“AAAAAAH WHAT THE HECK?!! WHAT’S GOING ON?!” I scream, still floating in the room. 

I know the first step is to not panic, but WHAT?! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

“Cynthia, calm down first, it’ll be fine!” Adelia replies even with sweat streaming down her panic-stricken face.

“ARE YOU SEEING ME RIGHT?! IT’S CLEARLY NOT FINE!”

“Here, look, close your eyes, and take a deep breath!”

“WHY?!” I shout but I still do exactly what she tells me to. Well, I was gonna do that anyway!

“Deep breaths, deep breaths, okay?!”

“Stop yelling, it’s just making me panic more!”

“No, no, but look! Wait no, not yet, don’t look yet. Almost there…! There! You’re back on the ground, aren’t you?”

I opened one of my tightly shut eyes, realizing that she was right. I was back on the ground. OH MY GOD, I’M BACK ON THE GROUND!

I stand perfectly still, trembling. I feel like my knees might give out if I take a step. All I can do is stare at the carpet for a second with “What the hell.” repeating In my head over and over again before I snap out of my trance and rather forcefully manage a smile.

“Hey, you’re… right! It worked! God, I’m back on the ground!” I say with blatant relief spread across my face. As I continued my smile that was now fixed onto my face, my eyes well up with tears.

Adelia ran towards me in panic, “What? What’s wrong?! Did you get hurt?!”

“Nothing! It’s just a panic response, y’know?” I replied, fanning at my face first then giving up and wiping my tears away with my sleeve. I couldn’t wrap my head around this right now, and I was glad. If I did, I was sure I would probably have a mental breakdown or whatever. 

“What next, Adelia? What next?” I asked quickly, hoping she had an answer to ground me back to real life since half of my mind was currently laying in a thing called intense denial.

“Um, um. High five!” Adelia suddenly exclaimed with her hand in the air. I stared blankly at her hand for a second.

“... What?” Those words single-handedly snapped me back into reality with how ridiculous they were. All my fear disappeared in an instant. “Eh- pfft-”

“Look, I’m trying to calm you down here, so let’s do something simple first! Baby steps, right?”

We both pause for a moment again then burst out laughing at the weird suggestion. I give her a high five. Best not to leave her hanging.

“Phew, now that we’re calmer, sit down over here.” Grabbing my hand, she leads me towards the same chair I was sitting in earlier.

“Okay, okay, let's think about this logically…” She says, sitting on the table since she can’t bring over another chair. “BUT I DON’T HAVE ANY IDEAS! YOU’RE A SPIRIT NOW! WHAT DO WE DO?!”

“You’re the spirit! You tell me!” I shout, waving my arms. I glance at the books taking up most of the space on the table. “Well we can’t do anything about these books, I guess.”

“I feel bad for the librarian.”

“Same. Ugh… I’m not sure what else to do, so let's just go back home first and try to figure something out. There’s no point in staying here.”

We slip past the door as another person conveniently enters the library. I trail behind Adelia as we make our way home.

We notice some people walking along the same sidewalk in the opposite direction. I move slightly to the side to let them pass, but my shoulder goes through the person. 

I can’t help but stare at them, feeling a little numb. They walk away as if nothing happened, laughing with their friend. 

Right. I’m a spirit now. Other people can’t see me or touch me or know that I exist. The only actual ‘person’ I can touch is Adelia. 

Tears welled up again along with a seed of depressive thoughts ingrained in my brain, but I quickly calmed down with a few deep breaths. Think optimistically! Right next to you is the genius that helped you get nearly all A+ in high school! If we think of this together, I’ll eventually be able to return to my old self, right? She’s the best at thinking logically and problem solving. It’ll be alright. I think.

I let out a huge sigh. Still, this is going to be hard to get used to. 

We arrive back at my apartment and I move to open the door, but it doesn’t budge.

“Oh.” Both Adelia and I say at the same time.

“Ohhhh! I forgot we can’t even open doors or anything! What are we going to do?!”

“Calm down,” Adelia immediately interjects before I can complain about life again. “You know you can pass through objects now, don't you? I don’t use it much so I’m not great at it, but I’ll teach you how to do this trick.”

I silently nod as Adelia starts her surprise lesson. “First off, take a deep breath. Done?” I nod, and she smiles. “Okay, now that you’re still, I’ll just lead you. I guess the way I learned how to do this is… Close your eyes and hold your breath. I’m going to pull you through the wall, okay? But don’t think about running into anything, or you will. Okay, ready?”

“Um, yes?” I reply, because what else can I say? Adelia grabs my wrist and pulls me through as I try my best to think about something else. There are 53-79 Jupiter moons, the exosphere is where Earth’s atmosphere meets space, why are all of these space facts, the Lyra constellation is 286 square-

“Cynthia! We’re in!” Adelia says, letting go of my wrists.

“Oh, really?!” I say, opening my eyes and adjusting to the sight of my house. Thankfully, the lights were still on, which was nice for right now but wouldn’t be so nice for the bills. Still my parents would probably turn them off later, although they come home pretty late. Adelia plops onto the couch and pats the seat next to her, so I sit down. 

“Well, what do we do now?” I ask. There wasn’t really anything I could do anymore. I wouldn’t be able to order food or apply for college or talk to my parents.

“I guess the only thing we can do is get you accustomed to spirit life until we can figure out how to get you back,” Adelia replied.

It was honestly kind of sad to think that way, but it’d be better to get used to this spirit life first, just in case turning back into a human took a long while.

“Well, what can spirits do other than float around and phase through walls and make things invisible?” I question. “I do think flying is pretty cool, but do you guys ever get tired and sleep? How do you guys change clothes?”

“Well, to answer both your questions, we don’t. We can change clothes if we focus hard enough, but unless the human linked to the spirit is into fashion or something, we don’t really learn to.”

“Do you guys eat food?”

“No.”

“SO I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO EAT WCDONALDS AGAIN?”

I tried to say that in a joking tone, but my voice wobbled.

Really, not being able to eat, not being able to sleep, not being able to wear my favorite earrings or play video games or even study, not able to do any of those small things that I’ve never even had a second thought about, it all made me feel so… so goddamn helpless. It was infuriating, but instead of shouting and throwing a tantrum, I could feel tears bubbling up, overwhelming the fear and anger I’d felt before.

Adelia just sat there, not saying anything. She knew she’d never be able to comfort me on something like this. How would you comfort someone whose whole life had turned upside down and had to learn everything because everything they had learned before was now completely useless.

“Just… give me a second,” I said, going over to the bathroom. I didn’t want to start crying like some child. I was definitely angry, so why were tears coming out anyway? I pulled my front hair back and grabbed the edge of my sink. 

I couldn’t help but let out a small giggle to break the silence. I was acting like some dramatic anime protagonist. It felt silly.

I lift my head up to look at the mirror and flinched. It wasn’t like there was anything scary, it was just… I could see myself in the mirror.

Yep, that was me. My bright pink hair all tangled and messy. My sage green eyes wide open and surprised. I brush my skin with my fingertips then absent mindedly touch the mirror.

“Hey Adelia, are spirits supposed to see themselves in mirrors?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“Because-” I look back to the mirror, leaving my sentence unfinished. Suddenly, the reflection wavers, and the reflection isn’t mine. Instead, it’s that of a girl around my age with silver hair. She’s wearing something that looks like a ball gown, it’s incredibly fancy. Somehow, the girl in the mirror looks extremely similar to Adelia.

“What the-”

I back away from the mirror and raise my arm. The girl in the reflection follows movement like how a normal reflection would. I stare for a moment and start to retrieve my hand as I hear Adelia’s footsteps come closer and closer.

“Hey, take a look at this!” I shout, whipping around, but once again, the same sort of drowsiness and pain I felt in the library stabs me. I stagger away from the sink, but I lose my footing as a strong breeze suddenly blows me towards the mirror. Am I… getting sucked in?!

“Cynthia!”

The last thing I hear as I’m getting sucked into the mirror is Adelia’s cry before everything flashes to black.