Haunted

Lethargy

Anadil moved back to stare at her calendar wall. This was morning routine, of course, but it always felt existential. She'd just drawn today's tally mark on the wall. 120,492 little lines scrawled into the worn down walls of what used to be her drawing room. 120,492 days since she died. 120,492 days alone in this godforsaken house.

She sighed, thinking about the invisible air from her imaginary exhalation. It wasn't terribly fun, being dead. She missed food, and missed the feeling of her feet against the ground. What she missed most, however, was breathing. She could still feel herself doing it, could still create the familiar sound of respiration. But the only reason she could feel or hear it was because she chose to. No matter how realistic it seemed, Anadil knew it was just an illusion.

She drifted out of the calander room, making her way to her own bedroom, having decided to reread The Outsiders. That boy who had come a few weeks prior had left behind his bag. She liked it when people did that, because they always carried the strangest things with them. Books were her favorite, but over time it seemed like the visitors had started reading less, which frustrated her. Her family had a library, but it was full of dull logical books that her father bought to flaunt his money. She wasn't interested in reading another map book, and much prefered the stories of adventure.

This particular boy had left behind two books, a bag of mysterious brightly colored candy she couldn't eat, and another phone. She reached for one of the books, pulling it off of her old bedside table. She imagined the feeling of the pages under her fingers, and had to remind herself that pondering the logic of being a ghost never went well. She could think herself into a riptide, wondering why she was still here. It wasn't worth it.

She liked The Outsiders, quite a bit. The other book had been disgustingly suggestive, and she hadn't been able to make it past the first chapter no matter how bored she was. (The men in some of the books were disgusting, and always attempted to court the women in the most infuriating ways. Anadil couldn't make sense of it.)

People always left phones, but the light up parts never seemed to acknowledge the fact that Anadil was touching them. She couldn't understand why everyone seemed so enamoured by them, and had spent a fair amount of time wondering what happened when you opened a phone. They'd gotten much fancier over the years, and she remained tortured by her inability to find out what they were.

Anadil thought about how the blankets would feel if she were really laying on her bed, and curled up with her book. Rats one and two crawled out from under said blankets, and laid down next to her. It would be warm, if it was real. The blanket would chase away the chill of death that frosted every inch of Anadil's ghost, if only she could feel it. She would stroke her rats heads, finally able to feel them.

Anadil drifted off into the cold echo of sleep, her ghostly fingers still laying between the pages of her book. Her dreams were full of the feeling of rain on her skin, the sound of her younger sisters' laughter, and the memory of how it felt to be held.

Anadil woke up to the cold reality of being dead, which she'd experienced every day for hundreds of years, but never seemed to get used to. Her rats were still curled up next to her, and she'd bent two of her book pages, which frustrated her. She moved into a sitting position and stretched, because that is one does after waking up. She had always slept in the attic, and her bedroom had the only window in the house that never fogged up. She walked over to the small circular pane of glass, and was met with an overcast sky. She couldn't see the sun, but it was light enough out that it can't have been too late in the day.

"I did not intend to fall asleep." Anadil murmered to her rats, who squeaked in response. She hadn't talked much during life, and talked even less afterwards. The fact that the only things she could talk to were herself, her rats, and whatever spiders found their way in was, in her opinion, irrelevant. She sighed, before turning around, retrieving her book, and making her way down the steep staircase that led to her attic.

Anadil's days were not terribly interesting, and she'd felt herself descend further into stagnancy and lethargy as the years went by. The house was quite large, which gave her plenty of space, but it was lonely. She wandered down the staircase, listening for the sound of footsteps that never came, before heading to the nook at the end of hallway by her younger sister's room. Her mother had put a large armchair here, and Anadil used to sit in it and read to her younger sisters. She curled up in it now just as she did then, and opened her book once more, determined not to fall asleep this time.

She was halfway through the book when she heard the door open, followed by loud footsteps. The sounds sent Anadil into a panic eveyrtime she heard them. She stiffened in her seat, guaging her options.

She hadn't expected an intruder so soon after the last boy. She typically had someone show up two or three times each year, although they only started showing up in the seventies, as though someone had remembered the White Manor. They were typically teenagers, walking in on a dare, like that boy who left The Outsiders two weeks prior. Sometimes it was an eccentric adult who wanted a thrill. She'd even had a number of people come to rob her.

Anadil was only really violent towards the malevolent ones, but she never let anyone come past her door. She could often scare them off without making herself visible. Levitate an object or two, close and open doors so it sounds like someone's there... the rats would help too. The intruder would panic, and then they would run away in terror, and Anadil would be alone once more.

Some of them had caught her off guard and seen her, which was awful. She usually found a way to push them down hard enough that chances were they wouldn't remember what had happened. And anyone else would atribute their babbling to fear and a head wound. Such was the case with the last boy, who had been terrified the moment he walked in, because Anadil had just exited her living room and was floating right in front of him. It was a terrible experience for both parties.

Over the last ten years, however, something had changed. People seemed to have remembered her. Anadil. The missing body. She'd had groups of friends show up giggling about "Anadil's ghost", often holding cameras. Those were the easiest to scare, but she'd grown increasingly uneasey of visitors since the first time that happened. If someone caught her on camera, her house would become a tourist attraction.

She had no way of knowing who it was, or why they were here. She had started to get up out of her chair when she heard a yelp. Confused, she forwent walking so she could get downsairs quicker. She flew hastily down the hallway before stopping at the top of the stairs. She moved behind the wall, turning her head to peek at the intruder.

It was a tall girl, likely around Anadil's age (Well, Anadil's age when she was alive), with dark hair that curled softly just passed her shoulders and was streaked with red. She wore a leather jacket, which can't have been comfortable, and had large boots that explained how loud the steps had been.

She was kneeling on the ground, with rat three in her hand. Anadil narrowed her eyes, her first thought being that the girl may want to hurt her rat. But she didn't, simply stroking rat three's head, and muttering "You need to be careful, man. You could get stepped on." Anadil wondered distantly why the girl would refer to her rat as "man", but decided not to dwell on it.

The girl lowered her hand for rat three to walk out, but it didn't, instead opting to crawl up her arm and settle on her shoulder. The girl raised an eyebrow, and her mouth quirked in a way that was almost a smile. She then stood up, folding her arms and looking around the house. Her eyebrows were drawn together, but Anadil couldn't tell why. She had no clue what the girl was here for... and she was still shocked by her rat's decision to stay with the girl. The rats hated everyone who visited, and people often left with a number of bites along their ankles.

The rat was not only letting the girl go unbitten, but was affectionately nuzzling her shoulder, which baffled Anadil enough that she didn't move from her hiding place. The girl analyzed the room, making a "hm" sound, before her eyes drifted to the staircase. Anadil realized too late, and immiately bolted further behind the wall, praying the girl hadn't seen her.

There was a moment of silence, and Anadil started to feel relieved, when the girl said, "I know you're there." Anadil shut her eyes in resignation. Once they'd seen her, there was no going back. She'd have to do something.

Anadil forced herself to open her eyes, and stepped out from behind the wall.