HEY THERE, DEMONS

I

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

— Stephen King

"-as apart of our ongoing investigation into the question" the dark haired man turned his pointed glare towards the second of the large cameras "are ghosts real?"

Olive huffed out an exasperated sigh. "i wish they weren't" she mumbled to herself, sure to remain quiet and not frighten the pair of men in the living room. In her living room.

She'd seen their kind before, ghosthunters. She recalled the first few would have likely visited around the 1980's mark. A few scientists with a small camera looking at her entire life under a microscope. She'd hated it, but it only got worse with time. The cameras got bigger and the scientists got... well they weren't even scientists anymore, just actors paid in gold to make a mockery of her home, her story, her life.

"I can answer this one for ya Ryan," the taller perked up "they are not". The brown haired man, she assumed was Ryan, rolled his eyes and made an offhand comment about his partner's antics before continuing with his rant.

The two men were currently perched across from each other on Olives sofa in the sitting room. They would laugh and shove the other on the shoulder every now and again, sometimes the short one (Ryan!, she thought) would get frightened by a creak in the old wooden hallways causing his friend to rest a comforting hand on his thigh and promise him spirits were nothing more than a work of fiction. Hearing him promise things like 'we can go home soon' and 'I won't let any ghosts get close to you' made her stomach sink. She could never go home, this was her home now and she was the ghoul causing all this pain to the brown haired man, by simply existing!

She sighed and leaned back into the arm chair she'd draped herself across. To say she sat in the seat wouldn't be exactly correct, it was more like hovering above. She stared at the two on the sofa in envy. You take for granted the little aspects of being alive. She figured they never even thought twice about the fact that they could rest their weight on the object rather than ghost nearby it. They could interact with the solid walls like brick should do without their arms passing through. They could walk right out of her front door just as they walked in and never have to see the insides of the little home again. Olive could pass through all the walls in this place but all she really wanted to do was walk out through the doorway like everybody else and escape the cage she'd been promised to for all eternity.

"You're seriously telling me you aren't the least bit scared right now?" Ryan asked his friend, gesturing towards the room.

"No," the other man responded "because ghosts aren't real". He was tall and slim with sandy blonde hair, a defined nose and strong features. He didn't seem to be afraid of Olive or the house or any of it. Everything about him just seemed to scream strong. She couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous.

"We're still sitting in the room where a girl died though," Ryan pointed out "there's still a blood stain on the carpet for Christs sake!"

There it was. She felt the stabbing pain in her chest hit her like a strike of lightning. She knew her worn and torn garment hid purple ribs and bruises that blossomed over her legs. She was thankful that as a spirit breathing wasn't a necessity, that she didn't have to feel the pain with each intake of air. Her soul was a cage for her body just as her home had become a cage for her soul.

She could vaguely hear the men telling the story of how she died for the watching cameras. She winced as if the knife were still stuck in her chest, blood covering her bruised legs. She felt his rough knuckles against her soft cheek, blow after blow, never missing. Her legs felt weak under the strain of supporting her body weight, begging for release, to slide down the torn and tattered wall onto the soft warm rug. The white fabric looking so inviting, like with one touch it could swallow her up whole into the earth and she'd never have to return again.