House of ghouls

Day 1 (part one):

Uni set down his pencil with a yawn. He checked his phone charging in the wall to discover it was already 1:53 am. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, realizing he'd stayed up much longer than he'd intended too.

After fishing his toothbrush and toothpaste out of his bag, he got up to go brush his teeth. The hallway was pitch black, the light of the bedroom the only thing keeping it from looking like an inky void.

Too tired to really care about the horrifying house he'd kind of forgotten he was in, he entered the bathroom and flicked on the light.

The light was much dimmer than the one in the bedroom, keeping most of the bathroom's corners dark. He just wanted to quickly brush his teeth, and then get to bed. This place gave him the creeps.

He turned the faucet, and cool water spilled out into the sink, the sound of it's quiet hiss filling the silent room. He tried to brush his teeth as fast as he could, getting more and more unnerved by the second. This place had been bad during the day. It was infinitely worse now.

A strange sound came from the pipes, and he froze in the middle of rinsing out his mouth. The water pouring out of the tap slowly came to a stop, despite him not touching the faucets at all.

Drip. Drip.

That awful creeping feeling hung in the air again, the one he'd felt in the living room. Too scared to move, he watched little droplets fall from the tap.

Drip.

He got the feeling that he was not alone.

He cried out in alarm as all the water came spraying out of the tap all at once, aggressively shooting into the sink where it quickly began to spill out. Uni leapt forward to frantically try and stop the water, but no matter which way he turned the faucets, the water didn't cease.

He stepped back in panic as water spilled over the edge of the sink and onto the floor.

Then something else came from the faucet. Something bright blue spilled into the sink with the water, and before he could even process what it was, something leapt out from the overflowing sink.

Uni starred in absolute shock. The top half of a blue haired woman was coming up from the tiny pool in the sink, legs nowhere that should've been physically possible.

She looked up at Uni through her sopping wet hair, looking equally surprised to see him, her hands on the edge of the sink, in the middle of trying to climb her way out.

"Oh," She squeaked.

Uni screamed, dropping his toothbrush and toothpaste to the soaked bathroom floor, before scrambling out into the hallway.

His bare feet thumped against the wood floor as he rushed to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Pressing his back against the door, his heart pounded against the inside of his chest.

"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell," He whispered to himself in a frenzied panic. His thoughts were going a million miles an hour, all too fast for him to process any of it.

"Um, hello?" The voice piped up from directly beside him. He screamed again backing away from the lady that was sticking her head through his wall.

Stumbling backwards until his back was up against the side of the dusty bed he'd been planning to sleep next to, he stared in horror as she stepped all the way through the wall.

She wore kind of vintage looking purple overall dress skirt, and some long knee high kitten socks. He'd consider them cute if he wasn't horrified out of his mind.

Most of her face was obscured by soaked blue hair, dripping water down onto the wooden floor as she approached. Uni understood now why this house's rent had been so cheap.

She reached up and parted her hair, revealing the concerned face of a woman with soft brown eyes.

"You dropped your toothbrush." She said, dropping the wet toothbrush and tube of toothpaste onto the floor in front of him.

Uni opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He stared blankly at the toothbrush and toothpaste on the floor, then back up at the apparition in his bedroom.

"...I've gone mad, haven't I?" He whispered.

The lady's brow furrowed even more, and he flinched away she waved her hand in front of his face.

"You... can see me." She said slowly, less of a question and more of a statement. "But, you're alive?"

Uni spluttered at that. "Well I would sure hope so!"

"That'd kind of weird," She mused. "Not everyday you meet a living who can see the dead."

"Wh- you're-"

"Dead, yes."

The was a short silence, nothing but the sound of water droplets hitting the floorboards.

"Uh, sorry about spooking you back there, I genuinely did not know there was anyone new in the house." She said, floating down to sit cross legged on the floor in front of him. "Have you seen a snow globe around by chance?"

"Snow.. globe?" He echoed, still reeling from the absurdity of his situation. "Wait a minute, is your name Ashlie?"

The ghost blinked in surprise. "Wha- How did you- Oh wait! I get it!" She said, interrupting herself.

"What? Get what?" He asked, a little more annoyed than scared now.

"You're a psychic or something, right?"

Uni just stared at her. He'd call her crazy if he wasn't watching a ghost sit on his floor and talk to him.

"You know, like uh... like a seer, or whatever they're called," She continued. "A medium? I don't know. That's how you knew my name, and that's how you can see me too!"

"I uh, found the snow globe downstairs. It had the name 'Ashlie' written on the bottom." He replied, slowly realizing this wasn't some kind of malevolent demon trying to kill him. It was just... another person.

"Oh." She laughed. "I guess that makes more sense. That doesn't explain you being able to see me though."

"Am I... not supposed to?"

She shook her head.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, man." She smiled, holding out a soaking hand. "I had no idea another tenant was moving in."

Uni hesitantly reached forwards to shake her hand, only to have his pass directly through it, a shiver running up his arm as it did.

"Oops. Forgot" She chuckled.

"I'm Uni." He said, trying his best to ignore the unsettling handshake. "I... didn't hear anything about having roommates in the ad. But, I suppose it's nice to meet you?"

"Well, you don't have any living roommates. But yeah, you have a couple dead ones."

"Oh!" He squeaked behind a smile of gritted teeth. "Lovely."

"I should probably introduce you to them," She mumbled to herself. "They can get a bit... rowdy sometimes."

"Can this wait 'til morning?" Uni sighed, rubbing his eyes with a groan. "I really need to get some sleep."

"Oh! Right! Sleep, I forget that people need sleep sometimes. It's been a while."

He pushed the implications of that response to the back of his mind in an effort to forget it as soon as possible.

"I'll see you in the morning, then!" He heard as he climbed into his bedroll.

"Wait, Ashlie, how many 'roommates' do I-" But by the time he turned to look where she had been, there was nothing but a puddle of water on the wooden floor. 

He sighed again. He was much too tired for this nonsense.