“Ghost - The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats. The center of spiritual life; the soul.”
Dex
I took the stairs two at a time. I had to get out of this building. There was this draining tug and pull action going on inside my chest and I wanted it to stop. It made my stomach clench and my hands shake. Part of me was sickened with everything that happened tonight, and the other part of me was disappointed it hadn’t ended in death.
I was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only I couldn’t tell which one was the real me.
I reached the first floor and let out a sigh of relief… Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A dark shape seemed to float around the corner—the same looming shape that passed by Piper’s window upstairs. I’d stood at the window, trying to catch a glimpse of it, but I never did. Probably because it was dark, just like the night—until it shifted and moved. That’s the one thing about the dark. It doesn’t move.
I pushed off the bottom step and took chase. When I got around the corner, there was nothing but the door leading outside. I slammed through it and ran out onto the sidewalk. The shifting shadow disappeared around the side of the building and I went after it, running into a dark, narrow space between the two brick buildings.
It was completely dark here and whatever had been there was gone. In fact, it was so still between the buildings that I began to think I was imagining things. Hell, I probably was.
I turned to go back out onto the street when someone spoke. “You’re the new Escort.”
I turned back, once again seeing nothing at all. “Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Please don’t tell him she saw me.”
“Who?” I replied, looking for any kind of movement.
Then something shifted; the shadows seemed to form into a shape. A shape that really wasn’t a shape. It was very familiar… “Where are you?”
“I’m right in front of you.”
The muscles in my back bunched, expecting a fight, but no threat ever came. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was able to make out more movement, but still no definite shape.
Then it dawned on me.
This was some kind of ghost. Some kind of in-between being, like I was before I got my new body. “What are you?” I asked.
“I’m like you, except I don’t have a body.”
“You’re dead?”
“Sort of.”
“Are you a ghost?”
“A ghost haunts. I don’t haunt.” He sniffed, offended.
“Then what are you doing lurking around Piper?”
“I’m working. Watching her is my job.”
“Who hired you?”
“The same guy that hired you.”
“You’re an Escort?” I asked.
“Yes. A Ghost Escort.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a ghost.”
He made a sudden movement and this time I saw him spread out like smoke. He looked exactly like I had before I got this body, except he wasn’t purple. He was black.
“They call us that because we’re nearly invisible, like a ghost. That’s why we’re the ones who watch the Slated.”
