Ghost Like Swayze

    As you can see dying is a common occurrence in my dreams, but I don't usually get much farther than that.  But recently, for the first time in my dreaming history that I can remember, I dreamed that I died and became a ghost.


    I was in high school again and it was a snow day; myself and a few others had gone to a friend's house, her name was Kelley.  She lived out in the country, real middle of nowhere place, surrounded by woods for miles.  Their driveway was a dirt one and very long and narrow; when it reached the clearing the house was in the driveway split and became an oval.  We decided to go hiking and build a snow fort somewhere in the woods like any normal teenager would do; we went past the driveway and deep into the forest.  As we built an epic snow fort the snow continued to heavily fall and the day got later and later.

If you think about it this is a pretty plausible snow fort.
Which means the White Witch did a really, really bad job.

At around twilight we realized how late it was getting and decided to head back, but our tracks were gone and ,soon, so was the sun.  You'd think it would be easy to find out the way back but if Mythbusters taught us anything it was that lost people tend to go in circles and that explosions are always necessary (but was that ever a myth?).  So we got lost.  It would've been better to stay in our fort but we didn't know we were going to get lost.  As the temperature plummeted what seemed like a blizzard arrived and the five of us started  dropping like flies.  We were tired and cold and hypothermia was setting in; it was too hard to not give up.

We definitely went the way of Casper.

And we died quite peacefully out in the woods where we turned out to be just a stone's throw away from the oval part of the driveway.
    The first few days of being dead was most like being asleep.  We were aware we were dead but we didn't know what was going on or where we were and we weren't really conscious of anything else.  We didn't become ghosts until our bodies were buried, and it was only me and Kelley who were left behind.  We materialized where we died and in the light of day saw the travesty of how close we were to the driveway.  We found out pretty quickly that our strongest emotion was melancholy, also that there was no leaving Kelley's parent's property.  When we tried it was as if there was an invisible wall around the perimeter.  We also discovered that there were entities in charge of ghosts, Voids (no relation or resemblance to Warcraft's Voidwalkers), as well as entities who helped ghosts even though they weren't supposed to do so.  You see, there were ghost rules and if you disobeyed those rules you would be punished.  Things of the dead world could hurt each other, in extreme cases the Voids would do bad things to your living friends and/or relatives, and in most extreme cases they would devour you, rendering you absolutely gone.  The Voids were humanoid and all black except for their completely white eyes and lamprey mouths.  They had large torsos and very skinny limbs that ended in jagged claws.

 
All these things combined.

Breaking the rules was absolutely no joke.  But we had to do it anyway.  Kelley's mom was taking her daughter's death too hard; she had quickly sunk into depression and was considering suicide, but nobody else in the family seemed to notice.  Kelley and I decided this was why we were still here, but since this was a time sensitive issue we needed to cheat in order to stop her mother from killing herself.

Ghost Rules:
1- Do not move anything in front of a living being.
2- No writing messages.
3- Do not cause physical harm to the living or their property.
4- Do not seek assistance to be able to speak directly to the living, success in such an action will result in termination.

So basically, even being dead wasn't fair.  This is why there are so many poltergeists.  What are you supposed to do if your reason for being a ghost dies or leaves before you can do anything?  You're stuck.  So many ghosts just get frustrated and flip out while many others do as much as they can to just commit ghost suicide.  How do you not get filled with rage and just take it out on anything you can?

Seriously?  This is our only means of communication? Screw this.

    What you may be asking is why doesn't a ghost just break rule number 4 is they're done with being a ghost.  Number 4 is more difficult than you think because you cannot simply contact the help you need, they contact you.  But we were desperate and the powers that be knew it.  They didn't have a name that we knew of and we never saw them, they were more like a feeling than anything.  These entities told us that they had hidden small pearls of life all over the house and we needed to collect all 25 in order for one of us to be alive for 25 seconds.  They were hidden so that the Voids wouldn't find out about it until it was too late for them to stop us.  We had to slip sleeping aid into Kelley's mom in order to get her to sleep at all and whenever everyone was asleep we would search the house frantically, quickly collecting the pearls and hiding them away until we gathered them all.
    The day came when we found the last one and all the living were still awake so right then was a perfect opportunity.  Kelley's mom was sitting outside alone, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, with a bottle of sleeping pills that she would consume soon.  I told Kelley she had to take the pearls now, but when I looked at her her face was scrunched up in fear.  She was afraid of the Voids, she didn't want to blink out of existence.  I couldn't believe her selfishness and I screamed at her for it.  She ran inside the house as her mother poured the pills into her hand.  I had to do it, I couldn't let this happen.  Maybe, like in the movies, because of my sacrifice I would be saved.  I consumed the pearls and I suddenly felt different.  Kelley's mom saw me and dropped the pills on the ground, letting out a small shriek.  I lied to her that Kelley was fine; I told her that Kelley could see her and was with her, that Kelley didn't want her to kill herself, that it would leave her daughter in everlasting pain if she did so.  I told her that Kelley just wanted her to be happy.
    Then my 25 seconds were over and I was a ghost again.  Kelley's mother ran inside and I followed her as she almost told her family what happened but decided against it and sat down with them.  Kelley and I stood in front of them and she asked me what I said.  I started to tell her but then she vanished.  I heard a noise down the hall and saw a Void turn the corner, it was coming for me.  Why wasn't anything ever like the movies?

And that's when I woke up.