If you could stop provoking my ghost roommate, that would be appreciated, especially since you’re not the one who has to live here with them.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Océane Sheridan
Race: Human
Age: 32
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 762 words
 

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I don’t know how I feel about the new couple who has moved into the apartment just under our own. They must have been living in one of the communities that surround the hub, it’s all I can figure. I know that there still are a good few people out and about in the hub and I don’t know everyone personally—and I’m also not interested in knowing all of them personally either—so I wouldn’t truly be able to tell whether or not they’d been here before but the way they behave when faced with things that have become once more commonplace here in the hub makes me think they’re from the outside.

I say couple but I’m not sure whether they are or not. Which, you know, it’s none of my business either. They could be siblings, but they don’t act like siblings and well, anyway. Again, none of my business, is it? More or less.

What’s somewhat my business is that the woman seems to claim that she has a ghost roommate the man that was with her seems to provoke said ghostly roommate. Yeah, we’ve got that kind of drama going on in the building now and I’m not sold on having to live with that. Every time they meet up—he seems to live in a different but nearby building—she complains to him that he has to stop provoking the ghost roommate because it’s getting bad and it’s not fair since he’s not the one who has to live with said ghostly personage.

What can I do but shake my head about it all? I don’t judge. If you want to believe in ghosts, you go on right ahead and believe in ghosts. That’s not unlike whoever out there still believes in a god, a devil, in heaven, or hell. People can believe in whatever they want but keep it to yourselves. The woman nearly screeches whenever he comes around and teases her gently.

Because I’ve heard them, really. He was coming up the stairs as I was heading down one day, and he barely had made it to the landing that her door was slammed open, and she was already rambling and near-ranting at him.

So, my calling them a couple seems a little strange; I mean, I guess they could be, but it seems as though it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. Not in the way that she behaves towards him. It really does seem as though he might be sweet on her but with that kind of behaviour coming from her, I don’t know how long he’s going to be willing to handle it.

Then again, I don’t know either of them, and her behaviour does not make me want to get to know her at all. I’m sure that if I were to give her a chance, I’d possibly understand why she acts the way she does but I’m not about to try. I socialize enough as is on a daily basis and I feel as though that’s all I need.

Whenever I hear her, I feel as though she takes a chunk of my energy away and I haven’t even really talked to her. When she saw me heading down on that particular day, she gave me this ugly look as though I’d somehow bothered her by just being there. That doesn’t make me want to get to know her at all. If Emma wants to try and talk to her, she’s welcome to and I won’t stop her.

When I try to think back to my childhood and to the way things were, I feel like I’m at a bit of a loss. I don’t know that I ever knew someone who seemed to believe in the things this woman does and, in a way, maybe it keeps me from being able to wrap my mind around her behaviour now. It really is just the only way I can imagine it.

Every time I try to let it go and stop thinking about it, I spot her and every time I spot her, I feel as though she’s accusing him of antagonizing either the ghostly roommate or something or someone else out there. How is it that my timing seems to be like that? It almost makes it seem as though it’s all she does with her free time, and I tip my invisible hat to him for the fact that he clearly seems to be sticking around her despite it all.

I just couldn’t do it.

I don’t think you understand the things I do behind the scenes just to make you happy.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Kaden Tine-Forte
Race: Demon – Psychic
Age: 51, physically about 20
Current residence: Newport, Vermont
Final Word Count: 775 words
 

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I think that staring at her with a dumbfounded look on my face is the only thing I can do at this point. She looks mad. Standing there, all five feet of her, hands on her hips, and chewing her gum as though… well she looks like she’s ruminating but I’m certainly not about to say that out loud. That little ball of hellfire still is my manager if not my full-on boss and I do still need to stay on her good side.

The thing is, though, is that she’s only been in this spot for about three weeks, and she’s just been trying too damned hard. When I think about her, all that comes to mind is Napoleon. She’s short but she tries too hard to make up for it. When her behaviour doesn’t remind me of the not-so-little man that Bonaparte ended up being, it reminds me of a little dog trying to prove to the world that it is so much bigger than it really is.

It doesn’t work with me.

She might have managed to convince a few other of the folks who work the same hours I do that she has their best interest at heart, but I can read her like an open book, and I don’t like her. I’ve been in this company longer than her and the only reason I don’t have the spot she is now busy occupying is that I didn’t want it. I don’t want to have to deal with bossing people around. I do my own job and I do it well.

Of course, little lady-barky doesn’t see it that way and she’s trying to guilt trip me into believing all of her little lies. All she’s done since coming in, is chew everyone out because we’re not doing the job her way, but she hasn’t taken a single moment to talk to any of us about how she might want us to do our jobs. You know, the jobs we’ve been doing—for the most part, there is a newbie—for years at this point. A job that no one has ever complained about.

Over the last few days, and even just now, she keeps on going on about none of us know or understand the things she does behind the scenes just to make us happy. How does that make any sense? There’s nothing to be done behind the scenes. She’s not even the one putting the schedules together. She’s essentially just there to make sure there’s a manager in the store during the later hours.

She’s yet to help us unload anything. She’s yet to help us place anything of what we’ve unloaded. She just stands there and glowers because, you know, according to her, we’re not doing the job the way we’re supposed to but unless she tells us what that is, we’re not going to be able to change the way we’re working.

Not that I’m about to change the way I do anything.

She’s still staring at me, chewing that gum like a cow ruminates and I’m still giving her a dumbfounded look. I know what she expects of me and she’s not going to get it. I might be that one quiet guy who doesn’t interact with the others much unless he has to, but I’ve had this job for a few years now and I’m not about to change that job. I know I look young and I’m pretty sure this is one of the things that bother her.

Human resources and my boss know about what I am. They know about the age thing. The people who need to know also do know. She hasn’t shown me any reason to even want to trust her, so I’m not about to tell her that particular detail. I feel like I can’t even trust her with that knowledge, who knows what she would even do, so, you know, no.

She can glower at me and look like a cow all she wants, she can try all she wants to make me feel like this little guilt trip of hers might work but it won’t. If it really comes down to it and I lose work colleagues because of her behaviour, I’ll go up. I know to pick my battles and I’m not even going to try and argue with her, she’s not worth the energy and until she really does screw things over in any way that might not be easily fixed, I won’t bother.

I do my job.

I finish that job within my set hours and that’s all there is to it.