Three Idiots and a Ghost

When a ghost imagined a creepy idiot

How did it come to this...?

...I'm falling...

...Twelve days.

Rags jolted awake once more on Monday morning. She had another nightmare. This time, she was falling from what appeared to be a great height. Yesterday, she thought she'd drowned to death, but now she wasn't so sure anymore. Just what had happened on her last day alive, she wondered.

"You're up, Rags!" Cooper said, joining his friends at the front door. "Good morning!"

Rags cringed at how loud his voice was, especially since she'd just woken up. Cooper was more excited than usual. "Yeah, good morning. Are you three heading out for breakfast again?"

Archer shook his head. "No, we already ate while you were sleeping. Sky and I have classes to go to, while Coops is off to the hospital."

"Hospital?" Rags repeated, looking at Cooper with concern. "Are you sick or something?"

Smiling, Archer placed an arm around Cooper's neck. "The only thing sick about Coops is how empty his head is most of the time."

"Hey, my head isn't empty. It's filled with like the most awesome things ever, man!"

"Right," Archer replied dryly, quickly dismissing him. "Anyways, Coops actually works at an animal hospital."

"Oh, wow," Rags said, thinking the job suited Cooper quite well considering how much he adored Mr. Sprinkles. Although, it couldn't be said that he received any of that love back.

Cooper then explained, "Yeah, I started working there since taking a gap year. I mostly do manual labor stuff like cleaning. But it's whatevs. I scrub them floors hard."

"I'm sure you do..." Rags said, her once cool image of Cooper taking care of animals suddenly gone, replaced by the sight of him mopping the floor with fiery passion.

Skyler finally joined the conversation to remark, "But we all know there's a reason Coops keeps working there."

Rags saw Cooper turn shy for the very first time. Scratching at the side of his blonde head, he admitted, "Okay, yeah. So, I have this girl that I kind of sort of like who works there too. Her dad's a vet and owns the animal hospital. He's scary as fuck..." He shivered just from the thought of his boss.

Skyler added, "Well, I'd be scary as fuck too to some guy who had his eyes out on my underaged daughter."

"Un-Underaged?!" Rags stared at Cooper in shock, never taking him to be such a predator. His innocent-looking face and immature personality would have never given it away. As much as it disturbed her, she now couldn't get the picture of Cooper suggestively holding hands with a twelve-year-old out of her head.

"Woah, hey! Stop making it sound like I'm a creep!" Cooper defended, waving his hands out to stop Rags from getting the wrong idea about him. "Alright, so she's seventeen. But that's only like four years younger than us."

Archer also came to Cooper's rescue. "And you're not one to talk, Sky. What about that girl you brought home once? Cara? Or was it Claire?"

"I think it was Chloe," Cooper said, though not too sure himself. "Definitely not Coops."

"Of course it wouldn't have been Coops, Coops."

But currently, the most clueless of all was Skyler himself. He never cared to memorize the names of girls he had a one-off with. It wasn't like he'd ever meet them again. He didn't exactly do the whole dating thing. Shrugging, he said, "Probably one of those. Although, she was eighteen and a week away from graduation. It's not the same."

"She was still a high schooler at the time!" Cooper pointed out.

While Cooper and Skyler had their mini argument, Rags looked at Archer who immediately met widened eyes with her. "Oh, no! Unlike them, I'm not into underaged girls, or girls in general for that matter."

"I never thought that to begin with. And yeah, I get it, Arch. You've mentioned your gayness to me on more than one occasion."

"I just didn't want you to get confused."

"How could I possibly get that confused?"

"Maybe I did overthink it a bit. Anyways, guys, let's go already! We're going to be late."

The two friends quickly ended their light quarrel and were back to being on good terms again, mainly because Cooper found it hard to stay mad at anybody for more than a minute. He was just a happy guy.

Archer and Skyler headed out first as usual with their backpacks hung over their shoulders. Before leaving too, Cooper turned around once and cheerfully said, "Bye, Rags! Keep Mr. Sprinkles company while we're gone."

"Sure," Rags replied, careful not to get too close to him from the risk of accidentally possessing his body like last time.

Soon, the door was closed, and Rags was all alone in the living room. She realized this was the first time she'd been completely alone since being dead. It didn't feel very great, but it wasn't like she had any other choice. The three guys had their own lives to live apart from her.

Rags sighed, sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Cooper was nice enough to leave it turned on a cartoon channel for her so she wouldn't be bored. But even with the means of entertainment, Rags could tell it'd be a long day by herself.