"Aw, man! You broke my camera!" he delicately held up the ruined machine, which dripped with ectoplasm. Spencer turned to glare at the phantom floating behind him. "Billy!"
"Sorry, brotus, it slipped." He shrugged. If the boy had been paying more attention, he would have noticed the troubled expression on the ghost's face. Billy's general carelessness had been getting even worse. Normally, he was unrealistic, but for some reason it didn't seem like he was all there today.
It had started this morning. The two had been playing a video game, Axe Maniacs 7, and Billy had just... frozen.
The boy had noticed, and waved a hand in front of the other's face. "Yo, Billy, you in there?"
Slowly, he'd blinked. "Hunh?"
"You ok, man? You just sorta spaced out there..."
"What? Yeah, I'm fine."
The boy had dismissed it, this was BJC, after all, but the lapses were getting more and more frequent. Today had been busy, there were finals to worry about after all, so Spencer wasn't paying that much attention to his see-through amigo until that moment. Billy had been screwing around with Spencer's camera, and it had suddenly fallen from his hands, along with a good deal of glowing blue matter. He felt sorta fuzzy, and it was getting harder to maintain his shape.
Meanwhile, his distant relative inspected the damage. The wiring was shot, and it would be a miracle if any of the data was salvagable. "Man, this thing is toast!" He moaned. "I had all the footage on there for for Vampire Amusement Park: We Open at Dusk!"
Spencer was now 18 years old, he would be going to college in a few months. With Ponzi on his case all the time, it had been difficult to pass highschool, but he was doing fine. He'd gotten a scholarship due to his short films, and the response he'd gotten was that they were the best the college had ever seen, and the special effects were astounding.
Shanilla and Rajeev were great, too, the former of which had decided to become a Psychologist, and the latter an Actor. He actually had a sizeable amount of job offers.
"I didn't mean too. Besides, you can just make another one, can't you?"
The blatant dismissal only served to anger the boy more. "That took me three months!"
"Chillax, brosideon." he said, waving it away. "It was just a stupid movie, anyway." his bro should be paying attention to more important things, like him.
He realized his mistake a second later when Spencer got really mad. Normally this didn't happen, the youth would accept Billy hadn't meant any harm and moved on, fixing the problem in a day or two. "It's one thing to break my camera, since I know you didn't do it on purpose, but that," he hissed, "was not cool." He got up, leaving the wrecked device where it lay, and left.
"Come on, you know I didn't mean that!" He pleaded. "Spence!"
The aspiring filmmaker glared over his shoulder. "Really, Billy? Because I'm not so sure." He slammed the door closed, a useless gesture considering his friend could walk straight through it, but Billy got the message.
"Fine! If that's how you want it!" He shouted. "I don't need you! I have millions of fans who would kill to hang with the Cobra!"
"I wish you'd never died, just so I wouldn't be stuck here with you!" Spencer yelled back.
That hurt. Bad. Mostly because up until his bro and his family moved in, Billy had wanted nothing more than to have his life back.
When he'd met Spencer for the first time, it had been awesome. He finally had an actual friend, one who wasn't just getting close to him because he was famous, or amazingly handsome, or rich. For as long as the ghost could remember all people ever wanted was his things, not to be around him. Even in the largest of crowds, at parties, with various women, he'd felt... like he was all by himself.
Then the horror movie obsessed teen had come along, and Billy wasn't alone anymore.
It looked as though that had just changed.
He drifted away, looking injured. He'd be sleeping somewhere else tonight.
Before he could decide where that 'somewhere else' was, the room around him started disappearing, the walls and furniture and eventually even the floor fading away, and leaving the frightened specter surrounded by nothing.
"Hello, Billy," The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and it seemed as though hundreds, thousands, millions of people were all speaking at the same time, which should have in every right been a horrible sound, but... it wasn't. In fact, it was... beautiful.
"Who are you?" Billy cried, looking frantically around the expanse of utter nothingness that surrounded him.
The voice laughed. "I have many names, but I happen to be feeling modest at the moment, so I suppose you can just call me... God."
"Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I don't believe in God."
"You're floating in an endless void, which is an impossibilitly on it's own, literally speaking to me, and you still deny my existence?"
"...I don't know what you're getting at here, bro."
"Your name is Baroch Cohen, but you go by the pseudonym of Billy Joe Cobra, and you are a ghost, having died five years ago today. Your favorite food is 'chunky peanut butter with the chunks taken out', as you put it, you have zero street smarts, are overly trusting, and your mental well-being depends on knowing you have at least on psychotic fan.
"So?" He said stubbornly, "Any Cobrahead worth their signed CD cover could tell you that! Er... minus the ghost part."
You are completely narcissistic, having almost no regret after you do something wrong," much to Billy's chagrin, it sounded amused to say this. "But you are good at heart. You were hurt before, badly, and since then, you decided never to let anyone get close to you."
The ghost's arms dropped to his sides.
"But it didn't work. Only one person ever managed to truly get past your defenses, and I believe you know who that person is."
Billy seemed to snap out of his shock, and he settled his chin in his hand thoughtfully, tapping his index finger against his mouth. After considering it for a moment, he made up his mind. "Nope. Not buying it."
This time, the entity practically guffawed. "Ah, you humans never fail to entertain! Let's get on with it, shall we? The fifth aniversary of your death is today. This means- hey, pay attention! This is important!"
"Hm?" Billy stopped clipping his tonails.
"This means you get your wish granted, and then- well, I believe you will find that out later."
"I want to be alive again!" He practically shouted.
"If that is what you say you want, it will be as though you never died." The being said more, but the deceased rock star payed no attention. He'd show Spencer, he didn't need him!
"...Billy. Ahem. Were you listening?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure... you should wear the blue one." He said absentmindedly.
The voice sighed. "Are you certain you want to be alive?"
"Well duh. What could be better than that?"
If disembodied voices could have grinned, this one would have. "Granted."
Before Billy could say anything else, his blue glowing form began dissolving. He screamed as suddenly every inch of him was burning, burning...
...
He was back in the Freaky Tiki room.
Groaning, Billy sat up, throwing his legs over the edge of the mattress and rubbing the side of his head, making even more of a mess of his ungelled black hair. Man, his head hurt. Must've been some party last night.
Wait... what?
He looked down at his hand in wonder, realizing he couldn't see through them at all, and instead of the standard light blue, they were slightly tanned. His hands. Just like before he died!
A laugh bubbled up in his throat. This was so awesome! Wait until Spen- Oh.
Oh.
The voice had said it would be as though he'd never died.
No Spencer.
He wasn't going to let that get him down! His bro had said he didn't want Billy around, so Billy didn't want him around, either. He had his life back now, and he was going to enjoy it!
The was a knock at the door. "Um... Mister Cobra? Are you awake?" A shy female voice asked. "I have your schedule for today."
"Yeah, you can come in, babe."
"Mister Cobra," The girl laughed, "I've been working with you for a month. You really should've learned my name by now." She stepped into the room, and if the rockstar had been a ghost, his jaw would've literally hit the floor. As it was, him suddenly being made of flesh and blood, he managed a pretty good approximation.
"Shanilla?"