I Fell In Love With A Ghost

One 

"I can't do this anymore, Nova. I'm breaking up with you."

I exit the messaging app, delete it from my activity log, then reopen it to read again. The same words reflect on my screen. 

That's it. That's the whole message. 

He's going to break up with me through text. Three years with him, and all I get is a text with fewer than twenty words. 

I wish we didn't have to break up, but I'd already accepted the fact long ago. What I will not accept, though, is this flimsy excuse for a message. I deserve more than a less than twenty-word text for putting up with him so long. 

So, I do what I think anyone with any degree of self-worth would do. 

I call him. 

He picks up the third time I call. "You really tried to break up with me through a message?" 

A car horn sounds somewhere around me, but I pay no attention. 

I hear him sigh. "I was gonna meet up with you, but I thought, what's the point?"

I scoff. "Really, Chris? What's the point?"

"Listen, I'm sorry, okay? I should've done better. I'm really busy right now, so could you maybe do this some other time... or never?"

Wow. 

My eyes sting with tears at his dismissal. I don't even know what I was thinking, calling him. I should've just accepted it and moved on, like I'd been trying to do for the last two months, before he finally made the break-up official. 

"You know what? Fuck you. You're a stupid coward, and I hope you rot in hell–"

I don't finish my statement as something runs into me, pushing me to the ground and sending my phone flying out of my hand.  

As I fall, my head makes contact with the hard ground, and pain spreads through my head almost immediately. 

It doesn't end there, a heavy weight passes over my lap. I scream, feeling my flesh tearing and bones breaking under the pressure. 

It ends in a short while, but the pain remains. 

"C– Chris." 

I begin crawling over to my phone. It takes some time as I'm unable to feel my legs, but eventually, I get close enough to touch it. 

And as soon as I manage to get it in my grasp, I feel my consciousness slip away. 

~~~

 

"She's in a coma," the doctor says, turning to the stranger. 

I don't know him, the stranger, I mean. I don't know who he is, but he was the one who brought me here. 

He looks at me for a moment and shakes his head. Then he and the doctor walk out of the room. 

"Come back!" I call after them, jumping off the bed and running to the door before it slams shut. "Come back! I'm not in a coma!"

How can I be in a coma when I'm right here, perfectly fine? 

Would someone in a coma be able to chase two men down a hospital hallway like I'm doing now?

Even when I call them again, they don't seem to hear me. Either I'm invisible, or they're so good at ignoring me. 

They don't stop walking until they get to the end of the hallway. Then they turn to face each other. "It's a good thing you brought her here on time. She lost a lot of blood and would've died if you hadn't rushed her here."

The man, who has a grave expression on his face, just shakes his head solemnly. "I'm glad I could be of help. I hope the blood would be enough to make her stable?"

"It should." The doctor turns, stares right in my eye, but still pretends not to see me. "We'll focus on finding her relative so we can proceed with the amputation." 

"Alright. If they're not found, I'm still willing to help in any way I can."

The doctor nods. "I'll keep that in mind."

The man moves to the other end of the hallway.

I stand facing the doctor, folding my arms. "What was that about? Why were you both pretending like you couldn't see me?"

Ignoring me once again, he pulls out his phone from the pocket of his scrub. 

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" I wave my hand in front of his eyes. He frowns, but doesn't look up. "Why did you tell him I'm in a coma? And why do you both keep acting like you can't see me?"

Instead of getting the answer that I rightly deserve, the doctor walks off in the opposite direction from where the man went. 

Since asking the doctor is useless, I decide to follow the man. Maybe he won't be too proud to answer. 

Since he'd gone ahead of me, it takes a while to find him. And when I do, he's entering the elevator. 

"Don't shut it!" I call from where I am, flailing my arms, then start running to him. 

Thankfully, he doesn't, leaving the doors open. I manage to get there right on time, at the same moment a nurse chooses to exit, rolling a wheelchair. 

I stumble when she almost pushes me. But she doesn't stop to apologize. 

"Why are they so mean in this hospital?" I mutter, entering the elevator. "Thanks for not closing it," I tell the man, coming to stand in front of him. 

He doesn't acknowledge my appreciation. Not a shake of his head. Not a nod. Not a "you're welcome," nothing. 

I choose to ignore his rudeness. "Who are you? And how did I end up here? What happened to me?"

Rather than answering, he takes out a pair of AirPods from his pocket and plugs them into his ears. 

Tears gather in my eyes at the way I'm being treated, and I move away from him, leaning on the other side of the elevator, my arms crossed.

Imagine being on your way home from college after an exam – which went badly, by the way – only to find yourself in the hospital, and when you ask for an explanation, everyone’s acting like they can’t see or hear you. That's my situation right now. 

I would have given up asking, but I don’t know how to start figuring out how I got here. I don’t feel sick, weak or anything. There are no scratch marks on my body to know what the problem is, either. 

The elevator pings when we get to the last floor, and after a few seconds of successfully acting like I don’t exist, the man faces me. 

A relieved smile makes its way to my lips. 

Maybe he hadn’t been ignoring me, after all. 

My relief is short-lived when he walks right past me, out of the elevator.

Or maybe not. 

“Hey, sir!” I follow him through the reception. “Just a minute of your time, please.”

Nothing. No one even cares enough to pay me any attention. 

“Just tell me how I got here, and I promise I won’t pester you anymore. Please,” my last words in a sob. Even at that, he doesn’t answer me. 

He exits the hospital through the sliding doors, and I follow him. 

The moment I step outside, I’m hit by a blinding light, which causes me to stumble back. 

Barely seeing, I use my hands to cover my face as I advance further. Eventually, the intensity of the light subsides, and I’m finally able to open my eyes. 

When I do, the sight I’m met with makes me shut my eyes again – willingly this time. 

I open them again, and nothing’s changed – well, everything’s changed, but…

It’s like I’ve stepped into a new world. The whole place is dark, a contrast to the brightness earlier, and the only source of light is the neon green light emanating from the bus a few feet in front of me. A loud, unusual music sounds from inside the bus, but aside from that, the whole place is quiet. 

I turn around to walk through the door, back into the hospital, but it's not there anymore. I’m just met with… void. A dark space. 

“Maybe this is all a prank. My friends are playing a prank on me,” I mumble to myself, chuckling nervously. 

I feel something push me from behind, but when I turn around, there's no one – or thing –  there. 

“Okay, this is not funny!” I shout to no one at all.

A soft wind blows by, and a chill sweeps through me. 

“Not funny at all,” I repeat in a smaller, shaky voice. 

Starting to get scared of being out here alone, I move toward the bus. Maybe there are other people there. 

Another gust of wind blows, and I move faster, feeling like whatever is out here is coming to get me. 

Once I’m in front of the bus, the door opens on its own, and a force pushes me inside. 

Lively chatter from other people fills the space, and I’m relieved to not be the only one out here. I also realize that the music wasn’t coming from inside the bus, but the bus itself – as in, the body of the bus. 

As soon as the people notice me inside, the whole place goes silent, even the unusual music, like they’d all been waiting for me. 

Then, a booming voice sounds from somewhere inside the bus. “Welcome, Soul 113, to the transitional dimension.”