Gilbert and his friends had gotten the hell away from that place as soon as they had escaped out the front door. They hadn't stopped running until they were back in the normal peace of their suburban town. As they came to a stop, the three were huffing and bending over, trying to catch their breath. As soon as they each started looking up and seeing that the others were doing the same, they all started to laugh- the laughter growing in intensity as the whole thing became more and more hysterical and their breaths becoming harder to take.

"We were almost-" Antonio gasped, "Crushed by a chandelier!"

No one else could speak, unable to talk through their laughing, but, as soon as they had calmed down, Gilbert spoke up. "That was awesome!"

As the three continued to laugh, they began to walk back to Francis' house to watch whatever happened to be on the television, which seemed to be MTV at the moment. Right then, Van Halen's new music video was playing.

"That was scary! We were almost impaled to death!" Antonio exclaimed as he leaned off the couch and stuck his hand into the Munchos bag on the coffee table.

"Ah, and I will take this as my cue," Francis said. "I told you so."

"When will you stop saying that, Francis?" Gilbert asked, annoyed that his friends wouldn't shut up about the whole thing. He was trying to pay attention to one of his favorite bands on the screen. "Now, isn't this guy crazy or what?"

They turned to watch as David Lee Roth once again popped onto the TV's screen, demonstrating one of the jumps the song's focus was on. The three laughed and lounged on the couch for a while until Francis' folks returned and Gilbert and Antonio headed home.

"Wanna hang at my place?" Gilbert asked as the two strolled down the dark street. It was nearly one in the morning, but Gilbert knew he himself could be up for another four hours at the least.

"No. I have church in the morning, so I should really get home." Antonio stopped on the pavement where the street to the right would take him home. Gilbert stopped too.

"Ugh, Toni. Why can't you just skip?" Gilbert whined, not wanting to go home to have to put up with his own folks for being out so late.

"I can't, Gil. Sorry." Antonio began down the street. "I'll see you at school on Monday!"

"Yeah, yeah." Gilbert waved and began to turn down his own street. Soon he was walking alone. Gilbert walked past house after uniformly suburban house. He laughed to himself once again over the thought of the three of them running away from that creepy manor. They must have looked ridiculous to anyone who happened to see. It wasn't as funny when alone though, and Gilbert felt his laughter trail off as he replayed the evening in his head.

Right before the crystals of the chandelier started dropping, he remembered it clearly, there had been someone standing behind a banister up the stairs watching them. It had been a boy around his own age and his image had burned itself into Gilbert's head. The boy'd had light hair and a loose curl that sprung away from his face. His eyes were an extremely vivid purple, yet there was still something about them that Gilbert couldn't quite put his finger on. There was something very still and careful about the look in the boy's eyes.

There was another thing he remembered about the boy too. It was how pale he looked, as if he hadn't left that house in years. It was almost unnatural how pale the boy looked, but, then again, he was one to talk, right? Gilbert was practically the palest person he knew.

Gilbert was still shocked how the boy could disappear like that, though. He had just been looking at him, then poof, the boy had gone. Even if Gilbert had blinked or something, the boy shouldn't have been able to disappear so quickly!

Gilbert hadn't said anything more of it to his friends. They already thought he was lying anyway. It wasn't a completely unwarranted assumption by them. Tricking his friends to scare them was something Gilbert would have certainly done and he knew that if he really wanted them to believe him he could keep at it and convince them. The thing was, Gilbert kind of wanted to figure this one out on his own.

That's why tomorrow Gilbert planned on going back to the house during the daytime to check the place out for himself.

-/-

The next morning Gilbert found himself on Bell Avenue. Antonio was at church, Francis was probably sleeping in, and Gilbert was walking to the abandoned manor by himself, ready to find whoever it had been that he had seen in that house.

Gilbert stopped in front of the manor, noting how many places there must have been to hide in the large house. As he approached the doorway, he found that it was in fact still unlocked from when they had previously broken in and he let himself in. Gilbert made sure to close it securely behind him before he walked further into the house.

"Man…" He said to himself, taking in the view of the bare chandelier above and the crystal covered floor below. He was glad they had gotten out when they had, this could have definitely done some damage.

Now, how to find someone if they were hiding in a place like this? Gilbert decided to take the direct path. "Hello?" He shouted, hearing his voice echo about the place. When no one replied, Gilbert mumbled, "Damn."

Carefully avoiding tripping over the fragments that littered the floor, Gilbert made his way to the grand staircase, hoping to track whoever it might have been by looking in the last place he had seen them. When no clues were found by the banister, Gilbert wandered a bit more, going from room to room and asking aloud, "Hello? Anyone in here?"

Through all of his searching, though, not a soul could be found on that second floor. Gilbert had been about to try the first when something caught his attention.

"Idiot." Said a voice behind him. Gilbert spun on his heels to get a view of whoever it had been, but no one was there.

"Hello?" Gilbert asked and was responded to with a gasp. There was no denying now that someone was definitely there. "Hey, I heard you. Stop hiding."

"You can hear me?" The voice asked again and Gilbert looked around. Was it him or had that voice come from right in front of him?

"Um, yeah." Gilbert was still looking around for the source of the voice, but found nothing, "I heard you call me an idiot and might I say, rude."

"Oh…" The voice replied, "Sorry…"

"Where are you? Why don't you come out?" Gilbert was trying to get agitated at the soft, apologetic voice for insisting on staying hidden, but couldn't help only feeling confused.

"Um, it's not quite that easy…" The voice spoke again, but was cut off when Gilbert gasped, startled.

"H-how did you do that?" Gilbert asked with wide eyes, both locked onto the now fully visible boy in front of him.

"How did I do-" The boy seemed confused until understanding dawned in his own eyes, "Wait, you can see me?"

Gilbert nodded. The boy in front of him was the same one he had seen the previous night. He had the same pale face and light hair and the same vivid purple eyes. Gilbert quickly got over his initial shock and started to formulate his own theory as to what was going on. "So, is this some kind of cool superpower? That is so awesome!"

"What? I don't know what you're talking about..." The boy looked alarmed at Gilbert's enthusiasm and slightly taken off guard.

"You can turn invisible! What else could it be? You have freaking superpowers!"

"U-um, no. You must be mistaken. Well, yes, I guess I do turn invisible, but it isn't because of anything like that!" The boy looked like he desperately wanted to turn back invisible to get away. "You should probably leave."

"What? But we just met! Don't tell me you're sick of me already!"

"What? No, no. I'm sorry. It's just, well, my brother likes to pick on people who enter the manor. He's never hurt anyone, last night was the first time something got so dangerous, but he never gets along with the living well…"

"The living?" Gilbert asked and the boy seemed to realize he had said something he wasn't supposed to as his eyes widened in alarm. "Wait, so you mean you're dead?"

The other nodded silently.

Then Gilbert started to laugh. "That is awesome!" The boy looked strangely at him but Gilbert was used to those kind of stares; most people thought he was a little bit off his rocker, "I'm Gilbert, by the way." He held out his hand for the other which was accepted only to have his hand passed right through with the other's.

"Matthew." The other said quietly, looking slightly embarrassed at the attempted handshake.

Gilbert just laughed again. "So you're like a ghost or something?"

"And you don't seem phased by it at all."

"That's my own superpower at work." Gilbert winked and Matthew raised his eyebrows.

"And what would that be?"

"Accepting the abnormal and supernatural."

"You just made that up, didn't you? I suppose you come across the supernatural everyday?"

"Indeed, I do! I'm an expert on all things supernatural! Why would I make up such a thing?" Gilbert feigned offense then waved his hand as if resigning from his previous statement, "Well, not everyone can have the awesome power of turning invisible!"

Matthew rolled his eyes and Gilbert was drawn again to the violet color of them. "Anyway," The ghost Matthew said, " You should probably get out of here if you don't want to become the subject of Alfred's amusement. I'm surprised you haven't woken him up already with all your yelling."

"Is that the brother you mentioned? Is he a ghost too?"

Matthew nodded matter-of-factly.

"Ah, so he's the shit that was dropping that chandelier on us last night." Gilbert motioned to the crystals all over the floor below.

"Sorry about that." Matthew sounded sincerely apologetic as he looked to where Gilbert was motioning, "Al gets bored just hanging around here all the time."

"You guys can't leave? Is it like a vampire thing? You can't go out into the sun?"

Matthew laughed and Gilbert was taken off guard. "No. We aren't vampires. Vampires don't even exist!"

"Some people say the same about ghosts." Gilbert pointed out.

Matthew paused and seemed to take in Gilbert for the first time since they had met. "Valid point."

"So, Matthew, you have any other ghosty powers I should know about?"

Suddenly Matthew seemed to close into himself. He looked nervous when he said, "No…"

Gilbert wasn't sure what that was about, but, then again, he had just met the guy.

"You should go. Alfred won't stay asleep for much longer. We ghosts don't need to sleep so it's difficult to stay unconscious for long."

Matthew moved down the stairs and Gilbert followed him. Just as Gilbert was about to open the door he paused and turned back. "Can I come back? I mean, you seem like a pretty cool guy and, you're right, I can imagine it gets pretty boring here…"

But he trailed off as he watched Matthew start to shake his head.

"I don't think that would be a good idea. Like I said, Al doesn't get along with the living very well. It's not that he doesn't like you guys. He just doesn't know what else to do when someone shows up."

Gilbert nodded and silently opened the door, noticing how Matthew's eyes roamed the outside world as if he had not seen it in decades. Then, Gilbert realized that this was probably exactly why his eyes roamed so avidly. Gilbert took his time before finally closing the door, seeing the last look of disappointment flash across Matthew's face as his view was obscured and he was locked once again in the manor.

Gilbert felt for this ghost boy. Matthew hadn't been outside for a long time, he could bet on that. How long ago had he died? How long had they been trapped in that house?

Gilbert had almost accepted his fate, to never come back to that manor ever again, but one thing had changed his mind. That look that had been on Matthew's face as he had seen the outside for the first time in so long and as he was shut once again in the manor. Now Gilbert's mind was set and nothing could change it.

Gilbert would be going back to the manor again and it would be very soon.