"Do you believe in ghosts, Larry?"

No, no I don't. Leave me alone, you're not real.

"Talk to me, Larry! This isn't a very nice way to treat a guest y'know?"

He's just a hallucination. Am I schizophrenic? Going insane? This is madness. Maybe those stories of rock metal melting your brain were real…

"Don't ignore me!"

I jump a bit when he grabs my shoulder, the feeling of my skin detaching itself from my nerves comes back full force and my arm goes numb.

My neck makes a worrying popping sound as I finally meet his gaze and acknowledge his presence.

"You're acting rude, Larry."

"Shut up, I don't know you! You're not even real, stop acting like my friend!"

The boy flinches, and huffs at me. This is pure insanity, I should see a doctor. A therapist.

I turn back around to my school bag. Is he going to follow me all day? Maybe I can just skip school. One day wouldn't hurt…

"If you're gonna…"

The weird kid is gone. Vanished. Faded away. But I do, however, see a small black smudge on the floor where he was standing and I reel back as a vile, rotting, smell invades my senses. Gross. This whole situation is horrid.

I hope he never comes back, I could live with that.

|•|_|•|

"I think something's wrong with me."

Todd let out an unintelligible, confused 'hm?' as he looked up at Larry, mouth stuffed with his lunch. He swallowed what was in his mouth and poked at his food.

"Why do you say that? Are you experiencing anything? List me your symptoms."

Larry bit his cheek as he tried to think of a summary that wouldn't make him sound too crazy…

"I had a dream."

"Larry, were you asleep?"

"Yeah, dude. Of course."

"Boom, problem solved."

Larry groaned as Todd took another bite out of whatever the hell he was eating.

"It wasn't a NORMAL dream!"

"...was it a wet dream?"

"Ew! No! It was like, super creepy!"

Todd nodded along at his words, probably wasn't even listening to him…

"There was a short kid. Blue hair. He was wearing, like, a Jason style mask!"

Chug butted in, small bits of food on his chin and around his mouth.

"Did he ever take it off to, y'know, show you his face? What if he's just super ugly underneath?"

Larry grimaced as a crumb fell from Chug's face onto the sleeve of his Sanity Falls™ hoodie.

"Ugh, no. He said it was a prosthetic."

This made Todd's eyes light up in interest, he always liked looking into the more… disturbing side of stuff. Like cults or whatever.

"A prosthetic? So did he not have a face or did he have some horrific scar? Did you get a name? Maybe you're actually a psychic and have some kind of precognitive ability!"

"I… I don't know. He was super freaky, and kept saying he was living in 402. Like he'd been there the whole time and we just never knew!"

"Huh? But 402's all blocked up!"

Larry hunched over and slammed the lunch table, startling his friends.

"That's what I said! He gave me all these weird chills and feelings, like my body wasn't my own…"

Todd hummed in thought, staring at his lunch tray.

"Short, Blue hair, Prosthetic Jason Mask… any other features?"

Larry thought for a moment. Should he tell them about the hallucinations? This is all still super freaky, and not the cool kind of freaky. This was horror-movie freaky.

"He, uh, he had an accent. It sounded British. Or… English? Hm."

Todd had already gotten out a notepad and was quickly scribbling down their list of traits.

"Did he tell you his name? Anything about his identity?"

Larry took a shallow breath as he choked out the name of the person who'd been constantly pestering since that original dream.

"Sal. Fisher, Sal Fisher."

As he uttered the mysterious entity's identity sweat formed on his brow and his breath quickened.

He could hear it, a low chuckle, full of a mischievous joy that made his eyes start to tear up.

Maybe, maybe he should just…

"Larry? Where are you going?"

"I, uh, I'm going to go take a piss. B-bye, guys."

"...Ok."

|•|_|•|

Larry slammed the stall door behind him and curled up into a ball on the bathroom floor. Ew.

"Larry?"

NO! Oh my god I thought you left!

The short blue boy in front of him didn't even need to kneel down to be eye-level when Larry was like this. He just stood there and stared, carving out a piece in Larry's existence just to make himself at home in an unwilling consciousness with his piercing blue sight. Larry felt like he'd cave in on himself if he stared like that any longer, but the kid… Sal. The name felt weird, being spun around his head and forcing every other thought to the side to take over his focus. S-Sal tilted his head and let out a content hum as he shuffled over next to Larry, who was desperately trying to fight the name that was looping in his mind.

"Larry. Oh, Larry, I'm so glad you remembered."

His name. It sounded so wrong on the Blue Boy's tongue.

"So, so happy…"

A low, almost purr-like, rumbling bounced from the tiles and walls of the school bathroom. The sound, which would probably sound quite calming from a cat or other animal, made Larry want to rip his ears to pieces and shatter his very core when it came from the humanoid entity. Sal. Sal.

...but when Larry listens closely he hears a rhythmic heartbeat and feels his eyes start to droop. Maybe he should just… calm. Relax.

"Everything will be perfect, Larry. Just wait for me."

My last thought before the rumbling vibrations that made their way into my bones and rocked me to sleep, was how intoxicatingly sweet the idea of never waking up sounded, with my back against the stall door and Sal, SAL's hollow burn pulsing in my soul.