Silence filled the room. They were waiting. Waiting for Jellal to speak. Waiting for the air to become less thick with despair and anguish.
Most of her face was covered with bandages. One eye was wrapped, the bridge of her nose over to both her cheeks. Her mouth had a cut on it and the eye that was visible was empty.
Levy wanted to be anywhere but there. But Jellal had insisted on her coming, Gajeel hadn't been willing to let them go alone so he tagged along.
"You dropped the charges?" Jellal asked the question that had an obvious answer.
"That wasn't Cobra." Kinana clenched the sheets on her hospital bed between her hands. Flowers from friends and family were piled in one corner. Animals in another. "He would never have hurt me."
"You seem so sure." Jellal wrote down something in a notebook he carried.
"I'm positive!" Kinana began to sob. "It was my fault. If I hadn't given him the stupid idea to go to that place it wouldn't have ended like this! They won't even let me see him!"
"Can you tell us what happened?"
"I already told the police when they interrogated me." Kinana replied tears still falling.
Jellal didn't look up from what he was writing. "I don't doubt you did. However they didn't release any information on it. They released their version, we want to hear yours."
The injured female swallowed wiping her tears. "It was dark. The moon was the only thing that made it even slightly possible for anyone to see. Cobra had taken me to the cabin when I asked him to, I thought it would be more then just us. He walked into the cabin when I didn't and didn't come back out. I walked in after him and he jumped out at me. But that was when he was still my Cobra..."
"Please continue." Still jotting down notes in the journal.
"I wanted to go back but the stubborn brute grabbed my hand and led me further in. We found a door and he opened it. He turned on the flash light on his phone, the only thing there was a chair. A perfectly centered chair. Cobra finally was willing to leave but... but as we were walking away I suddenly heard a voice."
Jellal looked up from his notebook. "What did the voice say."
"It called for it's mom, it said he was here, that it was scared."
"He who?" Levy interrupted.
Jellal glanced at her from the corner of her eye and she raised her eyebrows in a challenge.
"It didn't say. But... I couldn't move, neither could cobra. Then something whispered in our ears. The same voice. 'He's coming'. Then there was a voice."
"Whose voice?" Levy again intervened.
Kinana shook her head. "A man's. He sounded like he was hunting something. He said something about a rabbit. And knowing it was there. The first voice said 'run' and that's what I did. I dragged Cobra to the door, but it was closed. I released his hand to try and get it open but it had locked itself. Then Cobra said 'I found you little rabbit.' I was scared but I thought he was just messing with me. Then he grabbed my neck and tackled me to the ground. He pulled out his switchblade and said... 'time to skin the rabbit.' Then..." Kinana shook her head clutching it as she screamed kicking her legs. "No! Stop! It hurts! Please it hurts!"
"What's happening?" Gajeel took Kinana's shoulders shaking her, for the first time Levy saw fear on his face.
"Enough." Levy directed her statement at Kinana. "I can't believe I didn't notice you earlier."
"Notice who?" Jellal clicked his pen.
"Apparently a spirit has attached itself to our victim." Levy narrowed her eyes. "You're dead, let her go. That's not your body to keep. God you stupid things are everywhere, you're like flies."
"I'm not dead! I can't be! We were just having fun!" The spirit either ignored Levy's last sentence or didn't here it.
"You were skinned alive weren't you?" Jellal bluntly asked.
"Well yes but..." Kinana's body shivered as she hugged her body. "After I died the attacker... using my childhood friend... he... played with my body."
Levy's eyebrows boar down on her eyes. "Some sort of sicko."
"Thank you for your time." Jellal nodded to Levy. "Get rid of her."
"I don't know how." Levy sighed. " It's not like I ever actually helped any of them, laid any of them to rest. I just ignored them until they went away."
With an unamused expression Jellal stood up. He pulled out a sheet of paper. "Your time in this world has ended, may you pass with peace into the afterlife as you release your strife and pain. Heaven's glorifying light welcomes you warmly bringing on a second chance. Farewell until we too are taken by god." A light gleam lifted from Kinana and her head lifted eyes closing as she breathed out. She collapsed into her pillow and Gajeel rushed over checking on his cousin.
"She'll be fine." Jellal stated. "She just needs to rest." He frowned shaking his head at Levy. "You were lucky we have a priestess at our disposal. Realize the only reason I let you join us was your ability to see what normal humans can't. However if you can't protect yourself I won't even pause to think about kicking you to the side."
"I wouldn't mind if you did." Levy lied. After seeing how things were playing out, hearing a witness account. She was becoming far too interested in the case she had been presented with. She had to do what she could to stay on it.
"Did you see what the spirit looked like?"
Levy jumped when Gajeel spoke right next to her. She hadn't heard him come up.
"Uh, yeah." Don't blush, don't blush.
"What did she look like?"
Levy thought back. "Pretty, skinny, blonde, and like all cliche blond ghosts she was wearing a white dress. I'm not exactly surprised she was the victim of an attack."
"Not much of an optimist?"
"I'm a realist. I see what happens and my mind decides from that what to make of the world."
"For someone who sees ghost that seems a bit stupid."
"Well I have to do something to keep from going insane. I mean, what if you were to always be pestered by people that no one else could see except you? It's like schizophrenia, only it's never the same voice. They're always changing. Always asking for something different."
"Weren't you always the girl who told the scary stories to the others in class? Everyone said you were crazy." Gajeel rounded a corner and Levy sped her pace to walk next to him.
"Hah, no I simply told stories based on the ghosts I'd seen. Those that could handle every gory detail were the ones I could handle."
Gajeel's red iris's flicked to her and she held her breath. Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush. And of course you look away. Unable to help it she looked away from him to hide the reddening of her cheeks.
The male's pace sped up until he was too far ahead of Levy for her to calmly catch up.
"Nice going Levy." She ran her hands over her face. "This is going to be a very long two weeks."