Harbor stood frozen staring at the casket being lowered into the ground. His face is devoid of emotion. Eyes staring blankly, lips pressed into a tight line, bags under his eye, skin pale, he looked dead. Tears did not arise in his eyes. He was numb to the world. He could feel someone rubbing his back in a comforting manar. He could hear sobbing from mourning family and friends. He could see dirt being shoved into a grave.

This was his fault.

His eyes dimmed as the events that transpired a week before played on repeat throughout his mind. May’s screams echoed on repeat. gods those screams. He would never be able to close his eyes without hearing them again. He hadn’t gotten to see their body. This is a closed casket funeral.

He told the police everything he could remember in a state of shock. Recounting how he had gotten a massive headache and ended up separated from his friend. How he had let go of their hand when they had been fleeing together. How he remembered stumbling away and collapsing against a rock, passing out briefly. When he had come he had called from his friend.

Once he had concluded he couldn’t find them this way he had made his way out of the forest, calling the police as soon as he had service. A search party formed a few hours later with the intent on finding the missing person. Harbor ended up being forced to stay back with a medic. Being in a state of shock.

The search party found May, their corpse anyway.

They let them see their face in order to identify them. He peered over the stretcher staring down at the mangled face of his friend. Chonks of their face were missing. Blood and mud cover their face. It was May.

Harbor screamed himself horse. Scream as loud as his lungs could, denying, pleading, begging, mourning, weeping. Once his voice gave out he told the police his crimes, expecting to be put away in some prison, like he deserved. Instead he was given pitying looks and empty words. His mom and dad picked him up from the trail head that day. He sobbed in the back of the car the entire way home. Cried himself to sleep.

Since then he’d barely slept, ate, showered. He was a disaster.

The drive back to his parents place was somber. They had insisted he move back in with them temporarily. The car pulled into the driveway. Harbor lugged himself out of the car walking numbly to the door though the hallway and finally to his room when he collapsed onto his bed. He stared blankly at the wall finding his body unable to move. Not like he had the desire to anyway.

He felt he could die and simply wouldn’t care. 

He stayed in that state for hours. His parents checked in on him from time to time. Gave him his favorite food and water. He felt he would throw up at the smell of it. He only managed to take a bite and hold it down because of his mom’s worried face.

“Ayo what happened to you, you look like hell.” All too familiar a voice said, eye Harbor remember clear as day peering at him.

“AAAAAH! A GHOST!!!” Harbor flung himself off the bed falling onto his butt on the floor.

“WHAT WHERE?!” May, was that May? It looked and sounded like May, screamed jolting back as well head swirling all around looking for danger.

“YOU'RE A GHOST!”

“I’M A GHOST?!!!”

“AAAAAHH!!!”

“WAAAAAHHH!!!!”

Suddenly Harbor’s mother burst into the room and saw her son staring off into space with a horrified expression on his face screaming.

“Harbor! Honey what's wrong?” She cried falling to her knees next to her son cradling his head.

“Ah ah ha ah ha ha ha ahahahha.” Harbor broke down into hysterical laughter.

May rocked back and forth in the corner having a panic attack.

“Honey!” Harbor’s mother called to her husband.

“I’m- I’m alright.” Harbor puffed out gasping eyes still wide and mouth still agap staring at May. “Just- just a bad dream.”

His dad burst through the door asking what the problem was. Harbor explained again to his father it had simply been a night terror. That yes he was ok, and no he wasn’t going to hurt himself if they left him alone. Finally he was able to coax his parents out of his room, insisting he just wanted to be alone.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he finally shut the door, left alone with his best friend… who was also a ghost. His musings were interrupted by ghostly hands and arms clinging to him, May's spirit hanging on to him sobbing.

“I’mMm a gHoooST.” They sobbed voice cracking so loud the man on the moon could hear it.

“Shhh, shh, it's alright.” Harbor attempted to comfort them, pushing his own fear of ghosts to the side for a moment. “Don’t think of it as being a ghost, think of it as… an astral projection yeah.”

May sniffled, “That’s not any better!” They cried.

“Oh fuck, ok, uh how bout a oddly transparent human that can also go thorugh walls?” Harbor was panicking now.

“O-oK.” May hiccuped, sobs dying down a little bit.

“Don- Don’t worry, we’re gonna figure this out. You're not gonna be stuck like this.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

They held each other for a few long moments. Kinda May’s a ghost and kept going through Harbor’s body when they stopped paying attention.

“How did you get back here?” Harbor finally asked.

“You know that’s a good question.” May started, “So basically I wake up on the forest floor all the way down the cliff side and I’m like ‘wow that’s weird how’d I get here?’ Then I feel this really weird feeling like I was being tugged in a direction. So obviously i'm like ‘Wow that’s some spooky shit right there, not sure I should follow this because on one hand it could lead me out of here but on the other it could lead me to certain doom.’”

“How fun.”

“I know right, so anyway the tugging gets stronger the more I wonder off so I decided to follow it, because I have nothing better to do honestly, I thought I would die if I stayed in the forest, besides maybe it was my guardian angel or something. Should have realized it wasn’t soon honestly, I’m 80 percent sure my guardian angel is like dead or something.”

“Getting off track here.”

“Right, right, so I follow the pull, and find myself at the highway. Naturally I tried to wave someone down, I figured I looked like a mess and all, but someone would eventually help. NOPE. Cause I’m transparent. Very inconvenient. So after spending like several hours trying to get a car to pull over for me, I finally concluded that people are asholes and had to walk all the way here. Where the pull led me. Weird.” 

“Hmmm, well you’ve only been like this for like a week now? I’m sure we can find a way for you to uh, unghost.”

May shivered. “I will lose my mind if I’m stuck like this.”

“Riiight, I’ll do some research, you just rest ok. Try not to think too hard about all of this.”

“Little hard to do.” May muttered.

“We’re gonna fix this I promise.”

May sighed, “Alright, I believe you. I just, what if the only way to unghost is for me to… move on? Leave this place.”

Harbor sighed, “We’re not gonna let that happen alright.”

“... Alright.” May’s spirit floated calmly in the air.

“Why don’t you try and take a nap?”

“Can… I? Even take naps?” May asked, hugging their arms close to their chest.

“Only one way to find out.”

“Fine.” May conceded rolling onto Harbor’s bed and drifting off.

Harbor sighed in relief. “Alright let's get to work.” He muttered to himself, flipping open his laptop and diving into the deep web.

He searched websites, forums, databases, anything he could find in search of stories, myths, footage, anything that had even a sliver to do with making a ghost not a ghost. He passed all the banishments, sending ghosts away from the area. He looked at the ghost hunter pages a little more carefully before writing them off as not what he needed for fake. He scoured reddit and youtube, found obscure websites and ultimately ended up with little to nothing to show for it.

The sun began to rise above the horizon by the time he thought to look at the clock. He’d stayed up all night researching. Notebooks, looseleaf and sticky notes littered the table around him. He looked even worse than when he had started this whole thing.

“Genesis  Harbor, have you taken any breaks like at all?”

  Harbor squealed jumping as he turned around heart pounding out of his chest. “AAAAAAA!”

May flinched back seeing them self and remembering they were in fact a ghost. “EEEEK!!!” They cried, jolting back themself, flinging themself through the nearest wall. Their screams got louder.

Harbor breath came out in hard pants, he grasped his chest tightly and shook his head, “Right, May’s still a ghost, gotta get used to that.” He muttered taking deep breaths. 

His parents broke into his room again, “Are you alright?!” His father asked getting down next to him and looking him over.

“No, I just saw my reflection though I saw a ghost.”

His father grimminced, “You really need to take a shower.”

“Yeah, yeah I think I’m going to do that now.”

His father seemed relieved, “Alright, I won't hold you then.”

  Harbor gave his dad a tight smile. Once his dad had left he snuck over to the bathroom, the room directly across from his and the one May had flown into. He closed the door softly behind him. Turning he saw May rocking in the corner. Quickly he moved to them, he tried to put his arms around them only to find they went right through.

Harbor cursed under his breath, going to his next tactic. “Hey hey hey, it's alright you're ok, can you tell me three things you can see?” He asked in a soft voice, getting down to their level.

May continued to cry, “I-I see the wall aAnd the sI *hic* k and you.” May sniffled voice cracking horribly.

“Good, good, how about two things you can hear?” 

“I hear you and the lights.” May stopped rocking and whipped the tears from their eyes.”

“Great! You're doing great, how about something you can feel?”

To this May cried harder, “I can’t feel I’m a Ghooo *hic* Oost.”

“Nooooooo,” Harbor blanched at the set back. “Ok ok ok what about smells do you smell anything?”

“Y-yeAh, this place smells like vanE *hic* lla.”

“Yeah you're not wrong.”

“You stink.”

“Owch.”

May giggled, “Loser.”

“Meanie.”

May gagged, “Take a shower! Genesis! You smell terrible, how did I not notice this before?!”

“I’ll do that, why don’t you go chill in my room or something.”

“Imma knock everything off your table.” May giggled, very loppy.

“You do that.” Harbor called to them, seeing them float through the door. “I hope they don’t realize they just went through a door.” Harbor muttered to himself.