Chapter 1: Ghosted

A young girl stretched with an unsatisfied yawn, rubbing her eyes. She slept long and hard, but it didn't feel like enough. Sleep debt? Probably. She worked every waking hour and dreamt about it whenever she wasn't working.

Maybe people told her that her addiction to working was getting out of hand. That she should be making the most of her youth while she still had the energy in her rather than spending her time whittling away behind a counter or in the kitchen and storage rooms.

But she just couldn't help herself.

Every time she was left with nothing to do, her hands started to itch and the room would begin to spin. It drove her nuts.

Sitting in a classroom for hours on end was not meant for her, either. She was only at school for about 7 hours a day, but 6 of those hours included staring fruitlessly at a screen or listening to some monotonous teacher lecture for eternity. Half her teachers didn't even teach anything, giving them busy work and making them watch news clips, only ever teaching them the day before the test and yelling at them for their poor scores the day after.

Long story short, she wasn't cut out for the simple school life.

The moment she turned 16, Annabelle dropped out.

She attended 10 interviews each day for a week.

She selected first the ones with the highest pay, then she carefully arranged her schedule so she could make the most of every day, calculating everything down to the commute time between jobs.

A week later, she was working a total of 4 jobs.

The first was at a restaurant. It was a small little diner run by an old, loving couple. She received 14 and hour plus tips. She would be stupid to turn it down.

The second was at a grocery store. She worked with the returns, which she loved. Sorting through the mountains of returns and organizing them into piles of things and returning them to their shelves gave her a thrilling rush. The pay was only 10.50 and hour, but she was promised a promotion to 12 and hour if she did well within her first 3 months. A year later she was making 15 an hour.

Her third job was a little out there, but she didn't mind. She was a meat processor worker on the side. Honestly, she was probably given the job out of pity. It was pretty easy to suck up the man who ran the place. Happy to play into the "sad little orphan girl," she got the job. Whether the man wanted some eye candy or actually pitied her, she didn't really care because she received 19 an hour. She's do anything for 20 bucks, and 19 was close enough.

Finally, she worked as a receptionist at a hair salon. While as much as she hated to admit it, she knew that because of how physically taxing her other jobs were, she would be working herself into an early grave. But with all the extra time on her schedule, she knew she needed another job. That's where this one came in. She got the job through her mother's connections (no, she wasn't really an orphan) and the owner was more than happy to recruit her. This job worked her brain like crazy. Keeping everything together. Making sure the place worked with tip-top efficiency and quality satisfied her to no end.

The job required her to have a car, so her mom illegally obtained a section 1 and 2 drivers training certificate and left her in a parking lot the figure out how to drive herself. A week later, she had a drivers license hot off the press. Honestly, she was probably a better driver then the people who legally got their licences anyways. Or at least that's what her mother told her, and her mother was always right.

Working 4 jobs was a heaven she had never experienced before.

Despite the constant worry from all of her employers and her best friend, Emily, Annabelle was thriving like never before.

Or, she was.

Until today, 6 years later.

April 19, 2079.

The day she woke up as a ghost. Or should it be zombie? Maybe both?

Staring in the mirror with complete amazement, Annabelle's gaze flickered to her slowly decaying body and her ghostly image.

"What in the world…?" She slowly muttered in amazement and wonder.

After a few moments she reached over to her desk and slowly reached for a pair of scissors. Grasping them firmly in her hands, she walked over to her body. Reaching out with a small tremor, she poked herself (?) with the tip. There was no response.

'Either my body can't feel the scissors or it's sleeping too deeply for it to notice.' She thought to herself. 'Now what do I do?'

Left completely speechless she left her bedroom in search of her mother. Her mom would know what to do. She always did.

"Mom?" She shouted loudly, not knowing if she would be heard anyways. "Mom! We've got a problem!" She expressed a little louder than before.

"What?!" Her mom yelled from the other side of the house in exasperation. "I'm a little busy right now. Can this wait?"

"Nope!" Annabelle yelled back. She didn't have to see her mother to know she was heaving a huge sigh because it echoed around the whole house.

Walking into the dining room, Annabelle spotter her mother set up at the table, multiple devices and pads of paper spread out around her, her head hurried in her hand and brow furrowed in annoyance.

"Stupid Mary. Why isn't she answering me?! Doesn't she know how important this deal is for the company?" She muttered under her breath.

Turning towards the stairs, she shouted "Belle! Hurry up if you've got something to say! Didn't I already tell you I was busy?"

'Oh.' Annabelle thought. Guess she can't see me… but she can hear me? Strange.

"I'm right here, mom." She settled on a simple response.

"Annabelle," her mother replied with a start, "stop messing around! That wasn't funny."

"I'm not messing around, mom, and that's the problem. I woke up as a ghost and now my body is slowly turning into a zombie as it sleeps in my bed." She replied, no change of expression on her face.

Her mom paused for a moment, knowing that there was no way Annabelle would joke about something like this. That meant unless this was some code for "help I'm being held hostage please come save me," then Annabelle was telling the truth. Or at least believed she was telling the truth. 'I should've stopped her from working all of those jobs. I should have limited her to 3 instead of 4. But it was already hard enough to convince her to not take 8 jobs… she wouldn't have listened. I made the right decision.' She told her self, 'you're not a bad mother. You did was was needed to keep your daughter sane. You're not a bad mother, it's okay. She's okay. This isn't youre fault, whatever this is.' She chanted in her head as if it were a life saving mantra.

"Alright, let's go look at my little zombie daughter, then." She replied in exasperation, Mary's lost email completely forgotten.

Slowly trudging up the stairs, she felt a terrible feeling sink into her bones, leaving her unsettled and weary. Quickening her pace, she began to freak out a little bit. A mother's instinct was no joke.

Walking up to the door, she suddenly paused. Should she knock? She should probably knock.

'Okay, here goes nothing…'