The past few years—or really, all his life, but the past few years more noticeably—he'd been called "that ghost kid" or "the weird kid with the cats and the super weird hobbies." It had gotten to the point where he didn't even bat an eyelash anymore. So, on that same note, he was so used to being watched that it didn't even matter anymore when he got that strange feeling of eyes on him. It wasn't foreign, it wasn't even uncomfortable. Just another thing that he had to adapt to in his life. And what were people if not adaptation specialists, right? Especially people like David. Especially now.
However, this particular being-watched feeling was different from the others. He didn't know what it was, but it was the same feeling he got when he felt like there was a Presence in the room with him. Five years ago, that sort of being-watched feeling wouldn't have alarmed him. But conditions weren't the same now as they were five years ago. David lifted his eyes from the copy of Unseen World that one of the immune guard ladies had gotten for him and looked around, but noticed nothing right away.
That was, until he saw, in his peripheral vision, a pale hand about a half a foot from his right arm, on the back of the bench he was sitting on. Usually, the only people who got close enough to David to do something like that were the few immune guards that didn't think he was too weird to talk to or the people who wanted to ask "whatcha readin'" in order to mock him. He half-expected this to be the latter.
It wasn't.
He turned his head, looking up from the hand to the arm to the body and his heart caught in his throat. Was that…?
It looked like his brother. Except paler. And tired. No one else seemed to notice him or what was going on, so for all David knew… "E-Elliot?" he started, blinking in amazement and then swallowing down a lump in his throat. "A-are you d—… is th—are you a ghost?"