I burst through the front door of my dorm room, shoving it open so hard that it swung forward and hit the wall beside it. Christi was laying on her bed with her laptop in front of her. My noisy and rather dramatic entrance caused my roommate to shriek and slam her computer shut.
When she looked up and met my gaze, she gasped. "Jade, oh my god. Are you dead?"
"I saw Michael Clifford." I shut the door and threw my bag to the floor.
Christi sat up and furrowed her eyebrows, looking at me questionably. "Huh?"
"Michael Clifford. The guy from 5 Seconds of Summer," I said as I began to pace the floor, my mind still in a whirl. "I fucking saw him. I had a conversation with him!"
"Are you okay, Jade...?" Christi asked. "He's been missing from the face of the earth for like, 4 years -"
I stopped in the middle of the room, spinning around to face my roommate. "He's been in that hotel this entire time!" I exclaimed. "Christi, I saw him. I talked to him."
"So...he's alive?"
"I don't know."
"So then he's dead."
"I don't know!"
Suddenly Christi stood up, her eyes wide with intriguement. "Whoa, wait a minute," she said. "Did you talk to a ghost?"
"Christi, I don't know," I said truthfully. "He was standing right next to me...and then he started talking to me and -"
"Are you sure it was him?"
"Positive," I nodded. "I mean, he sure looked dead...but that's impossible."
Christi let out a groan, slumping back down on the edge of her bed with a huff. "Would you quit it with this whole denial thing? Ghosts are real, Jade. He must've been dead. Otherwise he would've left that hotel four years ago."
I stood there in silence, thinking her words over. It didn't make any sense to me, but I couldn't think of any other explanation. Christi was right; if Michael Clifford wasn't dead, then he would've checked out of that hotel with the rest of his band years ago. 5 Seconds of Summer would still be a thing to this day.
There's no other way to explain why Michael was still there, how he somehow knew my name, and how he miraculously disappeared into thin air right before my eyes. But I've never been one to believe in ghosts, so it was hard for me to grasp this concept.
I started to pace the floor again. "But...but...I have to go back there."
"No, Jade!" Christi sighed, flopping down on her back, sprawling her arms across her mattress. "Somehow you didn't die this time. There's no way you can do it a second time."
"Actually, I can," I retorted, putting my hands on my hips. "Christi, I have to go back. I think he wants me to."
My roommate furrowed her eyebrows and slowly lifted her head, looking me up and down like I was insane. "...What exactly happened with him?"
I sat down beside her and told her everything. Excluding the abnormal lucidity of the bloody bathroom and the voices at night, I told her what happened with Michael Clifford in the elevator. I told her how he got in with me, rode down about 6 floors beside me, and how he had disappeared once he stepped out.
"And, he knew my name," I finished, now that I had Christi hooked. "He said, and I quote, 'See you tomorrow, Jade'. He said he would see me tomorrow. He wants me to go back. I have to go back."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do!" I stood up and tangled my fingers in my hair, frustrated that she was still so adamant about this. "This would be perfect for my article. I could be the one to finally uncover what happened to him! Christi, I could get so famous off of this."
