Hi, guys, hope you like the chapter. ^^Please review, I'd really like to hear your honest opinion and suggestions of what would happen in the next chapter. I'll give my best to update tomorrow ^^.

He knew what was she, it was pretty obvious. He had hoped that it would take time for the ghosts here to notice him. But, no. Vain hopes. When one knew he was able to see them, soon, all of them would know. Meaning, that he would have to deal with them all the time. Well, Luffy could cope with this, it was going to happen anyway. The problem was that it had happened too soon. If he had seen ghost like an hour or so, since he had arrived here, this meant that really close to the house there was a cemetery or a prison.

Or worse - a hospital for mental diseases. Luffy shuddered at the thought. Well, now, this was something with which he really didn't want to deal with. Angry ghosts and phantoms were one. Demented ghosts were a whole different story. And of what Luffy had seen 10 minutes ago, this woman was from the second type. The thing was, once a mentally diseased ghost had set his eyes on you, he would not stop pursuing you - either until you kill yourself, or you become so insane, that the pills you take, make you as responsive and rationally thinking, as a vegetable. A few years ago, Luffy had a not-so-amiable experience with one. At first he hadn't been the victim of him, but trying to help to one girl, he managed to become.

The girl had been 5 or 6 then, but she had the demented ghost of her mother's ex-husband, being in hot pursuit of her. Apparently, this man and her mother had been happily married, before her mother had become pregnant from her lover, and had left her husband to live with the father of her future baby - this girl. After a few months they got married, but the mother's ex-husband continued with his tries to make her return to him, but after seeing this wasn't going to work, he decided to remove the obvious obstacle - the newborn baby.

And from there had followed the typical story: the man kidnapped the baby, tried to drown it, the police caught him, putting him in jail, he got mad, and after a few years died in the prison, turning into an insane ghost. Sweet story.

In general, ghosts weren't able to push you of a bridge or down the stairs, but if a person had been strong-minded in his life, as a ghost, he would be able to enter someone's dream. And this could be fatal. It was common for ghosts to wait for the moment when a person is unstable and mentally labile, and then to enter their dream. The thing was, that if they manage to take control over your dream, they could seriously damage your brain and your psyche. This was due to their ability to shape your dream and with doing so, they are able to implant harmful or suicidal thoughts in your head. Or, if you couldn't kick them out of your head on time, you would just die.

And this was what had happened to the girl. The demented ghost pursued her, and he was trying to kill her by entering her dreams. When Luffy met her she was a complete mess. She was having dreams about this same man and how her mother had been forced to leave him, because of her, the unborn baby from another man. The ghost had managed to make the girl believe that her mother was unhappy with her current husband and had left her ex-husband only because she wanted her baby to live and be raised by her biological father.

Not knowing what was happening to her and why she was having those dreams, the girl thought that her mother was secretly hating her, regretting her decision in the past. She didn't want to share this with her parents or ask her mother if this was actually true, so she just kept all of those thoughts locked in herself. This resulted in the girl to be mentally falling apart.

After her and Luffy meeting, the boy saw everything she was trying to hide. One look at her eyes was enough, for him to see all of the sadness, they were concealing. After that, noticing the ugly ghost always following the little girl around, really helped the boy understand that there was something definitely wrong. And why it was wrong. He befriended the girl really fast and she shared all of this with him.

Back then, they were in a small town. He did a research, asking people here and there, and he actually managed to collect all of the pieces of information he needed. In the end, Luffy knew the whole story. He tried to help the girl by telling her about his ability and explaining her the truth about her dreams and why all of this was happening. She trusted him and being so little and not being prejudiced to the things the adults, thought as non-existing, she believed him.

Luffy told her that he realized she was very young, but, despite that, if she wanted to live and grow up as one beautiful woman, she had to collect herself. Luffy explained her that if she wanted to do that, first of all, she had to realize that her mother loved her and her father, and had made her decision in the past out of love and of nothing else. And second, to realize that the ghost had died as one sad and lonely person, who was powerless, if she didn't allow him to control her thoughts.

It helped. The girl was fine and happy-go-lucky again, and she actually started feeling sorry for the ghost and wanted to find his grave to carry him flowers.

It was really sweet, but as soon as the demented ghost realized, Luffy had ruined his plans, and especially that he was able to see him, he did all he could to make his live a living hell. Even when the boy had explained to the little girl that the ghost couldn't hurt her, there was a pretty big difference between believing something isn't able to hurt you, and seeing and listening to the plans of the exact same something of ripping you to pieces and having it, waking you up in the middle of the night with sinister voice, telling you, you are worth nothing and you deserve to die.

It for sure wasn't the most pleasant way to be woken up. Luffy really didn't know what he could do. In the end, he started ignoring him, after all, he wasn't personally involved in all of the drama of the demented ghost's previous life, but that just wasn't working. Back then, Luffy really was about to go crazy, the ghost was slowly pushing him to insanity. Ghosts and phantoms were really good at finding a person's weak spots, if they wanted. And oh, man, he did found Luffy's weak spots.

At this time, there was a carnival in the town, with fortune-tellers. By coincidence, Luffy met one of them in one of the uninhabitable buildings in the outskirts of the town. He was so high then, that he didn't really fully remember what had happened.

The boy only remembered the woman telling him there was someone pursuing him and after he had just sat there on the dirty ground, watching her with dull, red eyes, she did some ritual with candles and other stuff, and he fell unconscious. When he woke up there was no woman, and, unbelievably, no demented ghost.

Even now, when he was recalling all of this, he shuddered. Luffy was happy, he didn't have the ghost in hot pursuit of him up to now, but everything had been so creepy.

The sudden knock on the door, made him jump a little. Luffy turned his head to the door to see, what was the matter. After a few seconds, when nothing happened, the boy realized that he was supposed to give permission to Ace to enter.

''Come in," said the boy embarrassed. Luffy was still sitting on the floor, with his back turned to the glass wall, when Ace opened the heavy door. The boy didn't look at his brother's direction, being to busy to play nervously with the hem of his shirt. Ace was standing in the doorway, watching him. His deep voice broke the silence a moment later. ''Down for dinner in 5.'' And with this words Ace went out of the room, closing the door.

REVIEW, HONS! XOXO