Chapter 6
After filing her latest notes, she peered through the glass at seven, who had apparently reawakened.
She took a quick glance at the vile of ectoplasm. It was green, and still frigid. Well, to her it was that cold, but it had probably warmed up significantly in the time it had been outside seven's body.
To see seven conscious was a huge relief, enough to make her smile and let out a deep breath. It meant that she wasn't going to lose her. And after all that work, all those numbers, and all the time put into her, losing her was like losing a piece of life itself.
She walked into seven's unit and put a hand on his-...her chest. Her heart felt fine, a steady beat pulsing at a good rate. The aorta and pulmonary trunk were finally having ease pumping ectoplasm, meaning that the superior and inferior vena cava were successfully circulating it. As for her lungs, they should be okay now if the heart and its major vessels were working properly.
She gripped the face mask and looked seven in the eye. Glowing emerald orbs merely stared back up at her, obviously waiting for the riddance of all the tubes.
Very gently and equally as carefully, she slid the face mask off, pulling all three tubes out with it. It forced a sudden and intense pressure on her lungs and a deep gasp was heard as her diaphragm realized that its break was over. A look of extreme discomfort crossed seven's face as she did so, but it was gone only moments after the tubes were out.
The same green eyes looked down at a now free mouth and she closed it for the first time since she fell into a coma. A smile formed on seven's lips as she moved her jaw all around, bathing in the normalcy and relief she must be feeling.
She then attempted to talk, her eyes moving straight back to her researcher. "Thanks."
"You just came out of a coma; why are you thanking me?" she asked as if she could care less for her answer.
"Well, for one, you got all that evil stuff out of my body. And I thought the second reason was pretty obvious when I gave you some of my blood," she replied, shrugging at the last sentence.
There seven went, talking about blood as if she had it.
"Please, I have every right to believe you were too dazed to focus. Your thoughts were illogical at the time and you did something you were hardly even aware of."
She frowned at the comment. "That's not true. You took care of me. I could've died, you know. You could've let me die, but you chose to save me."
Maddie rolled her eyes. "You're a ghost; you're already dead. Don't talk like you have a life to lose."
"Look, I gave you that needle, or at least the second one since you thought the first was poison, as a thank-you gift. You're researching me. You're trying to figure me out. I would imagine you'd want something like my blood, so I decided I would do something to help you out in return for helping me out. I'm a ghost. I'm dead. But I do have a life, and I can lose it. If you don't think I have any life in me, check the blood. If you can't find anything in it, then tell me what would happen to me if I really did d-...um...stop working?"
Seven waited for an answer, but Maddie had none to give. All she knew was that seven could stop working, but nothing beyond. "I'll...have to do a few more observations..."
She looked surprised and disbelieving for several seconds. "Are you kidding me? You would seriously put me in more comas? I mean, I'm just a boy, I-"
"Girl," Maddie quickly corrected.
Seven paused, sat up, looked at her as though she'd said the unthinkable. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I've found out one of your little mysteries, seven. You're female," she proudly answered.
The ghost scoffed and ran a hand through her hair. "Are y- You... Maybe I'm a little more in touch with my feminine side, if that's what you're getting at, but do I seriously look that girly to you?!"
She eyed her for a minute. "A little, now that you mention it."
Seven gawked. "I'm a guy! Boy, man, male, macho, dude!"
"And how can I trust you? You're a ghost."
"So? Ghosts can be truthful too, you know. This one time, I..." Seven trailed off and didn't continue the sentence.
"You what?" Deep down she knew he was being honest. After all, why would anyone...or anything...lie about their gender, or take offense to it if it was guessed correctly? Seven didn't seem to be the type to lie. In fact, he had never actually lied before; he had been secretive, avoiding her questions concerning parts of him that he obviously didn't want her to know about, but he had never lied. She couldn't help but wonder if it had anything to do with her job, with the fact that she hunted ghosts. It led her to believe he might be trying to protect something, or even someone, such as a ghostly family member. He'd told her before that he had friends; maybe he was protecting them.
Seven floated off the bed and lowered himself onto the floor in a standing position, looking her straight in the eyes with the most serious face she had ever seen on him.
"You know," he said evenly, "it's hard to gain acceptance when everyone's turned against you." He looked to the side. "They all think you need to be destroyed simply because of what others have told them. They never bother to get to know you. They always accept what they believe to be the truth, even if it's all a lie. Sometimes people never try to find out anything beyond what they know. They never try because they don't want to doubt themselves."
She frowned; he was proving an amazing point that no ghost should be able to think about. Clearly he had thought this through, and he sounded so honest, so sincere in his words. But he was a ghost. Nothing more, everything less.
He continued, almost seeming as if he was unable to look directly at her. "Sometimes you have people really close to you that you know won't accept you for who you are. And it hurts, but you know they wouldn't care. You might have two halves to you, two different sides. In fact, those halves could easily be polar opposites. But sometimes people will only accept one half of you, because you're forced to hide the other. So no one ever gets to see the whole you, and you realize after awhile that they never will and probably never can.
"The hardest part is knowing that you can never be accepted, even by those closest to you, for who you really are. Nobody ever stops to think that no matter what, you're still you. No, instead they continue to yell and shout, complain and rant...and you find yourself being shunned by most people, treated like some sort of fatal disease, a cancer on the world and a disgrace to society. You then realize that you're an outcast, and it'll probably stay that way forever.
"But something inside you is so desperate for someone to finally come in and say, 'I don't mind,' that you start dropping these little hints for them to follow. They'll shoot at you and hunt you down, disgusted with the half they hate. But what about the other half? What will happen to the good half if everyone only sees the bad half? I'll tell you; the bad half will be dominant, and everybody will ignore the fact there is a different side to you, that there's more to you than meets the eye. So the good half will be rejected if someone were to find out about its ties to the bad half.
"And the sad thing is, the bad half isn't always bad. People just see it that way because no one wants to believe they're wrong."
He looked back at her, awaiting a response of any kind, be it vocal or gestural.
She crossed her arms, but not in an annoyed or frustrated manner. It was more of a meditative body language.
"So you're saying you have two halves, a good and a bad?" she asked, partially a statement.
He smirked and flew up into the air. "There's more to me than you know."
"I know." She nodded. "And I can't understand why you act so comfortable here and willing to talk about everything except anything concerning yourself."
He crossed his legs, put his arms behind his head, and leaned back as though he was lounging in an invisible floating recliner.
"All you've ever done is try to shoot me down so you can rip me apart 'molecule by molecule'. Name one time you've ever given me a reason to trust you," he said, shrugging casually as though the answer was one even an idiot could figure out.
In his own way, he was right. Not once had she given him a reason to trust her, and not once had she given him time to explain himself. If he were allowed to explain something for once, it might've appeared to him as a trustworthy act. However, that wasn't the case, and now she was paying for each mistake she had made. He did say something about having two halves, and one of them was the only one he showed because he knew his "good half" would be ignored and rejected by all to whom it was presented. Maybe he had already shown his good half to her, but she had ignored it and probably even rejected it.
She sighed. "I'll admit that I haven't given you any reason whatsoever to trust me, but I need you for my research."
"Because I'm a ghost. And you hate ghosts. You're only using me to invent something that can destroy me later on," he replied. He paused for a moment before adding, "You won't accept my other half, and I'll die because of it."
"You can't d-"
"Actually, you haven't even accepted this half, so you really haven't accepted any of me," he interrupted.
"That's not entirely tr-"
"I've shown you my good half before, plenty of times; enough for you to know that I'm not evil at all. I've been trying my level best to protect Amity Park at all costs, laying my life on the line every day so you and everyone else can be safe. I've been kidnapped, controlled, attacked, and on the brink of death. Despite all that, I continue to protect this place knowing full well how many people and ghosts want to hunt and kill me. I've never asked for anything in return, and you should know that by now."
She couldn't argue with him. While it was doubtful that he had ever been controlled or on the brink of death, considering ghosts were already dead, he had been kidnapped and attacked. He also never asked for any payment of some sort. In fact, seven never lingered around after he was seen. He showed up to fight and vanished the instant it was over. Occasionally he could be seen flying over Amity during the day as if to get somewhere fast. Then he would land, run out of view, and be gone before anyone had a chance to see where he went. There were times at night that he would cautiously fly around, this time seeming to look for something. If she asked him what it was...
"Seven, I've seen glimpses of you flying above the city at night. Unlike the rare occasions I see you during the day, when you're not fighting another of your kind, you fly slowly and if I didn't know any better, I would say you're oftentimes looking for something."
"Patrolling," he curtly replied. "You'll be surprised how many ghosts come out at night when no one knows they're there. And it's not just ghosts; I also look for things like fires, burglaries, drunks, anyone with a gun on them... On duller nights I usually help a cat out of a tree. Mrs. Munlay's cat loves that old birch she has in her front yard. The little guy's always getting stuck in it."
"And you don't get tired of it?" Then again, why would he? He was a ghost and obviously he had a food supply somewhere, otherwise he wouldn't be seen but two hours tops before disappearing forever.
"Of course I do. Geez, I come home just about every night way past my curfew! Getting in a world of trouble just for protecting the city, that's my life for you."
So...he got tired. He had a curfew. He got in trouble. But...but he was a ghost, why...? It didn't make any sense. Did he have a family? Did his family know he was out patrolling the city? Were they against his job? Or did he create these little rules for himself? Was it self-discipline that made him get in trouble? Did he punish himself for staying out past curfew? Why would he even need a curfew? He slept, sure, but when there wasn't a threat around he had all the free time in the world and could use that for a nap.
"Where exactly do you go during the day then?" she asked. "Unless there's a ghost, no one ever sees you out in broad daylight."
He bit his lip and looked up, like he was thinking of something...
"No excuses!" she barked.
His reaction was quick. "Sorry M- Uh...Maddie." Wait...what was he about to say before he corrected himself and said her name? She knew that if she asked him, he would only run her in a circle and move her gently onto a different topic. "I um... I just go places. Anywhere, really, as long as it gets me away from the public."
He did it again. He didn't lie to her, that much she knew. He went somewhere, and found the loophole in telling her.
"Okay..." she groaned, hoping he would pick up on her exasperation. "You said you had a home; where would that be?"
He opened his mouth for a second, but shut it again. She was getting into his personal bubble and he didn't like it. She was making him too uncomfortable and when she needed his trust so badly, trying to pick his brain wasn't the best idea at this time.
"I... I don't feel very comfortable talking about that..." he murmured.
She didn't imagine he would be.
"Is there anything you can tell me about yourself that isn't so vague?"
He grinned and his eyes gleamed with mischief. "I'm a ghost."
She held back a full smile but felt the strong tugging sensation on the corners of her mouth. There was an evident smile playing on her lips, but she refused to let it grow to the size it wanted to.
"Very well, I supposed that's a start," she said as flatly as she could.
He laughed. "A start of what? Are we going to form an unbreakable friendship during my stay?"
She sneered at him and his sarcasm. "Push your luck and you could end up in another wonderful coma."
His eyes widened. "What?! No! My stomach was killing me on day three, don't make me go through that again! Oh, and the fourth day...! I felt like I was going to shut down at any second!"
Hm... This was the first time she had ever heard seven explaining how he felt during the tests she had run, not counting as a test the six days he was "hospitalized". A perplexing ghost, this one...
"Okay, okay!" he panicked. "Umm, ummmmm, let's make a deal! I-I'll... Well...uh, what do you want, exactly?"
She would never put him in a coma again, not after she saw what happened to him because of her carelessness. But a deal, huh? This ghost was capable of proposing deals, of bargaining? Perhaps going so far as to say negotiating... Impressive, in a certain, nonscientific way.
"I want to figure you out," she answered plainly.
Looking thoughtful for a brief moment, he said, "Alright. Okay, yeah, I can do that. How about this? I'll help you if you help me. I've already answered questions for you and given you my own blood, so now you have to do something for me. I'll have to figure out what, but for now, it rests at that. Deal?"
She didn't know why he was pushing the idea of a deal like that so hard, but...surely he couldn't think she was that cruel, so much that she would put him in another coma. It didn't sound like he was pulling another juvenile drama act.
"Oh!" he shouted abruptly, startling her. He snapped his fingers. "I know what I want now! You have to call me by my name from now on."
She put her hands up. "To do that would be to refer to you as a human being, which you are clearly not."
He mumbled something incomprehensible out of irritation, but seemed to reach a conclusion quickly enough. "Well maybe I want to be referred to as a human being, 'which I am clearly not'."
"I won't do that, seven," she responded, putting extra emphasis on "seven" so she could get her point across.
He shrugged. "That's fine. A dying shame that you won't have anymore questions answered, though..."
She could only look at him as he smiled proudly with the knowledge that he had her cornered. Checkmate.
She let out a breath and threw her arms up. "Fine, but you have to answer my questions very specifically, without getting off topic or jumping through any loopholes, which you seem to be very good and finding."
"You drive a hard bargain. I'll answer the best I can but keep in mind, I'm only a pathetic little ghost. Some things are..." He paused and looked at the floor with...sad eyes? He was sad? About what? "Let's just say some things are better left unsaid. So when I tell you I feel uncomfortable about a question, or that I can't tell you something, don't push it. It might be too personal, you know? Even ghosts have a sense of boundary."
How in the world did he find a loophole in answering very specific questions?! He would be a handful, even more so now that she was starting to get more cooperation out of him.
"No, I'm afraid I can't do th-"
"Questions..." he prompted.
... For awhile there was deep, intense silence.
"Fine..." she growled at last. "But answer as many as you can to the fullest extent."
Smirking, he responded, "Very well, ask away."
Oh, where to begin... Being a ghost, he likely wouldn't know about his own anatomy, being as he had never looked inside his body before. There also wasn't a diagram in which to show him what he looked like. Even if there was, he wouldn't know what was what.
"You always show up wherever another ghost is. How do you know it's there?" she began.
He opened his mouth and pointed inside it. "Ghost sense."
"Ghost sense?"
He nodded. "A cold breath of air; it lets me know a ghost is nearby. And no, I can't control it." He snickered. "I wish I could though. It's so inconvenient when you're trying to work and all of a sud-" He cut himself off and refused to go on. She assumed it was one of the more personal things he wouldn't answer. "That's all."
"I said you have to answer them to the fullest extent. That means absolutely everything about it," she pressed.
His knee twitched in agitation. "Look, we've been doing this interrogation thing all of two minutes. You think you could ask something more basic before getting into the deep stuff like that? Besides, what I was about to say had a very minor tie to my ghost sense, so it's not important and it won't help your research at all, trust me." He smiled for a second. "Hey, yeah! The second thing I want you to do: trust me. You have to trust what I tell you."
"What?! How can I?! You're a ghost!"
"Ah-ah-ah, questions. Oh, yes, questions galore..."
She didn't really have a choice... He was taking full advantage of this whole deal he had suggested...and that she had agreed to. "Fine..."
"Good, glad we got that settled." He smirked. "Now, anything else or are we done for now?"
"Anything else," she grunted. "How long have you been in Amity?"
He seem to get a little fidgety, but answered anyway. "I've been here ever since I was born."
"Which was when?"
"I...uh... That's one of those personal ones. Next question please."
Sighing, she moved on. "Why do you take such offense to being called just a ghost?"
He frowned. "Personal."
Another sigh. "How many personal questions can one ghost possibly have?!"
"Sorry, personal," he joked.
Whatever... It was hardly worth it, or at least it seemed that way, but digging into his psyche was important. He could really help her if she could get him to slip up, to reveal something about himself on accident. First, though, it looked like she would have to use up an entire week asking him the kind of things one would ask a very guarded person, which he was. In fact, he had to be the very epitome of guarded! Most humans couldn't set up a wall like he had! Wait...no, he wasn't a person; she had to stop thinking of him the way she was.
"Okay, okay," she finally gave. "Assuming you really are the good guy here, why would you feel the need to protect anyone?"
He shrugged. "Amity Park is my home. Nobody wants their home destroyed. It just so happens that people live in my home, and I'm fine with that. I protect them because it's almost like I'm one of them...almost like I'm a human..." He nostalgically whispered the very last part. He must've been talking about the days when he was still alive, the time before he died.
"How did you die?"
His head snapped to her in an instant. "How much more personal can you get?!"
"Fi-"
"But, if you must know, I died in an accident."
"An accident?"
He nodded very slowly. "I was the fool who caused my own death. I...I did something I knew I wasn't supposed to, and suddenly I'm in just...I-I can't even begin to describe how much pain I was in! I passed out from nerve overload or something...and then, BAM, I'm dead. But yeah, it's just like you keep telling me, I'm never going to live the way I used to again."
If he was a real person she would be feeling bad for him right now. Even at this moment her heart a slight pang in it, like a tiny portion of it went out to him. It did sound like a very violent and painful death. And it had to be a slow one for him to have felt that much pain and remember it as if it happened just yesterday. She knew that if she was in a position such as the one he had just described, she would've been traumatized for life, and if she died like he had, she would've been traumatized for the rest of her afterlife...however long that truly lasted. There were numerous debates on whether it actually ended or not.
Seven seemed even more human now than he ever did before, despite having just told her how he died. He had experienced pain, from what it sounded like, beyond that of most humans, or possibly any human. It sounded so horrible, and to know he caused his own death, to know he caused himself to be in such a terrible and agonizing accident... It left her speechless. Normally she didn't care if a ghost got hurt but...
Phantom...