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("Have you heard about ghost from fourth floor?"
"Fourth floor where?"
"Here, in Sweet Amoris. It started few years ago...")
Maybe it's because her mother was a living corpse for few years? Or maybe Nina was born twisted? Nothing ever attracts her more than death. She loves stories about ghosts or terrible tragedies in their neighbourhood, and long walks on cemetary. She even reads a obituaries like some dark haikus.
And during her lonely walks she looks at the oval, convex photos on gravestones, with piercing feeling that all those dead people are mych closer to her than anyone alive.
("One student commited suicide. Here, at school. Few days before graduation."
"How did he died?"
"I heard that he jumped of the roof at midnight."
"But why?"
"Nobody knew why.")
Lysander once stolen her heart just because of his elusive mortal aura, pale skin and quiet voice, with everything that made him so similar to a specter. Childhood crush faded away like a scent of withered flowers, turned into dust long time ago, but friendship remains. They even promised to each other that the one who died first would give some sign to a those who's left behind.
"Lysander, have you heard that our high school is haunted?"
"Ah yes, of course" Lysander's silent laughter sounds like a whisper of autumn leaves. "The ghost of the teacher, who fell from the stairs and broke his neck? One classmate even mistook me with him, when we bumped on each other at night."
"Whaaat? I've never heard about the teacher! When did he died?"
"Never. Castiel made that story."
"Oh" A little pang of disappointment. "Well, anyway, do you know a story about ghost from fourth floor?"
("Every night you cna hear his steps on a stair, from the first floor to the very top... I've heard that some people even seen him, standing on the edge of the roof."
"Well, I've heard that somebody met him at the corridor."
"I was at school after 10PM once. Half of the lights don't work in the forth floor."
"Probably went off when he was walking by. Every night he's looking for lost suicide note...")
Lysander listens with unreadable expression. His heterochromic eyes are looking at the window or maybe at the distant past?
"No" he spokes quietly. "I didn't know that story. It must had been created after my graduation."
("He can't rest until he finds it..."
"A pity that we don't know his locker's number, right?"
"We know. One hundred twenty seven.")
Locker number one hundred twenty seven belongs to Nina. She didn't find anything special inside, but has some respect. Even now, when she wanders through the dark corridors with racing heart, Nina stops for a moment, blindly unlocks it and reaches into cold shadow, as if she can reach through the time. Nothing in here.
Moonlight squares lie on the floor in regular intervals, Nina's shadow stretches and shortens, spins around her like clock hand. Girl keeps pausing for a moment, listening. Silence. Building is asleep. But... but Nina still has that weird feeling that someone's gaze follows her throught the dark corridors.
("But it will never happen. He'll never escape."
"God, being stuck in the school for eternity!? I would kill myself again!")
Does she really hear only her footsteps on stairs? It's just a night acoustics or echo's of someone else walking to the fourth floor?
Silence. Darkness. Line of closed doors looks ominous and odious, lockers are like impassable wall. Walls emanate cold unusual for this season.
Nina finds the stairs to the roof. There's no windows in this corridor, darkness is impenetrable. She has to turn on the light. Light bulb flickers shakily. Glint. Glint. Dark. Maybe it's better. Empty, scratched walls look dead as never, Nina feels like she's walking not up on the roof, but down to the morgue.
Cold wind runs down the stairs, lifts her blonde flocks, playing with her red ribbon.
Andthen Nina hears footsteps. Closer and closer. Second floor. Third. One step after another.
Would that dead boy even see her? Maybe for him it's still that night he ended his life? What should she say to him, if he notcies her? Would she ever notice him? How would it feel?
Pale silhouette on the stairs seemed to be fluorescent...
"Nina? Are you here?"
"Lysander!?"
Lysander, alive and warm, comes closer, with solemn expression puts a hand on her arm.
"I expected you will come here. It's very unwise, you know."
"How did YOU get in there?!"
"I still have a key."
Lysander backs off, as if shadow on stairs may bite him. He trembles. Actually, they both tremble.
"Let's get out of here."
"Don't you want to go on the roof with me? It's almost midnight, maybe we could see him..."
"I don't think so."
"Since when you are so sceptic?" Nina protest ruelly. "You don't even want to check!"
Lysander sighes.
"If that story is about a person who I think about... It's a lie, Nina. Whe Kentin died, it was still bright outside."
"Kentin? How do you know his name? Did you know him?"
But whitehaired man with cemetary lilies blooming in his name just shakes his head and gently pulls her to the entrance. His gaze, away as always, seems to pierce the darkness.
"Come on. Just leave him alone."