Haley's strange adventures

Statues and ghosts

"you're not going to float here and do nothing all day, right?" Sunny asks and I glance at the buff man. "I've done it some time now, never underestimate my ability to idle." I dryly reply. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't your skin a whole lot... redder yesterday?" I then observe. Sunny's skin is more brown-ish now. "That is my little Haley," He glances up at me as I float close to the ceiling of the enormous room we were in. "because the light on the surface changes my skin, giving it a red look." Sunny explains and I look at him. "Hmmm, I see."

Hell is not entirely what I expected it to be. Sunny speaks of earth as the surface, but he earlier explained to me that Hell is in a completely different dimension. Sunny's home or castle or whatever you want to call it is on top of a very large mountain. There are a lot of people, mostly old and nagging, here. The streets and little houses have a ancient Roman look and outside it's really humid and warm. Sunny said it's dangerous for a ghost to go outside without a certain protection cloak, or else the ghost would evaporate like water.

The days are different here too, they're long and the sun is much larger in the sky than Earth's sun. The sky is always red tinted and its only dark for about two hours. That's the amount of time the people -Sunny calls them 'the doomed ones', also note me laughing at that- get to rest before working their asses off again. Sometimes in that little free time the workers try to climb up this mountain and instead of going up they fall in a abyss, their screams going on for a long time after they have vanished. That is to scare the others off.

Sunny's annoyed sigh makes me go down and hover in front of him. "What is there to sigh about? You're the goddamn ruler of Hell." I deadpan as I look upon Sunny's glowering face. "Another stupid kid trying to kill himself but lived in the end. There goes another damned soul. Now I'll have to wait another twenty years or so for it to arrive here. That's what is there to sigh about!" Sunny rants and I roll with my eyes. "Well that's depressing." I mutter, staring bleak at him. Sunny then looks me in the eye and sighs again. "Alright then, enough chatting. I know you wished to be friends with me, but I also have some work to do. If you are leaving to do whatever you want to do, then at least leave a note and wear the protection I gave you for if you wish to go outside here." And with a poof he's gone, vanished. Can I do that too?

Well alright then, my only supposed friend left me alone in a large room in his house and I'm a fucking ghost. Cool. Yup, totally cool. I decide to go back to the portal in Sunny's basement where we arrived this morning. It's not like Sunny's disappearance poof, but at least I can go back to earth to taunt and haunt until Sunny is back from whatever he does as a ruler of hell.

The basement is unlit, but I'm like a radio-active glow stick in the dark so I'm having no problem to see where I float. "Excuse me missy, where are you going?" I gasp and quickly turn around to see a female statue standing in front of me. A frown forms on my face as I lean in to see if that statue just spoke to me. "Well quit staring and tell me your business." The statue's mouth opens and a loud voice booms out of it. I immediately move a few feet away. "Holy shit you talk!" I exclaim, coming closer again and floating around the statue, trying to see if it's connected to any wires. It isn't and the fucking thing even moves! Well shit, that's new. "Are you going to answer my question?" I giggle at the loud, deep voice commanding things from me and then try to keep my laughter in. "Uhh, I'm going to the surface for a bit." Your majesty. Luckily I didn't say that last part... who knows what a statue is capable of. "Well alright then, I will inform our dark lord Satan about your business." And with that, the statue waggles off back to the stairs.

So I float back towards the portal, which isn't visible to the naked eye. It's just there in the darkness, it's energy strong and pulling onto me as I come closer upon it. Sunny told me yesterday that it reads your intentions and brings you to where you wish to be. Kind of amazing right? The portal also emits a certain sound... kind of like it's moaning really low. It quickly sucks me in as I come even closer and then I am back on the spot where it began. Well close to it. I'm outside of the abandoned building we were at yesterday. Police tape hanging everywhere and there is a dead silence. Sunny made it look like a hit-and-run kind of suicide. I float over the red stained spot in the middle of the road before going really high in the sky, seeing the sun going under. Time really is different in those two dimensions.

Little illuminating lights are spread all over the city and I go to the nearest one. It is a young adult's ghost, just like me. I follow it as he floats over the sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood. He floats beside a girl who's wearing a hoodie way too large for her to be the right size. The left arm of the ghost looks horribly mangled and I follow the two in one of the houses. The girl calls out to her family that she's home, but all the lights are off so nobody must be home then. The ghost gently places his hand on her shoulder and then looks terribly sad as she walks right through him to the kitchen. I hide behind a drawer in the hallway so the ghost wouldn't immediately see me, watching it go after the girl.

He does little things for her as she makes dinner for  herself. Such as placing the knife away from the edge so it won't fall, gently brushing her hair out of her eyes, removing an eyelash or two, holding his hand over hers to keep them steady while cutting some mushrooms. I come closer to hide behind the kitchen island, making sure I don't go right through it. I now see that the whole left side of the ghost looks terribly damaged. It makes me wonder and I look down at my arm, pulling the sleeve up. The wound is still... right there, not healing or bleeding or anything. It's just there. So the wounds from which the ghost died stays with them even after death.

After watching the two a little longer I move on and see that there are a lot of lonely ghost wandering around. I don't approach even one of them as I watch them wail or just wander around. There are more ghosts in the center of the city. Young, old... babies even. Some look terribly wounded and some even have a look of excruciating pain on their face as they wander. It's difficult for me to keep my cool and I go up again. Higher and higher, until I'm between the clouds and I can barely see the dots that are supposed to be ghosts.

"How come you're looking so devastated little Haley?" I yelp as Sunny appears beside me, standing on a cloud I just flew through. "I-I'm fine. Not devastated at all." I whisper, glancing down at the large city beneath us. "hmm, I will not ask further for now." I sigh in relief when he says that and then Sunny holds a letter with names on them before my eyes. "here, I made it like that so you can easily hold it." I take the paper and look at Sunny in confuse. "What's with the names?" I hesitantly ask.

"These are beings who all have their own problems. Just like humans. I think some are even humans too. You are a very young and kind spirit, you don't belong in the depths of Hell just yet. I wish for you to visit each and every one of these beings. They are acquaintances and friends of mine and some don't even know I exist at all. I will send a letter forward to those who do know me that you will come to visit them." Sunny briefly explains and I turn fully to the man. "Y-you're trying to get rid of me, aren't you?" I fear and Sunny shakes his head. "I have some business to attend for a while and for your wish to be a friend not to be fulfilled is not correct. Thus the names on that list. So you will not be bored nor lonely."

He's trying to get rid of me. That's what he's saying.