Diary of Two Ghosts Ch 4: Time After Time

It's been a year since my last post. Time flies when you're dead. I often think about the people who commit suicide thinking that it's an exit door.

It's becoming a little ironic that I'm stuck haunting a hospital. My life was like being in a hospital waiting room, waiting for the moment when you name gets called.

I guess technically I didn't wait for my name to be called. I had my Dad help me end my life so I could barge through the door to the great beyond. Turns out that's a smaller more confined waiting room. Let's just say, I've had a lot of time to think.

Isy has been spending more time with JP. Her psychic medium, paramedic BFF is helping her deal with her "guilt and depression."

Guilt?- she refuses to elaborate on that. As far as I know she died in labor, because a teenager giving birth can sometimes end tragically. Was she a drug addict? Did she try to get rid of the baby?

I wish she would tell me. I mean, she has JP to confide in, but she's still my best friend.

The hospital is letting me see less and less of the outside world. I feel like I'm in Silent Hill.

Today something finally happened, he's here. Isy's son Sean is in the hospital and it's really bad- specifically it's driven off the highway headfirst into a semi truck bad. But somehow he was still alive, kinda.

I watched as his disembodied soul walked around the emergency room. He wore the same hospital gown I saw him in last. As someone who was stuck haunting a hospital wearing the gown I died in, I felt a little bad for the kid.

Would he be as stuck as I was? "Sean?"

He looked around like someone in a crowded hallway. He heard me but for whatever reason, he couldn't see me.

I figured, I just needed to get closer.

So I followed him around. the first person he found was Sara. This was how I learned that JP had been part of the team that pulled Sean's body from the wreckage.

"Are you Sara?" the emo paramedic asked. "Sean told me to give his cell phone to his sister Sara- the blonde girl who looks like she's 12."

Sara smiled sweetly. "I'm 17. Sean and I are the same age. My parents adopted him." she said the last part with a giggle. Did she have a crush on JP?

And just how much time had passed?!

JP lowered his eyes, blushing. “I’m sorry, miss.”

“It’s a running joke between us. When Sean and I were fourteen, we went to a restaurant and I was given the menu for kids aged twelve and younger. I was so pissed, but he couldn’t stop laughing.”

JP licked his lips. His eyes sparkled with a shy innocence. “There can be some perks to eternal youth, especially for a beautiful girl like you.”

WTF? Sara did not look 12. She was on the small side with big eyes and round cheeks, but in no universe did she look 12. Or did JP have a thing for preteen girls?

Sean's ghost walked around the couple. I watched him chuckle. He appeared to find JP amusing.

"Bring him to us..." a voice said. It wasn't a voice I had ever heard before, it sounded old, ancient. I remembered what JP said about the hundreds of ghosts in the hospital.

Did the ghosts want to keep Sean? No. I wouldn't let that happen. Sean needed to get back to his body. I know I was being a hypocrite- I committed suicide, but I knew what lay beyond. Even if he would be even more disabled then the cystic fibrosis already left him, even if he would suffer for the rest of his life, Sean needed to get back to his body.

And back to my sister. What happened to my sister?

I blinked my eyes and all three of them were gone. "Sean?" The emergency room was deserted and decaying. It was as if I'd traveled hundreds of years into the future.

"Bring.... him... to... me....."

"No!" I shouted into the darkness. I ran upstairs to the ICU. That was my place, my domain.

But when I reached the floor, the hallway looked like it had been burned in a fire. Had I crossed into Hell? I'd never believed in hell, I tried to assume that God loved all of us. But no, Hell was the only explanation. I would never see my family again. Or Isy; I would never get to make things right with my best friend.

Then I noticed a faint light coming from one of the rooms. I heard footsteps, like someone was walking beside me. We both stopped at the door, to the sound of Sara's innocent tears.

“...You need to come back to us,” she said while holding her brother's mangled body.

Sean looked dead. His face was a mass of bandages and blood with only his mouth exposed. A breathing tube was down his throat allowing air into his lungs.

But where ever Sara touched his body he began to heal. His hands were free of blood and as she walked her fingers down his broken chest the bruising began to disappear before my eyes.

"Sara?" I reached out to touch her shoulder.

The room lit up in a glow of heavenly light. For a moment I saw my sister standing before me in a hospital gown. She moved her arms as if holding a baby, and then like magic one appeared. A little girl with Jen's tan skin and dark hair, but Sean's blue eyes.

"You fell in love?" I asked, unsure of the image could even answer me.

"I fell in love with him, because he reminded me of you."

I never felt the need to cry before. Not when I died, not when my father brought my sister's unconscious body into the emergency room, not even when I thought I was in Hell. Perhaps it was all those events, culminating in the pure innocent beauty of the baby's eyes that caused me to finally break down.

I covered my face with my hands just as JP entered the room. He walked through my sister's image, causing her and the baby to vanish. "Sara?" He used his fingertip to wipe tears from her cheek.

“I can’t leave him.”

“I’m not asking you to leave him.” JP's voice was grating on my last nerve, but at least his compassion seemed genuine. “I’ll tell you what—during my work week, I’ll meet you here every night at ten. On my days off, I’ll meet you here whenever your school lets out. I’ll be by your side for as long as you need me.”

Sara took notice of JP's wrist tattoo- the emo-hipster had the word mystical on his wrist. "Gypsy trash Douche-bag," I muttered as I left the room.

In the hallway was back to normal, so I started to walk out of the ward. As I reached the exit I felt a rush of cold, something more painful than death.

This was followed by a limping sound. Then a cough.

"Dad?" I knew it my gut it was him but his energy was so dark I couldn't see him.

I needed Sara's help. I went back into the room to see JP giving Sara a lesson in meditation. "Open your mind, let the spirits come to you."

Are you serious? Well, I was about to prove JP right. I shouted as loud as I could, "Go!"

Both Sara and JP froze. "I-I have to go." Sara made a quick excuse, and a promise to meet with him later, then left the room.

I watched as she ran down the hall, turning the corner. “Diego!" Sara said happily. "I haven’t heard from you in weeks! Did you get my email? I got accepted to Texas A&M.”

“I’ve been out of the state, traveling for work.” He appeared visibly shaken, but managed a smile for her. “Congratulations, of course. I’m very proud of you.”

“Diego, what’s wrong?”

Through their conversation I learned just why Sean's sister and my father were on a first name basis. They had kept in touch, with him mentoring her towards her aspirations in science.

I almost forgot my dad had an advanced degree, it's probably sitting in a box in the attic along with his dignity, masculinity, and what remained of his soul.

They talked for a while about what had been going on. My father had been forced to send my sister away, for her own protection. My mother was psychotically angry at the world, so he needed to be a good man, and a good husband and try to make things right.

Sean appeared next to me. "Is it a little twisted that part of me hopes my sister can save him?"

I turned to see JP leaving down the stairs. He glanced in Sara's direction but seemed apprehensive about approaching.

I looked at Sean. I couldn't tell if he could actually see me or if he was talking to himself. "Hope is a beautiful thing. But I believe Sara would be better off falling in love with someone closer to her own age. Anyway, she’s not your concern, right now.”

I grabbed his arm, suddenly a portal opened behind us.

"Yes... bring.... him... to... us...."

I had no idea what to do. “You have to go—you have to fight! Sean, you have to make it back to your body!”

The gravity of the wormhole was too strong and suddenly we were both pulled into the darkness.