The Living Among Us (white x pink)

Chapter 3

My head was pounding when I came around again. I was laying on the concrete ground of the SpaceStation's Storage room. I groaned and lifted myself up into a sitting position. My head was fuzzy and I guess I must've hit it cause there was no way- there was no way there had been a- crap.
She was sitting directly at my feet, criss- cross applesauce, staring intensely at me. We locked eyes for a moment before she interrupted the silence.
"Finally" she rolled her eyes and glared at me. I scrunched my nose and glared back.
This isn't happening.
I attempted to steady my breathing and scooted myself up against the wall. I glanced down at my watch. Thirty minutes before 21 hours. Crap, my tasks. How long had I been out? There was no way I was getting to dumping the trashes before curfew plus I still had over half the downloads left. I would have to wake up early and dump the trashes tomorrow morning. That meant skipping dinner tonight and probably breakfast tomor-
 "Whyn? Hello?? Earth to Whyn?" I realized Peony was waving at me, trying to get my attention.
I blinked at her, "Erg- sorry I was thinking about something-"
Her eyebrows scrunched up in obvious annoyance, "I'm sorry- you have a literal ghost sitting in front of you- telling you they need help figuring out who murdered them, and you're thinking of what? Something else?"
"Yes", I said blatantly. My tasks were important.
She scoffed at me, "This is ridiculous, what is it? A girl?"
My face flushed for some reason, "What? No, I was thinking about my job- uh my tasks I still need to get done."
She stared at me, like she couldn't believe what she was hearing, "You're thinking about... the garbages...."

I hesitated before answering, "y-yes?"

She threw her hands up in the air and made a strange noise between and yell and a growl.

For the first time since meeting Peony, I noticed a splotch of crimson red around her torso. The color blending strangely with her pink spacesuit. My eyes widened as I realized it was blood. Surrounding the red was a cut, almost all the way through her suit. I could only assume that wasn't where the cut stopped.
She noticed me staring and looked down sheepishly at her own torso.
"A-are you okay?" I stuttered and regretted it immediately. Of course she wasn't okay. She was dead.
She turned her head quizzically at me and seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, "You're a weirdo"

I was taken aback. I'm the weirdo? I bristled defensively, "Yeah -well you're dead so.. yeah"
I grimaced at the ignorance of my own words, "S-sorry".
I looked back up at her face, a small smile played at her lips, "It's alright," her voice was almost a whisper, "It's been almost a week, I've come to terms with it. Being dead isn't so bad. I don't get hungry or need sleep or..." she trailed off, her eyes glazed over- thinking about something only she could see.

I inhaled through my nose. This was crazy. Absolutely crazy. I wasn't going crazy though...right? I rubbed my forehead, maybe she was a hallucination... from being in space too long... or stress... or something like that?
But as I looked at her. Her pale translucent skin, her ecstatic blonde hair, dancing in the air, her blue eyes concentrating on something far far away, the slightest twist of sadness, like at any moment she could burst in tears. No, this couldn't be a hallucination.. She was real... too real. She had to be. No way my own mind would torture me like this... right?

"Hey," I said, snapping her out of her trance. I cleared my throat awkwardly a few times, "So.. w-what's the plan?"

Her face broke out into a grin but she still didn't say anything. I noticed that no matter what her expression was, her eyes remained sad.

"Y- you were murdered right?" I asked and she nodded enthusiastically, "Okay so, where do we start? How do we get you.. uh what should we do?"

"You're gonna help me?" her voice cracked as I nodded slowly. She leapt up and shot towards me in what I assumed was supposed to be a hug but instead she flew directly through me, sending a wave of icy air through my entire body. I shivered involuntarily.

"Oh uh oops-" she laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, "sorry, I forgot."

"Its okay," I muttered, my teeth chattering slightly.
"Okay here's the deal..." I paused, my brain still trying to process what was happening, "I'm going to help you figure out how- figure this out, but my work comes first. It's most important. Once I've finished my task then I can help you everyday- er well it will probably be at night since my tasks take a long long time- mostly because I got assigned these dumb downloads that take forever anyways that doesn't matter basically what I'm saying-"

She folded her arms in front of her as if I had offended her somehow.

"What?" I asked, quizzically.

"Downloads aren't that bad," she said defensively. Suddenly my brain connected the dots, "Ohh they were your job before they got assigned to me, right?"

She nodded grinning mischievously, making me resent her just a tiny bit more. The downloads really were painful.
"Anyways," she said, "the tasks everyday aren't gonna be an issue, for some reason even though I can't do anything else, I can still do tasks around the ship, the ones that help keep it running".

I stared at her, "That.. doesn't make sense.."
She shrugged, indifferently, "Don't ask me, I'm new to the whole 'being dead' thing"
"Hold up, you could've been doing your own tasks this whole time? I had to skip dinner twice to get all of those done!"
She giggled incredulously, "Hey now, you would have been confused if all the downloads were magically done and besides-" she paused to smirk at me, "It was funny watching you struggle so badly".
I wanted to be angry but the fact that she had been watching me this entire week dominated my attention as my face turned a rather unpleasant shade of pink.

"Ummm" was all I managed to say which made her laugh more. It wasn't a typical girl-y laugh that I'd imagined girls had, it was cold and harsh.
"Alright" she said after she'd finished laughing at me again, "you go eat and get to bed."

I opened up my mouth to protest but she held up her hand to stop me, "I don't need sleep remember? I'll finish tonight's tasks and then I'll tell you everything I remember about my death tomorrow morning" She seemed as though she was simmering with anticipation to get started immediately but she took what I needed into consideration.
"Oh- okay" I said awkwardly.
She smiled sadly and flew off, through the wall behind me.

I stared at the wall for probably a solid minute before shaking my head and leaning down to finally clean up the shelf I'd knocked over, hours ago. This really was insane, wasn't it? The fact that Peony was dead made sense, her chores being given to me. The fact that she was murdered and came back as a ghost? That was a little harder to believe but I couldn't deny that she was real. Or real enough? She obviously needed help. Of some sort. Why hadn't she been sent.. on? To Heaven? Maybe if I helped her with whatever issue she had, she'd be sent on? My head was pounding by the time I finished cleaning up the storage room and made my way to bed.