#gtsdau

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

a sneak peak of a little somethin im working on

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

snip-it from my fic that made me and my friends laugh a little

The first thing i notice when i reach my new location is that it wasn't all that different from the one I had just left. It was another home. Though instead of a bedroom this was a living room. The place was nice with sensible pictures on the walls, a small couch, a matching end table, and most importantly, a phone. So Sissel must live in an apartment, on at least the second floor… The second, not as nice or pleasant, thing I notice is a dead body.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter two

First, next>

or you can read it on Ao3

fic below the cut

7:31 PM

Who am I?

Why did I die?

I’m hoping that following a chain of unusual events will help me uncover these mysteries.

At the other end of the phone line is the very man that had a stranger killed.

Our meeting – it's all so sudden.

I’m not sure I'm really prepared for what's to come.

When I entered the room I immediately noticed the strange air of the room. It was furnished quite spectacularly with dozens of photos of this older man hung on the wall, all placed within extravagant frames.

“Hmm, yes… if what I read in this file is true…” The blue man I saw at the phone began. “... this man could be quite a bedevilling bit of trouble for us. He needs to be erased – tonight.” The man closes the folder in his hands. “Confound that nearsighted Jeego! His skills are as feeble as his eyesight.”

“Not to worry, sir. I have already taken the next step, sir.” a larger blue man just across the small table with a strangely metallic mask says. The large man presses some inputs on a device then vigorously slaps the device. Then a large picture frame in the centre of the room spins wildly. On the other side of the picture lies a projection screen where an image of the man in red is now displayed.

“Hmm, yes. But, i say, the last thing i ever expected was to talk to the target himself…” The old man trails off. “Even if it was only over the telephone. I must admit, my good man, it put me in quite the tizzy there for a moment!” he laughs.

What is this place? These oddly luxurious furnishings… this oddly refined music… And that odd little machine… I've never seen a room like this before.

But one thing’s for sure… these people are assassins.

And what's more… That man in red is one of their targets.

The older man reopens his file.

That file that old man has… maybe it'll give me some information on my blondie.

I make the simple movement of going to the file from the phone, but as soon as I do the older man closes it.

“Hmm, yes. How much longer my good man?” he goes on.

“We are charging up our backup power now, sir.” his compatriot answers. “The process should be complete in about thirty minutes, sir.”

“Hmm, yes…” he pauses. “But confound that Jeego, I say! Every year, his “reliable range” gets shorter and shorter! He'll get coal in his next pay envelope, confound it!”

“Or might I suggest glasses in his next envelope instead, sir?” his assistant advises.

I glance at the, now closed, file. It seems that this file contains information on that man in red. But I can't read it when it's closed.

In my frustration I trick the file to see if I'm able to open it. To my surprise, and the old mans, it works and the file opens.

“Great Scott! D-Did you see that?” The old man jumps. “The file.. I say! The file reared up and snapped at me, my good man! Nearly bit my head off!”

“Not to worry sir,” the assistant replies without any emotion. “I've already seen to it that the target, Mister Yomiel, is no longer a threat, sir.”

“Bah! That isn't what I'm talking about man!” the old man exclaimed. 

Hmm, “Yomiel” eh? So that's his name is it? But this file… it's like it's written in a foreign language. I can't read it at all.

“Might I suggest putting the file away and relaxing, sir?” the assistant encourages.

Without responding, the old man snaps the file closed and the other types into his device, then slaps it just like before.

One of the paintings in the room flips around to relieve the fact that it holds a filing cabinet on the other side. The filing cabinet follows a path downwards to the old man and opens a drawer automatically. The old man extends his arm back and drops the file in the cabinet, in which it then retracts to its original position in the wall.

The assistant files more inputs into his device and slaps it, then the projector screen flips back into being a painting. Then the table flips over and I hear the phone fall below, and now on the table rests a bowl of fruits.

“You have a very important job ahead of you tonight, sir,” the assistant reminded. The older man sits back and grabs a patch of green grapes from the fruit bowl, and eats them.

Darn… the phone and I got set away so neatly, but to vastly different locations. How am I supposed to get back now? The only thing I've learnt is the name “Yomiel”

This is such a weird room. I've travelled through the phone line to get here, but where exactly is “here”? And who exactly are these people?

I enter the ghost world to take in my surroundings, and figure out how to get out of this strange place. I move to a nearby lamp then onto the projector. There's another lamp on the other side of the projector but it doesn't lead to anything.

Since it's the only thing I'm able to do, I trick the projector. The picture flips like it had done before and the image of Yomiel reappears onscreen.

“Egad, man! Are you trying to give me a case of the vapours?!” the old man gasps.

“My apologies, sir. But I did not touch it, sir.” the bigger man responds. “It appears that the equipment is still malfunctioning, sir.”

“Bah! Granted, technology is a convenient thing. But our use of it is just plain “off”, confound it!” the old man exclaims. “Hmm, yes… in any case… I don't wish to see the face of our current target, my good man.”

“As you wish, sir. In that case, might I suggest this, sir?” the large man says as he inputs into his device once again, ending with a hearty slap like usual.

The image on the screen changes from Yomiel to a woman I don't recognise. She dawns royal blue hair in two, triangular, buns, with a large bang on one side. Her outfit consists of a yellow tank top, a sleeveless jacket, and rolled up jeans. Underneath this all she wears some sort of slightly transparent, skin tight, bodysuit, that was ripped in many places. The entire outfit seems rather impractical to me.

“Hmm, yes… Sissel…” the old man says, thoughtfully.

“If everything goes according to plan tonight, we will have the power to change the world, sir.” the assistant says.

“Hmm, yes… it's a very important night, indeed, my good man. We can't afford to make mistakes.” the old man smirks. “And that's why we must get a hold of that Sissel… We must be very careful.”

Sissel… that must be this woman's name. Both of these names do seem strangely familiar, but from where? Did I know these people?

A “plan” huh? What could that be all about? Just what exactly are these men up to?

The assistant once again types on his device, ending it with yet another slap, and the projector gets put away.

“We are completely prepared for tonight, sir” the assistant says to his superior. Said superior continues eating his grapes.

“Hmm, yes… Now all we have to do is pluck the fruit of success!” he laughs.

One thing is clear, these villains are up to something. And another thing. There seems to be some sort of connection between these two people, “Yomiel” and “Sissel”. Why else would both of their names come up like this?

Now, I need to think of a way out of here. Most importantly I need to find a way to get the phone back up here, I'm stranded without it.

I know that if I trick the projector I can turn on the screen, but does that help me at all?

I decide to trick it again, to see if I can find an opening at all. The projector spins around again and turns on, bringing back the picture of Yomiel.

“Where is your head, man? I told you I don't wish to see this face!” the superior exclaims.

“My apologies, sir. It appears to be another malfunction, sir.”

“Well get it fixed, man, unless you want to see me malfunction!” the old man exclaims, emphasising “me”.

“Certainly, sir.” the assistant says as he re-inputs into his device, ending with the usual slap, and everything goes back into place.

I could’ve sworn I saw an opening there… I enter the ghost world again and take a good look at the cores around me.

Of course! The bottom of the projector screen has a jewel in it. If I enter that while it's spinning I could hop onto it and be put at the bottom!

I trick the projector once more, but this time I ghost into the jewel in the projector before it stops spinning. Now that I've reached the bottom I have a few more things to interact with.

“I say, this room is giving me the heebie-jeebies, my good man!” the old man says. “With the painting spinning around and the like! It's enough to give a man the jitters!”

“My apologies, sir. The room was just completed recently, sir. We are still trying to iron out the kinks, sir.” his assistant responds.

I look around to see what I can interact with now that I couldn't before. It's not much, just the fruit bowl and the device. I go to the fruit to see if there's anything I can do with it, nothing. That console that the assistant is always typing away at must do something though.

I move over to the console and trick it, hoping for something of use to happen, considering I don't know how the thing works at all.

To my delight, the console flips the table around again, bringing the phone back. Finally! My exit out of this weird room!

“It's a miserable state of affairs when I get startled by a telephone that doesn't even ring!” the old man exclaimed. 

Mere seconds later, the phone rings.

“Egad!” the old man gasped. “It's even more pathetic to be startled by the same telephone twice!”

“The problem must be solved, sir.” the assistant stated. “The “Mister Yomiel” problem, sir…”

What?! Yomiel?!

“Hmm, yes…” he pauses. “You did mention taking the “next step” a moment ago, didn't you, my good man?”

“Yes, sir. I sent “One Step Ahead” Tengo to his apartment, sir.” the assistant answers. “That telephone call must be him reporting in, sir.”

“Very good, very good!” the old man hummed, while picking up the phone.

Yomiel is in danger again!

I quickly enter the ghost world and head to the phone, this seems like an important conversation to be listening too.

“This is “One Step Ahead” Tengo.” a hitman that looks very similar to Jeego, says.

“And? Out with it man! Have you taken care of him?” the old man demands.

“No, he's on the bottom level of the junkyard.”

“What..?”

“It only stands to reason.” Tengo says. “They wouldn't call me “One Step Ahead” if I wasn't prepared to take him out before he was even in the right place.”

“I don't get it… but in any case, man, once you've done your job-”

“Then you'll promote me to head of the hitman division..?” Tengo cuts him off.

“No, man! Now you're even getting “one step ahead” of me!” the old man exclaims.

“We can discuss my new salary later.”

“Great Scott! Now you're even getting one step ahead of your last one step ahead!”

“I'll get back to my job now, sir.” Tengo says.

“Confound it! You're even hanging up one step ahead!”

Tengo hangs up and the old man puts the receiver down.

“What did he say, sir?” the assistant asks.

“He asked me to raise his salary.” the old man grumbles.

“What will you do, sir?”

“Maybe I'll give him some of Nearsighted Jeegos pay.”

Yomiel… I can't lose him! He's my only lead if I ever hope to solve this mystery of me!

I trick the phone and quickly go to the location the hitman called from, somewhere in the junkyard presumably, but it wasn't a place I recognised.

At the junkyard I'm now in a building I haven't seen before. The place is full of sciencey looking things that I can't even begin to imagine what they do. 

There's doors on both sides of the room, the hitman walks over to the door on the left and leaves.

Taking a look at the cores around the place, it doesn't look like I have any way to follow him.

Instead I used the phone to get to the lower part of the junkyard, where I had left Yomiel.

Yomiel was now sitting on a broken couch that was amidst a bunch of other garbage. 

“Is it possible that..? No, that wouldn't happen so suddenly.” Yomiel appears to be theoriesing about something, but I'm not sure what.

Yomiel continues thinking to himself until he hears the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He jumps up from the seat and stands in a cautious way.

Maybe it's that assassin that was here to kill Yomiel?!

I look over to see someone who is very much not the assassin I saw earlier. He's old and short and most noticeably he has a pigeon resting on his head.

“You don't look like the type to be rummaging around here.” the pigeon man says. “What's a guy like you doing here at the junkyard?”

“I was sent an anonymous note to meet someone here. They said they had important information about something I'm looking into.” Yomiel answers.

“Something you're looking into? You a detective or something?”

“No, it's just a personal situation I suppose. But I have a feeling that whoever sent that note isn't coming.”

“A man like you is quite striking. I swear I've seen you somewhere before” the pigeon man mentions.

“I was on the news a lot some ten years ago. Probably from that.” Yomiel answers.

“Ah yes, it's coming back to me. You're that criminal from Temsik park.”

Criminal..? Yomiel’s a criminal?

“Hey, I've done my time and I'm past that now. In fact I work for the police.”

Yomiel works for the police? What an interesting guy.

“I don't care about that sorta stuff. I only remember that day because that's when that meteorite fell.” the pigeon man mentions.

“The meteorite? You know about that?” Yomiel asks, slightly shocked.

“I'm retired, and I spend my free time looking into that” the pigeon man answers.

“What a coincidence, I'm also looking into the meteorite.”

“You a scientist?” the pigeon man asks.

“Something like that.” Yomiel smirks.

“You said you worked with the police right?”

“Correct.”

“Eh, you're probably trust worthy enough. Come up to my office and I'll tell you what I know about the meteorite.” pigeon man offers.

“I like the sound of that.” Yomiel says as he leaves up the stairs with the old man.

In an attempt to follow them I follow the same path I did to get to the upper level before. I hop to the ladder, to the tire, to the mannequin, to the blender, to the fan, to the flag. I see the duo walking above me but I realise that there's no way into the building from out here. 

I wonder if the pigeon man's office is the room I saw the hitman in earlier?

I return to the phone and travel over to the room I was in earlier.

When I get there, nobody's here. I probably just got here quicker than them. So I decide to wait it out a bit.

As expected, both the pigeon man and Yomiel walk in. 

So this is the pigeon man's office. All these machines must be for investigating the meteorite they were talking about. Despite that, I still can't imagine what any of the machines do.

The pigeon man and Yomiel walk forward and just as Yomiel is walking by the window…

BANG!

Yomiel falls down to the ground. The pigeon man does nothing but stand in, presumably in shock but he doesn't express much on his face.

Shoot! I was trying to prevent that from happening! To be completely honest I got so caught up in their conversation I forgot what I was here for.

I quickly move over to Yomiels body. Hopefully I'll be able to save him.

“Well that was unexpected.” I hear the pigeon man say just before I enter Yomiels core.

I enter his core and I see his remaining soul bobbing peacefully. 

“Are you awake?” I ask. The lamp told me that it usually takes a while before souls gain consciousness so I didn't expect an answer.

“Who's there..?” the soul answers.

I say nothing, I'm shocked I even got a response.

“Who are you?” the soul asks. “Don't ignore me like that.”

“Eh? Sorry, I'm not used to talking with the dead.” I respond.

“Dead? So I'm dead. That's unfortunate.” he says.

Personally, I'd describe being dead as more than “unfortunate”.

“You don't know what my life was like.”

“Eh?! How did you..?” I cry out.

“Though, to be fair, I don't know what my life was like either. I can't seem to recall a thing.” 

“Ah… the newly dead tend to not remember anything. I still don't. But your name is Yomiel if that helps.” I tell him.

“Yomiel, huh?” he pauses for a moment before the small blue soul in front of me transforms into the man in red. “I'm assuming this is me then. No other dead bodys around here for me to be.”

“That's right…”

“That really is unfortunate, I can't remember why but I know that me dying really isn't good.” Yomiel sighs.

“You also work for the police, if what I've heard is true.” I tell him.

“The police? That feels a bit odd, but I don't have any reason not to trust you.” he pauses. “Maybe I got killed because of my involvement with the police.”

“You seem to have been killed because of some sort of involvement, but in what way I'm unsure.” I tell him.

“What a weird way of putting it.”

“I’m still figuring things out, I don't know a lot but I'm telling you what I do know.” I say.

“Figuring it out? Are you some sort of detective or something?” he asks me.

“I wish I knew, I haven't regained my memories at all.” I tell him.

“Is that why you're a little blue thing instead of an actual person? It's a little weird to talk to something so clearly incorporeal.” he asks.

I'm just going to pretend I know what that means. “Yeah that's why.”

“Incorporeal means not physical.”

What? Can he read my thoughts?

“You seem to be thinking really loudly, I'm afraid.” Yomiel chuckles.

Shoot! 

“Maybe you should just stick to speaking out loud if you don't want anyone to hear your thoughts.” he suggests.

“The Lamp didn't say anything about this…” I mumble.

“Lamp?” 

“Let's just move on…” I begin. “I'm here to save you.''

“Save me? But I'm already dead.” Yomiel says, confused.

“Yes, but I have powers if the dead, and one of my powers is to go back four minutes before someone's death.” I state.

“Go back four minutes..? Interesting…” Yomiel trails off.

“And I'm going to use those four minutes to save you.” I assure him.

“Well get to it. I don't want to be dead any longer than I have to.”

“Right, let's go…”

Once again the world warps around me as I go back into the past, four minutes before Yomiels death.

The image of the junkyard comes into view as I witness Yomiels last four minutes, for the second time today.

I watch Yomiel descend the metal staircase of the junkyard.

He continues forward. “What is going on? I can't help but feel that there's something more sinister happening. Even before that hitman tried to kill me there was-”

The man was then cut off by the ringing of the phone nearby.

Curiously, it seems that he was just about to talk to that old man on the phone just four minutes before his death. I guess I wasn't gone for long at all.

“Who'd be calling the junkyard at this time?” the man asks aloud, but this time I know exactly who's calling.

Yomiel walks over to the phone to answer the call. There's a few slight moments before Yomiel speaks again.

“What a familiar accent. I just heard someone with the same one.” Yomiel remarks.

Unsurprisingly, it's going exactly as I remember it, other than the fact that I can't hear what that old man is saying.

“Whoever that was must be the one who wants me dead. How curious, what possible business could foreigners have with my life?” Yomiel puzzles before returning the receiver to its home. 

At this point I had left the junkyard to that weirdly refined room, so everything after this is brand new to me.

Yomiel walks away from the phone, towards the chair I had found him sitting in earlier.

“I was called here to the junkyard because someone claimed to have useful information, but guessing from that attempt on my life it was a trap. However, I came out of it unscathed, and the hitman was crushed beyond repair right in front of me. A most unusual turn of events indeed.” he ponders to himself. 

He seems really confused about the whole situation, not that I blame him.

“First, the crossing gate lifted, then the guitar played, after that a bicycle bell, and I could've sworn I saw the bike moving a little bit after that. Then a ladder extended unusually, finally the latch holding that wrecking ball let go." I can't see his expression clearly underneath his shades, but his furrowed eyebrows gave me all I needed.

“Most curious events indeed…” he trails off.

I looked up at the upper level of the junkyard to see if I could spot the hitman, Tengo, anywhere. Just in the corner of my vision I see a blue and black shuffling about.

Returning my attention to Yomiel, he sighs before sitting on the broken sofa. 

“Why in the world would such a helpful spirit be here? Did something die when… No, I was here and nothing of the sort happened.”

What..? Spirit? How in the world does Yomiel know that I'm a spirit?! It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something otherworldly was happening but a spirit? And said so confidently? I wish that Yomiel had his memories just so I could ask him questions!

“These powers are unlike anything I've ever seen before. But they don't seem to be particularly strong, but certainly useful in their own sense.” Yomiel continues.

Is this not his first encounter with a ghost? Maybe he’s died before and has been saved. Maybe that's why Lampy knows so much about this guy.

Yomiel picks up a miscellaneous piece of trash. “Why does this have to be happening today of all days.” he grumbles as he throws the piece of trash upwards to the upper level of the junkyard. “Talk about terrible timing.”

I glare daggers with my non-existent eyes at him. Why does it seem like he's frustrated that I'm here?! I saved his life, didn't I?!

“I guess I can't be so ungrateful, I would be dead without this mischievous little spirit.”

That's better.

“I wonder if they’re still here. If anyone's there, move something.” Yomiel prompts. 

At this point, I had already left, so nothing happens.

“Must be gone already, wonder what they’re doing.”

I must admit, I do wonder what would happen if I moved something now.

Yomiel places his hand on his chin. “Is it possible that..? No, that wouldn't happen so suddenly.” 

Those words sound familiar, this must've been around the time that I had returned.

Yomiel continues thinking to himself until he hears the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He jumps up from the seat and stands in a cautious way.

The pigeon man comes walking down the staircase.

“You dont look like the type to be rummaging around here.” the pigeon man says. “What's a guy like you doing here at the junkyard?”

“I was sent an anonymous note to meet someone here. They said they had important information about something I'm looking into.” Yomiel answers.

“Something you're looking into? You a detective or something?”

“No, it's just a personal situation I suppose. But I have a feeling that whoever sent that note isn't coming.”

“A man like you is quite striking. I swear I've seen you somewhere before,” the pigeon man mentions.

“I was on the news a lot some ten years ago. Probably from that.” Yomiel answers.

“Ah yes, it's coming back to me. You're that criminal from Temsik park.”

Right, I had forgotten that Yomiel seems to be some sort of criminal. I can't imagine what crime he’d commit though.

“Hey, I've done my time and I'm past that now. In fact I work for the police.”

“I don't care about that sorta stuff. I only remember that day because that's when that meteorite fell.” the pigeon man mentions.

“The meteorite? You know about that?” Yomiel asks, slightly shocked.

“I'm retired, and I spend my free time looking into that” the pigeon man answers.

“What a coincidence, I'm also looking into the meteorite.”

“You a scientist?” the pigeon man asks.

“Something like that.” Yomiel smirks.

“You said you worked with the police right?”

“Correct.”

“Eh, you're probably trust worthy enough. Come up to my office and I'll tell you what I know about the meteorite.” pigeon man offers.

“I like the sound of that.” Yomiel says as he leaves up the stairs with the old man.

The duo walk up the staircase silently, when they get to the top of the stairs I notice Yomiel looking around suspiciously. He eyes the things that had moved earlier, like the crossing gate and the bike. 

Below me, I can hear the blender turning on, then the fan not long after.

When near the entrance to the building I witness something particularly peculiar. Yomiels gaze glides up, right where the hitman sat. Yomiels’ eyebrows raise quickly and he averts his gaze down to the ground.

Could he have seen the hitman? Why didn't he say anything? 

Then both the pigeon man and Yomiel walk in the office. 

The pigeon man and Yomiel walk forward and just as Yomiel is walking by the window…

BANG!

…

Somehow after witnessing that I'm left with more questions than I had before.

“So those are my last moments?”

“H-Huh?! You're here too?” I stutter.

“I just seemed to come with you, and you seemed so concentrated before so I didn't want to say anything.” Yomiel chuckles. “But that reaction was pretty priceless.”

“Don't scare me like that. If I was alive I think I would've had a heart attack.” I murmur.

Yomiel pauses, and a frown appears on his face. “You saw that too right?”

“Saw what?” I ask.

“I looked right at that hitman, and didn't do anything.” Yomiel clarifies.

“Ah, yes, I did see that. I also thought that was strange.”

“Now I wish I knew what was going through my mind. This was completely preventable.” Yomiel huffs.

“Well after you've been brought back to life I'm sure you'll know the answer.” I tell him.

“Get on with that saving me thing won't you?” Yomiel demands.

“Yeah I'll do that.”

I gather my will and the world begins to warp. In my vision I see the grains of sand again before everything re-materialises before me.

“The office? Aren't I downstairs?” Yomiel asks.

“Yes, but we start out where you died, it's a little inconvenient.”

“Well the hitman is outside and we are inside. You can use the phone to move around, right? Travel to the lower junkyard and we’ll have more of a chance there.” 

“Yup! Let's go!” I boast.

Did I ever tell him that I can travel through the phone?

I move from the soul to a step ladder, onto a kettle, then to a lamp, then finally I arrive at the phone.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

“It… isn't working” I mumble.

“How are we supposed to get out of here now?” Yomiel barks.

“Umm… I uh," I sputter. “I dont know.”

“Fantastic, we’re stuck here.” Yomiel grumbles.

“No, no! I'll figure something out!” I assure him.

“Maybe someone has to be using the phone to move across the line. Like how you can only get new numbers when people are using the phone.” Yomiel suggests.

Okay, I definitely didn't tell him that.

“Maybe you're on the right track here. But how can we get anyone to call the junkyard?” I ponder.

I move back down to the step ladder and see a core below the floor. I enter that and find myself in a lower room. The room is full of even more sciencey stuff than the other and papers are strewn across the walls. In the centre of the room, the pigeon man is sitting at a desk.

“There he is, maybe we can get him to call the junkyard.” I suggest.

I go up and return to the phone.

“First we need him up here.” I say.

“Maybe try to make some noise, it might lure him up here.”

“Hmm…” I think for a moment. “Oh I got an idea!”

I make my way towards the kettle, sitting on a small, portable, stove. I close the spout of the kettle.

“That’ll make some noise!” I beam.

“Heh, not bad.” Yomiel smiles.

The stove must already be pretty hot, because it only takes a few moments for the kettle to begin to whistle loudly.

“Augh, what a horrible sound” I wince.

I move down to the lower floor to see if the pigeon man has noticed, and sure enough, he's moving towards the staircase.

“Success!” I beam.

“Don't celebrate so soon. We still have to get him to call the junkyard.” Yomiel reminds me.

“Right… that might be a little trickier.”

“We might be able to use sound to our advantage again,” Yomiel says.

“Mhm,'' I hum approvingly.

I notice a paper on the wall with a core just within my reach. I travel around the room using paper and other science machines strewn about to see if I can find anything of note.

Most things in the room are not interactable, and the things that are just move in small ways. I do notice another phone just outside the door, beside the staircase, but it's just as useful as the one upstairs.

“Look down there. There's a hatch on the floor.” Yomiel points out.

“There is, but I don't see how that can help us.”

“You dense idiot, if there's a latch on the floor that means there's a lower level, there might be a lead down there.” Yomiel spells out to me.

“Oh uh, right.” I blush.

I move down and enter the hatch, sure enough, there's a lower level. Down there isn't much, a trash can, a few piles of random items, and a box. I reach out my spirit towards the box below me but it's out of reach.

“I can't reach anything down there.” I mumble in frustration. I trick the trapdoor to see if anything happens. The door then opens, but upwards, and now I'm even further from the lower level then before.

I groan and close the hatch. 

“Who's down there?!” I hear from above me.

“Looks like you got the attention of Mr. Pigeon.” Yomiel banters.

The man in question walks over to the staircase, when he reaches the stairs he hops onto the railing and slides down it. The pigeon man looks around cautiously when he enters the room.

“No ones down here?” The pigeon man hums for a bit. “Probably some teenage hooligans, I'll call the phone down there, that usually scares ‘em off.”

“Wow, I can't believe that worked.” Yomiel says in shock. Personally, I'm too shocked to say anything. Instead I silently head to the staircase and wait in the phone nearby.

It doesn't take all too long before the pigeon man calls the phone. Thankfully, Yomiel answers.

“Hello?” Yomiel asks.

The pigeon man says nothing, and hangs up immediately.

For a moment there I could feel the phone line returning to me, and I leave.

The alive Yomiel puts down the receiver. “That was weird.”

“We did it!” I cheer. “We’re in the junkyard!” Deep in my senses I feel like Yomiels fate has changed, even if it's only a little bit.

“Now to get up there.” Yomiel says.

“Don't worry, I got this!” I grin. It doesn't take long to go up the path that I had already carved for myself. But an unfortunate reality awaited me at the top.

“I moved the bike that got me up there…”I say with dread.

I return to the lower level where Yomiel is talking to himself once again.

Alive Yomiel picks up a miscellaneous piece of trash. “Why does this have to be happening today of all days.” he grumbles as he throws the piece of trash upwards to the upper level of the junkyard. “Talk about terrible timing.”

“Hey Ghosty.” Yomiel gets my attention. 

“Yeah?”

“Did that piece of trash have a core?”

“I think so.”

Yomiel says nothing, instead choosing to look directly at me.

“W-What..?” I stutter.

He continues staring at me. I think for a moment.

“Oh I could have used that to get up.”

“Good job.” Yomiel dead pans.

“I-Its okay! I can just rewind time again!” I stutter.

As I went to rewind time something felt different this time, like there are multiple points that I could rewind too. One felt further away then the other. I reached for the closer one and-

The alive Yomiel puts down the receiver. “That was weird.”

Wow! It looks like that if I change something it's marked as a place I can rewind to!

“Okay no mistakes this time.” I assure as I head straight to the piece of trash that Yomiel will throw soon.

“You're a piece of work, Ghosty.” Yomiel smirks.

“Shut it.” I pout.

A little later alive Yomiel picks up a miscellaneous piece of trash that I reside in. “Why does this have to be happening today of all days.” he grumbles as he throws the piece of trash upwards to the upper level of the junkyard. “Talk about terrible timing.” I can hear him say below me.

Quite conveniently, the piece of trash lands near the ladder from before. It looks like Tengo shuffled a lot of things around to get the perfect position so many things are moved around differently. So differently, in fact, that following a simple path I can reach the bike that's still suspended on the electrical wire.

Maybe I can startle him like I did Jeego.

Sure enough, the ring of the bell causes Tengo to react in a similar way to Jeego, and he shoots the bike. The force of the bullet causes the bike to fall to the ground.

I wince at the fall even though I can't feel pain. “Well we’re down here now I guess.”

I ring the bell again to see if Tengo will do anything different. He looks over at me but doesn't shoot.

“What's the end goal here?” Yomiel asks me.

“Huh?”

“What are we trying to do, how are we saving me?”

“I dont know.” I answer.

“We need a plan to save me, you can't just play with random things and expect it to work.” Yomiel tells me.

“Well that always worked for me before…”

“I can't believe my life is in your hands.” Yomiel pauses to think. “I have an idea”

“Great! What's your grand idea?”

“You'll have to go back again.” Yomiel tells me

“Darn.”

“And you've already messed up, rewind it Ghosty.” Yomiel demands.

“Fine.” I say as I take us back to the lower junkyard.

The alive Yomiel puts down the receiver. “That was weird.”

I dash over to the trash piece once more. And get flung up to my destination.

“Okay Yomiel whats the plan now?” I inquire.

“If ringing the bike bell causes the hitman to shoot it, which makes the bike fall, we wait to do that until me and the pigeon guy are walking by. That'll get him caught.” Yomiel explains.

“Smart.” I say. I head back to the bicycle in the same way as before and resume time. “We might be here for a while.”

Shortly after I said that the pigeon man walks out of his office and down the stairs.

Yomiel glances at me. “You look like you have something on your mind.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“A surprising amount of emotions can be conveyed on that little blue spirit.” Yomiel says. “Tell me, what's on your mind”

“It's useless” I sigh. “I have a lot of questions for you but you don't remember anything.” 

“Once this is all over I'll answer whatever questions you have. Think of it as payment for saving my life.”

In my peripheral I see Yomiel and the pigeon guy walking towards us. “Oh, here they come”

When they pass by I ring the bell of the bike as instructed and Tengo shoots it again. The bike falls and lands right beside the duo.

Both Yomiel and the pigeon man spot the hitman. Tengo points his gun at the duo but Yomiel strikes back by pulling out his own gun and pointing back at the hitman.

“You've had a gun this whole time?”

“Seems so.” Yomiel responds.

I enter the ghost world again to stop the flow of time.

“We should probably do something to help you.” I say.

“Good idea, maybe there's something around here that can make noise.” Yomiel suggests.

I hum in agreement and search the area. There's the ladder, the bike, and a bunch of other useless trash that I can't mess with at all.

“There isn't anything here.” I tell Yomiel.

“We just have to hope that things play out nicely on their own.”

I reluctantly leave the ghost world to resume time. With Yomiel and the hitman at a stand off I can't imagine it going well, but I have no choice but to trust that it will.

Yomiel and the hitman don't take their eyes off each other. Both know it'll be a fatal mistake.

The Pigeon Man uses this mutual concentration to his advantage, and kicks a piece of trash out from the bottom of the pile, causing a chain reaction like no other that ends with Tengo buried in trash.

Alive Yomiel lowers his gun. “That was a close one.”

“Must be a pretty interesting guy to have hitmen after you.” the pigeon guy says.

“I can't imagine I'm that interesting. I have no idea why they're after me.” Alive Yomiel assures.

“Whatever, just follow me to the basement, you'll be safer there, and there's a phone down there so we can call the cops.”

“Don't bother with the cops, I think he already made a run for it.” Yomiel glazes at the pile of trash the hitman was once buried in.

“If you say so Mister Strange Guy” the pigeon man shrugs.

The duo enter the office building, leaving mine and Yomiels sight.

“We did it! Your life is saved!” I cheer.

“I have to admit, that was some pretty impressive stuff.” Yomiel confesses. “You gotta stick around in case I get in any more trouble with these guys.”

“Sure thing.”

“I'm tired of being dead, let's head to the present now.” Yomiel demands of me.

“Right away.” I sigh a little.

And for the second time tonight, I've saved Yomiels life.

But none of my questions have been answered.

In matter of fact, I have more questions than I did before. But hopefully I'll get some of them answered right away.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter Four

First, <prev, next>

or you can read it on Ao3

fic under the cut

8:23 PM

I’ve descended into the unknown below, hoping for an escape to follow the ever growing mystery that surrounds me and my death.

All I know at this point is that following the mysterious duo Yomiel and Sissel will lead me to my answers.

Or so I've been told.

The idea of plunging into the unknown fills me with a slight sense of discomfort, but it's not the first time I've done it and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I'm still not sure what “The Chicken Kitchen” is.

The first thing I notice when I reach my new location is that it wasn't all that different from the one I had just left. It was another home. Though instead of a bedroom this was a living room. The place was nice with sensible pictures on the walls, a small couch, a matching end table, and most importantly, a phone.

So Sissel must live in an apartment, on at least the second floor…

The second, not as nice or pleasant, thing I notice is a dead body.

It's the dead body of a woman, a nicely dressed one, wearing an elegant slim blue dress. Her hair is a soft lilac and it's tied up at the back with a warm yellow bow.

She's lying on the ground, blood seeping from what must be a gunshot wound. While I can't say I've seen one before today, though I can't say much about what I have or have not seen before, my recent experiences with gunshot wounds make me feel like I can identify one pretty easily.

Near the woman is a second, smaller little corpse. A corpse of a little doggie. The dog is quite fluffy with blonde fur. Though harder to see because of the fur, the dog also appears to have a gunshot wound.

What is with people getting shot tonight? Do people get shot this often on normal nights? And who in their right mind would shoot a little doggie?

There's no way I'm just going to let this woman and dog stay dead. I may have a mission to complete but I'm not going to let people lay around dead if I can do anything about it.

I maneuver around the room a bit and reach the body of the dead woman. I reach out to her core without hesitation.

Once again the world swirls around me in a red hue and I’m met face to face with the victim.

This is the first time I’m saving someone other than Yomiel.

The poor woman is still unconscious, and honestly it'd probably be better if she stayed that way, she doesn't need the pain of her death etched onto her subconscious. While the memories of his death don't haunt Yomiel, I'm sure it would haunt anyone with any sense of emotional availability.

“Who… who are you?”

Just my luck I suppose.

While a simple question, it's not one I can answer easily. I don't know who I am, that's the whole point of my investigation. but to not come off rude I answer to the best of my ability. “I'm just a wandering spirit here to help whoever I can.”

“Help? Am I in danger?” the woman asks.

“I wouldn't say you're currently in danger, from the looks of things the danger is gone, but you didn't come out of it unharmed.” I'm hoping to try and dodge around the fact that this woman has died, it’d still be best if she didn't know the full situation.

“You said you were a spirit, does that mean I'm dead?” 

Welp. 

“Yes, you're dead.” I say rather bluntly. Because she figured it out on her own there's no point in sugarcoating it.

“I’m… dead?” the woman falters. Had she not be a blue spirit and had eyes I'm sure there'd be tears forming.

“Unfortunately, but that's why I'm here.”

“I need to see this.” The woman pushes me out of the ghost world to take a better look at the scene. She stares wordlessly into the room in front of her.

The blue spirit drifts away and becomes the woman dead on the floor.

“Missile…” She whispers blankly, I could barely hear it.

“Missile?” I say in a confused manner. “Is that your little doggie?”

“My dog..?” She pauses. “No he was… He was always more of Kamilas dog than mine.”

“Kamila?” That's a new name. “Who's Kamila?”

“Kamila. Kamila is…” She pauses and looks around the room. “Where is Kamila?” The woman pauses once again. “Hopefully she's in bed, resting peacefully.”

“Who exactly is Kamila?” I ask.

“She's… my daughter.”

So this woman is a mother, and her daughter's name is Kamila. Though for whatever reason she isn't here. And even though the woman herself assumes that her daughter is asleep I just can't imagine that's the case. If both she and Missile had been shot, that would’ve been incredibly loud.

“Oh Kamila…” She begins to tear up. “I've failed you, I can no longer be here for you. Not even Missile can.”

Missile… that little doggie just over there. His core is within my reach, I wonder if I can talk to animals like I can people.

I decide to check out the core of the little doggie. I don't know why I'd be able to talk to him but I have the feeling that I can. 

The little blue spirit of the dog appears in front of me.

“Are you awake?” I ask.

“Awake? I've never been so awake in my life!” the doggie exclaims with boundless energy.

“I wouldn't say “life” but sure.” I think for a moment. “Say, do you remember who you are?”

“Who I am? Who I am?” The doggie stops for a second. “I'm Missile! I'm a pomeranian!”

“Missile, you can speak?” The woman says from beside me. I jumped a little, I didn't notice her.

“Miss Alma!” Missile exclaims.

Alma? That must be the name of this woman.

“Miss Alma?” She pauses. “T-That's right! My name is Alma!”

“Miss Alma!” Missile cries out. “Are we dead?”

This little doggie catches on surprisingly quickly.

“I believe so.” Alma laments.

“What? No, you can't die Miss Alma!” Missile cries out.

“I'm afraid I already have.”

“Where's Miss Kamila? She isn't dead too, right?”

“There's no other dead bodies around here.” I answer. “So probably not.”

“Thank goodness!” Missile exclaims. “If Miss Kamila died I would have double failed as your little doggie!”

“Oh Missile.” Alma smiles slightly. “There's nothing you could have done.”

“Do either of you remember how you died?” I ask. This is the most memories I've seen the dead attain on their own. Yomiel knew about as much as I did when he was dead.

“I can't remember.” Alma answers.

“Yeah! There was someone at the door and I went to say hello! And then there was a loud bang.” Missile answers.

So he remembers, but he doesn't seem to be all that good at describing.

“Do you remember what the person at the door looked like?” I ask.

“They were uhh…” Missile stops to think. “Oh! There were two people! One was really tall and the other was really short.”

“Tall and short…” Alma thinks aloud. “Oh I think it's coming back to me! They were foreigners.”

Foreigners? That's how Yomiel described the hitmen that were after him! 

“Hitmen? Yomiel?” Alma says.

So it seems Yomiel isn't the only one able to read my mind.

“Ah, Yomiel is the name of the man I had saved earlier. He was shot by hitmen.”

“Saved?” Alma looks at me confused.

Oh, it seems I haven't explained anything have I?

“Yes, I have the ability to go back in time four minutes before a person's death and save them.”

“Is that even possible? I mean going back in time is…” Alma trails off.

“Well why didn't you say so earlier?!” Missile exclaims. “We need to save Miss Alma!”

“You're not surprised about the whole “travelling back in time” thing?” I ask Missile.

“Not really!” He exclaims. “I mean Miss Alma can walk around on two legs, but I can't do that. So if she can do that… Then it's not so strange that you can walk backwards through time!”

So that's how the mind of a little doggie works.

Alma chuckles. 

“But really, using my powers of the dead I can stop these deaths from even happening. Your lives can be saved.”

“That's ridiculous. We’re already dead.” Alma insists.

“That's what the last guy said.” I say. “I can save you and I'm going to.”

“That can't be possible, going back in time isn't possible.” She insists.

“I don't understand it anymore then you do” I tell her. “And I'll prove it, let's go back four minutes before your death.

Once again the world warps impossibly as the scene in front of me changes. Alma is now sitting down on the couch and Missile is resting peacefully on the floor beside her.

Alma, however, is noticeably crying. She's quickly wiping her own tears and suppressing her sobs as much as possible.

“I can't believe it…” she cries. “After I tried so hard to fix things, everythings going to change again.”

Alma wipes her tears again and looks up. “Well… not really change in a literal sense. But things will be different.” She looks towards the phone. “It wouldn't hurt to call…”

Alma gets up from the couch and walks over to the phone. She dials a number and puts the receiver against her ear.

“Hello, it's Alma.” She speaks into the phone. “Is it possible to talk to him?”

She waits for the person on the other side of the phone to speak. “Oh,” She pauses. “Can I ask if it's going to be today?”

Her head drops as she hears the answer on the phone. “Oh, thank you for telling me.” she says meekly. “I'll speak with you tomorrow.” she says before returning the receiver to its home.

Alma sighs weakly as she returns to her spot on the couch. She holds her head in her hands and starts to sob.

The noise of it wakes Missile up, and he places himself right beside Alma's legs. He looks up sadly at his crying mistress and whines.

Alma jumps a little. “Missile, I didn't see you there.” She picks up the small dog and places him on her lap. “I'm sorry, I know you don't like seeing me sad.”

Alma pets Missile on the head and he responds by licking her on the face. “Okay you silly dog, that's enough.” Alma says as she places Missile back on the ground.

Missile doesn't move, instead choosing to sit sadly beside Alma.

Missile sits there beside Alma until a rat scurrying along the floor comes to his attention. Missile chased the rat across the floor to the other side of the room. He barks violently at the vermin before the rat makes its grand escape and turns around. Missile spins across the floor to face the rat, and the chase begins anew. This happens three more times before the rat jumps onto the couch, Missile of course follows the rat up there. 

“Missile!” Alma exclaims. “Leave the poor rat alone!”

Missile ignores the demands of Alma and continues to bark at the rat in front of him. 

“I know there's a rat there! You don't need to keep barking!” Alma yells and picks up Missile.

There's a banging from the other side of the wall. “If that mutt keeps on barking I'll knock this wall down!” a voice yells.

“Now you're getting Emma all worked up! Could you please just be quiet?” Alma begs to Missile, who refuses to stop barking.

Alma sighs and sets Missile down. “Don't move!” She commands the dog. Missile firmly plants his butt on the ground but continues barking. Alma leans down and hastily picks up the rat, trying to touch as little of it as possible. She then promptly opens the window behind the couch and tosses the rat outside.

“I need to wash my hands,” Alma gags, before leaving the room to the kitchen. At the kitchen Alma makes an effort to wash very thoroughly, not leaving any surface unwashed.

As she's drying her hands she hears Missile barking again, and soon after a gunshot can be heard from the living room. She quickly forgets about drying her hands and sprints to the living room. 

In the living room two intruders can be seen. A tall woman with bizarre hair, and a short man holding a gun, both foreigners. Not too far from the duo Missile is dead on the floor.

Alma is stunned, and doesn't move. 

“Oops, looks like there's more people here then we bargained for.” The short man grins. 

“Just get this over with,” The tall woman sighs.

“Right away my dearest beauty!” The man beams.

Not more than a second later Alma is shot.

“So there it is, the last moments of your life.” I say.

“I can't believe it. These people just broke into my house and shot me!” Alma fumes. “What reason could they have to do that?!”

“I'm not sure, but you're not the first victim to foreign hitmen.” I say. “And I don't think you'll be the last.” I remind myself that Sissel had also been named as a target, but she has yet to die.

“This is horrible,” Alma chocks out. “Why is this happening?”

“That's what I'm hoping to figure out.”

“What are we waiting for!” Exclaims Missile. “We have to save Miss Alma!”

“You’re right, let's get started.” I agree.

I will the world to warp into grains of sand, it's time to save a woman and a little doggie!

“So we really are in the past, huh?” Alma remarks.

“Yup, anything I do now has the potential to change the present.” i confirm.

“So now that we’re here, how do you go about saving us?” Alma asks. “I mean, I'm not even sure how it can be done…”

“Umm…” I hesitate.

“Oh, so you don't know either.” 

“Not really, but it'll come to me later.” I admit. “The best thing for me to do at the moment is to just mess with things until I figure it out.”

“Wonderful…” Alma deadpans.

“It's okay! I have an idea of where to start!” I try to reassure.

I hastily move from the soul of Alma over to the phone. The conversation probably won't help me with saving anyone but I have a feeling that it's important to my greater investigation.

“Oh so you're interested in this black Hello?” Missile says.

“Hello?” Alma intrigues.

“Yeah, everybody says its name when they stop it from barking!” Missile exclaims.

“He's talking about the phone. That's adorable.” Alma giggles.

“I can't believe it…” Alive Alma cries. “After I tried so hard to fix things, everythings going to change again.”

Alive Alma wipes her tears again and looks up. “Well… not really change in a literal sense. But things will be different.” She looks towards the phone. “It wouldn't hurt to call…”

Alma gets up from the couch and walks over to the phone. She dials a number and puts the receiver against her ear.

“Hello, it's Alma.” She speaks into the phone. 

On the other side of the phone, I see a police officer, calling from what looks like an office.

“Alma! This isn't when you normally call.” the Police officer remarks.

“Is it possible to talk to him?” Alma asks bluntly.

“I'm afraid not, the phone room is booked today.” the officer informs.

“Oh,” Alive Alma pauses. “Can I ask if it's going to be today?”

“I do believe it's sometime tonight, but I can't say when.”

Her head drops. “Oh, thank you for telling me.” she says meekly. “I'll speak with you tomorrow.” she says before returning the receiver to its home.

Mentally, I record the number Alma just called in my head, along with her own home number.

Alive Alma sighs weakly as she returns to her spot on the couch. She holds her head in her hands and starts to sob.

“Could I ask who you were talking about, on the phone?” I ask Alma.

“I…” She pauses. “I shouldn't say anything.”

Why does everyone refuse to tell me anything?

The noise of it wakes Missile up, and he places himself right beside Alma's legs. He looks up sadly at his crying mistress and whines.

Alma jumps a little. “Missile, I didn't see you there.” She picks up the small dog and places him on her lap. “I'm sorry, I know you don't like seeing me sad.”

Alma pets Missile on the head and he responds by licking her on the face. “Okay you silly dog, that's enough.” Alma says as she places Missile back on the ground.

Missile doesn't move, instead choosing to sit sadly beside Alma.

Missile sits there beside Alma until a rat scurrying along the floor comes to his attention. 

I watch intently, hoping to find an opening.

Missile chased the rat across the floor to the other side of the room. He barks violently at the vermin before the rat makes its grand escape and turns around. 

I depart from the phone and enter the cabinet door below me. I am able to open it. 

When the rat comes around to the cabinet I open it, tossing the rat across the floor and it hits the door.

The rat gets cornered by Missile, and doesn't move anymore. Missile stops the chase in favour to bark at it in place.

“Missile!” Alma exclaims. “Leave the poor rat alone!”

“Well something changed… not sure that it's helpful though.” I remark.

Missile ignores the demands of Alma and continues to bark at the rat in front of him. 

“I know there's a rat there! You don't need to keep barking!” Alma yells and picks up Missile.

There's a banging from the other side of the wall. “If that mutt keeps on barking I'll knock this wall down!” a voice yells. The loud banging on the wall from the other room knocks down a tall lamp on the other side of the room.

“Now you're getting Emma all worked up! Could you please just be quiet?” Alma begs to Missile, who refuses to stop barking.

“Say, do you remember anything about the woman next door?” I ask Alma.

“Umm, I think she moved in really recently, about a month ago. And I know her because she has a daughter around Kamilas age.” Alma answers.

“She's the worst! Ever since she moved in I can't partake in any of my joyous barking without her angry howling!” Missile exclaims. Those are some pretty big words from such a small doggie.

I don't think the lady next door is going to be of much help. I move around onto a conveniently placed book on the couch to reach the other side of the room. There's gotta be something of use over there.

On the other side of the room I see a nicely decorated tree, a decoration on the ceiling, a tall lamp, and another cabinet door.

Moving from the book onto the tree, I notice that there's a star on the tree with a core. I enter the star and see that it's able to be turned on. Activating the star decoration it starts playing music and spinning around, Missile starts barking louder, changing directions to face both a rat and the star.

So this is basically a Missile barking switch if I ever need him to.

Alma sighs, and with Missile still in hand, she walks over to turn the star off. 

I look up at the decoration attached to the ceiling, it's spinning around and if I time it properly I should be able to move onto it. With concentration I enter the ghost world when the decoration is closest to me. I enter the human world and let the decoration make a half rotation before reentering the ghost world again. I move from the decoration to the lamp, then from the lamp to the cabinet door.

I trick the door open, and like expected it opens. But with the rat out of commission it doesn't help me.

Maybe I should hit the rat with this door instead of the other one.

With the knowledge that there's nothing more I can do, I rewind time to the beginning.

“It seems you can try as many times as you want.” Alma remarks.

“I can, so I don't really have to worry about messing up.”

“But I do have to ask, what do you think throwing around a rat will accomplish?” she asks.

“Umm…” I hesitate. “I'll figure that out.”

When I return to the past I head straight to the cabinet door on the other side of the room. I have a little bit of waiting to do before Missile begins chasing the rat again.

“Miss Alma, why do you look so sad?” Missile asks.

“I'm not sad, I'm just thinking.” Alma answers.

“Thinking about what?” I ask

“I just don't understand what I could've done to warrant strangers to break into my house and kill me.” She answers.

“Maybe you did something you can remember at the moment?” I suggest.

“Perhaps, but this is such an extreme situation and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.”

The rat comes back, scurrying across the floor once more, with a loud Missile following not far behind it.

I focus intently on the scene in front of me, waiting for the right moment to open the door.

Right when the rat is about to pass me I trick the cabinet door, slamming it right into the rat.

The rat gets pushed forward and at a slight angle, and hits the decorated tree. The rat, sensing nowhere else to go, climbs up the tree and onto the star at the top. The rat doesn't move any further from its safe position on top of the star.

Maybe if I trick the star now it'll do something. 

I move from the door back up to the ceiling decoration, then back on the star. Tricking the star again it begins to spin and play its music. The rat feels unstable on the moving object and jumps onto the couch below, resting on the book.

“All of that just for the rat to be on the couch again. This happened before.” Alma points out.

“That is true, but Missile isn't chasing it this time, maybe that makes some sort of difference.” I say.

I move from the star directly to the book in which the rat lays on. This time I noticed that the book is interactable.

It looks like I can open the book.

So I open the book, and the rat gets sent up into the air, and lands on the cabinet on the other side of the couch. The rat, filled with fear, begins running again and doesn't really look where it's going, because it falls off the cabinet and lands on the handle of the door.

Alive Alma sighs and sets Missile down. “Don't move!” She commands the dog. Missile firmly plants his butt on the ground but continues barking. Alma reaches towards the door handle and hastily picks up the rat, trying to touch as little of it as possible. While doing so she accidentally opens the door a little bit.

“Oops, the door. It seems I didn't lock it.” Alive Alma remarks. With her free hand she turns the small knob on the door handle and locks the door. She then promptly opens the window behind the couch and tosses the rat outside.

“I need to wash my hands,” Alive Alma gags, before leaving the room to the kitchen. 

“Did that do it?” Alma asks. “All I needed to do was lock the door?”

“Let's wait it out and see if the hitmen are able to come in.” I suggest.

“I'm going to be just a little bit upset if locking the door is all it takes.” Alma sneers.

“I hope that's all it takes! I want Miss Alma to be safe!” Missile yips.

“It would be most convenient if I don't have to do anything else.” I say.

When the time came for the hitmen to enter the room, I listened closely to the door.

“Doors locked.” I hear the smaller man say.

“Then open it.” The woman demands.

“I can't pick this kind of lock.”

The woman groans. “I know that small little body of yours can't break down the door, so there's no point in trying.”

“You know I love it when you talk about me like that.” The man says with a smirk in his voice.

“Let's just wait it out, come on” the woman demands. Afterwards I hear footsteps receding into the distance.

“We did it! We saved Miss Alma!” Missile cheers.

“I can't believe that all I had to do was lock the door.” Alma pauses. “But I am glad that you were able to save me.”

“It's no problem. I have no intention of leaving anyone dead” I say.

“I really really am thankful though.” Alma tears up. “If I had stayed dead then Kamila would've been on her own and I couldn't stand that.”

“Like I said, it really is no problem!”

“I have a question!” Missile butts in.

“Huh, what is it buddy?” I question.

“You said you were able to move things because you're dead, but I've been staring at the ball that's stuck under the couch this whole time and it won't budge!” Missile exclaims.

“Well it's true that only the dead have these powers, but not all dead people.” I explain. “Only a select few get the powers of the dead it seems.”

“That's not fair!” Missile exclaims.

“That is interesting. Why do you suppose you have these powers?” Alma asks.

“I have no idea, I've only met one other person with these powers and I know as much about them as I know about myself, which is nothing.” I say.

“So you really don't remember anything?” Alma asks.

“Not a thing, that's why I'm here as a blue soul instead of whatever I look like.”

“That really is tragic.” Alma remarks. “You don't even know your name.”

“That's right, not even a name. If I didn't exist there wouldn't be much evidence that I even exist.”

“You don't have a name?!” Missile exclaims. “But everyone needs a name!”

“The closest thing I have to a name is “Ghosty”, Yomiel called me that a few times.” I say.

“Yomiel…” Alma pauses. “This isn't the first time you mentioned that guy.”

“Yomiel is the name of the man whose life I saved twice already.” I explain.

“I feel like the name is familiar but without my memories but I can't place from where.” Alma remarks.

Alma might know Yomiel? That might be my new lead if so.

“Well we can head to our new present, and you'll be back with all of your memories.” I say.

“Let's go! I want Miss Alma to be alive again!” Missile exclaims.

“What he said.” Alma agrees.

“Let's go then.” I say as I turn the clock forward, into a new present where Alma and Missile are alive. The world warps and we head off.

Back at the present, Alma has returned to the couch and Missile is happily clawing at her legs.

Looks like someones excited.

“Hey there Missile.” Alma says while picking the small dog up.

I follow the path back to the couch and enter Almas core.

Me, Missile, and Alma meet face to face again.

“You’re back!” Missile exclaims.

“Sure am,” I smile. “I came to see if you guys had the answers to the questions you've been asking now that your memories are back.”

“Yes, why we were being targeted and where I heard Yomiel from.” Alma elaborates.

“So, what's the verdict?” I ask.

“I haven't a clue why there's hitmen after us,” Alma starts. “My family has been generally quite peaceful. We haven't had any sort of incident in five years.”

“Is it possible the “incident” five years ago is the reason why?” I ask.

Alma pauses. “I highly doubt it, we were the victims in that case.”

“Hmm…” I stop to think. “Is that all that comes to mind?”

“Well, I know quite a lot of people who work for the police.” Alma mentions. “But I'd be a weird connection if the foreigners were targeting our government.”

“I'm inclined to agree with that.” I agree. “What about Yomiel?”

“Ah yes Yomiel. I know him, but not personally..” Alma starts.

“How so?” I ask.

“Well…” Alma pauses. “Yomiel got himself in a bit of trouble about ten years back, and it was at the fault of a friend of mine.”

“I know he had committed a crime about ten years back, is that what you mean?” I ask.

“Yes, he had to go to jail for about six months and he lost his job. But the whole incident wasn't really his fault so afterwards my friends worked to get him back on his feet.” Alma continues. “I believe it was around six years ago when they got him a job at the special prison.”

“So you never really knew him but knew of him from your police friends?” I ask.

“I've met the man about once or twice, but that's all.” Alma clarifies.

“Do you know of anything he and his wife could have done to get on the bad side of the hitmen?” I ask.

“His wife..? Oh yes Sissel.” She stops to think. “No, not really. Ever since he had gotten out of jail the two of them have been pretty peaceful as far as I'm aware.”

“Have you met Sissel?”

“Once, and under unfortunate circumstances. I didn't get the chance to talk to her much.” Alma answers bleakly.

“Do you know she lives directly above you?” I ask.

“She does? I didn't know that, it's probably just a coincidence.” She answers, though I feel like she's hiding something in that statement.

“This is all too weird.” I sigh. “I haven't been able to figure anything out and I've run out of leads.”

“How so?” Alma asks.

“Yomiel was nearest to my place of death, so I was hoping that if I followed him around enough that I would get some answers, but I'd lost him.” I sigh.

“Hmm, I'm sorry I can't be of much help.” Alma says.

“It's okay, I have an idea of where to go next.” I say, I've been curious about that police office ever since Alma called it, I have a feeling it could be of importance.

“Police office? Oh the special prison that I called earlier?”

“Special prison? Didn't you say Yomiel worked at the special prison?” I ask.

“Yes, it's the place.” Alma stops to think intensely. “Can I ask a request of you?”

“Sure.”

“There's someone at the prison I'm worried about, prisoner D99, if you could go to the prison and just watch over him as best as you can.” She asks of me.

“I probably won't be able to stay there long, but I can check on him.” I say.

“That'd be enough.” She says solemnly.

“Miss Alma you sound tired!” Missile exclaims. “You should get some rest!”

“It has been a long night for you,” I add. “Some rest might be good for you.”

She sighs. “You're probably right, it has been a long night.”

I exit Alma core, letting her go. She stands up.

“Thank you for everything you've done tonight.” She says before leaving the room. Missile follows her.

There's no reason to stay here any longer, so I make my way to the phone.

Just as I am about to leave the room I hear small footsteps coming closer. The sound of them is so small to be Alma, and too big to be Missile.

A head dawned with a lilac bob pokes into the room. “Mom?”

This must be Kamila, Alma's daughter.

“Has she gone to bed already?” The little girl asks herself. “I wanted to ask about all that noise earlier.”

So she did hear everything. That begs the question of why she was absent in the other reality though, doesn't it?

Just as she is about to walk away the phone begins to ring.

“I should get that,” She whispers to herself.

She walks over to the phone to answer it. Conveniently, I'm already in the phone so I'm able to listen in with ease.

“Hello?” She speaks into the receiver.

“Kamila!” A young girl cheers quietly from the other side.

“Amelie? Why are you calling so late?” Kamila asks.

Amelie pauses for a small sneeze. “It's my Papa's birthday and I wanted to go get him something, but I'm really sick and I don't want to go alone.” She answers.

“What about your mom?” Kamila asks.

“She doesn't want to talk about Papa.” Amelie answers sadly. “It should only take a few minutes! I know what I want to get him!”

Kamila stops to think. “Okay, I don't see why not.”

“Thank you!” Amelie cheers before breaking into a harsh cough. 

“You sound like you need the help.” Kamila says.

“Yeah,” Amelie admits after freeing herself from the coughing spree.

“Okay, I'll see you.” Kamila says before returning the receiver to its home. She quickly heads to the door and unlocks it, then leaves the room.

Now I'm not sure that was the best idea, because now not only is she outside but the door is unlocked again. But there's nothing I can do about either fact. All I can do is move forward and check out the prisoner Alma asked me to. But I can't help but worry for this family.

Tricking the phone, I move out of this home and into a police office, hoping to find some answers.

Tonight has already been most eventful and the more I learn the more I realise how dire the situation seems to be. I just hope that I can make it out with the answers I seek.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter Five

First, <prev, next>

or you can read it on Ao3

fic below the cut

8:34 PM

Riding the red phone line, I wonder how it's come to this.

I don't know much about the police, or any part of the government, but I don't think it's very acceptable to spy on prisoners, even if I'm just checking on their wellbeing. 

However, this is the only lead I have left to follow, and I hope that somewhere along the line I'll be able to reunite with Yomiel.

Arriving at my destination, I am able to get a better look at this office-like space. The room is small and only has two officers occupying it, the one who was talking on the phone and another one off to the right. The phone officer is sitting up impossibly straight, to the point where his back is curving inwards. The second officer is the opposite, sitting in the world's worst slouch.

“So how are the preparations coming along?” The hunchback officer asks his colleague. 

“I think they're taking care of them right now.” The other replies.

“Yeah? Man… I'm not looking forward to this…” The slouch sighs.

“That kind of surprises me, coming from you. I didn't know you thought about such things.” He pauses. “By the way, that was me being sarcastic. Just in case you didn't catch that…”

“Two and a half more hours… and then it will be time.” The hunchback sighs.

“I guess we should just get back to work.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.”

The two officers turn their chairs around to face their desks, and the straight-back officer pins a note to his board.

The atmosphere sure seems tense… I guess I'll get back to my work as well. Alma has asked me to check on prisoner D99 for whatever reason. However, I am unsure where the prisoner is kept, and how to get there.

It'd be best to try and get some information first.

In the ghost world, there's only a few things within my reach. Two notes attached to the wall, and a monitor hung on the ceiling. There's another monitor to my right but it's just out of reach.

The monitor is untrickable, so I return to one of the notes on the wall, the one that the officer had just hung up a few moments ago. I trick the note and it falls off the wall. The hunchback notices its fall and turns his chair around to catch it midair.

The officer waves the paper in his hand. “Hey, Bailey.” He calls out.

The other officer, Bailey, turns around to face his colleague.

“Try pinning up your memos a little better next time.” The slouch says. “Lemme see this thing… “Inspection, prisoner C74””

“Oh it's almost time for that. I better prepare.”

“Prisoner C74, eh?” The slouch ponders. “What did that big whale do anyway?”

“You don't know? About the “Metro Police Department Siege” case?” Bailey asks.

“Metro who-what?”

“C74 barricaded himself into the Metro Police Department and took siege of the place.” Bailey explains. “He even pointed a huge flamethrower at the chief commissioner.”

“Why the heck did he do all that?”

“That's what the detectives that surrounded him asked, too. “What are your demands?!”, they asked.” Bailey answers.

“And..?”

“The guy was unable to answer, he just stood there completely paralysed. He apparently had a very shocked and confused look on his face.” Bailey explains.

“He didn't say anything? Was that all he did?”

“Unfortunately, no. after a few minutes of holding him hostage…” Bailey pauses. “He touched the commissioner's office. With the flamethrower. Touched it good. Important documents, and the commissioner's moustache, were destroyed by the flames.”

“What the heck did he do all that for?!”

“Just like before, when he was questioned he gave no answer.” Bailey says.

“Huh, is the guy just crazy or something?”

“Nobody truly knows, but the case sent shockwaves throughout the country.” Bailey continues.

“But that doesn't make any sense! In the first place…” The slouch pauses. “How did a huge, armed guy make it to the commissioners office alone?”

“It's a complete mystery.”

“What?! Why don't they just ask C74 himself?!”

“Maybe they did, but they haven't released anything about it.” Bailey pauses. “Apparently, it's all a matter of national secrecy…”

The slouch grumbles, before crumpling the memo and throwing it across the room into Baileys trash can.

Bailey yells in annoyance and spins around in his chair dramatically. He then hops out of his chair and clenches his fists. “Will you quit throwing my important duty memos away?!”

The slouch doesn't reply, instead spinning his chair around to face his desk, Bailey soon does the same.

Hmm, what an interesting case. A big guy took siege of a police department without anyone knowing how, and when asked for demands he doesn't answer and torches the place anyway? It's incredibly strange.

I move from out of the trash can and on to the other memo Bailey has hung up, and release it. The paper falls and the slouch catches it again.

“Hey, Bailey.”

Bailey swings his chair around again.

“Whatsa matter, you can't even pin up a memo properly?” The hunchback looks at the paper. “Lemme see this thing… “Take prisoner C38 to the telephone room”.”

“Yes he made a request to use the phone a little while ago.” Bailey clarifies.

“You already told me that earlier.” He pauses. “C38, eh? What did that punk do, anyway?”

“You've never heard the story? About the “Secret Rendezvous” case?” Bailey asks.

“Secret who-what?”

“C38 was a singer in a band. His group was playing at a concert that was being broadcast all over the country live. And right in the middle of their encore there was a “huge incident”.”

“A “Huge Incident”? What was it, a murder or something?”

“Almost, When C38 was singing his song, Secret Rendezvous, he suddenly stopped before the final chorus when something strange occurred.” Bailey starts.

“Something strange?”

“A gun dropped from above the stage and C38 started shooting up the crowd.”

“What?! Did anyone die?”

“Miraculously there were no deaths.” Bailey says. “Witnesses say that paranormal-like activity saved many people that night.”

“What paranormal activity?! That doesn't make any sense!” The slouch huffs. “Why didn't his band-mates do anything?!”

“They tried, but apparently he was abnormally strong and they couldn't stop him.” Bailey pauses. “They claimed to have even teamed up all together to stop him but even that wasn't enough against his abnormal strength.”

“How could he fight off his entire band?! Where'd that gun come from anyway?!”

“We don't know, the guards backstage claimed that no one went above the stage during the performance.”

“Why the hell would he even do it?!”

“After the gun ran out of bullets his band-mates started demanding why he had just done a thing, but he gave no response.”

“Seriously?!”

“Apparently, all he had to give them was a scared and confused look on his face.” Bailey explains.

“But that doesn't make any sense! Where'd that gun come from and how was the crowd saved?!”

“No one knows, If anyone had figured it out they hadn't released anything about it.” Bailey pauses. “Apparently, it's all a matter of national secrecy…”

The slouch grumbles, before crumpling the memo and throwing it across the room into Baileys trash can.

Bailey yells in annoyance and spins around in his chair dramatically. He then hops out of his chair and clenches his fists. “Will you quit throwing my important duty memos away?!”

The slouch doesn't reply, instead spinning his chair around to face his desk, Bailey soon does the same.

Now this case really does interest me. “Paranormal activity”? Is it possible that a ghost was there that day? But that doesn't explain how he got so “Abnormally strong”.

Not a moment later, Bailey stands up to hang another memo on his board.

I wonder what kind of info I'll get from this one.

I remove myself from the trashcan once more and insert myself into the hanging note. I manipulate the memo into falling down, and just like before the slouch notices and catches it midair.

“Hey, Bailey”

Bailey turns around in his chair again.

“Lemme see this thing… “Bring Dinner To prisoner D99”.” The slouch reads.

“The chef is preparing it for him right now.”

“Ooh, how fancy.” The slouch pauses. “D99, eh? Even i know about this one.”

“Yeah..?” Bailey sighs. “Such a sad case… hard for us, too…”

“He shot his fellow detective, didn't he? Right outside in the courtyard?”

Bailey stays silent.

“It's just awful! Why in the world did he do it?!” The slouch winces. “Why would he of all people do that, and why would he shoot him out of all people?!”

“The motive, everything, all a complete mystery.”

“It's just ridiculous! It doesn't make sense that he would do anything like that!” The slouch yells.

“I don't know the details, but apparently…” Bailey pauses. “This case is a matter of national secrecy as well…”

“I don't get it! None of it makes any sense!”

“You do know what kind of prison this is, don't you?” Bailey asks. “It's a special prison, built for these special cases…”

“D99… I wonder if he thought he could just breeze past the consequences like that flowy coat of his breezes in the wind.” The slouch grumbles. “I don't like any of it. I knew I couldn't take my job seriously without it getting to me.”

So the prisoner I'm looking for, D99, was convicted of murder, eh? And apparently he wears a flowy coat…

The slouch grumbles, before crumpling the memo and throwing it across the room into Baileys trash can.

Bailey yells in annoyance and spins around in his chair dramatically. He then hops out of his chair and clenches his fists. “Will you quit throwing my important duty memos away?!”

The slouch doesn't reply, instead spinning his chair around to face his desk, Bailey soon does the same.

Bailey hangs up another memo, but before I'm able to get up there, the slouch gasps a little.

“It's time.” He reminds Bailey.

In the room beside me I can hear a door open as two pairs of feet walk in. Along with the footsteps I hear an awful screeching noise. Thankfully, the noise stops pretty quickly and the room goes mostly silent.

Back in the room I'm in, I see the hunchback officer finish making a tower of cards, and gently puts a fancy glass filled with red juice on top.

“There! It's done!” He says proudly.

I remove myself from the trash can and enter the new memo. I don't think I can get any more information out of these two, but the people next door feel like they can be my lead to where the prisoners are held.

I free the note and let it fall, where the slouch catches it like usual. I quickly move to a nearby switch before listening to their conversation.

“Hey, Bailey. Would you quit sending these memos over here?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“Not until I figure out how you always know the exact instant a memo starts falling…” Bailey pauses dramatically. “Not until I solve that mystery!”

The slouch doesn't say anything else, before crumpling the memo and throwing it across the room into Baileys trash can.

Bailey yells in annoyance and spins around in his chair dramatically. He then hops out of his chair and clenches his fists. “Next time! I will find the answer next time!”

As I thought, these two don't have anything else important to say.

Looking around, there's nowhere else to go from this switch. The only thing I can do at this point is flip it, so I do exactly that.

Suddenly an alarm starts blaring in the room, red lights above start flashing, and a cabinet in the centre of the room opens up to reveal all sorts of weaponry.

Bailey yells in frustration while spinning his chair to face his coworker. He hops out of his chair. “There you go again! Fooling around with that thing!”

The slouch turns around in his chair with a grumble. “It wasn't me.”

“Don't lie! You know you love to see me jump up and prepare for an emergency!” Bailey exclaims.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Way back when I first got this job. But I've had enough of that now. Besides, you always react the same way.”

Bailey grumbles.

“The emergency switch is probably just loose. Probably because I fooled around with it too much…”

“Well, it's for emergencies! Don't play with it!”

“Anyways, it wasn't me. Maybe you oughta get it repaired, huh?”

“Well, close it back up! It's making me feel on edge.” Bailey says.

“Nah, too much of a pain.”

“A pain?!” Bailey exclaims. “Proper emergency procedures are “a pain” to you?! What a sad, sad state of affairs…”

Bailey doesn't sit back down, and the hunchback just ignores his nervous head looking back and forth.

I use this as an opportunity to leave the room, with the switch in a higher position I am able to climb up to the glass of juice onto a monitor onto a camera in the next room.

In the room there's a guard and one of the prisoners. The prisoner has spiky pink hair and a strange looking toy is sat beside him. That must be the noisemaker I heard earlier.

I move down from the camera onto a button, beside me in the door handle. I press the button to see what it does and the door beside me opens. The guard standing nearby notices that the door is now ajar and presses the button to close it again.

I press the button again, but I move from the button to the door handle before it gets out of my reach, then I quickly move from the door to the noisemaker before the guard can close it.

If I had to guess, this prisoner is the rock star that shot up a crowd. Not who I'm looking for.

I sit in the noisemaker for a moment, waiting for the rocker to be done. He'll carry this thing back to his cell and hopefully that'll bring me closer to the prisoner I seek.

“Peace out!” The rocker speaks into the phone before returning it to its home. “I'm done.” He alerts the guard.

The guard opens the door then marches over to the prisoner. “All right, C38! Back to your cell!”

“Hey, guard man, how about given’ me a little bit of space?” the rocker chuckles. “That craaazy walk of yours is dangerous, man!”

The guard backs up a few steps. “A proper walk for a properly led life! Now, let's go!”

“Yo! No lectures, man… I walk my own path, my own way, to my own music!” 

The rocker picks up the noisemaker and begins to play it as the guard leads the rocker out of the room, carrying me with him. Hopefully the walk isn't that long, I don't know how much more of this noise I can take…

After a thankfully short walk later, I'm taken to where the prisoners are held. The guard places the rocker back in his cell before marching off.

So I finally made it. Now to find prisoner D99 and check up on him, and hopefully find something out about everything happening tonight.

Inside the cell, the rocker continues to make his awful noise. “Damn!” He exclaims. “Don't think I can take another second in this stinkin’ pit!” The rocker checks his nearby surroundings. “Looks like guard man is gone.” He rips a piece of paper with an “O” on it from the wall, scrunches it up, and throws it in the nearby toilet. “All this waitin’ is wipin’ me out! I hope this one’ll finally do it.” He walks over to the toilet and flushes it. “Go, go, go!” he exclaims as the paper gets sent down through the pipes below. “C’mon Sausage Head!”

That looks like my exit. I just have to figure out how to make him do that again. I move from the noisemaker to the two stacks of paper hung up on the wall. One is all marked with “O”s and the other is marked with “X”s. They are symbols of some sort but I can't for the life of me remember what they mean.

From the papers I move to the toilet and from the toilet I notice a phone just outside the cell. Nice! Phones are always nice to have nearby. I enter the phone and notice something odd about it. It seems this phone only connects to other phones in the prison, so far that's only the guards office i was in earlier but if i find other phones then i can move to them, but not outside of that.

Above the phone is an emergency switch. I can already feel myself getting a little trigger happy just looking at it. Unable to resist the urge, I move to the emergency switch and pull it.

Immediately alarms begin to blare throughout the building, and guards come from all over to inspect the area. Sweat begins to build on the rockers face as he quickly moves over to the papers on the wall.

This might be my chance! I move from the switch to the papers with “X”s. I'm not completely sure which of the two papers he'll flush this time but I'm hoping it's this one.

To my luck, the rocker rips off a paper with an “X” and quickly flushes it down the toilet. “Go, go, go!”

Now, I'm not the happiest about being flushed down a toilet, but if it's my only way down then I guess I don't have much of a choice.

Riding down the pipes, I realise I have no idea where I'm going, hopefully somewhere productive. After the short journey a hook grabs onto the paper and I hear the sound of a bell ringing above me. The sounds of odd shuffling can also be heard before the rope starts to pull me up.

A prisoner pulls the paper off of the hook and I'm able to get a good look at him, but I do regret it. The man is large and is wearing a bib on top of his prison uniform. Most disturbingly is his head, as it is too long and wobbles about uncomfortably. I understand why the rocker called him sausage head.

Sausage head crumples up the paper and drops it in a nearby trash can. He then takes the back of the toilet and moves it to cover a large hole in the wall.

Just what is going on in this strange prison?

Sausage man then hops onto his bed, and a strange device attaches to his head. It makes me unimaginably uncomfortable.

I would like to get out of here as soon as possible.

From the lack of flowy coat, and the largeness of this man, I deduce that this must be the guy from the police department siege case. In other words, not the guy I'm looking for.

From the trash bin I can reach the back of the toilet, the bell above, a blackboard hung on the wall, and the light on the ceiling. The blackboard doesn't interest me and the light above does lead anywhere so instead I turn my attention to the bell, as it's the only interactable thing in the room.

I ring the bell and sausage head gets up from his bed, and grabs a spoon sitting beside him. I move from the bell to the light on the ceiling, and as sausage head picks up the spoon I enter it. It's the only thing here that i haven't been in so it must be my way out of this awful room.

Sausage head carries the spoon over to the toilet, and pulls the rope up like he did before. He gives a confused look as he sees nothing on the hook but doesnt think about it much, and throws the spoon back to the cup on his bedside. Directly to my left is another phone.

Finally! My exit! I excitedly exit the spoon and move to the phone. This phone, like the last one, only connects to other phones in the prison, but now at least I have an easier method of going up and down.

To the left of the phone is the toilet of another cell, hopefully inside this one is the man I'm looking for. I move from the phone to the toilet in great anticipation.

The man in the next cell is pacing his room back and forth. He has a few papers in his hands and is reading over them intensely. The man himself has a defined jaw and nose, with sideburns and greying hair. The walls of the cell are covered in similar papers covered in tiny scribbles. However, to my delight, the man is wearing a long, flowy coat.

This must be who I'm looking for, and from the looks of things, he isn't doing well.

“Come on, baby, there has to be a connection somewhere…” The man speaks to himself.

The guards from before mentioned that this man was once a detective, I wonder if these papers are for an investigation. I wonder if his investigation somehow relates to what's happening tonight.

Many of the papers have cores, so I quickly move to the closest one to read it.

…

Tonight, I have lost a lot of things, my life, my memory…

But there is a certain skill that I have apparently lost, too…

I can't read!

I can see that there is some kind of writing on the paper…

But I have absolutely no idea what it means!

I stare dumbfounded at the paper in front of me. How have I managed to lose the ability to read?! These papers could have been important towards my investigation!

I move my attention from my illiteracy to the pacing man in the cell. According to the guards this man had shot another detective. I can't imagine why he'd do something like that, and I also can't imagine what seems to be worrying him so much.

The man continues to pace anxiously around the room, reading his notes. Occasionally he'll stop pacing to read something on the walls, but then will continue his march.

“There isn't much time leeeft, I gotta figure this out now.” He speaks to himself.

Unfortunately for Alma, the man she's worried about seems to have been driven insane. The anxious pacing, the mumbles to himself, the walls covered in nothing but notes, it all comes together to create a creepy vibe that I am not enjoying. 

I'd hate to bring Alma bad news but it's very clear that this man is not okay, but there's nothing I can do about this. 

I move from the paper on the wall back to the toilet, but just as I get there I hear a voice call out.

“D99, dinner!” The voice yells. D99 puts down the papers he was holding and pulls out a small table and chair from beneath his bed. A guard walks in, holding a large chicken. The guard places the chicken on the table and D99 sits himself down.

“Weeell, won't you look at this.” D99 says, eyeing the chicken. “I'm getting spoooiled rotten tonight.”

The guard stares intently at the prisoner.

“Oh,” D99 sighs. “It's cold though, what a shame!”

The guard continues to stare. “D99..?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Know it's kinda pointless to ask now, but…” The guard pauses. “But just the same, I want to know. Why did you do it?!”

D99 pauses before letting out a forced chuckle. “You know you won’t like the answer I'll give, it's the same one I always give, baby.”

The guard pauses. “Detective Cabanela…”

“Why don't you leave me to eat in peace? Wouldn't want to disturb this moment would you, baby?”

The guard stays silent as D99, Cabanela, moves more papers off of the small table. After a few moments the guard speaks. “There's one more thing I've been wondering for a long time.”

Cabanela turns his head towards the guard. “And what's that, baby?”

“What are you writing in all these papers?”

Cabanela shuffles the papers in his hands before putting down all but one. “Even with how long I've been here, I can't just stop my investigations. I'm a detective at heart and no time in the slammer is taking that away from me.” Cabanela begins while grabbing a thumb tack from a desk.

“But how could you possibly be investigating in here?”

“You underestimate me, baby.” Cabanela slams the paper against the wall with one hand, completely covering whatever's on it. “Just because I don't have my freedom doesn't mean I don't have what I need to investigate.”

“Just what exactly are you investigating anyway?”

Cabanela tacks the paper to the wall. “Just two suspicious folk.” Cabanela lets go of the paper, letting it hang on the wall and relieving the contents on it.

I move closer to the paper, I may not be able to read but from what I could see from the distance I don't think that'll be a problem.

Just like I suspected, the paper's contents is not scribbled writing like every other paper in this room, but a drawing. While Cabanelas drawing isn't perfect, it's easy to understand.

A man with hair slicked back to one point wearing sunglasses and a suit. A woman with two cone shaped hair buns with a triangular bang and an impractical outfit.

This is…

Yomiel and Sissel?!

“I don't understand, why are you investigating these two?” The guard asks, inspecting the drawing.

“It's not anything you need to be worried about, baby.” Cabanela turns to face the guard. “Now why won't you let a man eat in peace?”

“Okay, sure. Sorry to bother you.” The guard says before leaving the cell.

What in the world..? What in the world could this mean..? Why is there a drawing of Yomiel and Sissel in this man's cell?

Who exactly is this prisoner? The man that Alma expressed great worry about is a detective investigating Yomiel and Sissel!

I have to find Yomiel and Sissel again. Everything that's been happening tonight has all somehow connected back to them, there has to be more that they aren't telling me.

Eventually this all will connect back to me, right?

I leave the cell and travel through the phone line to the guards office as soon as I can. From here I can go wherever I want.

When I reach the guard room the phone is ringing. Bailey stops whatever he’s writing to pick up the phone.

On the other side of the phone I see a man with a moustache and a large chin.

“This is headquarters. What's the status over there?”

“Oh, Chief! it's you!” Bailey gasps. “They're making preparations now. No problems, sir!”

“How much longer, then?” The chief asks.

“One more hour, sir.” Bailey replies.

“I see, carry on then.” The chief pauses for a brief moment. “Oh, one more thing. I have a special request from the inspector.”

“What is it sir?”

“She wants you to report any suspicious activity at all, anything that seems at all unusual is to be reported directly to her or me.” 

“Understood sir.” Bailey says before hanging up the phone.

“What was that about?” The hunchback guard asks Bailey.

“Just the chief checking in on preparations.” Bailey answers. “And I was given a special request from the inspector to report anything odd.”

“The chief and the inspector, huh?” The slouch sighs. “Everyones on edge today.”

“Of course they are, this is the most important day the industry has had in decades.”

“It is, isn't it?” the slouch pauses. “Really makes you think if it's the right thing to do.”

“It was what was decided by the justice minister, there's no point thinking about that now.”

“I know, it's just…” The slouch grumbles and slams his fist against his desk, knocking down his tower of cards and the glass on top of it.

“What's wrong?” Bailey asks his coworker.

“Jowd was my hero, y’know. I wanted to be a detective because of him.”

Jowd? That's not a name I've heard before.

“But look at me! Rottin’ away in a place like this! And I can't help but wonder if that this is what he would've wanted.” the slouch exclaims.

“Detective Jowd and Detective Cabanela had always been great friends.” Bailey begins. “They were two of the best in the industry…”

“Then Cabanela just had to go and shoot him, ruining both of their futures and the future of the industry.” the slouch groans. “Nothings been the same since then.”

Jowd must be the name of the detective that Cabanela shot, and apparently they were good friends.

“Things have been rather difficult since then, huh?”

“Detective Jowd was such a nice guy… I bet that even though Cabanela shot him for no apparent reason that he wouldn't want this to happen.”

Bailey stays silent. 

“What's really even the point of this anymore? What am I doing with my life!”

“Th-This new side of you is kind of… endearing…” Bailey stutters.

The hunchback remains silent.

“Anyway, the thing to do is work at fixing what you can, little by little. Like, for example, your house of cards. It collapsed, you know.”

The slouch groans and Baileys turns back around in his chair.

I should probably return to Alma's place, I don't have any reason to be here any longer.

And I would like to ask her some questions if possible.

I trick the phone and ride the phone line back to Alma's apartment.

When I return, Alma isn't there.

I guess that makes sense, I did tell her to get some rest.

Thankfully, Missile is there.

I follow a path down to where Missile is asleep and enter his core.

“Hey, Missile.” I call out to the little doggie.

“You're back!” Missile exclaims. “Welcome back!”

“Hopefully I wasn't gone for too long.”

“You were! It felt like forever since I've seen you!”

I chuckle at the dramatic little doggie. “Could you go get Alma for me? I need to ask her a few things.”

“Sure thing!” Missile exclaims before running off to retrieve his mistress. It makes me a little jealous that I don't have legs to run around with.

In the distance, I can hear excited barking as Missile jumps around, trying to convince Alma to go to the living room.

After a few minutes, an excited Missile and a tired Alma enter the area, and Missile leads her to the couch.

“What's up with you, boy?” Alma asks the dog.

I decide to answer the question for her, by entering her core.

“Ah!” Alma exclaims. “You're back!”

“Yeah, sorry about Missile. It was the only way I could think of to get you back here.”

“So that's what got you so excited, huh, Missile?”

“Sorry I woke you up Miss Alma, I had too!”

Alma laughs. “All is forgiven.”

“Now we can move onto why I'm back.” I start.

“You checked on him?” Alma asks.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He didn't look like he was doing well. His cell was covered in papers and he spent a lot of time reading over them while pacing around.” I explain.

Alma deflates. “I expected as much but I was hoping it wouldn't be the case.”

“Could I ask you a few questions? A lot is going on and you're the only person I'm able to ask.”

Alma pauses to think. “There's no harm I suppose. What do you want to know?”

“I'm mostly confused about the relationship between you, Cabanela, and…” I hesitate. “Jowd.”

Alma winces at the name. “You've learned quite a bit since we last spoke, huh?”

“I've just picked up some things from the people around me.”

“Well, um” Alma begins. “Me and Cabanela have been good friends for a long time, and I met Jowd through him because they both joined the industry on the same day and quickly became friends.”

“So you've known Cabanela for a long time, and I'm assuming that Jowd was also a friend of yours.” I say.

“Jowd…” Alma pauses. “Jowd was my husband.”

Oh shoot, I wasn't expecting that.

“O-Oh, I'm sorry.” I stutter a bit pathetically.

“It's alright, it has been five years.”

“Okay,” I should change the conversation. “Can you think of any reason that Cabanela would find Yomiel and Sissel suspicious?”

“...What?”

“When i was checking out his cell every possible surface was covered in papers, when a guard asked Cabanela what they were for he said he was investigating two suspicious individuals.” I say. “When the guard asked who they were he showed him a drawing that was clearly of Yomiel and Sissel.”

“Cabanela is investigating them, how?” Alma asks.

“All he said about that was to “Not underestimate him”” I answer.

“Leave it to Cabanela to be confidently cryptic.” Alma pauses. “But to answer your question, no.” She thinks for a moment. “Well, maybe Sissel.”

“Explain?”

“Ever since that incident five years ago, Cabanela has been claiming that it was like he was being controlled, when he shot Jowd.” Alma begins to explain. “Obviously that's not believable, but he's been confident that's what happened at the time.”

“And what does this have to do with Sissel?” I ask.

“Sissel was nearby, when it happened.”

“Nearby? How close?”

“For some reason she was at the station, and just randomly passed out in the courtyard. Jowd rushed over to her to check if she was alright, and he was directly above her when he… died.” Alma explains.

I'll have to ask Yomiel about that when I get the chance. “Is that the only connection you can think of?”

“Well it's clear that Cabanela… isn't doing well, and that might be the connection he could come up with, but that doesn't really involve Yomiel at all. Other than the fact that they are married.”

“Well thank you for giving the best answers you can. It's pretty clear that I need to find Yomiel and get the answers straight from his mouth.” I say.

“Yes, you said you had lost him. How did that happen?” Alma asks.

“Simple, he just went to a place where I was unable to follow.”

“Do you know where he went? Maybe I can help.”

“He said that he was going to someplace called “The Chicken Kitchen”, but I have no idea what that even is.”

“The Chicken Kitchen? This late?” Alma questions. “Bit odd.”

“He said he was going to meet Sissel there.”

“All you need is a call to be able to go to a new location, right?” Alma asks.

“Yup.”

“Then I'll call the Chicken Kitchen, I owe you one anyway.”

“You can just call?” I say, for some reason that hadn't crossed my mind.

“Yup, then hopefully you'll be able to reunite with Yomiel.”

“That'll be fantastic!”

“Let me call then.” Alma says as I'm pushed out of the ghost world. I'm a little embarrassed that the solution is so simple but I'm not here to complain, as long as I can get to where I need to be I'm happy.

Alma stands up from the couch and walks over to the phone, immediately dialling a number.

I move from my spot over to the phone.

Alma picks up the phone and holds it to her ear.

“Hello? This is The Chicken Kitchen” a strange looking man in chef attire answers on the other side of the phone.

Alma doesn't say anything, but holds the phone for a little while before hanging up.

“Hope that helps.” She says.

It does, a lot. I trick the phone and ride the phone line to my next destination, The Chicken Kitchen.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter three

First, <prev, next>

or you can read it on Ao3

Fic below the cut

8:04 PM

Before saving his life, Yomiel promised me that he’d answer whatever questions I had.

And now, looking back at all I had just learned.

I just hope that Yomiel is patient with me.

Back in the present, I notice that Yomiel and the Pigeon man aren't in my sight, but that's not surprising. I'm still outside the building and they said they would be downstairs.

That's fine, I'll just retrace my steps and go back downstairs to the phone. I move around the trash pile a bit and return to the trash piece that Yomiel threw up here.

Oh. This piece was only my path because Yomiel threw it, it doesn't connect to my path downstairs. I'm stranded. 

I scan the area around me to make sure that I was actually stranded, it would be embarrassing if there was an obvious exit and I just stayed put.

Here exists the ladder, the bike, and a few miscellaneous pieces of trash.

After circling the few objects in my reach, I came to the conclusion that I'm definitely stranded.

What am I going to do now? Am I just going to be left here for the rest of time? Forgotten by the world?

The sound of the door opening interrupted my minor panicking. I look over to see Yomiel who has just exited the building. 

What is he doing out here? Wasn’t he going to talk with that weird pigeon guy?

“Hey Ghosty.” he calls out. “If you're here, ring the bicycle bell.”

Oh thank god. Yomiel, my saviour, must’ve noted that I'd be stuck here once we returned to the present and already thought of a way to help me.

I move from where I am to the bicycle bell and ring it a few times.

“Perfect, get in this piece of trash.” he says, motioning to the piece of trash that he had thrown earlier. 

Yomiel picks up the piece and stuffs it in his pocket. “Hope you're in there.” he says as he re-enters the building.

Of course Yomiel thought about the fact that I would be stuck out there, he seems quite smart.

When in the building he places the trash right beside the phone. “You should be good here.”

I enter the ghost world with relief. I was all too worried about being stuck but with this new access to the phone everything is back in order. I exit the trash with the intention of going for the phone, but something strange caught my eye.

Yomiel has a core.

Yomiel, an alive man, has a core. 

That's not like anything I've seen before. Not only is it not something I have seen, it's something I had thought to be impossible. What is an alive man doing with a core of the dead?

My curiosity gets the better of me and I enter the core of the alive Yomiel. Unsure of what to expect.

Then I was met face-to-face with Yomiel once more. 

“Oh, hey Ghosty.” he greets me, just as surprised as I am. “What are you doing here?”

“Not quite sure.” I shrug. “I just noticed you have a core now so I entered it.”

“Well that's interesting, but also convenient, we can talk much easier now.” Yomiel comments. “I wonder why I have suddenly gained a core.”

“That is strange, I can't imagine why you'd come back to life with a core” I ponder.

“Maybe that's just what happens when you bring people back to life.” Yomiel suggests.

“No, because you would have gained a core last time.”

“Last time? So this isn't my first time dying.”

“Oh, uh.” I stumble. “Yeah, I had saved you once before. Just a few minutes ago.”

“I'm assuming that the other hitman was initially successful.” Yomiel guessed. “And then you came along.”

“Yeah, that's what happened.” I confirm. “Though that one was a lot more straightforward than this one.”

“Why do you suppose that I don't really remember that happening?” Yomiel asks.

“Well, I'm pretty sure you were unconscious the entire time.” I answer.

“Unconscious?”

“When people die, they’re unconscious for a little while afterwards. I guess if you never wake up before I saved you, then you don't get a core.”

“Interesting, so if there's anyone you don't want to know about the afterlife but want to save then you should do it quickly.” Yomiel says.

That's an odd takeaway from this, but I guess it isn't incorrect. 

“Either way, it seems we can talk directly without any problems.” Yomiel mentions.

“Now I can bother you with all the questions I have.”

“Yeah, but in exchange I get to ask you a few too.”

“Got it,” I agree. “Let's start here, do you know anything about me?”

“I can't say I do.” Yomiel answers.

“You must know something! I died here in this Junkyard. When I woke up you were close!” I insist.

“That is odd. I haven't seen any sort of body that would suggest something has died here. Not even as much of a rat.” Yomiel mentions.

“Don't compare me to a rat.” I cringe.

“Who knows, you might be a rat that just happened to die here amongst the trash.”

“I rather not think like that. That truth may be too much for even me to bear.” I wince. I do hope that I am not a rat, I can't imagine a more pathetic truth.

“It's the most plausible thing I can think of at the moment.” Yomiel smirks.

“Please no.” I cringe. “Was anyone here earlier?”

Yomiel pauses. “Yes, but she has nothing to do with it.”

She? Maybe this is about that strangely dressed woman that the strange fancy guy said was another of his targets.

“And who is “she”?” I ask.

“I told you that she has nothing to do with this.” Yomiel asserts. “Anyways, the first thing that even hinted that something was dead here is that stuff started activating on their own.”

That reminds me of something else I wanted to ask Yomiel about. It really seems like he knew about the powers of the dead before I saved him.

“Powers of the dead? Is that what you call them?” Yomiel asks.

Right, he can read my thoughts!

“Just talk to me normally, Ghosty.”

Okay fine. “I would like to know how you knew about the powers of the dead before. You mentioned “spirits” during your last four minutes and it's been bothering me since.”

“How did I know?” Yomiel pauses. “You are right, I did mention them before.”

“You were also quite confident about your assumption, so it wasn't just a wild guess.” I deduce.

“You are correct with that, I did in fact know that a spirit was present here.” Yomiel admits.

“You said before that you knew that a spirit was here because things were moving on their own, but you never explained how you know this, I doubt it's very common knowledge.”

“That is also true, I doubt very many people are aware about these powers.”

“Then how are you one of them?” I ask.

“To put it simply, I've experienced them before.” Yomiel finally answers.

Im slightly stunned, even though that answer does seem to make the most sense it still came as a surprise. “Really? Could you tell me about what you've experienced before?” I ask.

Yomiel frowns. “No.”

“Huh? But why not! It's not like I can tell anyone.” I argue. “I'm dead, I can only talk to you!”

“That's not the issue, it's just not something I want to talk about.” Yomiel says, shutting down any more questions related to this “other experience”.

Not something he wants to talk about? I have a feeling that he's lying but I doubt he'd appreciate any more questions on the matter.

“Fine, changing the subject then,” I sigh a little. “Why didn't you do anything when you saw the hitman?”

“Oh right, that.” Yomiel stops to think. 

Why can't I read his mind like he can read mine? 

“It's because I knew you were here,” he answers.

I'm stunned to silence for a second. “What.”

Knew I was here? how?

“I knew you were here, and if you were there then you obviously wouldn't leave me for dead.”

“But how did you know that I was there? And that I had the ability to save you?!”

“I hear things activating randomly below me, and even though i can’t remember dying the first time i had a weird sense that i had,” Yomiel answers.

“You let yourself die because of a feeling?” I exclaimed. “That's an insane thing to do!”

“I was pretty confident that I would be saved. And I was.” Yomiel answers simply.

“B-But i went through so much trouble to save you? All to learn that you could have prevented it yourself?” I stumble, I can't believe what I'm hearing. 

“I think it worked out, if i hadn't then we wouldn't be able to talk like this.”

“Yes, but-” I can't find the words to continue, but I've come to an irrefutable conclusion…

This man is down-right crazy!

“Hey, if you're going to call me crazy, at least say it to my face.” Yomiel frowns.

“Ah... right, sorry.” I wince. “But you must admit that it takes an unusual mindset to just let yourself die.”

“But I didn't just “let myself die”. I knew that I'd be saved.” Yomiel refutes.

“But you still died, you still have that memory of dying!” I exclaim. “That must haunt you in some way?!”

“Not really, I got over it the moment I came back to life.” Yomiel asserts. 

“Not even the pain of it plays in your mind?” I ask.

“Not really, I died instantly so I didn't feel much.”

I can't believe what this man is saying. I can't tell if he values his own life so poorly or if he really has that much confidence that he’d be saved. Either way, it's not the behaviour of any normal person.

“Look, it doesn't bother me as much as you think it should.” Yomiel asserts. “Just leave it there, but I do have one question for you.”

“You do?”

“Just a small one,” Yomiel says.

“Well then I guess I'll answer it. I kind of owe it to use after asking so many myself.”

“What's the first thing you remember?”

“The first thing I remember?” I pause. “That first hitman holding you at gunpoint.”

“That's it? Nothing before that?” Yomiel interrogated.

“No! Nothing at all!” I replay everything I can remember in my mind. “I woke up and you were about to die so i saved you, but then you died anyway, so i saved you and after i went to investigate…” I trail off. I just remembered something else I should ask Yomiel about.

Yomiel sighs. “If that's all you can remember then there's no point in me grilling you about it.”

“I actually have one more question for you.” I change the subject, Yomiel seems interested in what happened before he was at the junkyard, and based on what he said earlier that other target might have been there, so I should ask him about her.

“Oh? Ask away.”

“Do you know a woman named Sissel?” I ask. Yomiel gave me a shocked expression in response. The name must strike some sort of cord, but I should elaborate a little. “She has blue hair in two pointy hair buns and a really impractical outfit.”

“Where…” Yomiel starts. “Where have you seen her before?!” 

“W-Well! I haven't seen her in person!” I blabber, I wasn't expecting such an extreme reaction. Yomiel has been such a calm guy, chillingly so sometimes, that a reaction like this seems totally out of character. This Sissel woman must be really important.

“You haven't seen her? Yet you know her name and what she looks like?” Yomiel prods.

Oh geez, how am I supposed to explain this one? Well there's no use in dodging the truth, so I should just give it to him straight.

“I'm sure you remember getting a call from that strange man before, right?” I begin.

“That foreigner who called for my death?”

“Yes, when he called I went to his location to see if I could find any clues about what's going on.” I pause. “When I was there they had you and Sissel on a screen and you were both listed as targets…”

Whoever this Sissel is, must be important to Yomiel, so there really isn't any easy way to say that she's being targeted by hitmen.

“Targets? Both of us?” Yomiel stops to think for a moment. His eyebrows raise high on his face and his mouth becomes slightly agape. 

“Did you realise something?” I ask.

“I think I know why we’re being targeted.” Yomiel says, hesitantly.

Despite dying twice, this is the most scared I've seen Yomiel, whatever reason they have for being targeted is something of importance. 

“You do? Why then?” I ask eagerly.

“I can't say.”

“What? Why? What good does it do to keep secrets?!” I demand. A part of me knew that it wouldn’t be easy, based on everything that had happened so far, but I wanted to believe that this mystery would be solved easier than the others, but I'm not so lucky.

“No one should know, especially you.” Yomiel tells me, sternly. 

“What does that mean?! I'm dead!” I exclaim. Yomiel specifically mentioning that I can't know is extremely suspicious. You'd think that because I'm dead that it'd be easier to tell me things.

“We can't talk anymore, I need to call her.”

Immediately after Yomiel said that, I was thrust out of the ghost world. Yomiel went straight for the phone and started dialling. 

I move over to the phone, whatever he's calling about must be important and I'm not missing it. It might give me information on the two of them, maybe why they are being targeted.

The phone rings a few times, then is answered.

“Hello?” A familiar looking woman says on the other end of the phone. This must be Sissel, the woman Yomiel is so worried about. Thankfully, she looks perfectly fine, not even a hint of worry on her face.

“Sissel.” Yomiel sighs into the phone. “Thank god you picked up.”

Oh, Yomiel must've been worried that she had died. Makes sense considering that she is a target like him. But why is he so much more worried about her then he was about himself? If she was dead I would've been able to save her.

“Yomi! What's with the call? You sound stressed, is everything alright?” She asks, notable worry in her voice, and her face, but Yomiel can't see that.

“I need you to be careful, leave the house and go somewhere unexpected.” Yomiel tells her.

“What, why? What's going on?” she asks.

“I had just been targeted by two hitmen. And I know that they’re after you too.” 

“H-Hitmen?!” Sissel stutters. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’ve come out unharmed.” Yomiel confirms. “You could say that things started acting unusually in my favour, but not in the way you think.”

Unharmed? Yomiel died twice. And what does he mean by “not in the way you think”? Yomiel is being strangely cryptic, maybe it's because he knows I'm listening. Annoyingly, he is smart enough to consider that.

“I don't think we should be too worried, it's going to take a lot to bring me down!” Sissel beams, she looks very confident about that fact.

“That's what I'm worried about. Because they weren't just hitmen.” Yomiel pauses. “They were foreign hitmen from overseas.”

I'm unaware of the implications of that statement, why would the hitman's home country change anything? Sissel, however, does understand the implication as shown on her face. Her quivering hand is placed lightly against her mouth, and her eyes are wide.

“W-What?” she stutters.

“Not only that, but I have reason to believe that their government is behind this. And if that's the case then we have to assume they'd do whatever it takes to reach their goal.”

Sissel gasps. “That can't be! W-We have to find-”

“Meet me at the Chicken Kitchen on Dead End Drive, we can discuss it more later.” Yomiel cuts her off, though I wish he didn’t. “We have to find-” find what? Just another mystery for me to ponder over.

“Okay, I hope you have a plan.” She sighs.

“Meet you there.” Yomiel says.

“See you then, love you,” Sissel says her goodbyes. 

“Love you too.” Yomiel says before hanging up the phone.

Yomiel is about to leave without saying a word, I know it.

“Leaving so soon?” The pigeon man asks from the top of the staircase. I didn't even notice he was here, and from Yomiels raised eyebrows, he didn't either.

“Ah,” Yomiel stops. “My wife mentioned some urgent business and I'm afraid I have to cut this talk short.” he lies. 

“Wife” huh? So they’re married, which explains why Yomiel was so worried about her.

“Don't let me hold you up.”

“Goodbye.” Yomiel says, then leaves immediately. The pigeon just silently returns back downstairs, I can even slightly hear him sliding down the railing.

Yomiel didn't have anything on him with a core, so I am unable to follow, but there is somewhere else I can go.

Yomiel may have suggested that Sissel was at the junkyard earlier, perhaps around the time that I died, and if that's the case she is my new biggest lead.

I trick the phone and head to my newest number, Sissels, and presumably Yomiels, home.

When I get to Sissels home, the first thing I notice is her scrambling around. She probably wasn't expecting to leave so suddenly and is left to quickly get herself together. Currently she's sifting through her shelves, looking for something.

“Where is it?! I know I left it here somewhere!” She sighs deeply. “Where is my notebook?!”

So she's looking for a notebook? It must have important things written in it if she is so unwilling to leave it behind. I'd help her look for it but I don't know what it looks like.

“Come on you ditz!” She lightly smacks herself in the forehead. “Where did you leave it? Where was the last place you saw a little blue notebook with a cute doodle of Yomi on it?”

Well, I guess that now I know what it looks like I can help her out a bit. It could be dangerous if she stays here for much longer.

I glance around the room and look to see if I can find anything of matching description. However I find myself looking at the room itself more than anything. The room I'm in is clearly a bedroom, made apparent by the large bed in the centre of one of the far walls. The walls themself are nicely decorated. Something that stands out to me is a photo of Sissel and Yomiel. Sissel is wearing an extravagant dress and Yomiel is wearing a nice suit, much nicer than the one I saw him wearing. I feel like this photo depicts some sort of important ceremony, but whatever it is slips my mind.

I've really forgotten a lot more than my life, huh?

After I had a good look at the room I found myself in, I take a look at the desk I’m sat at. Of course, it holds the phone, but the entire desk is covered with papers and books, none of which I care enough to look at fully. The desk also holds a nice large lamp, a blue one, unlike the lamp I had met earlier today.

Just underneath the lamp I see a small, blue book with a cute drawing of Yomiel on it.

Wait, isn't this what Sissel is looking for?

I glance over at the woman in question, she's still scouring the shelves while the notebook she's looking for is placed so obviously on the desk beside her. I guess the most obvious answer is the one you expect the least. Though it is still sad to see a grown woman look for something in plain sight, so plain in fact that I, despite never being here, found it almost instantly.

I enter the ghost world to move to the head of the lamp, hopefully shining some light on this little book will help her out. But when I'm in the ghost world, however, I notice something peculiar about Sissel that I hadn't seen before.

She has these strange waves emanating from her lower torso, The waves only go out about half a metre before dissipating. They moved in a slight spiral pattern and were, overall, quite circular.

I leave the ghost world, and the waves completely disappear, not even the smallest trace of their existence can be seen.

Strange waves that can only be seen from the ghost world? There must be some sort of importance about that but I can imagine what. And why haven't I seen them anywhere else?

I feel like unanswerable questions like this have been plaguing my mind all night, and I've only been conscious for about an hour.

Ignoring the strange waves, I turn on the light of the lamp.

“Agh, where is that stupid thing!” Sissel whines as she turns around to face the desk. “I know I left it here somewh-” She cuts herself off. “When did that lamp turn on?”

He walks over towards the desk to turn off the lamp, but spots the notebook immediately. 

“Oh my god.” Sissel exasperates. “Was this here the entire time?!”

I take advantage of her state of disappointment in herself to enter the ghost world and possess the notebook. If she's taking it with her then it's the perfect opportunity to follow her.

“Geez, I can't believe you hid from me like that.” she says to the notebook as she picks it up.

I don't think it hid from you, I think you were just looking in the wrong place.

“Now that I've found you, I need to make sure that no one else can do the same.”

Wait what.

Sissel crouches down beside her large  bed and pulls out a box from underneath it. She opens the box and places the notebook in the box. She then closes up the box and tosses it underneath her bed.

She… threw the notebook under the bed?! Why look so hard for something just to hide it?!

I watch helplessly as she walks towards the door and leaves the room.

She left me here?!

Because I was thrown so far underneath the bed, there's no cores around me that I can flee too.

Am I seriously stuck here?

I can't be stuck here, I have so much investigating left to do!

I enter the ghost world, to double check there isn't anything I am able to do. Im my brilliance, i notice that i am able to trick the lid of the box to open.

I'm not sure how that helps but it must.

I trick the box and without much surprise the lid opens, then silently closes again. 

Come on! That can't be it!

I open the box again, putting all my frustration towards the trick. This time the box's lid opens more than it has room too, and slightly scooches the box forward.

That's it! That's my path!

I do that as many times as I need to, putting all of my energy into opening the box in hopes to reveal a path.

Maybe too much energy, because after a few times the box tips over completely. I try to see if opening the lid does anything but nothing, it doesn't move the box at all and it doesn't make it stand upright.

Is… is that it? Am I doomed to sit underneath this bed for who knows how long? Sissel won't be coming back home anytime soon, and even if she does, who knows if she'll remember that she put me here.

I sadly glance down at the ground, ready to admit my defeat, when I see something that wasn't in my reach before.

A core?!

Why is there a core in the ground? Nevermind that, it's my exit!

I quickly move to the core below me, whatever I see down here better be useful or I might just break.

And so I descend into the unknown below, hoping to find my exit.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter Six

First, <prev, next>

or you can read it on Ao3

fic under the cut

9:03 PM

Riding along the red lines once more, I move towards my newest destination, The Chicken Kitchen.

I don't really know what to expect from this new place, I'm not even sure I know what a kitchen is.

Regardless, I move forward in hopes to be reunited with Yomiel.

When I reach my destination, I'm met with the sounds of human yodelling and the smell of cooked chicken.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like anything of note has happened here.

I look around the place, in search of Yomiel or Sissel, but neither of them were found in my field of view.

Am I early? I have no way of knowing how far this place is from the junkyard or their apartment so it's possible I'm early.

A lady in wheel shoes comes out of a door to my left, she's holding a large chicken in her hands and she rolls herself right beside the phone, right in front of some metallic doors.

The chicken itself has a core, so I enter it and let the lady carry me wherever she's going.

The metallic doors open and she enters a small room and presses a button. The room shakes a little and when the doors open again the room in front of me is completely different then it was before.

I don't know what kind of magic that was, but I wont think about it too hard.

The chicken lady stakes off to the right, and delivers the chicken to a familiar couple.

Yomiel and Sissel!

“Here you go, enjoy your meal.” The chicken lady says to the couple before returning to the magic doors.

I waste no time entering Yomiels core again, I cant wait any longer.

The world gets engulfed with red as I enter the ghost world and call out to him. “Yomiel!”

“Ghosty?!” He exclaims. “How did you get here?!”

“Long story, but I can't believe you just left me like that!”

“Sorry buddy, but I didn't think that you should be involved in this.”

“But what if you die again?! What if Sissel dies?!” I yell.

Yomiel pauses. “We won't, I'll make sure of it.”

“But how could you be so certain?” I ask. “Have you forgotten that there are hitmen after the both of you?”

“Of course not, but I'm not going to let either of us die easily.”

“But you already have, twice.”

“The first time I had no way of knowing I was being targeted, the second time I let it happen on purpose.” Yomiel argues.

“Still can't believe how you did that, by the way.”

Yomiel grumbles. “How did you even get here?”

“Well I went to yours and Sissels place once you left hoping to be carried by her, but instead got stranded from the phone, so I made it to your downstairs neighbours house where she was dead. Saved her life then went to a place called the special prison-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Why did you go to the special prison?” Yomiel cuts me off.

“Your neighbour asked me to check on a prisoner.”

“Why would Alma ask for you to do that?”

“So you do know that you live above her.” I think out loud.

“What..?” 

“When Alma didn't seem to be aware that you two lived above her, is all.”

“Not relevant, how did she die anyway?” Yomiel asks me.

“You might find this interesting.” I pause. “She was shot by foreign hitmen.”

“W-What?!” Yomiel, uncharacteristically, stutters. “Why in the world would she be targeted? That doesn't make any sense!”

“I was hoping you had any ideas as to why…”

“I don't see the connection… I could maybe see Jowd being connected but…”

“Could you? How?” I ask.

“It's not something you need to know about, Ghosty.”

“Why not?!” I exclaim. “Why don't I get to know?!”

“Because it's none of your business, this is between me and Sissel.”

“But it's clearly not!” I yell. “If that were the case then a seemingly innocent woman and her even more innocent doggie wouldn't have been killed!”

Yomiel doesn't respond.

“This issue is much bigger than you want to admit, and all I want is to help…”

“I thought all you cared about was finding yourself.”

“Well I…” I pause. It's true that my own mystery has been the centre of my attention for all of tonight, but I've been led to believe that Yomiel and Sissel are somehow connected to me, even if it doesn't seem to be that way. “I am, this is all working towards the mystery of me as well.”

“Is it?” Yomiel questions. “I fail to see the connection.”

“There's something big happening in this town tonight, and I'm somehow connected, I'm sure of it.”

“Whatever, for what reason did you follow me?” Yomiel changes the topic.

“Well, I did it at first because you're my only lead, but now I have more questions for you.” I answer.

“You always have questions…”

“It's only a few I promise!”

“Fine, just make it quick.” Yomiel grumbles.

“Do you know anything significant about the prisoners in the special prison?” That rocker and the curry lover both had extremely strange cases, and I still don't know what Yomiels “past experiences” with ghosts was, so maybe they're connected.

“Nope.” Yomiel responds a little too quickly.

“Are you sure?” 

“Of course, why would I know anything about them? Any information on them is purely confidential” He answers quickly again. It sounds like a lie.

“Okay…” pressing on this doesn't seem to do much, so I'll ask my other question. “Would there be any reason you can think of that Cabanela finds you and Sissel suspicious?”

“Cabanela finds us suspicious..?” Yomiel spoke quietly. 

“He said he was investigating you two, but he didn't say why other than the fact that you guys are suspicious.” I clarify.

“He said that? Did he die or something?” Yomiel asks.

“No, he just said that to a guard and I overheard.”

Yomiel didn't say anything, he just gave me a slightly panicked look. “Well hopefully that won't be a problem for much longer.” He mumbles.

“Huh, why?”

“Don't worry about it, Ghosty.”

“Could you at least answer the question?”

“Umm…” Yomiel hesitates. “I have an idea as to why he might find us suspicious.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Not telling you that.”

I loudly groan. “You never tell me anything!”

“You already know too much. Sorry.” 

“Fine, that's all the questions I had.”

“Good, now can you let me talk to my wife?”

“Fine.” I grumble before leaving the ghost world.

“Wow, this smells good!” Sissel drools. “How did you know I was hungry?”

“You often skip supper when I'm not home.” Yomiel answers.

Sissel laughs. “Caught me!” After laughing, she smiles sadly. “So… what now?”

“I'm not sure yet, but it's not safe to stay where we are.”

“And what about-!”

Yomiel covers her mouth. “Please be a little quieter. And I'll figure it out.”

Yomiel releases Sissel and she sighs. “I should've known it wouldn't be so easy, huh?”

“We knew it was risky from the beginning. We just have to move forward.”

“I'm just not sure where that'll take us…” Sissel sighs, before eating some chicken.

“Unfortunately, it does get worse.”

Sissel chokes on her chicken a little bit. “What do you mean, worse?”

“Cabanela seems to be on our tracks, too.”

“Well he's in jail, isn't he? It shouldn't be that much of a problem.”

“Both you and I know that he doesn't back down so easily.”

“Easily?! He's in jail, Yomiel!” Sissel exclaims. “He's not going to be a problem for much longer!”

“Maybe he won't.” Yomiel starts. “But that doesn't mean he will stop causing us problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“He can’t be working alone. As good of a detective he is, it's impossible to carry out an investigation while in prison.” Yomiel explains.

“Ah…” Sissel pauses. “I guess that makes sense…”

On the other side of the room, I hear the metallic doors open again, and I turn to face that way. Exiting the door, I see a tall woman and a short man exit, both foreigners. The short man was also carrying an extremely large trunk.

These… These are the people that tried to break into Alma's house!

Shortly after the two foreigners, the chicken lady also enters from the metal doors, and speaks to the people sitting there at the bar. She fiddles around with a bunch of stuff there before leaving.

I can believe it, the foreigners who had originally killed Alma, what are they doing here? I should let Yomiel know.

“Yomiel!” I call out to him.

“Jeez, Ghosty. You don't have to yell.” Yomiel groans.

“Sorry, but did you see those foreigners over there?!” I ask.

“A little, why?”

“Those two are the people that killed Alma!” I exclaim.

“Wait really? What are they doing here?”

“I'm not sure, but I'm positive it's them, and they didn't have that suspicious, large truck before.”

“Hmm, it's possible that…” Yomiel thinks aloud. 

“What's possible?”

“Did you see the waiter here talking to them?” Yomiel asks.

“Yeah, she came after them super quickly and was being a little weird. But I couldn't hear anything they were saying.”

“That pretty much confirms it then.” Yomiel says. “Do you know why I picked this location?”

“No, not a clue.”

“Because this place is under complete police surveillance.” Yomiel says.

“Huh, why?”

“I'm not completely sure, but apparently some highly suspicious and dangerous individuals made this a meeting place. The special investigation unit managed to track it down and is watching the area in search of them.”

“Do you think those foreigners are the suspicious individuals?” I ask.

“We know that the two of them are up to no good, and if the waiter seemed so interested in them then I think it's pretty safe to say that they are.”

“What does the waiter have to do with this?”

“That's not important, but I chose this location for me and Sissel to meet because with the police watching this area we are less likely to be in any sort of danger.” Yomiel explains.

“What should we do?”

“We wait, I'm not a part of the actual police so I have no authority to do anything. But I'm sure in a few minutes the police will come and make good work of these criminals.”

“Alright then…” I say as I leave the ghost world.

Back in the land of the living, Sissel is stuffing her face full of chicken.

“You were really hungry, huh dear?” Yomiel remarks.

Sissel swallows the food in her mouth. “You were totally spot on with me forgetting to eat. I'm literally starving.”

“I keep on telling you that you should be setting alarms on the days I'm not home.”

“But I always forget because you're not there to remind me…”

Yomiel puts his head in his hands. “Sissel…”

Sissel just laughs nervously in response.

The couple returns to eating silently.

Below me I hear the sounds of loud, blaring sirens, followed by a large crash and the breaking of glass.

The large chicken decoration started to sway, and one of the chains holding it brakes, causing the decoration to swing towards Yomiel and Sissel. I attach myself onto it, and ride it down as it falls to the ground.

I Enter the ghost world, and I notice something. Dead bodies, two of them. One is the driver of the van that crashed into the restaurant, another is the chicken lady, who looked like she had been hit by the vehicle.

At my current position, I can only reach the core of the driver, so I enter it.

As expected, the driver is unconscious, so I go back for minutes before his death without conversation.

In the world of “four minutes before death”, I'm in a completely different location. Looking around the area, it looks like a park, and I can see The Chicken Kitchen in the distance. 

The driver has a large pair of binoculars in his hands and is looking through them towards The Chicken Kitchen.

The driver must have spotted something in the binoculars because he puts them down with a shocked expression.

“Thats-!” He cuts himself off. “There they are, the targets! I need to report this immediately!”

He speed walks from his point to the back of his van, throws his binoculars onto the seat in front of him, and presses some button on a device inside.

As he is messing with the device, a ring from a nearby telephone startles him. He walks over to the phone and answers it.

“What's the matter?” He speaks into the phone. He waits for the person on the phone to say what they had to. “All right, fine.” he says before returning the receiver.

He returns to the back of the van, and continues to fiddle with the device. When he finishes, he takes a small receiver from the device.

“This is point X!” He speaks into the receiver. “The suspects have entered the scene.” he waits for instruction from the other side. “Yes sir!” he says before returning the receiver to the device, closing the back of the van, and entering the van.

He drives off out of the park and towards The Chicken Kitchen, a siren blaring from the van. He's wearing a pair of purple headphones, while fiddling with a dial in the van. After a little while he stops messing with the dial and familiar voices can be heard from the headphones.

“And now we wait, isn't that right, my dearest beauty?” a sleazy voice hums.

“Hopefully the other two morons don't take too long to bring back results, I'm already tired of waiting.” A refined voice complains.

“I'll wait till my death as long as it means I'm spending it with you, my beloved.” the sleazy voice laughs.

“What the heck is this?” The driver asks aloud to himself.

“I spy a ladybug.” The refined voice says.

“A ladybug..?” the sleazy voice asks.

“I just hate little bugs…”

“I can't hear very well…” The driver says aloud while turning up the volume of his headphones.

Not a second later, a loud noise screams into the driver's headphones, knocking him out.

With the driver knocked out, the van continues forward at dangerous speeds, and crashes right into The Chicken Kitchen, not only killing him, but hitting the waiter working there and killing her as well.

So that's it, this driver's last moments. I can't really figure out a way to prevent this death from what I have here, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

The world once again warps around me as I travel back in time.

I spawn in at the front of the vehicle, lodged in the windshield, given that this is where the driver died relative to the van.

From the driver's soul, there's only two cores in my reach. The switch of flashing lights, and the seat recliner. I am able to turn on the flashing lights, but the driver just ignores them, so I turn them back off. I can recline the seat back, but it does nothing, so I put it back up again. I'm going to have to wait for something to change before I can do anything.

In my vision, I can see that the driver has noticed something in his binoculars, so it won't be much longer till he comes over here.

Only a few moments later the driver walks over to the van and throws the binoculars onto the seat behind me, onto a small box..

The binoculars have a core, but where they are doesnt allow me to do anything extra. I recline the seat again and it hits the box the binoculars are resting on. The set causes the lid of the box to open slightly and it throws the binoculars onto the head of the seat in front. Raising the seat, I cause the binoculars to rest on the main part of the seat.

Great, what did that accomplish?

A ring from the nearby telephone startles the driver, and He walks over to the phone and answers it, right past me.

“What's the matter?” He speaks into the phone. He waits for the person on the phone to say what they had to. “All right, fine.” he says before returning the receiver.

He returns to the back of the van, and continues to fiddle with the device. When he finishes, he takes a small receiver from the device.

I wonder what the phone call is about, it might be what I need to stop this death. Is there a way to get the driver to bring me over to the phone?

Sensing that I have already messed up, I restart.

This time when the binoculars come, I get them to the front seat as soon as possible, then I turn on the flashing lights.

Maybe he won't ignore them this time.

To my delight, he doesn't. The driver notices the light immediately and stops messing with the device to come turn it off. When he's at the front seat, he notices the binoculars. 

“What are these doing here?” He asks as he picks them up. A second later, the phone starts ringing.

I should probably get in those binoculars… I enter the ghost world and move from the lights to the binoculars before the driver walks away.

Now that I'm near the phone, I can listen to the conversation!

When the driver picks up the phone I immediately reach out to the core of the phone.

On the other side of the phone, I see the chicken lady that works at The Chicken Kitchen. “Detective Rindge?! This is Memry!”

So this driver is a detective, and the waiter's name is Memry. But why would she be calling him?

“What's the matter?” He speaks into the phone. “It's not the time for your regular report.”

“Listen here!” she starts. “I'm sure you noticed the targets walking into the restaurant! They are sitting at the bar upstairs and I already planted a ladybug over there, could you listen in and see if we can get some extra info out of them?!”

“A "ladybug"? You mean a listening device?” Rindge asks. “Don't do anything to blow our cover, the Inspector will be furious.”

“They're doing all kinds of suspicious whispering up there! I bet it's really important!” She exclaims. “You can pick up the signal from your van. Please check it out!“

 “All right, fine,” Rindge says before returning the receiver.

A listening device? That must be what Rindge was listening to in the van, and from what I can figure out, it's also the reason he passed out. I don't think there's anything I can do from here,` but maybe if I return to the restaurant I can do something.

It also seems like the waiter here is also a detective, working undercover. That's probably why Yomiel considered her interest in the foreigners to be important.

I stay in the phone and move from this park back to the restaurant, maybe i'll be able to do more from here.

At the restaurant, I notice that I'm not in the phone I was in before, but instead in a phone in the kitchen of the establishment.

In the kitchen Memry and the chef are working away. The chef yodels a jolly little tune as Memry sits herself back down onto the counter, waiting for the chicken to be cooked. 

Once the chef is done he places the chicken down on the table and spins it around. Memry then grabs the chicken and exits the kitchen again. 

I quickly move from the phone to the chicken to follow Memry out of the kitchen.

The reason the crash happens is because of the bug, right? What Rindge was listening to while driving sounded a lot like the foreigners from earlier, so whatever happens with them causes the crash. However, Memry mentioned to Rindge that she already planted the bug when she called, so there's no way I'm able to stop her.

Soon both her and Rindge will die, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Just as she's passing the window I see flashing lights blind the inside of the restaurant as the van crashes into the window. The crash is large and it messes up much of the restaurant, and the small sign i sit in gets flown upwards and lands near Memrys newly dead body.

Rindge must have not died instantly, because the four minutes isn't completely over, but it will be in about a second. I use this small window of opportunity to move from the sign to Memrys corpse.

Memry, like Rindge, is unconscious. Not surprising, considering she died no less than a second ago.

It might be possible to go back in time to four minutes before her death, if that's the case then i can retry this entire thing without ever having to leave the restaurant.

I warp the world as I go back in time, four minutes before the death of Memry.

The four minutes start with Memry in the kitchen, sitting peacefully on one of the counters. Three rings of a bell can be heard from the outside and she picks up a jug of water. She hops down from the counter and skates out of the kitchen.

Outside, she stakes over to the far table, where some customers are sitting, and she refills all their waters. When doing so, the foreign couple walks by and enters the metal doors.

After seeing them, Memry quickly finishes up her work and enters through the metal doors as well. While inside the small room, she takes something small out of her pocket. After exiting, she quickly stakes over to the foreigners.

“How are we doing today?” Memry asks the couple at the bar. “Need any water over here?”

“Why not, I'm quite parched.” the foreign lady says.

“I'll have some too.” her partner says.

Memry grabs the two glasses in front of the couple and pours them both some water.

“Enjoying your time here at the bar?” Memry asks. “And if you're thinking about flirting with the bartender here forget it, he doesn't care about anything but his job like the heartbreaker he is.”

The bartender in question doesnt look up from the glass he is washing. 

“And now he's ignoring me too! What a tease!” Memry exclaims. She stakes over to the inside of the bar and messes around with the glasses there. “All these glasses are perfectly clean! What is the point of polishing them so much?”

“Just because you are unobservant doesn't mean that the things you can't see don't exist.” The bartender speaks.

Memry gasps dramatically. “Is that anyway to talk to a lady and your coworker?!” she continues messing with one of the glasses.

The bartender doesn't look up from his work and doesn't say anything.

“I've only worked here for two days and you've been nothing but rude, I think I won't bother working here much longer.” She flails her arms dramatically, and knocks down the foreign man's glass. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry!”

“It's no problem, a little water never hurt anybody.”

“Here, you can have this glass instead.” she said, giving him the glass she was previously messing with and filling it with water. A small ladybug can be seen on the glass. “You should clean this up.” she directs at the bartender. 

“Just leave it, it's not my problem.” the bartender deadpans.

“Wow, really?!” Memry remarks. “Whatever.” Memry leaves the area and goes back downstairs.

She immediately heads to the chicken where the chef is cooking away some chicken. As fast as possible, Memry dials something on the phone in there.

“Detective Rindge?! This is Memry!” she speaks into the phone. “Listen here! I'm sure you noticed the targets walking into the restaurant! They are sitting at the bar upstairs and I already planted a ladybug over there, could you listen in and see if we can get some extra info out of them?!” She waits for Rindge to speak on the other side before continuing. “They're doing all kinds of suspicious whispering up there! I bet it's really important!” She exclaims. You can pick up the signal from your van. Please check it out!“

A few moments later she returns the receiver to its home with a pleased look on her face.

She sits herself back down onto the counter, waiting for the chicken to be cooked. Once the chef is done he places the chicken down on the table and spins it around. Memry then grabs the chicken and exits the kitchen again. Just as she's passing the window to get to the table with customers, lights flash in the window and the van crashes right into her.

And so that was her last four minutes. At least now I have a chance at stopping her from planting the bug.

Just before I'm about to turn back the clock, I hear a voice.

“Just what is going on here?”

“H-huh?” I sutter.

“I ask what's going on here? Were you not listening?”

A blue soul appears before me. “Oh, you're awake.”

“I am, aren't I? Though I can't really recall who I am…”

I motion down to the dead body on the ground. “That's you.”

“What a beautiful face! I'm glad it's mine.” the blue soul dissipates and reforms into Memry.

I'm really quite shocked that she's conscious, her will must be pretty strong. Rindge didn't wake up before I left, but Memry did.

“So could you answer my question? I would like to know what's going on here.” Memry asks.

“Well, you just died.”

“I got that much.”

“And I was just about to go prevent you from dying.”

“You can do that?!”

“Yeah…” Do I really need to have this conversation every single time?

“Well hurry up and do it, it'd be a huge loss if my pretty face stayed dead!” Memry demanded.

“Say no more.” I rewind time back four minutes before Memrys death, hopefully this time i'll be able to prevent this whole fiasco.

“By the way,” Memry starts. “I've heard you mention a “Memry” a few times, would that be me?”

“Oh, yes it is. Sorry I must've forgotten to tell you your name directly.” I also forgot that people can apparently read my mind.

“Memry… just as cute as me so it fits.” She smiles. “What about you? What's your name?”

“I uh, don't remember.”

“You don't remember? How?”

“Well, you didn't remember who you were, right? You only knew because I told you.” I start.

“I guess that's true…”

“And I didn’t have anywhere there to tell me who I am, so I don't know.”

“Well, is there anything I can call you? It's weird if you just don't have a name.” Memry asks.

“I've been called Ghosty a few times.”

“Ghosty it is then.”

I move my attention back to the scene at hand. Currently, I'm on the floor of the restaurant, but it isn't hard at all to move to a nearby sign.

Alive Memry comes out of the kitchen shortly after a bell is rung three times, water jug in hand. I attach myself to the water jug as she's using it.

After finishing her work, Memry heads straight to the metal room, and goes upstairs where the foreign couple is.

“Could I ask, how exactly did I die?” Memry asks me.

“I'm not sure of the specifics, but, you plant a listening device on these foreigners and get another detective driving here to listen in on it, somehow that causes the driver to pass out and crash into the restaurant and hit you.” I explain.

Memry hums in thought. “Can I just watch this play out? Maybe I'll be able to figure out the exact cause.”

“Go ahead, I'm able to rewind time as much as I want, so there's no loss in just waiting it out a time or two.”

Memry and I watch as her alive self pours water with the two foreigners, and banters with the bartender. When Memry begins to plant the bug on one of the glasses I move from the water jug to that glass.

After Memry breaks the foreign man's glass and gives him the bugged one, she leaves.

“I haven't seen any of this, so I'm not sure what happens from this point forward.” I explain to Memry.

She doesn't say anything, instead staring at the scene in front of her.

The small man picks up his drink and turns to his partner. “It's been quite the night, hasn't it, Beauty?”

“It has,” she agrees. “I do appreciate this time to relax a little.”

“It really seemed like things weren't going our way tonight, but we got pretty lucky.”

“Almost too lucky, it's remarkable how easy it was.” Beauty comments.

“Well we should just be glad we finished sooner than the other guys, it just means we have more time to ourselves, just the two of us.”

Beauty laughs mockingly. “As if we don't spend enough time together.” She picks up her glass of water.

“No time is enough when I'm talking about you, Beauty.” the man grins.

Beauty takes a moment to drink from her glass. “You just know that without me, your little body and your little brain wouldn't be able to handle our assignments.”

The foreign man laughs. “You know I love it when you talk to me like that.”

Beauty hums in response.

“And now we wait, isn't that right, my dearest beauty?” a sleazy voice hums.

“Hopefully the other two morons don't take too long to bring back results, I'm already tired of waiting.” Beauty complains.

“I'll wait till my death as long as it means I'm spending it with you, my beloved.” the foreign man says as he picks up his glass of water.

The foreign woman stares intently at her partner's glass. “I spy a ladybug.” 

“A ladybug..?” 

“I just hate little bugs…”

Beauty takes out a small lighter and lights it just below the bug, lighting it aflame.

The sound of sirens get louder from below before a large crash shakes the entire building. Times up.

“I get it now.” Memry speaks up. “I know why the crash happens.”

“How?”

“You said the guy driving the van the crashes into me was listening in on these two, right?” Memry asks for clarification. 

“Corrent.”

“Something you need to know about these types of listening devices is that they are very delicate. If they are to be broken then a loud signal will screech on the radio. Loud enough to knock out someone who's listening using headphones.”

“So we need to either stop you from planting the device, or stop this woman from breaking it.”

“Exactly, but I don't think I ever put down that glass once I start planting the device,” Memry mentions. “I don't know if it's possible to stop me.”

“I'll figure out a way, but for now let's restart.” I say before rewinding the clock again.

I retraced my steps from before, following Memry right to the upper level, ready to try my hand at stopping her again.

“How are we doing today?” Memry asks the couple at the bar. “Need any water over here?”

“Why not, I'm quite parched.” the foreign lady says.

“I'll have some too.” her partner says.

Memry grabs the two glasses in front of the couple and pours them both some water.

“Enjoying your time here at the bar?” Memry asks. “And if you're thinking about flirting with the bartender here forget it, he doesn't care about anything but his job like the heartbreaker he is.”

The bartender in question doesnt look up from the glass he is washing. 

“And now he's ignoring me too! What a tease!” Memry exclaims. She stakes over to the inside of the bar and messes around with the glasses there. “All these glasses are perfectly clean! What is the point of polishing them so much?”

“Just because you are unobservant doesn't mean that the things you can't see don't exist.” The bartender speaks.

Memry gasps dramatically. “Is that anyway to talk to a lady and your coworker?!” she continues messing with one of the glasses.

The bartender doesn't look up from his work and doesn't say anything.

“I've only worked here for two days and you've been nothing but rude, I think I won't bother working here much longer.” She flails her arms dramatically, and knocks down the foreign man's glass. “Oh my god, I'm so sorry!”

“It's no problem, a little water never hurt anybody.”

“Here, you can have this glass instead.” she said, giving him the glass she was previously messing with and filling it with water. “You should clean this up.” she directs at the bartender. A small ladybug can be seen on the glass.

“I had an idea,” I spoke to Memry.

“Oh?”

“What if we broke the ladybug before the other detective gets the chance to listen in?” I suggest.

“That could work, but how exactly are you planning on breaking it?” She asks.

“Are the devices waterproof at all?” I ask.

“Not at all, waterlogging it makes the thing completely useless.” Memry answers.

“Then I think we have our way out.”

“Just leave it, it's not my problem.” the bartender deadpans.

“Wow, really?!” Memry remarks. “Whatever.” Memry leaves the area and goes back downstairs.

The small man picks up his drink and turns to his partner. “It's been quite the night, hasn't it, Beauty?”

I ring the bell as he picks it up, startling the man and causing him to drop the glass.

“Don't be so easily started,” Beauty shames her partner.

The glass landed right below a spout that looks like it dispenses something. I move over to it and trick it, letting it pour out some kind of brown liquid.

The glass, already mostly full of water, fills quickly. Once full the over flowing liquids causes the glass to fall from the bar, and break all over the floor in a wet mess.

“Oh dear, how unlucky of me to have two of my drinks fall and break.”

“They probably just want to escape from having your dirty little hands touch them.”

“Ouch, that hurts, Beauty!”

“With the bug on the ground, and presumably broken beyond repair, I think you've just been saved.” I say.

“Yes!” Memry cheers. “I get to return to living!”

I look over at Memry, this girl is a detective, right? Maybe she’ll have some info on the weirdness happening tonight, and what these foreigners are up to.

“Memry,” I speak aloud. “Could I ask something of you?”

“Sure, what's up?”

“After you return to life, you'll remember everything you had once forgotten, and we’ll still be able to talk. So with your memories do you think you could answer me a few questions?” I ask.

“I mean,” Memry starts. “It really depends on the question, you know? But I won't stop you from asking them. Because I'm some sort of detective there's probably some things I can't tell you but I'll try to answer whatever I can.”

“That's good enough.”

“Then let me live again! Let's go back to the present!”

“Let's go.” I say as I wind the clock up again, to our new present.

In the present, something becomes glaringly obvious, as I stare at two empty seats.

Where did the foreigners go?

Also, I'm stuck. There's no exit from the bar. However, there is a bell. Didnt a customer from before ring it three times to grab Memrys attention?

I move over to the bell and ring it three times, and sure enough, Memry comes from the metal doors, water jug in hand.

I move to the jug, then to Memrys core.

“I'm back.” I call out to Memry.

“Ah, hello!” She greets me. “Were you the one that rang the bell?”

“I am, I was kind of stuck here.”

“Things have gotten terribly complicated here in the present.” Memry sighs.

“How so?”

“I'm sure you're aware but us at the special investigations unit have been tracking down those two foreigners for months. I thought we finally had them but they've both somehow disappeared!”

“Disappeared? How?” I ask.

“We’re not sure yet, but they were here at the bar just a few minutes ago, and now they're not. We can find them anywhere inside the building.”

“They must've fled the place.” 

“That has to be the case, but nobody saw them leave. It's really mysterious.” Memry pauses. “It was supposed to be my job to keep an eye on them, but I didn't do a very good job.”

“It's not your fault, these two are very dangerous and I don't really want to save your life for a second time.” I reassure.

“Dangerous..? You say that like you know it from experience.” Memry mentions.

“I do, just earlier today I saved a woman and her dog from being shot by them.” i say.

“They've already killed tonight?!” Memry gasps.

“Well, originally. But like I said, I saved those who got killed.”

“Yikes, then maybe it's a good thing I didn't get too involved.”

“I agree.”

“Now about those questions you had for me.” Memry brings up.

“Right,” I think for a moment. “Let's start here. The woman that these two had previously killed was the wife of the late Detective Jowd, is there any reason you can think of that they'd do that?”

“The wife of detective Jowd?! Sorry, I can't think of any reason why she would be involved.” Memry answers.

“Nothing?”

“Nope, nothing.” Memry pauses. “Detective Jowd wasn't involved in any foreign affairs and I've never met the woman, so I got nothing.”

“Okay, what about reasons to target two others, Yomiel and Sissel.”

“Yomiel and Sissel, the names sound familiar but…” Memry trails off.

“Yomiel works at the special prison as some sort of tech guy, Sissel is his wife and was present at the scene of Jowds death.” I clarify.

“Nope, neither of these two are considered suspicious to the special investigation unit.”

“Okay, last question then.” I pause. “Would Cabanela have any reason to find them suspicious?”

“Cabanela?” She gives me a sad face. “It's been a while since I've heard that name.” 

“I'm sure it has, it's been five years, hasn't it?”

“I mean, he was the talk of the town for a few months afterwards, but after the shock wore off it just seemed wrong to mention him at all.” she pauses, sadly for a moment. “He'll probably be brought up in conversation more often soon though.”

I turn my head at that. “Why?”

“Wow, you know so much I kinda expected that you'd know this too.” She comments. “He's being executed tonight.”

“E-Executed?!” I stutter in shock. “I wasn't aware of this at all!”

“That's surprising, it's all most of us can think about at the moment.”

I pause. “Do you think he deserves it? Execution, I mean.”

She huffs out some air. “I don't know, but if working in the special investigation unit has taught me anything it's that there's something weird going on with his case, and I think it's too soon to send him to the gallows.”

“You think that there's some room for doubt?”

She sighs. “It's hard to say that, because we have security footage of him shooting Jowd, but all the cases being investigated by the special investigations unit seem cut and dry.”

“But they wouldn't be under investigation if that's the case?”

“Exactly! There's too many unanswered questions in all of those cases, and I think that it's far too early to be killing him off.”

“Should I save him?” I ask Memry.

“Save him..?”

“I've visited him once before, I know how to get to his cell, I could go there and prevent his execution.”

I could also have him answer some of my questions once he's alive again…

“I think…” Memry pauses. “I think that's the right thing to do, and after that, you should try and get the Justice Minister to revoke the order.”

“Justice Minister?”

“He's the one that approved of his execution in the first place. If you can get the justice minister to revoke the order that basically means his execution is cancelled.” Memry explains.

“Justice Minister… got it.”

“This isn't a promise, but, if I can, I'll try to help with convincing him.”

“Huh?”

“Tonights a busy night, so I don't know if I'll get the time, but if I can I'll try and head over there and convince him to revoke the order.” Memry says.

“Huh, but why?”

“It's clear you've got some business with Cabanela, and I also don't think it's his time to die yet.” Memry smiles at me. “Besides, I always like stirring a bit of trouble here and there.”

“You'd do that for me?”

“I mean you saved my life, and you didn't have to.”

“I don't want anyone dying tonight.” I say.

“Not only did you save me, but you also saved Rindge, even though he’ll never know that.”

“Rindge..? Oh the driver.”

“We’re good friends, he and I. so i appreciate us both being alive.”

“It's really no problem.”

“Whatever, whatever, whatever.” Memry shakes me off. “Where do you need to be dropped off?”

“By any phone.”

“Cool, you got a prisoner to save.” she says, and we leave the ghost world.

She carries me in the water jug down to the kitchen, and places me on the counter.

“You do good, alright?” She speaks to me. I'm unable to reply, but I smile at her, not that she's able to see that either.

I enter the kitchen's phone and ride the red lines back over to the special prison, my new destination.

[ghost-on-my-trick-till-i]

Ghost Trick: Small Difference

Chapter one

next>

or, you can read it on Ao3

fic below the cut

I must’ve been unconscious for a while… my head feels “fuzzy”, kind of like i'm swimming through darkness…

When I came to, there was a man standing there. a man I don't know. At least, I don't think I know him. 

And there was a man with a gun. I don't know him either… well probably anyway.

Now I'm not the kind of guy that can stand back and watch a poor man get shot… but I just have one little problem…

I'm already dead myself.

Or, I must be. I don't see any body that could be mine, but what else could explain my weird state of consciousness?

I feel bad for him, sure, but what can I do? I'm dead.

But just as I was thinking this…

“You can do more than you think!”

“You can save him if you try!”

Then suddenly, the world completely changs around me. Everything became red in hue, except that certain objects were blue and the two men were orange.

“Wh-what the?” the whole world just changed on me!

“You're in the ghost world, the land of the dead.” The mysterious voice explains to me.

A voice in my head? “Who are you?!”

“Now's not the time to get to know one another! You have to save him!”

“But how I'm dead aren't I?”

“Yes, but being dead grants you certain powers that you can use to save him!” the voice booms all throughout my senses. “Look at yourself, see that blue flame? That's your soul. And do you see that white circle over there? That's the core.” the voice tells me.

“A core?” it just looks like a normal crossing gate to me.

“It makes more sense to just try it, move to the crossing gate and possess it”

I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do, but I reach out towards the crossing gate and move my soul.

“Well done!” the voice congratulates me.

“So I'm the crossing gate now?” I ask.

“Essentially.” they voice answers. “Now use your powers to save that man!”

“But how? I don't know what you mean by powers!” I yell.

“Don't think too hard about it, just gather your will and manipulate that crossing gate!” The voice instructs me.

Still unsure of what that means, I gather my will like I was told, and try to move the crossing gate.

And then, it did.

The crossing gate raises upwards and knocks the gun out of the shooter's hands.

The yellow haired man tries to run past him, but he had some sort of limp and couldn’t get far before the gunman picks up his weapon and points it at him.

“Hold it!” the shooter exclaims. The yellow haired man stops in his tracks.

“Well done!” the voice said. “You changed that man's fate!”

“I guess I did but does it matter? He still has a gun pointed at him.” I said.

“Maybe so, but you were able to move that gate to change the situation, and you can surely do it again with other objects around here! Now try and do it again!”

I look around the area, not far from my soul I see a wrecking ball and a guitar. The wrecking ball was directly above the shooter. I reach out for the ball but it stays well out of my grasp.

I instead disappointingly reach for the guitar, and I am able to attach onto it. I return to the land of the living and trick the guitar into playing.

The gunman gets startled by the noise and shoots the guitar, giving the other man more time to run. The guitar falls from being shot, and I am now on the ground near where my soul first started out.

But the shooter's aim works its way back to his target quickly, and the yellow haired man is once again forced to stop.

I look at my surroundings to see if there's anything else to trick to help save this man. But to my disappointment there is nothing in the area that is able to be tricked.

“What do I do now? There's nothing else here left to trick!” I exclaim

“It seems you've backed yourself into a wall.” the voice tells me.

“What now?” I ask.

“Now, the man dies.”

In the distance I see the final moments of this man in red.

“Well brother, this is it.” The shooter says. “Two things are looking pretty dim right now… my eyesight and your future!” and with those words the gunman pulls the trigger and the man dies. After falling to the ground, the yellow haired man's corpse falls down into the lower level of the junkyard.

The phone on the lower level starts to ring and the shooter makes his way over to it to answer the call. In the process he kicks down the guitar that I reside in.

I can't hear much of the conversation from where I am, but I do hear the shooter tell the person on the other side of the phone “it's done” and I'm left to assume that the one on the other side of the phone is the one that ordered the murder of that man.

After everything I tried, it still seems like the man died. So what good are my ghost tricks?

In my vision, I see a red desk lamp moving on its own. The lamp squeaks with rust as it moves robotically.

“Hello over there.” The lamp speaks to me. “How are you feeling after everything that's happened here?”

I say nothing.

“Though you're probably not well, after your own death and the death of this man.”

I stay silent. 

“It's not very polite to ignore someone talking to you.”

“So it was you? That voice in my head?” I ask the lamp.

“Not exactly a voice, per say, but yes.” The lamp pauses before continuing. “The dead don't have voices so to communicate our thoughts are set directly to each other's minds. It's just another trick ghosts are capable of.”

“It didn't look like my tricks did much good. That man ended up dying anyway.”

“That may be the case, but not for long.” the lamp said.

“What do you mean not for long?” I ask.

“You still have a few things to learn about your powers to the dead. Come over here and possess me so I can explain them to you better.”

I enter the ghost world to see what I am able to do to get over to the lamp. I possess an old car door then a folding mattress. I then exit the ghost world and use a trick to open the mattress, leading me right to the lamp.

I reach out to the lamp and possess it. Looking over to the side I see the body of that man in red.

“That's funny.” I say.

“What is?” the lamp asks.

“His corpse has a core.”

“It does indeed. And that core will be vital in the next ghost trick you are to learn.” The lamp turns around to face the corpse. “Have you ever wondered what would happen if you tricked a body?”

“I never really thought about it. This man and the shooter didn't have cores before so I just assumed there was nothing I could do with them.” I answer.

“While it is true that there's nothing we can do with living bodies, however corpses are different.”

“How so?”

“Why don't you find out for yourself.” the lamp said while moving its head closer to the man's body. “Possess his core and see what happens.”

The Lamp bent its head down towards the body of the man, giving me easier access to the body. I stretch out my ghostly hand and possess the core of the dead man.

Im forced into the ghost world where there's a small blue ghost figure in front of me. Looking at myself, I notice that I look like the same blue ghost.

“It seems this man is still unconscious.” the lamp tells me.

“Unconscious? But he's dead.”

“Think back to when you had first awoken. You didn't wake up at the exact moment of your death.” I replay the moment in my mind.

“I guess that's true.”

“If this man had been awake you could’ve talked to him, but he's unconscious so you can't.” the lamp said.

“Is that all I can do? Talk to the dead?” i ask

“Of course not. There's something much more significant that you can do.” the lamp tells me

“And that's it?”

“Save him, of course.”

“Save him?” I exclaim. “He's already dead though?”

“One more thing you can do as a ghost with the powers of the dead is go back in time four minutes before a person's death. And using that time you can save them.” the lamp explains.

“That's… crazy! How does that even work?” I yell out.

“No idea, the powers of the dead have never made sense.” the lamp chuckles.

“So can I save him?” I ask.

“Why don't you give it a try?” they say.

Using all my might, I use my trick on the corpse of the man. I feel the world warp around me in a way that I had never felt before. Then, I saw the man once again, but alive this time. He walks into the junkyard towards the fence with a cane in hand.

“That's odd,” he spoke. “I've circled this entire place but no one else seems to be here.” he presses his hand against his chin in a pondering way. “Am I early?”

The man in red leans against the wired fence. He sat there quietly until someone else came into his vision.

A blue man dressed in black walks onto the scene, gun in hand and the man dressed in black stands up again.

“Are you the one who contacted me?” he asks.

“All you need to worry about is this golden friend of mine.” the blue man said while holding the gun up.

“Is this what this is? A death trap?” the man in red yells at the man in black.

“What does it matter why you were brought here? Because soon you won't be worryin’ about nothin’.” the blue man said, cocking his gun.

The man in red raises his hands, dropping the cane he was using to walk. “What could you possibly want with me? A foreign man like yourself should have no quarrels here!”

“I'm just doin’ as I was told. They said we had to rub out all traces of Temsik in this country.”

“Temsik..? What..?”

“I don't know anymore then you do brother, I just do as I'm told” the man in black shuffles around a bit. “All I know is that you've got nowhere to run.”

“Where'd you hear that name from, Temsik?” asks the man in red.

“It doesn't matter where the name came from, all that matters is that your life is as good as over.” the gunman looks up. “As long as the bad boy wrecking ball stays where it is, of course.”

The man in red looks up towards the ball. “Odd way of putting it.”

The blue man adjusts his gun one more time. “So long brother.”

Then, as I had once seen before, the crossing gate swung upwards, knocking the gun out of the blue man's hands. The man in red ran away as slowly as he did before. The blue man then picks up his gun and points it at the other. “Hold it!”

Without much delay, the guitar then plays, causing the gunman to shoot at it giving more time for the man in red to run.

“Well brother, this is it.” The shooter says. “Two things are looking pretty dim right now… my eyesight and your future!” and with those words the gunman pulls the trigger and the man dies. After falling to the ground, the yellow haired man's corpse falls down into the lower level of the junkyard, just like it did before.

“There it is, the last moment of this poor man's life.” the lamp says to me.

“No!” I exclaim.

“It's such a shame that this man has died like this, but it's a good thing that you're here to save him.”

“Can I really save him?” I ask.

“Of course! With those tricks of yours saving this man should be no problem.”

Can these tricks of mine really save the dead? It just doesn't seem very plausible.

“Let us get going then! You can rewind time as much as you need to, so don't worry about messing up!”

“Lets save this man!” I exclaim. Then once again, the world warps around me. Though this time I notice that the objects in my sight reminds me of grains of sand.

Then I was back in the past and the body of the man was gone, but I am right where he was.

“Good job! You did it, we went back in time!" The lamp congratulates me.

“Why are we all the way over here?” I ask. “It's not very convenient”

“We got here through that man's soul, so we are going to be where his soul had been.” the lamp explains to me.

“How am I supposed to get up there!” I exclaim.

“Why don't you try and figure it out yourself?” the lamp said while lowering its head to where the soul rests. I climb onto it. The lamp then moves its head towards the piles of junk above it.

“There isn't much time left until he dies, so I'll get up there quickly, but don't get too nervous. Remember that you can try as many times as you need.”

“Thank you for the words of encouragement, I'll do my best.'' I say before departing from the lamp onto the mannequin then onto the tire next to it. I leave the ghost world to roll the tire. The tire props the mannequin up and gives me a path to the fridge. I open the fridge and a blender falls out of it. The blender rolls down and the lid falls off.

Above me I can hear the two men talking, it won't be long until my past self does their first trick. I can feel in my ghastly guts that time is passing.

Without much thought I turn on the blender. I'm not quite sure what that'll do but it can't hurt. I then move to the flag then onto the fan. I turn the fan on then quickly move back to the flag before it flies away. 

Leaving the ghost world I watch as the string of the flag gets blown into the blender and the flag starts to rise. Glad I turned that blender on. I wait as the flag carries me to the upper level of the junkyard where I'll hopefully be of more use.

“So long brother.” I heard the gunman say. I only have a few more seconds to do something.

I reenter the ghost world and move onto a bike just above me. As soon as I exit the ghost world the crossing gate launches upwards and knocks the gun out of the blue man's hand. The man in red like he did before, then is stopped once again by the gunman. On cue the guitar plays giving the man in red more time to run again.

“Uh oh,” I sputter to myself. “This man is going to die any second now! I can't waste anymore time.”

I enter the ghost world again and move from the bikes’ pedals to the bikes’ bell, and ring it.

The gunman jumps from the sudden noise and turns around to shoot the bike, setting both wheels on the ground.

“What is goin’ on here?” the blue man asks in bewilderment. “Nearsighted Jeego never misses as long as his target is within point-blank range!” So Jeego is the guys’ name?

Jeego then walks over to where his victim is trying to escape.

“Woo.. that was close.” I sigh to myself. “But I did it! I changed the man's fate!”

I avert my eyes to the man in red to see if he had gotten away. Only to find that he was met with a draw-bridge, and just like my new-found confidence, it was up.

“Oh you gotta be kidding me!” I yell. “Of course it won't be that easy.”

“Damn it!” I hear the man in red yell in the distance. “Just my luck huh?”

“Looks like my job isn't down yet.'' I assert to myself as I reenter the ghost world.

I move back onto the pedals of the bike and move the bike towards the action. However, the bike doesn't go far as it hits a ladder. Looking at my options I decide to head for a lever attached to the wrecking ball. I pull the lever and the machine holding the ball up turns around completely, right above the man dressed in black.

I have an idea of what I must do here, but I'm not sure if I like it. Instead of thinking of what is to come I move over to the ladder and open it, allowing me to move upward. As I'm doing so I see the blue man hold his gun up to point at his target once more.

I move up the ladder onto a streetlight then onto the ball. I notice the latch that the ball is attached to above me and I move onto it as well. If i release this ball the gunman will be crushed, and surely die, but if i don't he'll shoot the other man and kill him. It's better this way, I'm sure this man in black has killed people before. I try to justify to myself.

I exit the ghost world and open the latch. The ball falls immediately and crushes the man below it. Along the way the ball hits the ladder which swings the bike upward onto a powerline nearby.

“What a chain of events…” I mumble.

The wrecking ball rolls towards the man in red, in which he steps out of the way of the ball and lets it fall down to the lower level of the junkyard.

The man in red lets out a large sigh of relief before his shaking legs give out on him and he falls to the ground.

“Congratulations. You just saved this man's life.'' The lamp congratulates me.

“I did it? The danger is gone?”

“More than just gone I'd say, but let's not focus on that too much now.” murmurs. “You used your powers to change that man's fate.”

Tonight I have lost my life, but because of it I saved someone else's. And with that thought I return to the present. When I come back, I notice that it is raining.

The stranger, whose life I had just saved, was sitting in said rain. Though it looks like he is trying to get up but failing to do so.

Stranger… the word echoes through my mind as I realise something. I can't recall a thing.

Who am I?

What is this place?

And most important of all…

Why am I dead?

“This isn't over, you know.” the lamp states to me. 

“Who exactly are you anyway?” I ask the lamp.

“Who I am isn't important.” the lamp answers, dodging the question entirely.

“So you aren't going to tell me?”

“Well you haven't told me your name now have you?” the lamp brought up.

Dread piles up within me. “I… I can't remember.”

“Not that surprising, the memories of those who have died recently tend to not remember much.'' The lamp pauses. “Some get their memories back, others don't.”

“Is there a way to get mine back?” I ask the lamp.

“Of course, the best way to gain your memories back is to find yourself.” the lamp answers.

“Find myself?”

“You haven't a clue who you are, right here before your nothing but a small blue flame, hardly a person.” the lamp adds. “With so little knowledge of who you are, you're never going to remember who you are. You need to find people who know you, and be reminded of your life. Only then will you regain your lost memories.”

I pause to think for a moment. “There's one more life I want to save.”

“Oh? And who might that be?” the lamp inquires.

“Do you even have to ask? Mine of course.”

“I'm afraid you can't.” the lamp sighs. “If we were able to save ourselves, don't you think I would have done so?”

“Ah…”

“For whatever reason we can only save the lives of others. We are destined to stay dead.”

“Couldn't I save your life?” I ask the lamp.

“Not only did I die far from here, but it was a long time ago, and you can only rewind the time for people who have been dead for less then a day.” it answers.

“So there's no hope for either of our lives?” I sigh.

“That's how it is, not much we can do about it now.”

So I'm dead? And I'm going to stay dead? It seems there isn't much left for me anymore, but regardless I can't help but wonder who I am. I don't even have a face to myself, nevermind a name.

“I want to know what happened to me.” I huff. “I want to figure out who I am and regain my memories.”

“I'd figured you'd say that. Luckily for you, I have a lead you could follow.” he directs me.

“You.. you do?!” I exclaim.

“Well I was here when you died, wasn't i?”

“You know who I am?” I gasp.

“No, I don't, but earlier I saw something suspicious.” The lamp pauses. “Earlier when I saw this man here walking around the junkyard he seemed to be prodding at the area where you had awoken.” the lamp declares to me.

“So you're saying that he might have something to do with my death?” I ask.

“I know he must. Tonight is going to be a strange night, I'm sure of it, and not only is this man involved with it, I believe you are too.”

I can't believe what I am hearing. Strange night? Whatever could that mean?

“I assure you that it's something you don't want to miss. You may have to take the long way around but if you follow the path this man is to lead you on I'm sure by dawn youll know who you are.” the lamp advises.

“You think so?” I ask.

“I know so.”

With that, I move from the latch to the bike, and shimmy over the power line. I stop near an umbrella. I depart from the bike onto the object and open it. The force of its opening causes it to fall gently to the man in red feet.

The man notices it and crawls over to the umbrella. “This will do.” As he closes the umbrella and uses it to prop himself back onto his feet. He then reopens the umbrella to guard himself from the downpour.

“This has been a strange series of events…” the man says to himself. “First that crossing gate activated by itself, then the guitar played by itself, then the bike's bell rang by itself…” The man trails off as he looks up to where the wrecking ball had fallen from.

“Then that latch undid itself. And I'm sure this machine was facing the other way not that long ago. And of course this umbrella just randomly fell to my aid.” he pauses. “It seems that some unknown force is at play here, but why and where did it come from?”

Huh?! Did he clock onto my existence that fast? Though I do suppose I wasn't being all that sneaky about it, still how did he come to such a conclusion so quickly?!

The man looks behind himself. “Looks like this bridge is preventing me from leaving just yet. Seems I have to find another way." Then he walks to the otherside of the junkyard to pick up his cane that he had dropped earlier. He then descends down the metal staircase.

He continues forward. “What is going on? I can't help but feel that there's something more sinister happening. Even before that hitman tried to kill me there was-”

The man was then cut off by the ringing of the phone nearby.

“Who'd be calling the junkyard at this time?” the man asks aloud, and I can't help but wonder the same thing.

The man in red walks over to the phone to answer the call.

“Don't you remember? That hitman received a call around this time before." The lamp reminds me.

Of course! The phone call the hitman answered to confirm that he finished the job. That could only mean that behind that phone will be the face of the one who ordered this man dead!

“There's one more thing you ought to know.” the lamp tells me. “There is one more trick you are able to perform”

“Another trick?”

“Yes and this one will prove to be very useful. You are able to possess a phone while they are in use and see the person on the other side of it.”

“Really?!” I exclaim.

“Yes, and not only that but you are able to travel across the line to numbers you know. If you possess that phone now not only will you see the one who put a hit on this man but you'll be able to go over there and investigate the area.”

Without hesitation I hop onto the phone to see who's on the other side.

On the other side I see a small blue man with a large nose and bushy eyebrows. 

“Is it done?” the man inquires. 

The man in red says nothing, but smirks a little.

“Speak up man, did you get him?”

The man in red chuckles a little. “What a familiar accent. I just heard someone with the same one.”

“Hmm yes, A thousand pardons my good sir, I must've dialled the wrong number!” the old man laughs before hanging up immediately.

“Whoever that was must be the one who wants me dead. How curious, what possible business could foreigners have with my life?” the man in red puzzles before returning the receiver to its home. 

“That's the man who ordered this guy dead? And if I’m to believe what I've been told, following the path this man leads me on will help me recover my lost memories." I stop and think for a moment. “Then there's no time to waste!”

Then I jump over the phone.

And so the story for the search of myself begins. 

Why did I die?

And what exactly is going to happen in this town tonight? 

And if what the lamp says is true, i should know the answer to these questions by the end of the night.

Let's just hope it's worthwhile.