"So they are basically the hall monitors and we're the teachers that get called in when people are playing with the big guns."
"That... would be one way of phrasing it, yes." She conceded her point.
Mifa nodded again. "Okay, so we have residual hauntings, intelligent but not aware hauntings, and then the intelligent and aware hauntings, who are our contacts at the haunting sites. Right?"
"You catch on very quickly, yes." Ayana smiled and nodded her approval.
"Now, the last and the most dangerous kind of spirits, curse spirits. A race of spiritual beings manifested from cursed energy as a result of the negative emotions that flow out of humans. They bring harm to humanity and are consequently the primary targets of high-ranking Reapers like myself."
"So you have to hunt down those curse spirits on daily basis "
"Yes," Ayana nodded.
"Now how do the haunting spirits affect the living world? I mean you always see in the movies that they are slamming this door or throwing that plate. Yet at the academy, we were passing through all of the solid stuff. Is it all just Hollywood bullshit or is there actually truth to it?" she asked.
"There is truth to it actually," Ayana replied. "We're basically just energy, Mifa. We can use that energy to make our presence known in the living world. It's called curse energy. Cursed energy is born from negative emotions such as grief and anger. These negative feelings are common in human society so almost everyone possesses cursed energy. It grants the person the ability to see curses, and we Reapers and curse spirits feed off of those energies to grow stronger. I'll be teaching you how to use your curse energy to do just that. Focus and direct your energy and you can move items, open and close doors, turn electrical items on or off, and even make yourself seen and heard. That can be a handy thing if you are trying to lead a ghost-hunting team off course and away from something or someone we don't want them to be around."
"And when you will get promoted, I will help you find your own Cursed Techniques, so you can fight and hunt down those curse spirits. "
"What are Cursed Techniques?"
"Cursed Techniques, commonly shortened to simply Techniques, are a form of advanced energy that grant the user specialized abilities"
"Oh and so we just sit here shooting the shit until we get a call that someone is investigating a building in our area?"
"Well, there would be other reasons for one of the Monitors to call in."
"Such as?"
"Well, we do ask that they check in once a month or so, just to make sure all is well."
"They're dead, haunting a building, what wouldn't be well?"
"If one of the other spirits tries to stir up too much trouble, drawing attention to themselves or causing things to happen that would induce a living person to call in a ghost hunting team. And then there are the curse spirits. But those are often few and far between, and given how small an area we have, I doubt we'll have to worry about anything like that for quite some time."
"Have you ever encountered one?"
"A non-human entity?" she asked as Ayana wanted to clarify that Mifa wasn't topic-jumping again.
"Yes."
"Yes, I have, once or twice now."
"And?"
"And what?" Ayana asked.
"What do they do? I mean, I grew up seeing all this stuff in movies and on TV, poltergeists, possessions, all kinds of places."
"Well, while I'm sure a lot of it has been made incredibly more dangerous and dramatic by the cinema, that is, in effect, what they do. What they can do to the living, however, pales in comparison to what they can also do to the dead. They are incredibly dangerous to us since we exist on the same plane as they do. They can consume the essence of the Reaper and haunt it, leaving it no more than a residual haunt, or not even that, causing it to cease to exist. It can rip apart an unaware spirit's image of home and use that to torment them. They thrive on torment and grief, of both the living and the dead."
"Sounds like a few people I knew when I was alive," mifa quipped then clapped a hand over her mouth. After a moment she lowered it and then gave Ayana a sheepish smile. "Apparently I'm going to have to work on that filter thing."
Ayana laughed and shook her head. "It sounded perfectly alright to me. I knew a few like that in my lifetime as well." A sudden ringing from Ayana's person gave pause to the conversation. She pulled something that looked like a smartphone from her jacket pocket, which caused Mifa to gape slightly.
"Ayana," she answered. She paused as the person on the other end of the phone spoke. "Alright, we'll be there shortly. Goodbye."
As she hung up, Mifa finally spoke. "You have a cell phone?" she asked, incredulous.
"We need to go," Ayana said, while either evading or ignoring her question as Ayana rose from her seat.
"You died in the 19th century, how do you have a smartphone? And for that matter how the hell did you know who Gallagher is when you were yelling at me yesterday? He wasn't dead until November 11, 2022, and he was popular in the seventies and eighties."
"It's not really a smartphone," Ayana said with a sigh as she urged Mifa out of her seat. Ayana led her out of their shared office, and down a hall, she hadn't noticed before. "Some of the more recent members of the force were aware of the technology and thought that a kind of visualization of it would be helpful in communications. You have to understand, this plane of existence is all about mental images and visualizations. As for your Aiden Gallagher, just because we're dead doesn't mean we can't keep up with some things that are going on in the human world. Personally, I find the man very funny."
Ayana opened a door that had their monikers on it. That door opened onto a long hallway full of other doors. "This is our equivalent of transportation ."Ayana offered the explanation before Mifa had the chance to ask. "Each door opens into a haunted structure or a place near it. This is how we travel to where we need to be."
"We can't just teleport or something like we did last night? Just poof and be there?"
"This tends to be less..." Ayana said as she paused and searched for the right word, "involved. It takes less energy and gives way to fewer complications. It's important especially with the newer spirits that things be a bit simpler. You have a lot to deal with as it is."
"What happens if we get a new haunted place?" she asked as they made their way down the long hallway of doors.
"Then a new door will appear here. The hallway can extend itself if it needs to."
"So where are we going?" she asked, apparently accepting Ayana's explanation at face value.
"There's an old asylum in our area."
"Waverly Hills Sanatorium?" she asked as she recalled she had gone on a dare with some other kids when she was in 5th grade. They had been supposed to stay in the lobby for one hour. They had made it maybe ten minutes before they all collectively chickened out. One of her friends swore up and down that she had seen a ghost that night but Mifa had never believed her. Of course, given her current situation, she was now more than willing to believe what her friend had said.
"The very place." Ayana nodded as she moved down the hall, looking for that door. Mifa noticed that each door had a plaque beside it, denoting the name of a house, institution, or crossroads. "Come along," she urged. "I had planned a much different first day for you. Just going over things and maybe taking you somewhere to practice using your curse energy. It would seem however that we'll have to postpone that and have a more practical lesson today. It seems that a team of ghost hunters has taken an interest in Waverly Hills Sanatorium. And the monitor there has called on us to come and be present while the team is there."
"So what do we do while we're there? I mean, how do we stop them from saying too much?"
"Sometimes our presence is enough. Other times, other methods need to be employed."
"It would be those other methods I'm asking about. I don't imagine handcuffs and duct tape are going to be worth anything."
"You might be surprised." The impish grin Ayana graced Mifa with as she replied pulled a smile and laugh from her as well.
Ayana stoned at a door marked "Waverly Hills Sanatorium " and began to flip through a ring of keys Ayana pulled from her pocket.
"Yeah, that's the thing, Ayna. I'm not so big on surprises. The last one ended up with me being dead. Not something I'm keen to repeat."
"Look, I wish we had more time to run through a few scenarios but we don't. Just follow my lead. I'll try to be as communicative as I can. But please try to keep any questions to yourself until we get back. Believe it or not, they can get a bit twitchy if they think someone entirely new is on the job and they don't know what they are doing."
"Wouldn't want to give that impression," she said as she rolled her eyes. Ayana arched an eyebrow and gave her a pointed look. Then Ayana turned the key in the lock and opened the door.
☯︎
Waverly Hills Sanatorium, located in Louisville, Kentucky, was opened to house the growing number of tuberculosis patients. Due to a lack of medical knowledge at the time, patients were kept outside year-round for "fresh air," and many had their lungs surgically removed. It is known as one of the most haunted places on earth, with countless reports of paranormal activity.