all the books i've never read [open]

[storywalks]

if you were a ghost, this would be easier
but a lot more sad

- - -

It's the first day you get to celebrate your new home. Your boxes still need unpacking, and likely will for days (if not weeks...), but the bed you'll call yours for years to come is made and ready to cushion your aches. The anxiety of sleeping in an unfamiliar place is at least soothed by the knowledge that you got a good deal on it... In such a cozy little area, neither too city nor wildnerness, how had a cute home like this been sitting on the market so long at a price like that?

It's cold and dark, and you needed a place -- any place -- to squat at least for the night. Maybe getting actual sleep is wishful thinking, with your circumstances, but there's shelter and the illusion of home in these walls. You think they were supposed to be doing some renovations here, and stray projects or tools seem to confirm that. The morning might be a hasty one if you have to book it out of there before the construction crew arrives and gets to work. Come to think of it... You haven't seen them outside here in nearly a week now.

The stories are bullshit, probably, because almost all of them are -- someone (maybe you, even) looking to get upvotes on Reddit or likes on a YouTube video. Still, it would be nice to believe that there was a reason beyond imagination that families and realtors fled from this spot tucked away in the small, shitty town you never would have heard of if you didn't pick up spooky rumors semi-professionally or have the misfortune of growing up here. The home certainly looks disappointingly normal on the outside... Will the inside be more promising?

Home, these days, is a concept more outgrown than the weeds taking over what was once probably a garden. It takes some careful poking around -- literally, thanks to a broken rake -- to ensure the grass isn't hiding anything that wants to latch onto your ankles and bring you down to it. That's where Hell is, with the only living being done by the bugs and starving beasts doing what they can in a world run by walking corpses. Hell is so much more likely to find than a home. Luckily, what you're looking for is nothing but an empty house with maybe supplies as forgotten as the lawn is.

It's hard work, but somebody's got to do it, and you're someone who can. That's a pretty niche skillset. It doesn't always make for the best income -- one could say that's the actual hard part. Today's your lucky day! You've been welcomed into this home by someone made to feel distinctly unwelcome. Armed with nothing but your senses, words, and beliefs, or even with something more, can you say you're ready to face the presence clinging to this place like an ugly leech? No time like now to find out.

You've just grown to live with it over time. With her. Now both of you call it home.

Comments

[honestgirl]

[...It isn't the first time Ryder's been told to go away, exactly, but she finds herself momentarily stumped all the same. How is she supposed to answer that? Like, "No, ma'am, it is you that must go away." Fuck that. She didn't become a ghost to have a reasonable argument. God, does it make her feel like a petulant child, though. Here she goes, seeking an audience for her tantrum. Weh weh, give her attention.

With a huff at herself that sounds like a faint, passing breeze outside, Ryder drifts through once she's sure the coast is clear. Of course this random chick has derailed another plan of hers.]

Leave the hammer, are you fucking shitting me?!

[A crack in the wall thickens and groans, pulling back from her fury as much as a building can. She's quick to press her palms to the wall and whisper an apology, sinking a little into it as she isn't met with the resistance she somehow still expects. Sorry, home. She's supposed to protect you.

There's no one outside to offer a welcome or casserole to Chika when she arrives, which is probably for the best. That hypothetical person has dodged both Chika's wrath and the ghost's. Unfortunately, there's very little that Ryder can do from the entranceway to force anyone out, especially these days. Too many people trying to make too many changes. Since she can't throw a bookshelf on top of her -- if only. She would have had to be in Ryder's old room for that -- she opts instead to open and slam the front door once it's been cleared. A creak runs through the floor that might have sounded pleading if it wasn't fueled by Ryder's energy.]

Get...out...