Audience: Middle and High School Students
Elliott had been stuck in the Apolune Mall for a long, long time.
He wasn’t quite sure how long, honestly. He stopped keeping track after a year. Ever since, his time was dedicated to the place itself; why didn’t he need to eat, or use the bathroom, or why that weird black substance really seemed to like him. He eventually gave up on the internal circumstances, instead taking to cataloging every single thing he could find—every person, every creature, every supernatural occurrence. He thought he knew them all by now, which is one of the only reasons he was wandering on this day.
It was a clothing store, once, or at least that’s what he presumed. He didn’t expect anyone to be there, and there was no reason for anyone to be, really — that was, if you didn’t count the hypocritical fact that he was there. Notwithstanding, he couldn’t help but jump when he heard a clatter. Something moved, something — or rather, someone—he wasn’t aware of before.
“...Hello?” he called out, moving towards the noise against his better judgement.
There, amidst the mannequins dressed in decaying finery, was Ghost.
At the time, they were not Ghost — that was a name Elliott would give them moments later—but with the way they were perched delicately on the counter, their form an ethereal contrast to the surrounding disrepair, they might as well have been. The figure made a noise as if to speak, a soft stuttering sound that filled the air like a hesitant melody. They paused, frustration flickering across their features, then simply patted the mannequin’s head.
Elliott froze, breath caught in his throat as Ghost turned to regard him with eyes that shimmered like oil on water. Neither fear nor aggression marked their features, only a quiet curiosity that mirrored Elliott's own.
The silence between them stretched, a tangible thing, until Elliott, driven by a mix of desperation and hope, extended a hand. “I don’t know what you are,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, “but I don’t think either of us should be alone here.”
Ghost hesitated, their gaze flitting between Elliott and the offered hand, before they reached out with a hand that was almost human. Their touch was cool, fingers brushing against his with a gentleness that belied their otherworldly appearance. Elliott stayed completely still. “I... I would’ve come with a- a peace offering, but...” He paused, rummaging in his bag before pulling out a small rubber duck (where he had found it, he wasn’t quite sure).
Ghost’s eyes lit up as they took it, turning it over in their hands with a happy squeak.
“I-I’m sure you can tell what it is by now, you don’t need to...”
They weren’t deterred. Something inside Elliott softened at seeing them so innocent, so joyful at such a small gesture. Ghost looked back up at him, almost expectantly. He flicked through a couple responses in his head before settling on, “You don’t talk much, do you?” At the shake of their head, he continued, “That’s alright. I-I'm Elliott.”
Ghost tilted their head to the side, and in Elliott’s own voice, they repeated, “Elliott.”
His eyes widened at hearing his voice come out of this... creature’s mouth. Still, he couldn’t resist a chuckle. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s your name?”
No response came.
“You don’t have one...” He paused. “Can I call you Ghost?”
They smiled. “Ghost,” they repeated enthusiastically.
It was in that moment, that simple exchange of trust, that their bond was formed.
*****
Time passed, as it always did. Elliott discovered that Ghost’s voice functioned somewhat like a tape recorder, only able to repeat back what was spoken to it. Elliott had gained a new habit of reading his work aloud, giving Ghost new words to piece together into entire sentences of their own. Every sentence was choppy, individual words pieced into phrases-- they never truly had their own voice, but the hodge-podge of others’ voices eventually grew to be something unique to them.
After they started to grow beyond what they had heard, Ghost grew frustrated with their lack of speech, soand the two of them created a form of sign language for those moments when words failed them. Ghost liked to use the two interchangeably. This did not deter Ghost from voicing themself in the slightest, especially once they have found something they need to share.
“There is a plant.”
Elliott looked up from his work. “What?”
“I found a plant,” Ghost repeated. “I want it to live.”
“I’m sure it will. Things always tend to here.”
They walked up next to Elliott, leaning over his shoulder and reading over the pages he had spread across the desk. “It is small. Alone.”
“Like us,” Elliott mused, unaware he had spoken aloud until Ghost echoed his words.
“Like us. Its home is... suboptimal.”
Elliott set his pen down and looked up. “Are you trying to guilt trip me into taking care of this plant with you?”
A couple seconds of silence, and then, “...That is not the right word.”
He laughed, standing up from his chair. “Alright, alright. Show me this plant.”
Ghost grabbed his hand, pulling him along with a swiftness rarely seen from them. “Can a plant have a name?” they asked.
“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of plants,” Elliott responded. “Some are common, like grass, or dandelions, and some like columbine are rarer.”
“Not that. You are a human. I am not. And your name is Elliott.”
“That it is.” He paused. “Wait, you want to name the plant?”
“It is alive. We are alive. We have names.”
“Well, go right ahead, then.”
They walked in silence for a couple more minutes until Ghost broke it once more. “I am going to name it Jeremy.”
Elliott tried really, really hard not to snicker. “Jeremy? Out of everything, you’re naming it Jeremy?”
“It looks like a Jeremy,” they dismissed.
Somehow, Elliott reluctantly admitted once he saw it for himself, it looked exactly like it would be named Jeremy.
*****
They spent their days exploring the remnants of the mall, each store a new adventure. Ghost would often vanish, only to reappear with some trinket—a faded movie ticket, a broken watch, a single rollerblade—and present it to Elliott with a flourish. He always laughed, indulging himself as much as he did them. It was like they were showing him the world through their eyes, helping him see the beauty in the forgotten.
The other shoe, or shall we say skate, dropped when Ghost found the other rollerblade.
“No. No way.”
A bright, soundless laugh emanated from Ghost as they clapped their hands—a sign, Elliott had learned, that they were overjoyed, unable to keep their excitement to themself. “Do it!”
“I don’t know how to skate!” Elliott argued.
“Learn!”
“Look, I’d love to, but there’s no way some random pair of skates you found is my size.”
They checked. “9 men’s.”
Fortunately, or unfortunately (Elliott still hadn’t decided yet), 9 men's was exactly his size.
Ghost thrust the skates into his hands with another laugh. “Learn!” they repeated.
Elliott spent the next five hours desperately trying to get back on his feet. In all honesty, he would have given up earlier, but something about Ghost’s smile had a way of keeping him going (in more ways than one).
The day passed, and as evening came, Ghost found Elliott sitting on the edge of the fountain, now dry and filled with flowers. “You’re thinking about the outside world,” Ghost noted.
“Yeah.” Elliott patted the spot next to him. “Sit.”
They did. “Do you ever miss it?” they asked, gesturing vaguely to the world that once was.
“Life before the mall?” Elliott considered this. “I miss the sky,” he admitted.
Ghost tilted their head. “There is the sky,” they said, pointing to a long-since defunct skylight.
“That’s not the real sky.” Elliott sighed. “It’s just some... shade of blue, here, I guess. I miss the sky, the one that would change and shift with pinks and yellows and everything in between. I miss the stars, pointing out constellations, you—really, nothing compares to when you see the night sky for the first time.”
Ghost's gaze met his, and for a moment, there was a flicker of something like longing in their eyes. Then, with a swift movement, Ghost reached into the fountain and pulled out a tarnished coin, offering it to Elliott.
“Do you think, if we wish for it back, it will come?”
Elliott took the coin, turning it over in his hands. “Well,” he said, smiling, “we won’t know unless we try.” Ghost nodded, and together, they tossed the coin into the fountain, making silent wishes in the quiet of the abandoned mall.
Elliott sighed, plucking a daisy from the fountain’s basin and twirling it between his fingers. “Remember when we found this place? You were so excited, you lit up the entire floor.”
They smiled. “It’s pretty,” they said, looking at the basin filled with flowers. “They glow.”
“That they do.”
They stayed there in silence for a couple more seconds before Ghost stood, eyes wide. “I need to leave.”
Elliott looked up. “You alright?”
“Yes! Very. I need to make something. Alone.”
“You know you can tell me if something’s wrong, right?”
“Yes, yes, and I will. But there is nothing wrong. I want to make something,” they repeated. “Alone.”
“...Alright, I’ll be here,” he called as they ran off.
Elliott, admittedly, had expected Ghost to be back in an hour at the most. But as time ticked on, and Elliott had finished quite a few charcoal drawings in his notebook (which took up quite a bit of his day, so he knew it had been a while), Ghost still hadn’t returned. They were... okay, right? They had to be.
He paused, closing his notebook, and stood. “Ghost?” he called, wandering around the floor. “Ghost, where--”
Ghost was sitting in the center of the atrium, surrounded by a circle of glowing flowers they had found. “Oh, there you are. What's all this?” Elliott asked, his curiosity piqued.
Ghost turned to him, eyes glowing brighter than the flowers around them. “I wanted to show you the stars,” they said, “since we can't see them from in here.”
Elliott's eyes followed Ghost’s gesture upwards, to the makeshift constellations they had hung from the ceiling, little dots of light in the darkness. “It's beautiful,” he whispered, feeling the same sense of wonder he imagined one might feel under a real starry sky. “Y-you’re beautiful, I- Ghost--”
Ghost beamed; a gesture soon diminished by concern. “You’re crying.”
And he was, he realised, too swept up in the lights to care. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it, I love you--”
Elliott wasn’t quite sure what possessed him in the moment. All he knew was his hands were undoing his mask, uncaring about his own insecurities with his own appearance, before he pulled Ghost closer and--
And kissed them.
Ghost had never been more happy to see his face, so vibrant with innocence and so much joy. “...The stars make you happy,” they managed seconds after the two pulled away, trying to form a sentence that they were sure meant something meaningful, “and my stars are your smile.”
Elliott rolled his eyes playfully. “Are you trying to get me to kiss you again? Because that’s how you do it.”
They leaned in again.
*****
Time is a funny thing, seeing as that, somehow, they found themselves back in the clothing store where they had met.
“Another day, huh?”
Elliott's voice bounced off the vacant storefronts, a soft smile playing on his lips as he watched Ghost make a stack of weathered books they’d found. They were simultaneously making a mosaic of colored glass—occasionally, Elliott wondered if their busybody nature had been adopted from him. Ghost didn’t look up at his question, but somehow, he knew they were listening. They may not have been of this world, yet they were the world to Elliott.
“I remember the first day we met here,” Elliott continued, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You were trying to rearrange the mannequins to make it look less lonely.”
Ghost turned to one of the mannequins nearby and patted it on the head. The arm fell off.
“Still got your touch, I see.”
They squinted as if humorously insulted and threw a tiny piece of glass at him, a colored shard part of their mosaic of the sky they had never seen.
“Hey, hey, Ghost, careful,” Elliott chided. “We don’t throw those. They can cut someone, it can hurt.” They drew back, almost in surprise. “...They hurt?” they asked as they picked up another shard and pressed it to their finger. A quiet yelp sounded as it pierced their skin. “I didn’t know. I don’t want to hurt you,” they reassured.
“I know. But now you do know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Elliott leaned against the dusty counter, watching Ghost place the final book on top of the stack—Flowers for Algernon. His favourite. He smiled as Ghost clapped in contentment before they went back to meticulously arranging shards of colored glass on the floor.
“You know, I used to come here as a kid,” Elliott said, breaking the silence. “Never imagined it'd be my home.” Ghost glanced up, their eyes reflecting the makeshift stars, and nodded, a gentle smile on their lips. “I can imagine you,” they replied, “running around, nose pressed against the display, choosing your favorite sweets.”
“Jawbreakers. Easy choice.”
Ghost tilted their head. “Those sound... damaging.”
“No, not really,” he dismissed. “It’s more like a big ball of sugar. About yea big. The strategy was to lick it. Chewing would get you nowhere.”
“Do they break?”
“I threw one at the wall once.”
“Did it break?”
“Chipped.”
“...I would like to apologise to your mother.”
Elliott burst out laughing.
Ghost’s eyes widened. “Your mask,” they warned, reaching out and redoing its straps. “It almost fell. Be careful, please.”
“Oh.” He pressed a hand to the cold metal over his face. “Sorry. I get it, I’m not, uh... not the greatest sight.”
“You do have very bad eyesight, t—wait. What? No. No, I understand what you mean now, you are the best sight,” Ghost corrected. “You like keeping it on. You don’t like when it is off. I want you to be happy. Not for it to fall off and you to be upset.”
He smiled. “You’re so thoughtful.”
They tilted their head. “Elliott,” they began, the word soft in the stillness, “may I ask you something?” Elliott nodded, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere in the distance, and Ghost continued. “Why do you wear your mask?”
Elliott paused, his breath catching slightly behind the mask that had become a part of him. “It’s... complicated,” he started, his voice a murmur that seemed to fear the vulnerability it was about to unveil. “I dunno. I’ve never felt comfortable with my appearance.” He sighed, sitting down. “Helps make me a little bit less self-conscious. I mean... I guess it’s just a preference. Something about it—god, this is stupid.”
Ghost laid a hand on his shoulder. “It is not. Continue?”
He nodded. “It feels weird, too, when so many here are like you, not human, not anymore, and it feels like... you know, like I’m bragging? Like, look, I’m human, I’m better, y—it's a dumb reason, I know. I guess I just... I dunno. I don’t like my face... I don’t like me.”
The weight of his confession hung in the air until Ghost broke the silence. “I-I like—like you.”
Elliott turned to them, eyes wide. That... that was not a voice he had ever heard from them before. It wasn’t someone’s voice repeated back at him, had they—did they learn to speak on their own?
“I lo- I love—love you, I thi-think.”
It took Elliott at least ten seconds before he was able to speak up. “Ghost...?”
“Talking is not... i- not eas-easy,” they continued, “espe-especially like thi—like this. It is why I—why I use others. I did not... know how t-to use mine. And then I—then I lea-learned. And it is sti-still hard. I do no-not like-like it. But I would li—I would like to t-to try. For you.”
“...Ghost,” Elliott exhaled, grabbing their hands. “Your voice is beautiful. Your voice, your little tape-recorder-esque tactic, signing, I don’t care, because it’s you.”
“E-exactly. If y-you do not jud-judge me for m-my vo—my voice, why would I se-see your face as any-anything but beau- but beauti-tiful?”
With a soft smile, Elliott reached up and undid the straps of his mask, pulling it away from his face.
“It i-is you,” Ghost noted. “You ca-can keep it on. If y-you want. But I will—I will not judge you either... either way.”
“...You su–?”
“Sure,” they insisted, grabbing his hand. And for once, in a situation that was once so shrouded by darkness, Elliott wouldn’t have had it any other way.
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