Ghost

Chapter 1

I hugged my arms for warmth. It was winter, I think. I looked at the buildings. Even through a layer of water I could tell they were tall. I wasn't in the water though, I was on a sidewalk. The sidewalk was surrounded by a really thick tunnel of glass. It was Pre-Rising, so they tried to preserve it with the glass. They were a little late though, so the siedwalk was torn apart. There were cracks in it and grass ran through it.While it looked awful, it still held it's own sort of hidden beauty. It looked ancient, sacred. I almost felt as if walking on it was unholy.

I looked around. There was no one to stare at me, so no one could call the Cloakers. I looked down at my shirt. It used to be white, but now it was red. I don't know whose blood it was. It could be mine, but I can't check. My arms and hands were also covered in blood. It was in my hair, or at least at the bottom of it. I think there was some on my face, but I might be imagining it. I was beginning to think the blood wasn't mine. Who could lose that much blood and live?

I was scared. What happened? I couldn't remember anything. I quickly ducked into an alley. There wasn't much, a few cats fighting and broken glass on the floor. There was a chain linked fence at the end. I might have tried to climb it, but I was too tired. My legs felt like lead. It was a wonder I was able to walk this far.

"Ma'am! Are you alright?" It was a man. I turned and saw his shocked face. He probably thought the blood was mine. He had green eyes, and black hair. His mouth formed a startled o. He ran towards me, trying to help I guess. I must have been exhausted, because my legs buckled beneath me. The man caught me though.

"Are you alright?" He repeated. I nodded. Now that he was close, I could see that he had striking features. He had high cheekbones, his nose was slightly pointed, and his eyes seemed to see right through me. Something about them seemed dark, but they also seemed kind.

"Do you remember what happened?" I stared at him, debating whether or not to tell him that I had no memory of anything. I couldn't remember a single birthday, school, or even my own name. He looked at me expectantly. I was saved from having to answer though.

"Ben,"came a voice out of no where,"where are you?" He, Ben I guess, turned his head and shouted for the voice to help. The voice, it turns out, was a young woman. She looked about 16 or 17, probably the same age as the man, Ben.

"Oh my God, is she alright?"Why does everyone keep asking that?I started to get up, but my legs would no longer support me. I immediately fell back into the man's arms.

"She says she's fine Bree. Help me get her back to our place." I was confused when they didn't call an ambulance or Cloakers, but mostly I was annoyed that they kept talking about me like I wasn't there. Suddenly the Ben picked me up, one arm under my knees, the other supporting my back. I really didn't need to hold on to him, but the fact that my feet weren't on the ground made me wrap my arms around his neck.

As he walked, I couldn't help wondering why no one was staring. We didn't pass many people, only three or four, but no one paid any attention to the man holding the girl covered in blood. No one called for us to stop. The whole time I was looking at people, hoping they would stop and say they knew me. That maybe they could shed some light on my past. I was starting to get the impression that we were invisible.

What really got my attention was when we walked right past a Cloaker. They live for stuff like this, they arethelaw enforcers. Why didn't they stop and take away the girl covered in blood? I stared at Ben, he must have some sort of power. If he noticed my staring he didn't seem to let on.

It turns out 'their place' was an apartment. It was one of the first floors above the water. The apartment had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Bree gave me some spare clothes to change into and pointed me to a bathroom. I managed to take a quick shower and located the towels beneath the sink. After the steam cleared out and I dried my hair, I couldn't help but look at the reflection I saw. I had strawberry blonde hair that was cut in a bob. My eyes were a hazel-y color. I had a button nose and high cheekbones. My lips were a red-ish pink-ish color. I didn't recognize the person reflected in the mirror, not a single memory.

When I walked out of the bathroom no one was home. I checked everywhere but didn't find anyone. After about thirty minutes I found a note in the kitchen. It said: 'Stay here, we can't protect you if you leave. We'll be back in a few hours.' Deciding to listen to the note, I walked into the only room that wasn't decorated and assumed it would be okay to sleep there. There was a small twin sized bed, a desk with a lamp and some papers on it, and a trash can in the corner. The walls were painted light blue, and they had a grey carpet. I didn't hesitate to slip under the blankets.

*****

I was standing in a small bedroom. It was all oranges and browns. Not the ugly kind of orange, the goldeny-rich kind. There was no furniture. The walls were covered in designs. The carpet moved beneath my feet. As I walked towards the door it disappeared. When I turned around there was a face drawn into the wall. He held his fingers to his mouth as if telling me not to talk. When I looked around there was a woman behind me. She was smiling, but there was something off about it. When I looked back at the man on the wall he wasn't shushing me, he was banging on the wall. He was mouthing something, but I couldn't hear it. The wall seemed to crack more and more after each time he hit it. With each crack I was able to hear some of what he was saying. At first it wasn't understandable, but when I pressed my ear against the wall I could hear that he was yelling at me to run.

When I woke up Ben was in my room. He was rifling through the desk drawers. For a while all I wanted to do was close my eyes and go back to sleep, but my curiosity got the best of me.

"What are you looking for?" He looked up, picked something up, and then he was smiling. It was an old photo, it was crumpled and had a tear at the top. The photo was of a family at a beach. There was a dad wearing red swim shorts and an orange t-shirt, a mom whose brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail and was wearing a white and yellow polka-dotted sundress, the dad had his arm around the mom's shoulders, and between them was a little boy. The little boy was no older than five or six, he wore red swim trunks like his dad and a blue t-shirt. He and his dad both had black hair and blue eyes, the boy had his mother's smile, but unlike either of his parents he had giant ears and crooked teeth.I laughed, the boy looked like a big goofball.

"Who is that?" Right after I said it I knew the answer, the little boy was him. He didn't answer; he just stared at the picture.

"Ben, get in here now!" It was Bree. He looked up, obviously surprised. Whatever it was, it sounded important, so we both walked into the kitchen, and she was sitting on one of the barstools. She glared at me and pointed to the bedroom we had came from. I was tempted to stand there and cross my arms, but since they let me stay the night I probably shouldn't. Instead I walked back into the room I came from and sat on the bed.