Young Writers Society

Susan frowned once again at Skull's look. Demons really didn't have that bad of a reputation did they. She'd heard a few things on her travels, but surely it wasn't this widespread.

"There's only one Bartimeus I know, well no, actually two," said Susan, a slow smile making its way onto her face," but they are definitely not demons."

I sighed in relief.

Today was going horribly, but at least I didn't have to worry about him. No one would be confusing me for that djinni here.

"Well," I said, gesturing ahead of us, "lead the way, then."

"I suppose I should," said Susan, turning to walk for like the tenth time in this conversation although she had a feeling this time she'd actually get to walk.

I fell into step behind her. I kept my eyes on her back, but occasionally glanced around us to make sure my body wasn't hiding behind some tree. No matter where I looked, I wasn't able to find it. I'd have to do this the hard way.

Susan walked right to the edge of the forest. This particular forest planetoid did have a demon if she could remember, but said demon did look after this one and two other which meant there was no guarantee if she's be here. They might end up having to fly to the other place, but she had a sneaking suspicion that maybe that wouldn't be too much of a problem for Skull. Anything at least partially dead could naturally float through even if they'd be unable to fly in a normal world.

Once at the edge, Susan peered around, looking for any signs of the demon, racking her brain to remember her name so she could call out.

She raised a hand behind her to let Skull know they had to stop for a bit.

I stopped.

Glancing around the forest again, I didn't see anything that looked unusual or strange. I didn't know why The Phantom would decide to stop here out of all places. There wasn't even another person here. If there had been, I would have assumed we had found the help she had promised.

"What's here?" I asked.

"We're waiting to see if the demon on duty here is on the island?" said Susan, "if she isn't we'll have to fly to the neighboring ones to check."

"I didn't realize being a demon was a job," I said. That was a surprise. For the other ones that I had met, which preferred to be called spirits, they just...were. They could presumably be considered "on duty" if they were summoned, but the way The Phantom mentioned this one's occupation made it sound like demons were supposed to be overlooking the afterlife.

Then the second part of her sentence registered.

I turned to her.

"Fly?" I repeated.

"Being a demon is not a job," said Susan, "demons just happen to be the main species to live in this part of reality and so Prince Death employed them to do things around here. As for flying, well don't tell me you don't know what that means?"

I crossed my arms.

"I know what flying is," I said, feeling strangely offended by the implication that I didn't. "I just haven't heard of ghosts using it to get around before."

I knew that she wasn't really a ghost, but that was besides the point.

"Most ghosts aren't mobile where I come from," I added. "We're usually stuck haunting our sources. You can move around the Other Side, but that place doesn't work like here."

"The more I hear about your reality, the more boring it sounds," said Susan, "no offence or anything, but wow, that sounds very restrictive."

She was finally agreeing with me on something.

"Thank you," I said. "No one ever seems to get how frustrating it can be to be tied to your source. I had to force Lu-a...friend of mine to carry my skull around everywhere so I could actually see things outside of the Other Side."

Susan shuddered a bit as a few memories of a brilliant white light and an immense darkness flowed through her mind.

"Being stuck in one place is not fun," she agreed, "not fun at all."

I raised an eyebrow.

"It sounds like you're speaking from experience," I noted. Despite her being adamant on not being a ghost, she was seeming more and more like one the longer I talked to. I admittedly hadn't met many other Type Threes before, but she was similar to the few I had.

And to me, of course.

"Well I've been..." began Susan, trying to figure out if that word even truly worked in this situation before deciding to just go with it, "...stuck in a...place before."