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Susie leaned back in her chair, feet idly kicking the empty desk in front of her. The only empty seat in the entire class, right in the center. Perfect for swinging her feet into, and perfect for annoying everyone around her.
Really, Susie had only been in this class for about a week and a half, and already, she could tell she hated it just as much as all the other places. Boring small town. Shitty apartment. Classes she didn't care about, but was forced to go to anyway. The same run-around as every other time, and soon enough, she'd be leaving again, too. No reason to make a good impression, when her impression was going to be gone in the matter of a few more weeks.
Her foot knocked against the chair again. The whole class seemed to wince. In front of her, the girl in the front left desk glanced back, chewing on her bottom lip.
Noelle. The one name in class she'd bothered to remember. The taste of wood pencil— decidedly not candy cane— filtered into her mouth like a phantom. Silently, she stilled her leg, looking out into the window. From the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw Noelle smile at her.
This place was weird. Noelle was weird. Her leg tapped against her own desk, instead.
"A- alright, everyone!" Ms. Whatever clapped at the front of the classroom. Susie honestly, genuinely couldn't care less about learning her name. "Time to start class. We're learning about, um, the- the basic organelles of a eukaryotic cell today, s- so everyone should pay attention. This will be on the test."
Susie could see some of the members of the class slump into their seats at that. She didn't, because she was already slumped to the max, and that meant she won by default. That was how it worked.
The teacher reached for the ledge at the bottom of the chalkboard, then paused. She looked around, stubby little body twisting looking for something that wasn't there. Subconsciously, Susie licked at the bits of chalk between her teeth.
Honestly, she really didn't feel any guilt for swiping it earlier. She'd been hungry, and it had been nice to crunch down on. Plus, now it meant the lesson was delayed. So it was a win-win, in her eyes. A little less hunger, and a little longer to spend doing fuck-all waiting for the teacher to figure out where her chalk went. Maybe she should do this more often, if it meant seeing the teacher squirm some more.
The teacher fretted for a moment more, then looked up, visibly sweating. "U- uhm. H- has anyone seen the chalk? I can't, um, make a diagram without it, s- so…"
Nobody answered. After a moment, the teacher looked around again.
"It's gotta be here s- somewhere, right? But I don't- I- o- oh, goodness…"
"There's some more in the supply closet, right, Ms. Alphys?" Noelle piped up, clasping her hands together.
"G- good thinking!" The teacher snapped, then pointed at the person in the front center seat. "Berdly, can you go- go grab some?"
All at once, the feathers of the student who had been called on ruffled, and he shook his head furiously. "Absolutely not! I'm not going back into that— that meat grinder again! I utterly refuse! It goes against my principles!"
"…Meat grinder?" somebody muttered from nearby, sounding confused. The bird twisted in his chair and lifted a finger.
"To put it in the terms of a neanderthal, I prefer not being brutally assaulted when I'm trying to get basic classroom supplies. I've endured my fair share of spawn-camping— someone else can do it this time," he huffed out, crossing his arms.
"Er… Could… someone else do it, then?" The teacher asked.
The entire class shifted, clearly unwilling. Noelle frowned in her seat, meekly lifting a hand after a moment. Beside her, bird boy placed his wing onto her arm and put it back on the desk, effectively un-volunteering her. She didn't try again. At the front of the class, the teacher looked around, more desperate by the second.
"A- anyone?"
Susie looked around at the seven other students. The one to her right had shifty eyes, and the one in front of him was very clearly looking anywhere but the front. To her left, the snake boy had taken off his hat, and the cat girl in front of him had gotten off her phone, looking with narrowed yellow eyes up to the teacher, as if daring her to call on her. The one up in the very front right didn't look very aware of what was going on, but she never really did, so that wasn't much of a surprise.
She didn't realize that she was growling until all eyes were on her— her least favorite place for all eyes to be. That meant she had to explain herself, and try to act tough. It wasn't like she could back down now.
"All of you are babies," she scoffed, slamming her foot into the desk in front of her again. "Seriously, it's a damn closet! Someone just go already."
And now there was a choice. Were they more scared of that closet, or were they more scared of Susie? If it wasn't the latter, she'd make it the latter, whether they liked it or not.
"You go, then!" the yellow monster to her right-front complained.
She bore her teeth, and they yelped and shut up. But if it was a dare, it wasn't like she was gonna back down now. Besides, she could probably skip class with this excuse. That'd be nice.
Wordlessly, she stood, letting her chair screech back, grabbed her backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. She marched to the front of class, opened the door, and slammed it behind her.
From there, it was left, then forward. The closet was dead-center, looking just as unassuming as any other closet door. And just like any other closet door, she grabbed the handle and yanked it open. Like any other closet, it was relatively dark. It was easy enough to find the switch next to the door and flip it up. The light buzzed on, bathing the room in the sickly yellow light of an old-ass electrical system. The door closed behind her.
Normal closet. Well, except for the fact that everything was a mess. It was dusty, but more than that, everything was strewn all about. Knickknacks of every shape and size all over the floor, boxes of files toppled, crayons in different stages of use scattered all around like they were made to be tripping hazards. It looked like a tornado had thrown a tantrum in here, and nobody had bothered to clean it up. Had one of the kids from the baby classroom done this? Then again, most of the shelves were too high to reach.
Oh, well. Not her problem. She was just here for chalk, right? It had to be around here somewhere—
All of a sudden, like a lightning strike, pain bloomed in her head. She swore, grabbing at the top of her head where something had hit her, and looked around.
No one around, but at her feet, a pack of playing cards spilled onto the ground. Belatedly, she realized it had been chucked right at the crown of her head. Not fell from the high shelves, but was thrown at her from the top shelf. She looked around again for some rowdy kid who climbed onto the high shelves, but again, there was nothing.
Nothing, except for an old, dusty computer mouse hitting the back of her head from the opposite direction at the first one. She cursed again and whirled.
"Asshole!" she yelled at no one, rubbing the back of her head.
Then the lights went out. Plunged into darkness, she grumbled another bout of language that was not appropriate for children, hoping whatever little turd was messing with her heard all of it. Her hand hit the switch, turning it back on.
Just in time to barely dodge a book hurtling towards her.
"Fucking Angel," she hissed out, ears still ringing from the sound of the the book had hitting the door. It was face-down now, pages splayed open and crumpled. Lord of the Hammer, the spine said. It would've probably been enough to concuss her if it had hit her head. From the angle, it probably wouldn't have, but seriously, what the hell?
She shook her head, focusing in on any hint of movement. A mostly-empty crayon box thunked at her feet, carrying only the color green inside. She narrowed her eyes and kicked the box.
It didn't go very far. That pissed her off more.
From the corner, a slight movement. Like something that had been there the whole time. But she would have noticed if she'd seen a person, pale as they were. A human, ghostly blue, with wild hair that seemed to float around them, giggling silently into their hand like they'd just played the funniest trick in the world.
Feeling her cheeks go violet, she pointed at them in accusation, baring her teeth. "You! Hey, dickwad, I can see you laughing! Wanna tell me what's so funny?"
They froze, looking up at her, blinking, like they hadn't expected her to catch onto their shitty prank. They pointed at themself, mouth moving.
Not a sound came out. It felt like her ears were ringing, the noise of waves lapping at some unseen shore crowding her mind. Like she was underwater, everything too muffled to quite make out. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation, one that made the air feel a bit colder around her.
"What?" She felt dumb asking, but the wind was out of her sails now. "The- the hell are you saying?"
She could hear herself loud and clear, even when the muffled noise came from their end. Like a garbled phone call. Like trying to listen through earplugs. And yet, she could hear her own voice.
They were talking, gesturing with their hands, and she couldn't hear a word.
The ghost— because clearly and obviously, this had to be a ghost— seemed to realize their attempts to speak weren't working, and closed their mouth. They looked aimlessly around, then grabbed something on one of the shelves, floating up slightly to reach it. Just when it looked like their hands would go through, they managed to grasp the box they were looking for. They held it with both hands, concentration on their face, then let it go and dropped it onto the floor. Something inside broke. They didn't look too bothered. They grabbed another thing next to it, also dropping it down onto the floor.
Seeming satisfied, they floated back down, reaching to grab at the second thing. She only recognized it as a mini-chalkboard when it was thrown at her face. She dodged, suppressing a yelp, and glared back at them, snapping, "can you stop that?"
The ghost looked thoroughly unimpressed, even if it was a little hard to see their eyes with their bangs over their face. It made her want to yell at them. Instead, she looked down at the chalkboard.
It was one of those ones made for kids learning how to write. Small as hell, covered in chalk dust. Susie looked up at the ghost, who was grabbing what she recognized as a piece of chalk from the broken remnants of a full package. They carried it carefully, one hand underneath the tiny piece, as if to stop it if it fell.
When they got close, they knelt, pressed the chalk onto the chalkboard, and wrote out a word.
TALK.
Susie raised a brow at them. "Seriously? Are you seriously trying to strike up a conversation? You know you almost gave me a concussion just now. Dickhead."
Again, they rolled their eyes, but wrote down under the first word, SORRY. And then, they looked directly at her, and underlined TALK again.
"Wh-" Susie sputtered. "What do you even want me to say? You attacked me!"
Angel, no wonder bird boy had been talking about being assaulted. Was it just an open secret that the closet was haunted by a weird, sadistic ghost?
They underlined SORRY this time, then wrote out, painstakingly slow, WAS NOT ATTACK.
She stared at them for a long, long moment, and they stared back. After a moment, they frowned, underlined SORRY a second time, and moved to write something else. The stub of chalk fell out of their hand, and they reached out to grab it, fingers passing through.
They looked frustrated.
She gave a long sigh, reached down, and grabbed the piece of chalk, popping it into her mouth. They blinked once, twice, then burst out laughing. It sounded like waves on a beach.
"H- hey! Quit laughing! Look, I'll— I'll grab another piece, okay?"
She wasn't sure why she was doing this. It felt stupid. She should have just left. And yet, she found herself digging out a couple more pieces. One to eat, one to hand over to the ghost. They held their hand out, and she dropped it down. For a moment, it stood solidly on their hand, before passing through and falling on the ground. They sighed soundlessly and picked up the smaller of the two pieces it had broken into, placing it on the chalkboard.
Across from them, she sat down.
"Alright. Whatever. I don't want to go back to class anyway. So let's talk."
Across from her, they nodded, smiling. Their shoulder-length hair swirled around them, moving strangely with their head. Lingering just a moment after their movements.
A moment later, she remembered they could not, in fact, talk, and she'd have to lead the conversation. She hated leading the conversation. If going back to class didn't mean talking about you-care-whatever cells, she'd leave them behind here and now. Not like she owed them anything. Not like she had any reason to be here in the first place.
"So, what the hell? You just throw things at whoever you see? You've done it to others too, by the sounds of it." They nodded shamelessly at her words, and she had to admit that sounded kind of cool. She wanted to throw things at people, too. Well, that answered her question of why. "Do other people know you're here?"
They twisted their hand in a so-so motion, shrugging. She had no idea what the hell that meant. Probably too big of an explanation for the board, too. Damn. Maybe she'd have to ask Noelle about it.
"And you're, like, a ghost? Right?"
They raised their eyebrows at her, unimpressed, and she flushed.
"Look, I'm just making sure, dumbass!" she snapped back at them. They laughed, not the slightest bit put off.
In reality, she'd never seen a ghost. It was one of those things that was so rare it was more or less legend, but she'd been interested enough in spooky shit over the years to look it up. She barely remembered the criteria anymore. Something about missing persons or public unrest leaving traces in the consciousness of people or something. She didn't remember too much. There were a lot of boring studies.
She wasn't really aware that it was possible to see one. Then again, she was pretty sure she remembered something about ghosts being unique and stuff. No two were really the same. Which made it even harder to figure them out, because none of them had the decency to stay the same.
Some science nerd would probably love to be right here. Too bad they weren't, and Susie was here instead. Suck it, science nerds.
"So you're like, dead and stuff, right? Uh, how's that like?" she asked, feeling stupider with every word out of her mouth.
They shrugged, then wrote down underneath their previous words, BORING.
"Huh. That's why you throw shit at people, then?"
The ghost nodded, looking extremely self-satisfied.
She knew that look. They were absolutely going to throw more stuff. Probably best to head this off if she was ever going to come in here again.
"Dude, you better not do that shit around me. I don't want to get knocked out the next time I come in here."
The ghost nodded their head and wrote down, NEXT TIME?
"I mean, er— nobody really wants to come in here. Probably 'cause you throw stuff at them. So, uh, I'll probably get told to come back here later. 'Sides, it'll be nice to get to brag to bird boy. He's annoying. You should break his bird bones."
They laughed uproariously, waves crashing into the shore, and said something. She stared at them, and their smile dropped after a moment, seeming to realize that whatever they'd said went unheard. They picked up the chalk again. It fell through their fingers.
"You, uh…?" she trailed off, not quite sure what to say.
They smiled at her and nodded, working again to pick up the chalk. Where they'd find the space to write more, she wasn't sure, but it seemed they didn't need much space at all. They underlined, NEXT TIME, looking at her with eyes that glinted faintly red.
She glanced down to the board, then up at them.
BORING caught her eye.
Before she could think better of it, she offered out, "I can, uh, visit you again soon, if you want?"
Immediately, she felt herself shrinking, feeling overwhelmingly stupid. Ugh, what the hell was she doing? Arranging to meet a dead person who almost killed her with a book after like, ten words? It didn't make any sense.
But… well, she was a little curious. And they seemed done for now. They looked tired, somehow. Fainter. They still sat across from her, smiling, but the chalk had fallen again. It seemed to be hard for them to keep a good grip on it. She wondered faintly how the hell they'd managed to knock so much shit down when they had the grip strength of a toddler.
Susie nodded, moving to stand, but they reached for the chalk again, and painstakingly wrote out, struggling to keep it in their hands, NAME?
"Oh. Uh… Susie. What's yours?"
They hesitated, then put a finger to their lips in a motion for quiet. They stared at her like that for a long moment, and she realized it was a request.
"You… want me to keep it a secret?"
They nodded, leaning forward, and crossed their fingers.
"Your name, or you?"
They pointed at the word, NAME.
What the hell, why not? This wasn't the weirdest part of all of this. They probably just wanted to seem cool. Why they were sharing it with her, she had no idea, but hell if she was gonna question it at this point. At least this ghost had taste, in terms of also throwing shit at people. She could get behind that.
"Sure. Hit me."
They leaned down, struggling again to keep ahold of the chalk. They seemed to get only halfway through a line, cramped into the corner, before it would drop and they would fumble to pick it back up. They flickered before her, like a lightbulb on its last legs, trying and trying and trying, until they stopped and looked at their previous messages.
With shaky hands, they pointed to the word TALK, underlined once, and drew their finger in a circle around K. Then, they moved down to the R in SORRY, making the same motion. The I in BORING next, followed by the S in WAS.
"…Kris?" she pieced together, looking up at them.
They smiled, flickered once more, and then they were gone from sight, leaving her alone in the storage closet with a chalkboard and a mess.