Spoopy Ghost - Mini Narrative
Steve had barely noticed the fourth morning, when he woke up and started his day as he usually did, only to nearly trip over a chair that was stuck in front of the front door of his apartment.
Steve sighed, fairly sure that Baymax had helped get him at least a short respite from his theatrical duties. All it had taken was to coax some scientific words about the health consequences of stress and Steve's manager had buckled and let him go home. It would have been embarrassing if Steve wasn't so pleased to get the outcome.
Back in the present, he considered the chair. Had he been paranoid enough to move it there as an extra barricade?
He spent the morning at home, baking and reading up on his 'life' here in the city, though the backstory seemed pretty stale. He tried to ignore other things out of place, or moving slightly out of the corner of his eye. He also worked on ignoring the subtle, strange shift in energy towards the door.
The fifth morning Steve was up early again, and his eyes glinted as he caught a surprising and familiar whisp-like entity, glimmering as the humanoid form quickly disappeared next to the once-more moved chair.
Steve blinked. He'd seen a similar sight a few times before, in the early hours of the morning when Derleth was in tact, and quiet. An hour later, as he was waiting for his dough to rise and reading a generic paper from the day before, he saw the same glimpse as before, and his decorative umbrella stand slide a few inches in front of the door.
This time he let out a heavy sigh, lowering both the paper and his coffee cup, and studied the stand for a moment before he glanced to where he'd last seen the apparition.
"If you're mad about the manager bursting in here, I already hit the deadbolt and changed the apartment locks, yesterday," he said clearly and loudly, then glanced around for a moment. Not really knowing what he was expecting anyway, he sighed. "If you're mad I'm in here, too, don't worry. I have things to do today, and I'll lock up behind me. Just... try not to trash the place while I'm gone, okay? I can still stub toes if you keep shifting furtniture."
Perhaps he was imagining it, but the energy in the room seemed to shift again, calming somewhat. He sighed in relief and pulled out his phone.
"I'm just making arrangements for myself to get out of here for the day, alright? Then you can have the place to yourself," he grumbled, but almost good naturedly. It was odd, to think something he'd encountered in Derleth was almost calming when he was in yet another completely new place.