Lighting Doesn't Matter When You're Dead.

Wide, dead eyes stared into yours. Mine. You could see me. I was standing in the middle of the tile hallway, lockers and doors lining the sides, keeping rushing people trapped in. No one touched me, but no one saw me either. My arms were pressed into my sides so tightly the muscles locked and appeared as though they would hurt but I felt no pain. Legs locked together, feet painfully straight, I felt numb. I was not in my own body, but rather I was a locker maybe, listening in on the secrets.
Fluorescent lighting had always been beautiful on my skin, this time was no exception. My skin was pale, but not as white as it should have been, meaning the summer had ended not too long ago. I wore a light top, something that made me look slightly smaller over a pair of distressed denim jeans that closed around my ankles and began the pile there, hiding the tops of my black and white cheetah print Vans. I wasn't smiling, but I wasn't frowning either. My chest didn't rise and fall with breath, I wasn't breathing. Falling around my shoulders was my cropped hair, the layers straight as usual, the fact that they were long for the short style gave it a full look.
Investigation of my own body was strange. I finally looked into my eyes. Any color they had been was faded to a deep grey, the irises were lifeless. My pupils were large, as though it were dark in the school. The harsh lighting flashing down on blue lockers, bouncing off and into my eyes should have made them small.
But lighting doesn't matter when you're dead.
You were still staring intensely into my eyes, as though you couldn't remember who I was. You did know who I was though, you just couldn't quite place why I was here. I didn't know either until I stared right back at you, your eye color was lost in translation somewhere and I couldn't remember who you were for a moment. Perhaps it was supposed to be this way.
I didn't move, my body was strikingly still, I could have easily won a game of Ghost In The Graveyard. The thought made me chuckle in my own mind. The words whispered in my brain until I couldn't contain it, my face split into a smile. Oops. Looks like I just lost the game.
Your head spun around wildly on your neck, looking for someone, something to prove I wasn't real. Still, when you looked back, I was standing there. My smile returned as I silently giggled over your frantic behavior.
Grabbing someone near you, a boy- tall and lanky with dark hair and a large nose and a few freckles splattered under his green eyes- and whispered things to him. "Tell me you see her," you whispered, trying to draw in deep breaths to keep from having a panic attack. It wasn't working, your chest was visibly tightening. Clutching your hands to your heart, you breathed, but I could see your eyes spinning with breathlessness.
"Who?" the boy was asking.
"Her. The blond one standing there."
"There's no one there. We're alone."
Your breathing was rapid. You were inhaling the same air you were exhaling. Soon you would pass out.
"She. Can't. Do. This. To. Me." The sentenced was punctuated with short breaths. You were on the verge of passing out. I could practically see the grey fuzziness of unconsciousness slipping into your vision.
"Who are you talking about?"
"Her! Why can't you see her?!" you screamed, using all of the tiny bit of oxygen you'd brought in with your most recent breath.
"I don't know who you're talking about. Every one's in class. You should be too. Come on, I'll-"
"No!" you shrieked, wrenching your wrist from his grip.
"We have to-"
"No! No! NO!" He'd been reaching for you again and you were running suddenly. You were headed right for me. My smile stretched across my face as you plunged at me, only to find the floor rushing up to meet your face.
With you lying at my feet, I touched the tip of my toe to your head, nudging you backwards. Blood didn't pour from your wounds as it should have from the angle you'd taken the blow. Instead, as you lifted your head off the tile, groaning all the while, a red welt appeared on your forehead. You touched the bridge of your nose where a lump was forming.
"NO!" you yelled again, pushing yourself off the floor. "This isn't real! This can't be happening!"
In a standing position now, you reached for my hair, preparing to yank it out of my head. Instead you couldn't reach me. Every time you went to touch me I was moved back or you were moved back it seemed, but your hand didn't slip through me as it would have if this were a horror movie, or collide with my flesh as it would have if I'd been real.
I hadn't spoken yet, so when I did, my voice surprised you. The sound was hollow and slightly like leaves whispering as the wind blows them. "This is real. This is happening. I swore I would haunt you after everything you'd done to me. Welcome to Hell, Bitch." And then as suddenly as I'd been standing in the hallway of a school I'd never even seen, flames began to lick at your feet and you danced in the fire, but burns didn't touch your skin until it reached your face, scorching all that was there, melting it like plastic, your eyes sinking into your skull. Screaming into the heat, you fell to the tile and writhed in pain. As quickly as the fire had come, with a snap of my long fingers it was gone and your face restored. Grabbing at your face you felt the tears streaming down your face.
You were frantic and the boy had left when you'd lunged. You were alone now. Alone with a ghost. No one would believe you. No one would believe what you'd seen or felt. I cackled. My whispery-leaf voice sounded harsh and maniacal in my own ears. The vision of you writhing in pain was in the front of my mind. With a snap of my fingers I could do it again. The thought made me grin madly, my lifeless eyes adding to the horror that was my face. Flicking my fingers against each other, flames licked up into my feet, capturing my whole body and I was sucked into the floor, leaving nothing but the smell of melting skin, ash, and an echo of my laughter in my wake.