The Ghosts in the Room

'12:30 p.m.'

There were some days when Follia lived, exhausting herself in building up stabilizers to keep from toppling over.

She went to school though she didn't need to. She collected trash, hoarding them until a pretentious heir bought them, ate meals, though her stomach never grumbled, telling her it needed food to survive.

These things were all distractions, really. Temporary distractions that tried to be a proactive way of avoiding the days where she tore everything she built down, with only a pillow, a small trigger, and the lack of assiduity.

The languid afternoon sun helped out too.

It was late noon when Follia finally obtained the energy to lift herself from her pillow, her dreams were hazing into reality, forming mirages, and making her see the faces of those forgotten as her eyes fluttered open.

Follia let out a yawn before taking a glance around the room, blinking back the glaring sun coming through broken blinds. A sour taste formed in her mouth as she caught sight of who she had just been trying to escape from in her dreams.

"Have you come to mock me after so long?"

Her eyes narrowed at the one standing on the other side of the room.

She recognized how scornful her voice might've sounded to the rest of the world, and she bitterly smiled in response, "you say that, and yet you are still here."

She pressed her face back into her cold pillow, sending a shiver through her body.

She decided to ignore the unnecessary commentary and closed her eyes.

One of the many skills she learned by being haunted, ghosts loathed being scorned, the same way Follia despised hearing their voices.

She already had too much to handle with the sensory overload which was taking place.

Her mind was a frenzied terminal for random thoughts and feelings she couldn't grasp, asphyxiating any placidity, driving her to take deep breaths through the thick saturating noise. Yet, all she could inhale was throat-clinching exhaustion.

Her head palpitated and, her body contorted beneath the blankets.

'It hurts...'

That was the truth. Days like this always did, but was it sick to say that she felt more natural this way?

That she felt barren and unsure of existence when she wasn't disparaging something and planning her demise?

"Curse you! Y-you Jezebel! How dare a lowly woman bring shame to this family!"

Maybe she should have taken her dying words more seriously?

Even if she wasn't a 'holy-woman', people who are at the door of grief are known to touch the spirit world. Or that's what said at least.

She was a skeptic in her past.

Funny how now she was summoning Satan without much thought.

Her body throbbed with living memories.

Transgressor, curse, harlot, demoness - she's been called all these things before.

It would be a lie if she said she never understood why.

She wasn't under some spell, like some tried to say. Nor was she an agent who, "could be saved."

She took all these titles as her own, because of who she was.

What was she again?

Follia creased her eyebrows as she realized she forgotten something important.

'What was it?'

Everything in her head blurred into one, spitting on her severe attempts of remembrance.

Blank.

Annoyed with her headache, and the empty place which should've held something important? She fumbled around until she found a bottle of aspirin,

'did I use them all already?'

She pinched her glabella, knowing that the closest thing she had that could cure her headache was tap-water. She contemplated if she should proceed, her head pounded in response.

Sluggishly, Follia kicked off the covers, and took in the view before her.

Dusk crept into her room before she realized- Follia would have been surprised if she wasn't being haunted in this house.

There was original Victorian wallpaper with water-marks, splintered wood floors, and foggy windows. Not to mention, the brown cracks in the once cream-colored ceiling.

She didn't bother trying to 'beautify' the place, she was never good at making homes from the start.

If she wanted to live somewhere beautiful, she had all the money to do so, but places like Capri, or Rio de Janeiro where places she couldn't find the energy to live in.

Finally, making it to the kitchen downstairs, Follia realized how cold and dark it had become inside. She decided to set the thermostat after getting some water.

Going over to the sink and opening the cabinet, she noticed a small sound.

'Tap... tap.'

'Hey, 'Lia.'

Confused by the raspy whisper calling her name, Follia closed the cabinet door, and looked behind her, 'nothing's there?'

Turning back towards the sink, she glanced up, seeing wild eyes beaming with sardonic enthusiasm, and a dangerously animated smile pushed against her kitchen window, watching her from the obscurations of night.

'Lia. Won't you let me in?'

His voice had a sing-song rhythm that made alarm bells go off.

He had been sitting outside for the best of twenty-four hours, waiting for her to let him back in. Of course, the cat could get him out, but finding a way in was a whole different story. His human body threatened to fall under hypothermia's influence, but, until now, he survived off of sheer will-power. When she got home, she fell asleep immediately, when she awoke, she ignored him!

He had to sit and listen to her cheap exposition for so long!

Vengeance was going to be his.

Follia stepped back, noticing murder was the least on his mind, if that weren't the case, she would've let him in.

Swiftly turning around, she made her way upstairs.

Exercising one of the many skills learned by being haunted.

***