Like Ghosts in Snow

“Are you okay?”

I just sat there on the cold, hard ground, staring at her. When I opened my mouth to speak, I found that I couldn’t make anything come out. It was usually hard for me to make myself shut up, and here I was with nothing to say at all? Pathetic.

After a minute of sitting and looking stupid, I forced myself to get up. By that time, there were already onlookers accumulating around us. The girl just looked at me. I finally forced myself to say something, just not to her. “Umm… I’m alright. Just go back to whatever you were doing.” I turned to face the driver of the car that almost hit me. “Sorry… for running out in front of you. Umm. Sorry.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. There were too many people looking at me. It’s different when I’m on stage. That’s when I expect it, but now it was just weird. The looks were too much. It was like they half expected me to throw myself in front of a car in the next lane, as if I did it on purpose. And that girl. She was giving me a look I couldn’t even read. Everything was starting to get to me. So I ran.

Well, I didn’t run. That wouldn’t have help out in my case of non-insanity, or whatever. But I might as well have. I walked as fast as I could without actually running. I went back into the hotel and to the elevators. On my way there, I had already half forgotten about that girl for the first time that night.

As soon as I pressed the arrow pointing up, one of the elevators made a noise, and the doors opened. I got in and pressed the number for the 15th floor and watched as the doors started to shut and a hand shot out between them before they could close. A very pale hand. When was she going to leave me alone?! Could I not do anything that night without her being somehow involved? She stepped in and pressed the ‘close door’ button. She didn’t press a button for a floor, so I guessed that either meant she had only gotten on to talk to me (or eat me, you never know), or she was on my floor. I wasn’t betting on the latter, so I braced myself.

“Hi,” she said. The fourth word that night she had spoken to me.

I had the same helpless feeling I had had not five minutes earlier when she asked me if I was okay. But this time, I made myself say something directed at her. Too bad all I could get out was a measly, “Hey.”

She nodded and looked strained.

I then found myself able to add an awkward, “Thanks.” We made eye contact and I noticed her eyes. They were a rare shade of topaz. I had never seen eyes like that on a real person in my life.

She forced a smile and said, “You’re welcome.” There was another awkward pause. “Umm. You might want to see a doctor about your head. You may have a concussion.” She leaned closer to look at the knot forming where I my skull collided not-so-gracefully with the ground. She back off quickly and her body language suddenly changed. Her face also changed. Like she was suddenly plotting something. It was a little creepy.

I bit my lip and willed myself not to have a nervous breakdown. I looked up above the door of the elevator where a small screen said the number of the floor we were on. Seven. Wow. Either this elevator was really slow or time was playing a seriously lame trick on my mind.

Seven.

Eight.

“I’m sorry for scaring you earlier,” she said, smirking.

“You… didn’t scare me.” I tried making my best confused face to compliment what I was saying. It didn’t work. She just raised a single eyebrow. “Okay, you did,” I said in a way that I was sure would have been funny If I didn’t feel so awkward and she didn’t look so… hungry? “What was with that, anyways?” I continued.

“It was just… I umm… take an acting class. And we’ve been going through different emotions and how to show them. And… this week was hate. So our assignment was to… go out in public and try to make people think that we… hated them.”

It was a lame story if I had ever heard one, but I wasn’t in the mood to try and challenge it. So I just looked back up to see what floor we were on. What do you know. We were on flour fourteen. A second and I would be on fifteen, and out of this elevator.

Ding.

The doors of the elevator opened on the fifteenth floor. There were about five teenage girls who were waiting to occupy it, giggling and gossiping. I got out, trying to make my way briskly past them, when she called out my name. For a split second this disturbed me, but then I realized that it wasn’t uncommon. I was in a band that was pretty well known, and she was also at our concert. I turned around to face towards the elevator. The teenagers were looking at me and whispering to one another. I ignored them and hoped that, since they knew I was on the same floor as them, they wouldn’t go looking for my room. “Do you want meet me in the hotel restaurant tomorrow? For dinner?”

I hesitated. There was something weird about the way she said it, and her body language that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I let my mind answer, instead of my instincts, though. “If I can get your name.” She was holding the elevator, which made the girls look a little bit impatient, but they were even more gossip hungry, so they let it go.

“Oh. Um… my name’s Melanie,” she answered. “Seven?” she asked. I nodded and watched as she let the elevator close.

Everyone was asleep when I got back to my room, and I was glad, because I didn’t really want to have to talk to anyone. As I laid down on the hotel mattress, I had the feeling that someone was watching me. I told myself it was just paranoia. After all, I seemed to have been experiencing a lot of that. So I just let it go as I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

.....................................................................

“Melanie! What is the matter with you? What makes you think he‘d even come back here with you anyways? Who’s to say he’s not only going to dinner with you because he feels thankful that you saved his life?” Daniel asked as I walked into our hotel room. Fucking mind-readers. “You can’t kill this guy, anyways. It’d be too high profile. He’s famous. They won’t just let this one go.”

I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me. He knew it, too. I told him anyways. “I know, Daniel. I know. I wasn’t thinking. Well, I was thinking. It just wasn’t about the consequences. I was thinking about how I was going to do it. And I would‘ve done it tonight. I wasn‘t planning on it, but it was too much when I tried to look at his head. As if a small elevator isn’t enough. But there were those girls that showed up. And you know I‘m not one for collateral damage.”

“ I know.” He walked over and put his arms around me in a comforting hug. “I wasn’t trying to scold you, Mel. It just that… I’m trying to look out for you. I am your ‘big brother’ after all, aren’t I? And it’s been 17 years, Melanie. 17 years since you’ve killed a human and you’re going to throw it away for this one guy? Melanie, I’m begging you. Please don’t do this. Don’t meet him for dinner. Just don’t.”

I nodded against his cold, hard chest. I love you Daniel, I thought.

He sighed. “I love you, too.”