"Who exactly are you?" Matthew asked the area around him that night, unsure if the female was around. It was 12:00 midnight and he was sure that Derek would be asleep by then.
"Call me Eve, short for Evelyn." The female replied, and finally showed her appearance.
"And I'm Matthew." He replied. Evelyn laughed and Matthew hushed her by putting a single finger to his lips.
"Its fine, he won't hear me, he'll only hear you. I know who you are, because you're part of me,"
"How am I part of you?" Matthew asked, sitting down on the bed and Evelyn followed. She looked like a ghost; you could almost see straight through her, it was like looking through a misty cloud. Her hair was silver and reached to just underneath her breasts. Her eyes were a sky blue and he skin was paper white. She wore a dress of pastel light green which seemed to brighten up her person.
"Isn't it obvious?" Evelyn smiled and Matthew smiled back.
"No, please explain." Matthew asked, but then she disappeared and Derek entered the room.
"Who are you talking to Matthew? It's really late, you should be asleep." Derek said, and Matthew looked down at his feet and started swinging them idly.
"I thought you were asleep." He said guiltily, as if that would suffice as an excuse for talking to an empty space in his room. By now he had realised that Evelyn wasn't visible to other people and the way she vanished so quickly made him question her existence at all.
"I was just about to go to bed. Were you talking to someone Matthew?" Derek asked, but he got no reply.
"Go to sleep, you must be tired."
*-*
"What's the point in not going to school if all I'm doing is sitting around doing nothing?" Matthew moaned, lying on the floor of the living room.
"You want to go to school?" Derek asked.
"Yes, I'm bored and I want to make friends." Matthew said, moving his hands to the back of his head.
"I'll see what I can do for you." Derek said, and Matthew felt once again as though he had lost the argument.
"I'm going for a walk." Matthew said, getting up into a sitting position.
"Be careful." Derek said, and with that, Matthew went to the front door, put his shoes on and left the house.
"Where should I go?" Matthew asked the space around him. Evelyn then appeared next to him. She was wearing a cherry blossom coloured dress and had cherry blossoms in her hair.
"Wherever you want, don't worry, you won't get lost, I'll show you the way home." She looked only a few years older than Matthew, maybe 16.
"Okay." And together they started to walk. Matthew left the road he lived on and smiled because he liked the feeling of morning breeze on his face.
"Let's run, I know a good place just out of the town." Evelyn said, and started to run ahead, yelling at him to keep up. She was a lot faster than he was, and he struggled to keep her in sight as she dived round corners and slipped into alleyways.
"Wait!" He called after her, but she just responded with an urgent message saying that they would be late. Late for what, he didn't ask. He just kept on running, chasing something or someone that Derek and Dr McColl were convinced was only inside his head. This made him angry, so he ran even faster, and eventually the narrow path they had been running on opened up into a massive field of two-inch-long grass surrounded by trees.
"We're here. Do you like it?" Evelyn asked, waiting anxiously for an answer.
"I love it." He said, and Evelyn disappeared in a flash. He gasped and called out for her to come back but she didn't.
"Who are you calling out for?" A girl came up to him from behind and placed her hand on his shoulder. He turned around and assessed her appearance. She looked around about the same age as Matthew and had dark brown hair that flowed until just under her shoulders. Bright green eyes were hidden behind a pair of black framed glasses and her skin was a mixed shade between Evelyn's and his own. She wore jeans and a white top with converse shoes.
"Um, no one, who are you?" Matthew asked, going slightly red with embarrassment.
"My name is Hikari, it means light in Japanese. What's your name?" Hikari smiled sweetly and laughed at the boy's embarrassment.
"My name is Matthew. Aren't you supposed to be in school?" Matthew asked.
"Of course, but it got boring so I decided to go on an adventure, and I'm glad that I did, because I got to meet you. You're so much more exciting than anything at school. Aren't you supposed to be in school as well?" Hikari beckoned Matthew to follow her and he did so, until they came to an old tree stump and she told him to sit down next to her.
"Um, apparently I'm ill and can't go to school." Matthew scratched the back of his neck.
"Is it contagious? Like a cold? Or is it something else like cancer or something to do with your brain?"
"I don't know. But I don't feel ill so maybe it's something to do with my brain." Matthew said.
"Well, I've never seen you around before, so you must be new in the area. Where do you come from?" Hikari said, and Matthew sensed that the truth would scare her away. Evelyn whispered to him what to say and he copied it word for word.
"I just moved here the other day, and I haven't been walking around that much. I got bored of being indoors so I decided to go on a walk."
"Why are you different?" Hikari asked, and Matthew asked her to explain. She told him that everyone at school acted as though she wasn't there, and they all pretended that she was invisible. They always knocked her books off the table and made her late for class. The teachers all just thought that she was a lazy unorganised person.
"I don't know anyone else my age, but you seem like a really nice person. I don't know why anyone would be horrible to you." Matthew blushed at what he said.
"It upsets me. But anyway, I better be getting back to school now, otherwise I'm going to be in massive heaps of trouble. See you later!" Hikari jumped up from the tree stump and ran back the way she came. Matthew jumped and ran after her, telling her to stop.
"Show me the school!" He yelled, but she didn't slow down for him. She just kept on running and so did he. Hikari wasn't as fast at running as Evelyn so Matthew had almost no trouble keeping up. When they got to the school Hikari slipped through a small hole in the fence and winked at him, waving goodbye. Matthew stopped short of the fence and wondered whether going in through the fence was a good idea. He decided against it and he followed Evelyn back home.
�uw�|[(
