This is not the first time I’ve seen you standing at the end of the hall, just staring. It’s creeping me out!

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Gifted Ones
Characters: Duke Lagenberg
Race: Human – Meta – Telepathy
Age: 29
Current residence: Chester, Pennsylvania
Final Word Count: 772 words
 

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The dogs have made a game of finding our uninvited guests and letting all of us know about it. In a way, I don’t think I can complain about it. I still remember my encounter with the woman on the ceiling some two years ago. I don’t like being startled and as I can sense everyone else coming when they’re near me, her presence startling me wasn’t something I cared for.

Mind you, it’s not because I have anything to hide that I don’t like being startled. I don’t know that anyone likes being startled and when you’re just so used to being able to hear everyone coming up to you, being startled is just an extra nuisance. That’s how I see it, in any case.

So, every now and again—again, visitors of the ghostly nature kind aren’t all that common—the big, lovable brutes will find means of letting us know that there’s an extra in the house. Through the seals, the protection, and the wards, the only thing that might be able to slip through are the really harmless ones but there is still something quite unsettling about walking down a dark hallway and finding someone just standing there at the end of that very hall.

Especially when you can’t tell who that person is due to how dark the end of that hall is and how silent their mind is—to me. I know near-instantly that when I can’t hear someone who is near me, it is, the vast majority of the time because they are no longer alive. Some have managed to find means of blocking their thoughts and it is never something I do—probing—but even with their thoughts blocked, there still is a sort of hum that can be felt when I approach someone who is living, breathing, and, well, alive.

I’m not the only one who has had encounters with our end-of-the-hall visitor. There’s little to tell any of us what it might be about and other than looking very creepy while it is standing out there, it hasn’t caused any harm, so we haven’t really bothered to try and remove it from the home. Even the dogs at this point have settled into a sort of agreement that it is moot to remind us it is there when they seem to scent it out. I really don’t know how they do it. Though I’m aware that certain animals seem to see so much more than we do.

They’ll still be alert when they first notice it but then it’s as though there is something in their adorable little hunter-brains that tells them that this particular one isn’t going anywhere. That there’s no point in bothering anyone about it. We figure that, in time, it will leave as it came, or someone will get really tired of being spooked by the sight of it at the end of that hall, clearly just staring, and we’ll do something about it.

When there’s no harm being done, why do anything about it? I’ve long ago settled on seeing these visitors as one would certain spiders. While I do not care much for these eight-legged wanderers, I’m more than aware that they are good for us. They will eat other bugs as necessary and if there is a spider somewhere, it usually means that it has plenty of food to keep it fed and that means that it’s being a useful presence.

Now, I’m more than aware that this doesn’t truly, properly applies to ghosts but, in a similar way, it does. Ghosts aren’t really helpful with bugs or anything else, but if they don’t cause any harm and they’re stuck in a loop, which is clearly the case of our hallway visitor, why put effort into sending them off just yet?

I know that I’m not the only one who thinks this way and it just so happens to be what it is. If we had to put together a battle plan for every passing visitor we get, I don’t know that we’d ever get anything done. It’s not because we have many of them, nor do we get a constant in and out flow but considering our line of business and the number of possessed things we’ve had to deal with, we know that the harmless ones should really just be left alone.

From experience, I know that certain harmless ones might end up not being so harmless if you antagonize them, even if it’s just to get them to leave, so we’re fine with peaceful cohabiting for however long it might be necessary.

You know I might have been the one who did it, but do you have any proof? No.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Emily Loco
Race: Halfling – Elf (snow) / Human
Age: 34, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 881 words
 

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A handful of years ago, I realized that my gift had changed. I don’t know where the change came from and I’m not sure what prompted it. I’ve told dad about it since it most likely is from his side of the family and he’s helped me about as much as he could. It doesn’t feel like much on some days since I still have no real idea as to the reason behind this gift—I know some have probably had it worse, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about this so let me complain—but I know that he’s doing all he can to help.

At first, all I would see were things that didn’t really belong. They meshed almost perfectly with the rest of the scenery. A strange bird-looking thing that didn’t belong. A bridge over a low dip in the land that I could stand on while Erin couldn’t. A clearing that wasn’t a clearing with a fire crackling in the middle. All small and not-so-small things that, to my eye, made perfect sense as to them being where they were.

It made keeping track of reality very difficult and somewhat early on, it became a matter of trying to learn to tell things apart. It’s only once I truly accepted that I was seeing things no one else was and that dad started helping me that I learned to sort of sense the difference. It’s still really hard but at times, when I look at something, I’ll get a sort of tingle at the back of my mind as though it’s reminding me that this is from the other place.

That’s what I’ve called it at this point. We’ve sort of come to the conclusion that I live on the edge of a second world. I’m more deeply linked to ours but a small part of me is attached to that second world and it sort of bleeds through now and again. There’s a different sensation attached to this world, but I really can only tell when I focus.

Luckily, in a way, I haven’t had glimpses too often since moving out of the house. Not that they were more common before, but they seem to be less so now and, you know what, I’ll take it. Even luckier is the fact that once I’m inside this beautiful house that I share with my beautiful partner, I tend to not see anything. Not really. I think that, at most, a handful of times I’ve caught glimpses of things but that’s all it really was. Quick glimpses that I dismissed. I know every nook and cranny of this house and I know when something is amiss.

Now, I know that the gift has changed because, up until now, when I did have these glimpses of things, they might have been things and animals, the hint of a building, simple things and quiet things, often. More recently, I’ve caught glimpses of people.

These people don’t look all that different from us, at least, not from what I’ve seen. The first glimpse was like everything else, it was silent and it really was just a brief moment where I saw someone walking down the street, and it wasn’t a person that I knew and, well, while I don’t personally know everyone here, I know everyone who tends to walk our streets and I know that this person wasn’t from here.

The most recent glimpse turned out to be more of a short scene than anything else. I was in the yard, weeding the flower beds a little and I was minding my own business as I tend to, you know. It was a quiet, warm day. There were a few birds singing out and about but that was it. Out of nowhere, I hear whispering. Now, there’s not much of a reason for anyone to be whispering so it startles me, and I look up.

Right there, almost directly in front of me, crouched but still visible behind a bush—whoever that person was, they were wearing very bright colours—someone whispering to another person, or so I assume, but I could only see the one. They were walking to that other person about how they might have known that they—the speaker—had been the one who’d done whatever it was they were talking about, but that there just was no proof of anything so they couldn’t just keep on accusing them for no reason.

It was such a strangely surreal situation. There I was, doing my own thing and almost within arm’s reach, there was this stranger whispering to someone I couldn’t see. I guess I could have tried focusing. Dad tells me that it’s the easiest way to ease out of the sight. Maybe with some focus towards the sight, I could have seen more but I didn’t want to.

I made myself ignore that whispering stranger from the other world and that was that. I finished my weeding and when I got up, either they had moved from that spot, or the sight had released its hold for now.

I don’t want to be part of the lives of other people this way, not really. I hope it doesn’t happen too often.