[MillietheWarrior]

“So you’re a ghost?”

“Temporary deceased resident.”

“A ghost?”

“No, I’m a…-Sigh- Yes, a ghost.”

“So when you say ‘temporary,’ how ‘temporary’ are we talking here? Like a week? A month? A year or something?”

“Or something, you could say.”

“How long, exactly?”

“Try five hundred years.”

“HOLY FISHCAKES BATMAN! You’re ancient!”

“...That was rude.”

“I mean, like, you’re SO OLD.”

“...Still rude.”

“So can I touch you?”

“What-?! No, you can’t touch me! Weirdo!”

“Aw, come on! I wanna touch a ghost!”

“Temporary deceased resident! And you CAN’T touch me! GO AWAY!”

“If I went away, you wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.”

“Be still my breaking heart.”

“You don’t have a heart.”

“I DO TOO! Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I’m heartless!”

“But I can’t see it.”

“WHY would you be able to?!”

“Because you’re see through. Duh.”

“So that means you’d be able to see my organs? You clearly do not understand how this works.”

“No, I don’t. So let me touch you.”

“If I wasn’t dead, I’d kill you myself.”

“Then I could be a ghost too!”

“TEMPORARY DECEASED RESIDENT!”

[MillietheWarrior]

If she wasn’t dead, she probably would’ve killed herself just to get away from the inane chatter of the human girl who had discovered her.

The ancient, crumbling hospital just on the outskirts of the pristine city of Medicai had been left to rot and ruin for hundreds of years. It was the first known hospital on record, and a great deal of patients had died and been saved while it was in operation. Over 500 years ago, the hospital had burned down in a terrible fire; a multitude of staff and patients had been trapped inside, none of whom had been able to escape the blazing inferno. The hospital was subsequently condemned and forgotten about as Medicai, in all it’s sterile glory, popped up and began to grow around it. Many of the local teenagers frequented the wrecked ruins of the burnt down hospital, often breaking old, decrepit windows, or pulling off chunks of wood to build obviously illegal fires.

None of them ever dared to enter; the hospital was rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of those who had perished in the fire. The most notable was said to be a woman who glowed with otherworldly fire, her face and skin blackened with burns and blood, and her nurse’s uniform pristine and without a smudge on it. The stories were always passed around by teenagers, and then whispered by the elders and those who had once been teenagers themselves. But as with all rumors, there was truth in the stories, and the hospital was indeed haunted. No one had ever stepped foot in it since that fateful night 500 years ago. At least, no one until now.

[MillietheWarrior]

Yeah. This place was haunted. But so what? Rumors and stories had never deterred her before, so what was to stop her this time?

She’d been warned a thousand times not to play or even go near the old hospital. The stories of the ‘Blue Lady’ who haunted the halls had been frightening to her as a child. But when she got older, the fear turned to curiosity, and the curiosity turned to an inane inability to listen to the warnings of her peers. And here she was now, on the fifth floor of the crumbling hundreds of years old hospital, sitting in a chair and staring across at a very old, very dead woman.

And drinking tea. She couldn’t forget the tea.

“So how did you get tea anyways? I mean…doesn’t your hand just pass through things?”

The woman sitting across from her had a scowl on her face, her brown hair wreathed in fire as it floated around her head. Contrary to the descriptions, her skin was marred with absolutely nothing, but her nurses’ uniform was covered in blood; it was, she’d explained, partly her own and partly the blood of her patients. Things in the medical field had been a lot messier 500 years ago, apparently. “I get it the way any normal person does.”

“You buy it at the store?”

“No, I steal it from people who walk by the hospital on their way home. Try to keep up, sweetheart.”

The young girl scowled, her face twisting to resemble the face of the ghost woman in the chair across from her.  “That’s not funny,” she grumbled, flicking a strand of cherry colored hair over her shoulder. “You know what I meant. Anyways, you’ve been here for 500 years. Did you ever think about leaving? Or like, going somewhere else?”

The woman sighed, gazing out the dirty, dusty, broken window with abject sadness. “I have considered it. But my remains are buried here, somewhere within the hospital. I do not know where I died, But I certainly remember how. I cannot leave. I am bound to this place unless someone can find something that once belonged to me and takes it away. But that’s impossible; anything that belonged to me was burned in the fire. And what could’ve been left would be only dust anyway.”

“But what if…” the girl began, narrowing her eyes. “What if I found it, and took you away?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “What did you say your name was again, dear?” she asked, her voice suspicious. The girl had merely wandered into the hospital, come face-to-face with a ghost, and promptly began asking her questions. Needless to say Sunday, the ghost of the nurse, was quite confused.

“I’m Friday.”

“Funny. I’m Sunday.”

“Nice to meet you.”

[MillietheWarrior]

“How do you propose to find something that belonged to me?”

Friday glanced up, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “I’m gonna go through every inch of this hospital till I find something.”

“But dear,” Sunday said kindly, and Friday was intrigued to see the flames around her burned brighter or darker depending on her mood. “That’s impossible. What if…what if we began where I died?”

“That would definitely help,” Friday quipped, rolling up her sleeves. The hospital was drafty and cold, but she knew that traipsing through the wreckage would help her work up a good sweat. “Do you know where that would be?”

“On the fifth floor.”

Friday felt the air deflate from her lungs. The fifth floor? That was four floors up! And the stairs were practically nonexistent! “How am I going to get there?”

“The stairs are falling apart, but perhaps you could try climbing them? I know the best places to put your feet, and what is stable and what isn’t.”

“All right,” Friday agreed, now feeling somewhat hesitant about scouring the fifth floor if she had to work her way through the rubble. “Lead the way.”

Sunday seemed in a somewhat better mood, the flames around her glowing bright as she ghosted along the floor. Friday glanced at her feet, amazed to see that her legs weren’t moving, and she literally floated across the ground. This was really…surreal.

“Did it hurt?” she asked quietly as she climbed over the broken, burnt remnants of what might’ve been a receptionist’s desk.

“Did what hurt, dear?” Sunday asked, pointing to what looked like a stable desk for the girl to climb over. “Put your foot there. That’s a good girl.”

“When you died?”

Sunday stilled, her shoulders stiffening slightly, before she turned back to glance at Friday. The young girl saw the haunted, pained look in the ghost’s eyes, despite the fact that she was nearly transparent. The flames glowed a pale blue, before Sunday vanished for a second, her body become intangible and invisible. She reappeared a second later, a small, sad smile on her face as though working up the courage to speak.

“More than you could ever know.”

[MillietheWarrior]

“How did it happen? I-I mean, besides the fire.” Friday decided this conversation was turning incredibly awkward, but she just had to know. Besides, once she started a line of questioning, it was hard to stop until she got her answers.

“Obviously, there was the fire,” Sunday murmured, guiding Friday as she slid around an overturned pile of ashes and a bed. The stairs were only a little ways off; not far now. “But there were many other contributing factors that led to my death.”

“Like what?” Friday grunted, her foot slipping in some ash and dust as she strolled along behind Sunday on the once pristine tiled floor. Now it was covered in rust, ruin and decay.

“We were trapped,” The woman murmured, holding a hand over her heart. “There was no way to get out. The patients were screaming. I remember them screaming and crying and they kept saying they didn’t want to die. The fire had already eaten away at the stairs, and no one was coming in to save us. We knew what was coming. The nurses and the doctors still trapped put the patients to sleep with morphine so they wouldn’t have to die horribly.

“Then we planned to do the same to ourselves. I volunteered to do it. The flames were getting hotter, and as I gave the last nurse the shot, I passed out from the heat. When I woke up…Everyone was dead. Burned alive. And I? I was on fire. And the pain was indescribable. It took nearly an hour to die,” she said softly. “I think that’s why I’m the only one left.”

“All I saw as I was dying were the faces of my patients, and I knew they hadn’t suffered. But all I could think about was all these poor people who didn’t make it out, and I…I worried about my family. My husband and my daughter, who would never know who I was. Maybe that’s why I’m still here.”

“I’m…I’m so sorry,” Friday said quietly from behind her.

“Don’t be, dear,” Sunday chirped turning to smile over her shoulder. “We are, after all, going to rectify this situation once you find one of my belongings. Then I can finally leave this place.”

Friday really hoped she was right. For Sunday’s sake.