House Ghost ONC 2022 LONGLISTER

Chapter 7: The Ghost

POV: Grey

It's been two days since the human left. Two whole days! This isn't like him at all, he must be planning something.

I pace about the attic, fixing up the space and resting my eyes. And for the first several hours it's nice to soak up the darkness and recover, but by the time the clock reads 4:17 P.M. I'm itching to get out. It'd be better for my plan if the human was gone, but if he's broken into my space while I was still in it, then I'll have to do the same.

Luck is on my side; there's some loud music playing underneath me, so it should help conceal whatever noise I might make sneaking downstairs and around the house.

It's pretty easy at first. I just switch off every light I see, and I set any knobs on the wall to off, and wait for him to notice. Sure enough, in five minutes, he comes out of his room, twists back the dial and heads back into his room. After about thirty seconds, I sneak out of my hiding spot and turn the knob back off. It's hilarious to watch his shadow walk into the dark hall and tap at the knob, muttering something about "heat" and "so cold." Must be the thermostat that I'm fiddling with. But when I change it the seventh time, he doesn't come out to check the heat knob anymore. Loser.

I got restless waiting around, so I started moving stuff around in his kitchen. Some of the food I throw out, other food I hide in other drawers. However the chocolate milk is reserved as prisoner of war, and is transferred to the attic. This is possibly the most difficult part of the operation, since a six-bottle pack filled with liquid is unbelievably hard to carry through a hatch. I expected this to be more of a challenge but the human hasn't left his room for hours. Surely he would have noticed anything was amiss by now.

It's suspicious, fishy even. Wouldn't he put up more of a fight than this? Where's the aggression? The tearing up my favorite blanket? The invading my room with a knife and a flashlight?

No, something is definitely up. Perhaps the human's scheming something elaborate, or he's set up a bunch of traps and is waiting for me to get stuck. Or he wants me to screw up royally and expose myself and he'll catch me red-handed.

Well, I won't let him take me by surprise; that's what got me in this whole mess in the first place. To think all this started over a stupid bottle of chocolate milk! Jeez. Once I get him out of this apartment, I will make sure to have an endless supply of chocolate milk.

Crouching near the floor, I go completely still, and listen around me. My ears pick up the creaking of the bones of house, the few noises of the people in the other apartment, and a sporadic tick-tick-tick from the human's room. Must be on that computer thing of his. Whatever music was playing got turned down, but I can hear snatches of crooning through the ceiling. I even hear noises from outside the front door: indistinct chatter, a loud laugh once or twice, and some random footfalls.

Actually, it's a bit surreal to be in the house part of the house at the same time as the human. That's never happened before. And yet, as I'm hovering there, the whole situation feels eeriely nostalgic. Me down here, waiting for the human, it's nostalgic . I can't recognize the baby-sized lump that forms in my throat, and I can't afford to add anything else to my plate. So I chalk it up to my anxiety and go back to assessing my surroundings once again.

Now it's become impossible to separate the noises anymore. The harder I focus, the more the sounds all blend into the darkness, swirling into a weirdly soothing ambience. It reminds me how alone I am, but for the first time, for a couple seconds, I feel a tiny bit less lonely. In that brief minute, I could almost believe that humans aren't dangerous and out to hurt me.

Then I notice a new sound. A low mumble, rising and falling for the last couple minutes. It's coming from above me, and the very muffled sound I'm hearing is already making my ghostly essense clench. The human's been talking this whole time.