It would only take a couple of pills for Gray to be gone. No one alive cared about him anyway, why even keep existing?
He sat on a toilet in a public bathroom, a bottle of pills in one hand and a water bottle in the other. He had just been fired that day, after several other bad things (including, but not limited to his girlfriend breaking up with him and losing his apartment) also happening that week. He had considered committing suicide for weeks now and finally decided to do it. Setting down the water bottle on the floor of the stall, he opened the bottle with the sleeping pills for his insomnia, diagnosed months ago. One, two, five, seven, more fell into his hand. He threw them into his mouth and grabbed the water bottle to help the pills down his throat. He put the bottle with pills back into his pocket and threw the empty water bottle into the trash can.
Standing up, he unlocked the stall's door and left the empty public bathroom. He headed to the nearest bus stop to wait for a bus, hoping to fall asleep into that peaceful death he wished so much for. However, what he hoped for didn't happen. He fell asleep peacefully at the bus stop.
"Hey!"
Gray's eyes flew open when he heard someone scream at him. A brunette stood over his strangely weightless body.
"Huh?" Gray stood up, looking around and checking his surroundings. He stood in a room that reminded him of his therapist back when he was a kid. "Where am I?"
"Hell." the girl told him, a flat look on her face.
"You're joking, right?"
She shrugged.
"Some of us call it hell. Since we're ghosts and all."
Gray's eyes widened as he stared at her.
"So... I really died?"
"You want to see your body to make sure?"
Gray was in shock. He found it hard to believe he'd managed to kill himself. His hand flew up to his hair, fingers running through it.
"Who found me... dead?"
The girl shrugged again.
"Don't know her name, but I know she works at the coffee shop across the street from the bus station. The one you died at. Was she your girlfriend or something? She looks pretty nice."
"I don't have a girlfriend."
"So you play for the other team?" the girl teased, smirking.
Gray shook his head furiously.
"No! I mean, no, my girlfriend just broke up with me."
"Is that why you offed yourself?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. "I'm surprised they even let you become one of us."
"One of the reasons." Gray's lips thinned and he folded his arms. "Why are you like… this?"
"Alcohol."
Gray nodded. The girl probably drank her worries away. Gray stood up from the couch-bed and unfolded his arms.
"Gotcha. So. Is this... the only place here for us?"
The girl shook her head, amused expression on her face.
"We're ghosts, Gray. We get to go anywhere."
He turned around and stared at her dead in the eyes. What the-?
"Why do you get to know my name but I can't know yours?"
The girl laughed at him.
"Isn't it obvious?" the girl said, laughing at him. "I have to make sure you don't fuck up this life. I've been here for a while."
"You still didn't tell me your name," he remarked, narrowing his eyes
"It's Cana."
"Cana? That's an unusual name."
"So is Gray."
Gray frowned at Cana, "It's short for Grayson!"
"I'm joking, jeez. I knew it was Grayson." Cana grinned and punched his arm.
"What else do you know about me?" Gray asked as he took a couple steps away from the her
"Everything" she assured, then winked at him.
"So you know everything about me and I get to know basically nothing?" Gray snorted and looked around the room, searching for an exit in case he had to get away from… whatever she was.
"Well, you really haven't asked," Cana said with a shrug, her dark hair swaying over her shoulders. Dramatic.
"Seriously?" He ran his fingers through his hair and he stared at the ground. He couldn't believe it. He was a ghost? Were most ghosts because of deaths like his?
"Uh, yeah."
A million questions popped into his head. None about her, though - only about being a ghost.
"Then, why a ghost?"
"You mean, why are we ghosts?" When he nodded, she let out a hum as if thinking. "Didn't your parents teach you about ghosts when you were little?"
Gray recalled his very forgettable childhood - if someone would call it childhood, being sent from one foster home to another as a letter no one wanted after his parents passed back when he was small. No memories of ghost stories came to him. Neither from the horror movies he'd watched once he was out of the system.
"No, not really."
"Damn." Cana sighed, raising her arms to her head as she paced back and forth around. "Everyone knows ghost stories! Hell, most of the time only kids can see us!"
"I knew what ghosts were! Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Then you know why we're ghosts! You committed suicide, damn it, of course you're gonna be a ghost!"
"But you died of alcohol poisoning. That isn't a suicide method."
Cana turned around sharply and stared at him.
"How do you know?" she asked, her arms falling back down to twist in front of her chest.
"You can't kill yourself by drinking alcohol!"
"Geez, weren't you taught about shit as a kid?"
"You're one to talk, knowing everything about me!"
"That was a joke, Gray." The girl scoffed, turning around and away from him
"Didn't sound like a joke."
"Sorry," she said, tone dripping with sarcasm, and scoffed again. "All I know is your name and how you died."
"How much about how I died?"
"I've already told you how much I know, Gray!"
"Seriously?"
Cana turned back around, her face full of rage.
"Yeah!"
"Then I should at least get to know that much about you!" he told her, pushing his lips together as he frowned.
"Fine!" she called, throwing her hands in the air. "I was a raging alcoholic! There, you happy?"
Gray saw the pain written on her face, heard it in her voice.
"Touchy subject?" he offered, growing confused when she only shook her head. "Why did you do it, then?"
"Why do most people drink?" she asked bluntly.
"Stress?" Gray offered, unsure.
"Yeah, you could say that." The pain had yet to leave her voice. "There's more to it. Like how I actually like drinking, too."
A pregnant pause filled the room.
"Uh, so, what do you like to do for fun as a ghost?" Gray asked, trying to get through the silence. The soft sadness vanished from her face and she grinned.
"Thought you'd never ask."
Things turned out, Gray was still in his city, just a couple blocks away from where he died. As they headed from the fifth floor of the building he'd woken up in, he saw all the ghosts. There were just so many of them… And they all seemed to reside there, too. Sometimes, forgetting the high murder rates was truly a bliss.
"Do you want to visit the coffee shop? The one the girl who found you works at?" Cana asked.
She'd brought him to a nearby park. The two sat across from each other, him on a fountain ledge and her on a bench just by it. Gray had lived in the city his whole life. He could almost recall this park. Maybe it was the one he visited with his parents before their untimely deaths. But maybe all parks in the city looked like this, too.
"No."
"Aw, why not?" Cana called with a pout.
"I'm the only thing people will be talking about."
"Pff. It's been a couple hours. They probably already forgot you."
Gray's eyebrows rose high and he gaped at her.
"I've only been dead for a couple hours?" he yelled, scaring some birds away.
"Uh, yeah?" she said, rolling her eyes. "I thought you already knew that."
"How could have I known? If it's only been a couple hours, why didn't you just take me to my body?"
"You didn't ask for that" she explained, shrugging. "You asked what I did for fun, so here we are."
"Yeah, and I also didn't know only a couple hours had passed!" Gray yelled again. "I thought it's been days, not hours!"
"Seriously?"
Gray nodded vigorously, throwing his hands up
"Do you at least know where my body is now?"
Cana nodded and stood up.
"You want to go see it now?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Gray asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You didn't want to earlier, so." Cana shrugged.
"That's your excuse?" he asked, following her closely.
"You didn't want to earlier."
Gray stopped dead in his tracks as Cana continued to walk. He sighed and ran one hand through his hair. How much time he had to spend with this girl? This-she-was really taking a toll on him.
"You coming?" she called over her shoulder.
Gray nodded and ran ahead to catch up with her.
It took them an half hour to get to the place his body was taken.
"I'm in the police department now?"
Cana raised her eyebrow and stopped halfway through the door.
"You could have been murdered with poison, duh."
Gray stared at the building from outside while Cana entered. Gray followed her inside after some time of staring at the building.
"You coming?" Cana asked, waiting for him on the stairs. "We got another couple flights of stairs before we see it."
This was all so weird. He couldn't wrap his head around being… dead.
"Uh, yeah." Gray shuffled his way over to the stairs, not ready to embark down them to see what lied ahead.