Biography of Someone Else

Chapter 1: Writing

Lauren had been walking for what felt like forever. She would love to complain and say she was tired, but she wasn't quite accustomed enough to ghost feelings to know it that's what it was, and Aimee never seemed to get tired. Lauren missed sleeping. Well, she didn't know if she liked it before, but she thought she would quite like a nap now.

"Lauuuren, hurry up! We're almost there." Aimee was so enthusiastic about the whole voyage.

"How do you know?" That was another thing Lauren didn't understand. How was Aimee so certain that wherever it was they were going (which, based on the fact that they were dead was probably the afterlife) was this direction?

"I can feel it. Duh. Can't you feel it too?" Aimee always insisted that there was just some feeling, like her heart was being dragged to this mysterious place. Lauren didn't feel it.

"Yeah, sure."

Aimee rolled her eyes. "How come you look so tired? It's the afterlife! We never need to sleep again!" That's what you think. Lauren thought. "Rule number two of being dead. Dead people don't need to sleep, they don't get tired, and they don't get hungry unless they want to."

Ah Aimee's "Fundamental Laws of Ghost-dom." Lauren was sure she had made them all up, and even though they fit for Aimee, Lauren constantly seemed to hover on the edge of breaking them all. Rule one was, of course, that none of the real living people noticed them. Aimee had floated straight through a person to demonstrate this one. Rule two Lauren almost followed, but she still felt like she needed to sleep, even though Aimee insisted she didn't. Rule three was Do As A Ghost Does, which basically meant that Aimee lumped everything else into one category to make sure she could pretend she hadn't forgotten anything. So far it seemed to include "follow the weird pull towards an odd location" (see above for the not feeling it) and "you can't control your hover," which wasn't at all applicable to Lauren. (She didn't hover)

Lauren pretended to follow all these rules for her own sake, because she would rather be with someone who knew where they were going than just wander alone.

"We're almost there, I can feel it!"

"Mhmm," Lauren responded unenthusiastically.

Sure enough though, up ahead Lauren saw a dilapidated building stuck between the nicer ones around. It seemed to only take up a few feet of space, and had a dark, shadowy feel that it seemed to radiate halfway out to the curb. As she watched, something odd happened to a person on the sidewalk in front of it. The man walked toward it, then seemed to just skip over to the other side.

Lauren's head whipped toward Aimee. "I'm guessing that's the place we're looking for," she said dryly.

Aimee rolled her eyes. "What gave you a hint? C'mon! Let's go!" Her hand shot out and grabbed Lauren's, and she started pulling the pair closer to the creepy old building.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Ya duh."

"But what if this is like a bad place where they lure ghosts and then harvest some soul energy or something from them."

"Stop asking so many questions and just trust me for like an hour, ya?"

Lauren grumbled under her breath something that was probably derogatory, but otherwise quieted her complaints. She followed Aimee through the creaking door and over a welcome mat that probably looked the most welcoming for mice or insects.

Other than that, the only thing in the tiny building was another doorway. The girls looked at each other, shrugged, and went through it.

I blink at the words on my computer screen, both the story and the title bit that reads Molecular Analysis Lab. I got distracted again.