"Good morning, sunshine." I heard. "Did you enjoy Milan?"

There was a cool liquid feeling and I opened my eyes. My last life had been pleasant, as a middle-class European girl, who eventually became a designer in Milan. But once I was back in my body, all the memories of every past life I'd had came flooding back to me as cold as my surroundings. Including the life before Germany and Milan.

Still, I was curious to find out where I was headed next. Where I was now, there was nothing. Just that cool liquid, and a rushing feeling inside me. I remember the first time I found myself there, I had been so frightened. But now, it seemed almost natural.

Even tough I didn't know where I was going, I willed myself to be there. I needed to get back to the human world, go on with my job, regardless of what had happened.

In case you're less than knowledgeable about the situation,, let me fill you in: my name is Allyson. I am, for lack of better term, an angel, and I stay with people their whole lives, protect them, and help them cross over when they die. It's all a simple process, really.

However, there are times where the person in question is a particular case; where they can hear and see and interact with their angel. It doesn't happen often… It's only happened to me once, and it was disastrous, as are most of those relationships.

You see, I'm not exactly the stereotypical image of an angel… my wings are as black as charcoal. My last human and his sister had a problem with that. All had gone well for nearly ten years, but after a few accidents concerning the other kids at Skool, they became detached from me. My child, so distressed over the fact that my wings were black, willed me out of his life, almost completely. However, as I have said before, I stay with my human for their entire life. There was no way he was actually going to get rid of me. Though he had thought that I was gone completely, I was still there, but it was not enough. One day, after a brutal beating from a group of kids outside of town, my human got his father to bring him home, where he was alone to contemplate his current situation, and seemed too depressed. After a short mishap with the bathroom mirror, my child ended up killing himself in the bathtub.

You'd think that it wouldn't phase me. That I'd seen enough suicides to have been desensitized to them. But that was different. I had had a special connection with him, and had gotten to know him, and then he was dead.

Which is why I was so hurt on the inside when I saw where I ended up, where my next human was living.

The Membrane household had never really been as busy as it was these days – a flourishing family lived there, Louie, Kiff and Mizzie, the three kids, one of which I was to serve as an angel for, and the parents, Kap and Mae.

It just so happened that afterward Gaz had moved out of the house and started her own family, naming her only daughter after her mother, Mae Membrane, who eventually married and had moved back to the old Membrane residence.

Even though all five were downstairs, I couldn't help but wander up the steps that I'd floated up and down for nine years with my dear child, Dib Membrane. It all felt so surreal. I'd never thought I'd be back to this place, not after what had happened.

I passed Gaz's old room, and the joint bathroom I turned towards his bedroom door and stopped. His door was… gone.

I floated there for a moment before floating through the drywall, into the closed off cavity that was Dib's old room.

So, they'd closed it off. Left everything exactly the way it'd been fifty years ago, when I was 'living' here. All of Dib's books were arranged on the shelf, just as he had had them, all his computer equipment accordingly.

I touched the mouse, and the computer awoke, after decades of hibernation. Membrane had left everything the way his son had.

There was a heavy feeling in the air the moment the computer came back on. It made me feel sick, the way the air in the remote room seemed to move, even though there was no visible source of airflow, and there was no air circulating through the vent in the ceiling.

I couldn't stay in the room another second – something about it made my very bones ache, not with fatigue, but with the same pain I'd felt the last time I'd been in this house.

I phased back out of the room.

"Don't worry, child. Things will be different this time," I heard, "Your human will never even know you're there."

I folded my arms across my stomach, floating back down to the living area. "I don't know… It's just this place. There's something about this house… it doesn't feel right."

"Heh, relax, Allyson. The odds of Mizzie Being like him are absolutely astronomical."

"Not too astronomical," I argued, "She's related to him, after all."

There was a chuckle in the back of my mind, but otherwise no reply.

Mizzie was apparently my child. She was an adorable blonde-pigtailed little girl in pink overalls who was playing with a few dress up dolls in the center of the living room. I sat to watch the three kids. Louie and Kiff, Mizzie's older brothers, were both on the couch opposite me, one reading and the other watching television.

It was remarkable how much they all looked like Membranes.

I looked over at the two adults; Mae looked so much like her mother. Kap was headed out of the house as I turned.

"…and we here at Mysterious Mysteries have always known that answer to be a resounding… maybe." I froze mid thought upon hearing this. How many evenings had I spent in this same livingroom watching Mysterious Mysteries with Dib? Impossible to answer, other than 'every week night at nine for ten years'. I looked at the television screen. The show was now being hosted by an elderly Caucasian man with a receding hairline, who was wearing the standard Mysterious mysteries asphalt-colored suit.

I swallowed hard and turned my body to face the show. After so many years, nearly half a century, it was still running. I was almost surprised.

Kiff seemed deeply interested in the show. I frowned, and then forced myself to relax. It was just a television show. No harm done.

"Nobody knows for sure what the ghost of companion Place really wants…" the host's astoundingly dictional voice got smaller and smaller as Kiff turned the volume down. "You know," the boy said quietly, "this place is haunted." When he received no reply from either sibling, he nudged his brother. "Lou - Did'ya hear? I said this is a haunted house!"

The little boy in the blue sweater simply rolled his eyes and lifted his book up further in front of his face, sighing. Mizzie however, seemed interested. "Are you sure?" she asked, her blue eyes wide with fascination.

Kiff sat up from his reclined position. "Totally! Don't you know what happened?" the smallest shook her head. "Remember nana Gaz? She had a brother, ya know." My breath hitched. "He died in this house. Killed himself." Kiff hadn't risen his voice over a whisper. "Even the kids around the neighborhood know it. They say his tortured soul still resides in this. Very. House."

"Nawh- Uh!" Mizzie cried loudly. "Lou, tell him he's lying!"

Louie dog eared the book he was reading and set it down. "Miz, there's nothing to worry about, Ghosts don't exist."

"You're just afraid to admit it – you're living with a ghost."

Louie frowned at his brother. "I am NOT, because there's no such thing! Just ask Mom!"

"Ask mom what?" Mae said, coming into the living room, sitting down at the edge of the couch I was on, closer to Mizzie.

"About ghosts! Tell Kiff they're not real."

Mae's soft expression suddenly became weary, and she sighed, as though they'd been through this many times. "Kiffton, dear, why?" she asked.

Kiff's shoulders slumped as he clicked the television off. 'There. Ghosts and Monsters aren't real. I know." He said flatly.

"Come on, Kiff. Those things are silly. Wouldn't you much rather be interested in something more real?"

"Sure. I'm going taking my real bike to Nik's house." Kiffton stood and headed out, grabbing his coat on the way.

"Don't worry, mom," Louie said once Kiff was out the door, "He'll grow out of it." And he resumed reading.

"I sure hope so."

Unfortunately, Mae was quite mistaken. The paranormal is very real. Take me for example. And truly, there's nothing paranormal about it. Everything that humans consider to fall under this category is all a very natural part of the world.

A very famous friend of mine put the way of the world into an easily understood phrase: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

There's an opposite for everything. Life and death, up and down, on and off, Angels and Demons. But there's always a medium. There would have to be, or else the extremes would be too unstable; Sleep, falling, that colorful moot channel on the television, and of course, Ghosts.

I know there's a bit of a negative stigma attached to the term, but let me assure you, ghosts are not evil in any sense. Ghosts are, as I have said before, the medium between positive Angel energy and chaotic Demon energy, the latter of which humans also seem to have a problem with. Demons are not evil, either, though they do often stimulate what humans perceive as negative situations. They are, in fact, learning experiences and they help move events forward. Without Demons, there would be no change, no progress.

But I digress.

Kiff didn't get back until around seven o clock that evening, when Mizzie and Louie were already asleep in their room.

Again, I found myself in the forbidden, sealed off shrine-room. I couldn't help it – the place made me feel hollow, empty… but at the same time, brought me peace. I couldn't explain it.

That was when Kiff shut his door in the next room, breaking the silence of the house, however slight, startling me. I spun around to face the direction of the noise, my robes catching a small pencil cup that was placed precariously on the desk I was floating next to. The fall caused a clatter louder than Kiff's door.

I hastened out of the room to find Mizzie in her doorway, half asleep. "Kiff?" he voice was small and frightened. "Was that you?"

"No, Miz, go to sleep," he called quietly through his closed door.

The little girls stood there for a moment before turning away, rubbing here eyes as she crawled back into her bed.

I followed her into the room and watched her lay down and pull the covers over her head, scared by the shadows that were cast by her nightlight. I knelt down next to her and removed the glowing Halo from around my head and released it above hers, letting it fall gently into place. Within moments, her nerves calmed and, given the late hour, she fell fast asleep.

I stayed with the pair for about forty five minutes before heading back into Dib's room and beginning to clean up the mess I'd made.

I reached for the last pencil underneath his desk and suddenly felt sick to my core. My fingertips were nearly touching the orange mechanical pencil, but I let it be and sat up.