake occult objects the hours prior, just to distract him from all his issues. She seemed so real, though, so he was astounded at his brain's capacity. He thought it was his brain's way of punishing him for allowing Lottie to push him into doing fake-occult seances.
"When I open my eyes, there'll be nothing in front of me, I'm just hallucinating out of sleep deprivation." He stated aloud, and hopefully only to himself.
Darkness was layered in his closed eyes, as his heart thumped. His conscious brain convinced him it was a figment of his imagination but somewhere deep down in his subconscious mind, his ghost-believing side believed that it was something else. It was something dead.
He heard a sigh but passed it off as the wind rustling in.
When he opened his eyes, he was alone. Alone in his room.
He let out a sigh of relief.
Just a hallucination.
Yet he couldn't shake the icy feeling on his body - a body splattered with goosebumps and drenched with sweat.