What if... Johnny became a ghost when he died? Just something I thought about, then decided to write down. Warning: It's a teensy bit depressing, and pretty short. I normally don't write unhappy stories like this, but I decided to try my hand at it.
Enjoy... If you can. ;)
I don't own The Outsiders or any of its characters. Rights go to SE Hinton for the quotes used as well.
Johnny's POV
I definitely hadn't expected this to happen when I died.
Weren't there only two possibilities: Heaven or hell? Somehow, I went to neither.
I was stuck. Stuck in the middle, forced to watch my buddies suffer because of what happened to ME. Life wasn't fair... and now I knew, neither was death.
When I had left my body behind in that gloomy hospital bed, I had expected my soul to actually, well, go somewhere. Unfortunately for me, no magical doors opened. I guess I never expected to go to heaven, having killed someone and all, but I definitely didn't think I'd be stuck in between the two worlds.
If there really WERE two worlds. Maybe all dead people just stay on earth for eternity. I wouldn't know, since everyone I'd watched over the past decades were living. Or maybe it was just me.
It had been torture, seeing Dally practically commit suicide just because I passed on. I think only Ponyboy noticed the look in his eyes when he pulled out that gun. I had a very clear view, seeing that I was standing in front of him the whole time, begging him to think more clearly before pulling out that unloaded gun.
The bullets the police shot at Dally went right through me, like I wasn't even there. In a way, I guess I wasn't. No one saw me... They just walked through me every time I tried talking to them to find out what was going on. You see, I was still pretty naive back then, even in death. I know better now.
The stuff people say about ghosts being able to move furniture is a pure myth. I can't even move a feather. My hand just passes right through it.
After seeing Dally die right in front of me, with me not being able to do a thing to stop it, my soul hardened. I was no longer the quiet, scared Johnnycakes the gang remembered me as. I truly turned into a ghost.
Everything that happened after that was a blur. My mind learned how to shut itself down, and to only function when I needed it to. When I was tired of walking the earth without being able to touch anything, I lay down and became the equivalent of a ghost vegetable. In that state, I knew what was going on around me, I just didn't care.
The only time that I felt something again, felt ALIVE again, was when I watched Ponyboy read the note I wrote him so long ago. Something inside me had stirred, and I had willed Pony to be able to REALLY remember me and Dally again, to do something that would let my meaningless existence be worth something. I think it worked, because he wrote it all down. Every last detail.
To this day, I still wonder where Dally went. Did he go to heaven? Hell? Or did he, too, end up as a ghost? In all these years of searching, I've never found someone I could talk to. I had pretty much given up hope...
But now I've found YOU. Will YOU talk with me? Or will you, like everyone else, ignore the little voice inside your head? Because that's me. The next time that voice tells you not to answer a strange doorbell, listen to it. I don't want you to end up like me. I hope you'll remember me. And if my friends are still alive, tell them Johnny Cade said hi, all right?
I hope that wasn't too weird for you. I wanted to make it sort of... creepy, but sad at the same time. Does that make sense? Anyway, PLEASE tell me what you think. This is the story I REALLY need feedback on, but please don't be TOO harsh. Also, I know Johnny's VERY OOC, but I wanted his personality to change becasue of what happened. The ending was... really really odd, I know, but I wanted it to end on Johnny's ghost talking to YOU personally. Anyway, please please PLEASE review!
Thanks for reading! :)
EternalBookworm823