The Skidmore family had a tradition of going trick or treating as a family every Halloween year. This year their parents had agreed to let Katherine and her twin brothers go alone as long as they stayed in the neighborhood and stuck together. They were all very excited, though Jonah and Jordan didn't want to admit it. They were at that age where they wanted people to think they were too cool for trick or treating so they went under the excuse of keeping their baby sister safe.
Things had gone normally until Katherine, eager to get the best candy, ran into and through someone. The apology she was already shouting died as she felt only cold air where she should have felt a body. She stopped then whipped around to get a better look at who she had somehow run through.
The man looked normal enough at first glance. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans. He had short brown hair and green eyes. He was transparent. It was the last fact that made her scream. The ghost looked at her with alarm as she screamed, seeming startled at the situation himself. He was gone by the time Jonah and Jordan ran over to see if she was okay. He just vanished, faded away into nothingness.
—-
JB hated Halloween. This time of year and this night in particular, he felt much more alive than he did the rest of the time. Most of the time he felt strangely faded, like an imitation of someone long gone. But not tonight. This would have been a good thing, if being closer to his life didn't also bring him closer to his death. His chest and throat felt tight, an echo of how he'd died. Of how he'd gasped and gasped for air but was unable to pull any into his lungs. How he grew weaker and weaker as he suffocated. The despair he felt in those moments, knowing he was going to die.
He could almost feel it happening all over again. He took a deep breath, though he no longer needed it. The tightness did not go away. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since then but he wasn't any closer to finding-
His train of thought was broken when a girl ran straight through him. He grimaced at the sensation. It was not a pleasant feeling being passed through. The girl stopped dead in her tracks and turned around to face him again with shock written on her face. It took him a moment to realize she was staring at him, and realized that must mean he had turned visible without realizing it at some point. She started screaming and he quickly made himself invisible again as he saw two boys running up to her. Her brothers, probably. He couldn't deal with multiple people seeing him, he wasn't trying to get exorcised anytime soon.
Would an exorcism even work on him? He was a ghost, not a demon. Or at least, he assumed he was a ghost, but he wasn't exactly given a crash course on the afterlife. Either way, he wasn't willing to test it out. Luckily, the brothers didn't seem to believe her story. They would leave him alone then. JB suddenly wasn't so sure if that was lucky at all.