🍭 Ghosted in Sugarshore 🍭

🍬 1. ADOPT 🍬

Today, I adopted another ghost.

It is one of those occasional hobbies you never have the time nor will to fully commit to, but still pursue when the moment feels right. The procedure is simple: I adopt a ghost, take it home, make a sculpture of it, track its killer, and kill it. Once a ghost is freed, I sell its sculpture for a mediocre amount of caramelized sugar. Sparkly. I make a living out of it. It's safe and comfortable. It's enough.

When your world is made of candy, your sugar is never low and your tummy never empty.

Now, back to my brand new ghost. It was a she. She died a long time ago; when you could leave your doors open at night and no one would eat your furniture, so she was much more faded than the rest. If you focused long enough, you could notice even the tiniest of details and slowly build her up like a multi-layer cake, but if you blinked, she might just disappear in the sunlight.

Her name was Hale. Her family name was unknown, probably forgotten. She wore her hair loose and her dress tightly pressed around her waist. Her colors were pale, so it was hard to tell whether her hair was dark pink or light red and whether her eyes were blue or violet. I think violet.

"Why would you want to adopt me?" was the first question she asked me. It took me aback a bit. Whenever I adopted a ghost, they were grateful more than anything. They were also well aware of the procedure awaiting us, it's not something invented yesterday. Just how long was she dead?

"I want to save you," I said. I was her last chance – she was close to fading away. Poor girl.

"Save me from what?" Hale asked, suspiciously eyeing me from head to toe. "You look like you need saving more than I do."

I chuckled. She knew very well that wasn't true. While she was hard to spot, I was hard to miss. Tall, dark chocolate, and not handsome to the extent of being terrifying, I was more of a someone others needed the saving from.

"Save you from death," I said simply. "I will steal the life that had been stolen from you."

"What if I prefer death?" she asked and crossed her arms.

"That means you forgot what life feels like," I said, crossing my arms as well.

Hale grinned. There was a moment of silence when her eyes sparkled with new intensity, like a newly ignited fire. More threatening, but warmer as well. She was having fun. "Can't take a 'no'?"

"You won't give me a 'no', no one does. I know you," I said. "I met you a billion times before."

It was a lie. Deep, dirty, and juicy lie. In my everlasting life of stealing stolen souls, I've never met someone remotely as stubborn or ungrateful. I met her for the very first time. Others were at my feet by this point, worshiping the land I walked on and the air I breathed. They knew I was on their side, on a good side. But they also weren't as pale as a mint nor so transparent I had to remind myself I'm not talking to myself.

Hale was different. She had a pensive look that cuts deep and a mischievous smile that cuts deeper. Her eyes had the air of experience; like they saw things best and worst, from cotton candy dreams to rock bottom awakenings. In a weird and morbidly curious way, I liked the change.

She nodded, very slowly. "Let's go, then, big boy."