“You aren’t supposed to be in here.” Dahlia muttered; irritated as the ghost image of a man with scars to his face and an ear missing stuck his head through her painting. “You all know to stay out of here.” She frowned; pulling the paintbrush away from the canvas as the ghost snarled and tried, again, to scare her into listening to him. His face was….funny shaped and not right but it wasn’t as gross as the corpse she’d killed last week. And he wasn’t as gross as some ghosts she’d seen. At least he had both his eyes. And his tongue wasn’t all puffy….
He doesn’t want to listen. Her twin remarked from across the room; Dahlia sighed faintly at the helpful nature of her twin. “I don’t care what he wants. I care what I want. And I want him to go away.” The ghost image moved from behind the painting to stand right in front of it; making Dahlia growl softly. “You know how to make him go away. So make him.” Dahlia cast a glare to her twin who seemed very uninterested in being of help today.
Sometimes Dahlia was certain that Dai was trying to make her snap. She didn’t understand why her twin would want that. They both knew what happened when Dahlia lost sense of herself. When she got mad. Or forgot to feed. She’d….done bad things. Things she told herself she didn’t remember. So she tried very hard to not be mad. To not be angry. She tried to remember to eat. Even if she didn’t like to.
…and she hadn’t remembered to in a while now.
Dahlia’s lips pulled back in a vague sneer as she stabbed through the ghost towards her painting; which resulted in a glob of the blue splattering across the corner. “Go….away….” she hissed; throwing the paintbrush to the ground as the vile man smiled sweetly at her. She didn’t like him. She didn’t know how he found her, or why he was there, but she didn’t like it at all.
One more time Dahlia tried; she didn’t like to be mean at all and she didn’t like to threaten but she was tired. Very tired. She didn’t want to hear this ghosts words; who started to blab some sort of vessel description at her. She wanted her own head and her own words and her own painting. She wanted quiet. That’s why she was in here in the first place. The city was loud this week. Loud with the new dead. Loud with the angry dead.
“Go. Away.” Dahlia’s voice was rarely stern, and rarely forceful. Tonight it held an edge that made the ghost pause; briefly. “I do not want to have to find your grave and make sure you can’t talk to me anymore.” She thought it mean to force a ghost to go before their time but there were…ways. A witch told her so once. She’d never done it but they said it could be done.
Apparently her threat was threat enough; because the man suddenly was no longer there.
Dahlia released a breath she didn’t need.
Then she took another.
By the time she took a third she felt better and turned to face her painting again.
Until another voice was in her head.
Come out, come out wherever you are.
Dahlia winced slightly; glaring over at where her twin had been but the exact image of herself was gone too. Which almost…never happened. Was she playing a game? No…that voice hadn’t been hers. Confusion lace Dahlia’s features as she looked around the empty room. There weren’t any ghosts. No one here had said it.
Dahlia frowned and slowly moved to leave the room; first opening the door and peering down the hall but no one was there either. She wasn’t sure why she thought the voice had come from down the hall but she did. Chewing her lip she took quiet steps down the hall and into another room; hesitating for a moment at the door before finally forcing herself to open it.