Diary of a Ghost

October 16, 1982

Jenny woke up to find that Sophie wasn't in bed. She was confused, but not surprised. After showing her that arcade game downstairs, Sophie hadn't come back to their room, not once.

She got her coat and left the apartment, going to the lobby of the Entfernt hotel. Sophie was in the rec room, where the arcade game was. BunnyFarm. The screen was off, but Sophie was still standing there, staring at the inky black glass.

"Soph...?" Jenny approached her cautiously. As she got closer, she could see that her girlfriend was crying. When she got close enough, Jenny gently put one hand on Sophie's shoulder.

"What happened Sophie?"

"The game..." Sophie looked at Jenny. Her eyes were red and puffy, "The game... It said- It said my name. My family was there..." Another sob wracked her body, and Jenny pulled her into a hug, "Mom..."

Jenny guided Sophie to a nearby chair, sitting down and trying to comfort her as Sophie told her everything, about her parents, her brother and sister, about Felix.

She remembered meeting Felix once, when she and Sophie first started dating. He was nice, maybe a bit odd, but Sophie was too, so Jenny just ignored it. But... he'd killed them, it sounded like, from Sophie's description of the end of the game. And it seemed like her parents were dead too, but also not dead? It was confusing, and Sophie was too distraught to really be able to explain it. So Jenny just nodded along, drying her girlfriend's tears as she explained everything that had happened.

"Can you..." Jenny took a deep breath as Sophie finished explaining everything, "Can you remember anything else about your family?"

"No."

Jenny nodded and looked at Sophie's face, "Do you want to?"

Sophie sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She nodded, "Yeah."

Jenny hesitated. She didn't really know where to go from there. So she just said the next thing that came to mind.

"Okay. Okay. God, uh... alright." Sophie looked a little unsure all of a sudden, so Jenny kissed her forehead and hugged her closer, "It's alright. We'll figure it out, okay Soph? We're going to pull through, alright? I'm going to help you."

Jenny kissed Sophie's forehead again, and they both smiled at each other.

"Thank you, Jenny," Sophie hesitated a bit, "I love you."

"I love you too."

--

Finding out about Sophie's family was easier said than done, especially with her faulty memory. Sure, there were articles about people with the name Walten, but Sophie couldn't remember her parents' first names, which made it so much harder.

That was, until they found the missing posters.

Jenny had decided to go look at the microfiches at the library near the hotel with Sophie, because they'd likely have better luck there. As they sorted through everything in the "W" section, Jenny came upon two pictures, attached to each other.

"Rosemary P. Walten, Age 40, 5 feet, 8 inches tall..." Jenny hummed to herself as she read the rest of the text to Sophie, who was sitting next to her, "Born April 20th, 1934... It's got her description, then it says she was last seen July 19th, 1974. It looks like there was a phone number, but it got cut off at some point."

"That date sounds familiar. Let me see," Sophie leaned over to look at the microfiche, and she gasped.

"I... Jenny, that's her. That's..." Her eyes brimmed with tears again, "That's my mom."