Unseen

-26-

Their faces are so clear in my mind, and their names echo in my head. The same names I died with, repeating them over and over again, hoping what I did would get to them. Did they even see it? Did they care? Was it even worth it? I am a ghost now but they were less human than I am now, so I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't care about what happened and just laughed at my weakness.

I would expect that from those... monsters.

I died wanting them to pay for what they did. Wanting them to repent and be sorry. No wonder I'm stuck as a ghost now, that's clearly my unfinished business. If I died with that in mind and without completing that task or seeing the outcome, I'm still here to fulfil that. It's the only thing that makes sense in my head.

"Paige, Paige stop it! Paige!" someone screams, but the voice barely gets to me. I'm too consumed in my own rage and the faces that tormented me for so long.

One face... one girl.

She had been tormenting me for years. Back in secondary school and then when we met again in college. I thought... when I graduated from secondary school I thought I wouldn't meet any of them again. I regretted all my choices the moment I saw her again. She made friends immediately but I was alone, and she turned her friends into her new partners against me. She's the one that brought all this to me. Who never gave me a break.

"Paige, if you don't come back I'm gonna hug you!" the voice shouts again, trying to reach me, and my mind reacts to that threat.

No... I'm not scared of being touched, although I should be. Foreign hands only brought pain to me, I should be scared. But this voice doesn't affect me like that, on the contrary, I don't want to hurt the owner of that voice. And if he touches me... if he touches me, I'll be hurting him.

James!

I can't let James touch me.

I shake my head and try to get back to the present. I push to the back of my mind the faces that tormented me and I focus on the voice calling me.

"No," I breathe out. "Don't touch me."

"Oh thank goodness," he says. I can open my eyes now just to see him kneeling in front of me, his eyes charged with worry and sorrow. I look everywhere around but there's no one else. "You scared the living hell out of everyone. Richard fled like soul chased by the devil himself."

"I'm sorry..." I mumble, just thinking now how scary must've been for the poor technician. "I couldn't... think."

"I know. I'm just saying you shouldn't worry about someone seeing us now and even if someone did, I don't care what rumours they might come up with. There are enough already, one more won't make a difference," he says, and I notice the big effort he is doing to sound light and cheerful. Yet his eyes look nothing but happy, they look tormented and like he's enduring the biggest agony.

I want to comfort him and ignore everything I'm feeling... but then I realise he's feeling like that for me.

"I did it," I tell him. "I really did. I remember now and I... it was so gruesome, James. I really did that, just to get back at them. I didn't kill myself to escape the pain or anything, I didn't do it out of cowardice." I take a deep breath, holding his stare and doing my utmost best not to reach out to him and hold him, or on to him, I'm not sure. "I did it to bring pain to them. It was my revenge. I didn't think of anything else, consequences be damned, I just did it."

"Paige..." he murmurs my name. I can't read the meaning behind that, whether there's pity or understanding.

"And I don't even know if it worked," I laugh, losing it a bit once again. "I can't remember seeing them finding my body or anything. For all I know, someone might have found it first, someone who wasn't supposed to, and no one else because no one was allowed to see that."