Friends on the Other Side

I could hear her.

I stopped in my tracks, looking her over with an incredulous look of disbelief. Was she in denial? She had undoubtedly questioned if I was, but maybe she had been throwing stones in glass houses.

"You're in the afterlife," I pointed out. "I saw you floating earlier. And your name is The Phantom. How are you not a ghost?"

"Yes, this is afterlife, I do..." began Susan, shuddering ever so slightly at the memory of exactly why she could float. "..float. And well, they call me the Phantom because of what I do, not who I am, my name certainly isn't just "The Phantom". Don't always judge a book by its cover."

I could say the same to her, but I decided I would mull over what she had said instead.

"...So you're like an...acquaintance of mine, then," I said. Not exactly the same power set, but the same idea. Asmira could copy ghost abilities, too. I didn't entirely understand why the girl in front of me would be here if she didn't have some ties to death, but I got powers being deceptive. Asmira's world hadn't even had ghosts prior to her death.

I stretched and rested my hands behind my head.

"I can still help you with your powers," I said. I wasn't the best with all of mine, admittedly, but I did know a thing or two about possessing people at this point. "I didn't tell you everything about the world I'm supposed to be on right now. When you end up there by dying, you get a nice power to make up for it. I know how powers outside of being a ghost can work. And I know there's a steep learning curve to using them, too. I could help you work through it."

"I don't have powers," said Susan, going quiet once again. This was really not the conversation she thought she'd be having with a stranger of all things but then she couldn't really lie here, and its not like she could be in any danger from revealing thaat.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Then what do you call floating above the ground?" I asked. "Normal people without some kind of supernatural ability or superpower can't do that."

"It's a consequence at best," said Susan, still keeping her voice low, "maybe a curse but I don't like to think of that way."

That didn't make any kind of sense to me, but I was getting the feeling The Phantom wasn't all that fond of her abilities. Something bad must have happened right when she got them. I couldn't guess what it was.

And, look, I got the whole "not wanting to have supernatural abilities" thing. I hadn't exactly been thrilled when I was suddenly stuck haunting my skull after dying forgotten in a back alleyway. But I had been a ghost for so long that it was just part of who I was now, and it was far easier dealing with it once I accepted that those powers were a part of me.

And that I could use my ectoplasm to pull rude faces at the people looking at my jar, but that was besides the point.

"But it's still a power," I pointed out. "Consequence or curse, it's a part of you now. Maybe that's why you're having trouble using it. You keep seeing it as an annoying thing you can't get rid of. You just have to go with it."

"Its not," said Susan. She had no idea why he was so fixated on this, but it was making her wonder what his offer of help was even meant to be. Come to think of it, something as simple as finding a random lost thing, even though in this case said thing did appear to be kind of important, shouldn't warrant anything like the training needed to master an actual superpower, much less what she had.

"It's not a power," said Susan, speaking slightly louder, "it was never meant to be. I just happen to rarely use it sometimes since it works as a power ever so often when it feels like cooperating which is never."

"That's why you need to train it," I replied, exasperated. "I wasn't meant to be a Type Three ghost, but here I am. If I kept seeing it as a problem and not a tool, I probably wouldn't have made it to this point."

"I don't think you understand," said Susan," and I don't blame you. I am supposedly the only one with this particular...issue. These were never meant to be trained, never really meant to be used, they are simply meant to exist."

I snorted.

"I was supposed to be the only Type Three ghost," I said. "I thought I was the only one for years, until dear old Marissa Fittes teamed up with one right in front of me. Death isn't supposed to walk in life, and life isn't supposed to walk in death."

I gestured down at myself.

"And yet here I am," I said. "A walking contradiction. So I bring back my earlier point: you can either keep pitying yourself for something you think is a pain, or you can accept that you're one-of-a-kind and work on mastering it."

"Unfortunately, I know for a fact I am the only one for now," said Susan, before adding slightly quieter, "and I hope it stays that way."

She took a moment before speaking again. "And well, I don't pity anyone for anything, I just know for a fact that I don't really have abilities, I'm just playing around with things I shouldn't control."

I groaned.

This conversation was going nowhere. I was trying to help her, but she was being stubborn and didn't want to admit that she actually had powers that she could learn to use. I could have argued that she should control her powers if they were a part of her now. I could point out that levitating above the ground counted as an ability.

But mentioning that wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I threw in the towel and decided not to press it anymore.

"You mentioned some people who know this place better than you do," I said. "Can you show me where they are?"

Susan managed to stifle her sudden urge to smirk. It was a very petty thing to be happy about technically winning this impromptu argument but she couldn't help herself. That put her in a mildly better mood.

"Ah, yes the demons. They know this place inside and out, they can help you do a properly thorough search. The ones who'd know to like track your body down quickly are unfortunately like I said earlier, a bit too busy."

My face contorted into a momentary look of disgust at the mention of demons. I had met a nice one once or twice, but a specific demon always came to mind at the mention of them. He technically was more of a spirit or a djinni; demon was just one (offensive) word used to talk about beings like him.

"...There's not one named Bartimaeus, is there?" I asked.