Haunted

Lonely

Hello! I promise I'm trying to update more, but life got REALLY hectic recently with school and things so it might be a bit less frequent than I've hoped. But here's a little chapter :)

Anadil felt an odd sort of confusion after hearing the intruder girl's response. Lonely.

She had intentionally avoided that word, and anything to do with it... but this girl had shown up and put a bullet through Anadil's shield. And now things were starting to break through.

One of the most difficult things about loneliness is the fact that it's awfully easy to ignore. If a person tells themself they're not lonely, they can successfully block out the hurt that threatens to seep through. It isn't like sadness or anger. You can keep it locked up as long as you'd like.

And that is exactly what Anadil did. Until now. She lowered herself to the ground, imagining the feeling of her toes against the wood floor. Lonely.

The truth is that Anadil was staggeringly lonely, and she knew it. She had locked it away well, but putting something in a box doesn't truly take it away. It just means it will be more diffuclt to deal with that thing when you open the box.

She spent every day pretending that she was living the same life she used to. She went to bed at the same time she always had when alive. She sat in the same places. But it wasn't the same. It had been acutal centuries since she'd had a real conversation. Centuries of talking to rats and spiders. Centuries of singing lullabies no one could hear. Centuries of silence, darkness, and cold. Centuries of wrapping her freezing arms around herself in hopes that it might make some of the pain go away.

Anadil was as lonely as a person could be, and she hadn't ever acknowledged it until this moment. She stood at the top of the stairs, wrapping her arms around her own waist in a way that almost imitated a hug.

She looked back at the girl for a moment, and was met with a serious and intense gaze. This girl was so different from anyone else. Anadil had the strangest longing to talk to her. To know her name. What's going on with you, Anadil? She thought to herself. She used one hand to pull her hair back from behind her ear. She didn't want this girl to see her.

"Why do you want to talk to me?" She heard her own voice come out quiet and faded.

"You're a ghost, right?" the girl asked, evading the question easily. This frustrated Anadil greatly, but she didn't let it show. She gave the girl a curious look, and tried her best to erase any vulnerability she'd shown the moment before..

"I suppose so." Anadil responded. The truth is, she wasn't exactly sure what she was. Ghost seemed to be the most accurate, but it's not like there was anyone around to tell her.

"How are you alive, then?" The girl asked, and Anadil was struck by the lack of layers in her voice. This girl seemed to lay everything bare.

"l'm not exactly sure you know what a ghost is." Anadil replied.

The girl raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Do I look alive to you?" Anadil asked, the slightest hint of humor edging her voice.

The girl rolled her eyes, and looked away. "You know exactly what I mean. How are you here, talking to me?"

Anadil folded her arms, looking straight into the intruder's dark eyes. "If I knew how I was here, I would've fixed it a long time ago."