October 31st, 2013 at 1:59pm
Esther Park
"T-Tyler..." Josh spoke his name softly, like a whisper. "Why do you wear a mask? Can you take it off—please?"
Tyler fidgeted slightly and shook his head. "I-I'm sorry, Josh. This is as far as I can go..." He muttered shyly (Josh noticed). But Josh wasn't having it. "Why?" he prodded on. He walked closer to Tyler, who seemed more human than a ghost; more alive than dead. But when Josh came face to face—well, technically, face to mask—with him, he could feel the coldness Tyler emitted, which kind of brought him back to reality. He was standing in front of a dead person. Okay.
"I just—I can't...Didn't you see what happened to me? I clearly look that way now..." Tyler explained, but Josh knew better. It couldn't be possible he looks that way; out of everything that Josh has been through, he knows Tyler doesn't look the same as how he died. "You're lying," Josh stated, defiant. Tyler stiffened, and Josh could practically hear him gulping.
Josh got closer to him, until they were almost breathing on each other—well, Josh onto Tyler, but you get it. He carefully placed his hands on the edges of the mask, and Tyler flinched. The phantom took a small step back, and Josh took a step forward, continuing what he was about to do; take off his mask.
"Josh, please..." Tyler practically begged; it still wasn't stopping Josh. He placed his hands on the edges of the mask again, and this time, the phantom didn't flinch or stumble back. Tyler's tension started to leave his undead body, starting to relax himself, and let Josh do what he wanted. Stupid human, making me feel stupid things...stupid Josh, he thought (Tyler can be such a child sometimes...).
Josh's heart beat rapidly in his chest as he slowly, and carefully, took off the phantom's mask; bracing himself for whatever might be underneath.
He expected to see many things underneath that creepy mask, but not this. He did not expect himself to call a dead person cute; now, that was really weird, but here he was, doing exactly that. He doesn't know how exactly to describe Tyler, he was just cute (despite the glowing red eyes, but yeah). He just doesn't look anything like how or when he died...He looks like a normal teenage boy, except for the red eyes.
"Well, then..." Josh muttered, clearly shock-stricken. Tyler frowned. "I knew I shouldn't have let you take my mask off. This was a bad idea, a bad i—"
"Shut up," Josh cut him off. "I'm not—I just didn't expect you to be...well, um...."
"Yeah??" Tyler raised an eyebrow, peering at him. This is the first time he's ever showed himself to a human like this before and he doesn't wasn't to ruin it. Not again, at least. But that was different. That was different.
"I don't know, um," Josh lowered his voice, "cute..."
"What?"
"Nothing! Anyway..." the awkward sixteen year-old cleared his throat, and continued, "now that I know your name—wait, I need your last name." Tyler sighed. "Later."
"Fine. As I was saying, now that we got this settled out, the whole investigation will be much easier," Josh smiled (despite the circumstances) Tyler nodded slowly, his eyes looking at Josh curiously. He had so many questions to ask him, and Josh could say the same about him.
"Yeah...and, uh, I-I'll try to help as much as possible. I want to get this over with, to be very blunt and honest," he finally said after a small period of silence. "Well, being dead for..." Josh started but Tyler's glare stopped him mid-sentence. "Sorry..."
Honestly, Josh doesn't know nor understand how everything's come to this. He must really be losing it, now that he's thinking about what's happening right now before him. He's talking to a dead person and he thinks they're cute. Yep, Josh was going insane. Definitely insane.
This was going to be a long week.
a/n: this is just a filler! so sorry it took so long; i had so many things to do related to school and im working on so many other books *sigh* but anyway, let me know what you thought about this! (next chapter's gonna be a lot longer, shit's about to go down. and also, sorry for any typos! ily!)
