A/N: Hey this is really based of a story I need to create for English, I hope I managed to work it into the theme alright and I might have overdone the italics...
Jules walked briskly down the path littered with dark autumn leaves, wet from the recent rain, they made a slight squelch as she stood on them. She hunched her shoulder against the breeze, her scarf flapping lightly. The young man at her side followed earnestly, almost struggling to keep up with her quick pace. Despite her hurry, Jules let her thoughts focus on the park around her, deathly quiet and still, in the autumn night.
She decided night truly was the perfect time of day. For with night there came the darkness. Jules had gotten really used to the darkness recently, she found it just made everything easier to understand. The day, the light was full of bright, clear, clarity and reminded her exactly how messed up her situation truly was. Things like this were impossible during daylight, but in darkness... in darkness it is easier to let the rules of reality be bent a little.
Or a least she just found it easier to cope with the fact that her version of reality before, everyone's version of reality, might be very twisted.
Another walker came in the opposite direction. A woman, wrapped in a heavy winter coat. She walked quickly, faster than Jules glancing around occasionally.
Nervous.
Jules glanced a hint of anxiety in the woman's blue eyes. Going somewhere this late at night, looking like the nearest shrub might bite her leg off, Jules wondered if maybe this woman was in trouble. Then she wondered if she would ever have asked herself this before, before everything happened, before she started to really notice things about the people around her. Jules thoughts were completely silenced though as the woman strode right past her.
And right through her friend.
Jules stopped short, but the woman continued on, marching away towards whatever was calling her, at such a late hour, so urgently.
Jules looked at the young man, “Could you just... not...” she sighed exasperated. He seemed surprised, and raised an eyebrow, flicking his almost transparent brown hair out of his face “Not what?” he asked innocently.
“That!” Jules turned and started walking again, the young man followed, Jules wondered how the young man managed to smirk and look confused at the same time. “I don't follow...”
“Look, I've had a really long day and I just don't need any of the freaky ghost stuff right now, ok,”
“'freaky ghost stuff'?” Jules stopped and just looked at him,
“Oh come on Rob, maybe she can't see you, but did you really have to let her walk right through you!? Would it be that hard to just step out the way!?” At this Rob's smirk grew
“Wait, you mean you don't like watching stuff...like this?” he stepped to the side and travelled right through an old litter-bin. Jules sighed, for a spirit who had apparently wandered around this earth, for over forty years, Rob could be such a child sometimes. Jules started walking again ignoring his antics. Sometimes she wondered if her life really was more bearable before she'd picked him up, a clingy ghost, who was dying for company and she just couldn't shake him.
Before...it was a time that Jules didn't want to think about. A time when her boyfriend hadn't dumped her, her work hadn't fired her, her friends hadn't insisted she go to a plastic surgeons and get 'that damn implant fixed'. It had been a time when she had never known what it was like to get into a car accident, when she's had both of her own eyes...
when she hadn't seen things they way she did know.
She remembered those first days, still in hospital. Her vision had been a splattered darkness, shadows and shapes blending into one. They insisted the new eye would adjust, this new treatment couldn't fail, give it time. Jules had given it time, she's waited for the muscles to strengthen, she'd even wore a patch over her other eye for almost a year. But it didn't get better, at least not like it should. Sure there was no more shadows, no more darkness but what had it become?
It became people that weren't there, or maybe they were always there, she just shouldn't be seeing them. But the hospital had said her vision was fine, so what had she been left with after everything. No friends, (didn't understand what she had against changing the colour of an already very messed up eye) no boyfriend (her new look, wasn't exactly his style), no apartment (unfortunately owned by the now ex-boyfriend), no family (getting into an accident and almost killing herself, how embarrassing!)
All she had was a new eye that wasn't the same colour as the old one, and the tons of new friends it brought with it, who just couldn't seem to quit hanging around.
So yeah, sometimes Jules loved the darkness. Especially on days like today, when darkness brought along it's good friend tiredness. Tiredness helped with everything, it slows down the logic part of your mind. With tiredness and darkness together, anything seemed possible. Which was good seeing as Jules felt like her sanity was balancing on the edge.
It was going to fall in either the light, or the dark. The clear, proper light, with it's rules and reason wouldn't let her go wrong, it would keep her in reality and away from the unnatural. Jules would usually happily let her mind wander into the light. But... she felt like this new eye was dragging her in the opposite direction. It demanded that her mind see, hear and believe the impossible, the unnatural. In the darkness, she knew there lay acceptance, it sat like a fresh fruit. Tempting acceptance. Acceptance of her situation, of her new abilities, of her life...it would make things so much easier...
But if she took the fruit, if she let her mind accept, that meant she was crazy right? Because this had to be crazy, no one else could saw dead people all over the place!
“Hey Jules! Jules over here!” Jules broke out of her thoughts t the sound of Rob's voice. She turned to look at him, holding a worm over his head. “Watch this!” he laughed and then raised the wriggling creature directly over his open mouth. Suddenly the worm slipped through his now, almost non existent fingers. When it hit his mouth though, his body was solid. “Urgh, Rob that's disgusting” exclaimed Jules, face screwing up in disgust. Rob laughed at her discomfort and swallowed the worm down into a non existent body. It landed with a soft pat at his feet, he stepped away from it “Your face was hilarious Jules,” he laughed, but Jules thought she could almost see a glimmer of something else in his eyes.
She wondered, if Rob had in fact been here before, like he claimed, who did he laugh with? The ghosts seemed friendly with each other to a point, but not exactly social.
Who did he spend his day with?
Who did he ask inane and annoying questions?
Who did he gross out by eating live worms?
Sometimes Jules was scared of her mind, her sanity slipping into the darkness.
But sometimes she wondered if it would really be that bad if it did...
A/N: Sorry but I had to copy and paste this, so there might be really big gaps between the lines and stuff...
