See I told you I felt bad. I'm posting another one
After school, everyone met up at the dojo. Milton gave back Jack and Kim's schoolwork. After working on a few easier assignments together, they set their papers aside and Jack facilitated a discussion on Kim's ghost problem.
Kim, encouraged by Jack's prompting, relayed everything she knew. Then Jack reported his own account of what he saw happening to Kim. Milton shared the research he had completed in his free time. Lastly, Jerry pulled together some of the thoughts and patterns he could from what everyone else had said.
By the end, they had come up with a game plan.
They had noted that the ghost only appeared to Kim and often when she was completely alone. If she wasn't alone, then she at least was not actively with somebody. They were at least another room over.
Milton concluded that finding out who the ghost was would be key to getting rid of it. He insisted that every ghost is a person who once lived and had died. This narrowed the possibilities of who it could be and would guide their search. Any living or fictional person was crossed off the list.
Going forward, Milton pushed for finding out who the ghost was. To do so, they need to find out why the ghost was. To do that, they needed to talk with the ghost.
So currently, everyone was fighting about how to make the ghost appear.
Milton and Jerry said they should all just leave the dojo and let Kim deal with the ghost and question it herself. It seemed logical since it was the only way the ghost ever appeared.
Jack, however, was firmly against that plan. He had seen how much it affected Kim. It mentally scarred and physically exhausted her. He was prepared to use any means necessary, including force, to keep Milton and Jerry from making Kim go through that all alone.
Milton argued that the ghost had never actually harmed Kim. Sure she had left Kim drained and frightened, but she had never directly caused any harm or pain. It seemed the ghost, rather than haunting or hurting Kim, was warning Kim. It was not completely unheard of for ghosts to warn people over haunt and intentionally scare them, so Milton was sure Kim would be fine talking with the ghost on her own.
Kim, although not as loud about voicing it, sided with Jack. She didn't love the idea of going in alone without much of a plan. She knew deep down that she would have to be strong and she couldn't let her fear keep her from making progress. But for now, she just needed a little time to recuperate.
That put everyone back at square one.
"What happened in your dream, again?" Milton asked, racking his brain for something to help them.
Kim recounted her dream again, in painfully vivid detail. She was partially ashamed to have thought of her friends in that light and voicing it only made her feel more guilty.
"And what about the last time you saw her?" Milton asked.
After going over nearly every detail a second time, they still didn't have much. Kim was tired of talking about it and decided she needed to step up and be strong. Besides, she had all her friends to help her.
"Fine, we can lure her in again."
Kim looked around and sighed. She had been in the dojo, completely alone, for nearly an hour. She had Jack and the others on the phone, which she had to find a charger for because she was running out of battery.
"Guys, I'm not so sure this is working. Maybe it's time we find another plan-"
"Just a little longer," Milton insisted. Kim rolled her eyes. "I'm confident this will work."
Kim was not so confident. But if waiting a little longer could prove to Milton that this idea wasn't going to work, she could do it.
Kim leaned back against the wall she was sitting by and stretched her arms. "Fine."
Kim looked around aimlessly while she waited, not noticing as the line went completely silent. Minutes later Kim felt someone enter the room. She thought it was the guys coming in to tell her it had been a bust and they needed a new plan, but when she turned around to the door, nobody was there.
Kim had barely considered what that could mean when the translucent woman was suddenly directly in front of her.
Even though that had been the goal, it startled Kim and she jumped back with her heart pounding. Suddenly she was unprepared and forgot the plan. All that Kim knew was that a ghost had been haunting her and now that very same ghost was less than two feet in front of her.
"I- uhm… y-you're-" Kim cut herself off, knowing she wasn't making sense and deciding it was better she did not talk until she had something sensible to say.
"You must leave!" the young woman sang, eerily raspy and slightly high-pitched with an older twang.
"I- I just want to talk," Kim managed, gaining some composure as she came to terms with the fact that she was speaking with a ghost.
"Leave! Leave now! While you can!" she insisted.
"I'll go outside, if-"
The young woman shook her head. Kim had misunderstood. "No, leave!"
Kim was confused. She had just offered a change of scenery. Was that not the very thing the ghost was insisting on?
"What is your name?" Kim asked, deciding to move on with the questioning.
The young woman seemed taken aback. It was as if she had snapped out of a trance and suddenly knocked off script.
"I'm Kim," Kim continued, prompting the ghost.
"My name is Odessa," the ghost finally responded. She seemed more confused than Kim, strangely enough.
"Odessa," Kim tested. "What do you mean 'leave?' Leave the mall? Leave Seaford?"
Odessa shook her head. "Here, leave here. And don't come back. Leave this dojo."
"Why?" Kim wondered. What did Odessa have against Kim being at the dojo?
"You will be hurt. Leave now. Leave while you can. They will hurt you."
Kim's eyebrows were drawn in at that. "Who? Who will hurt me?"
"They will. Those boys. All of them. They will hurt you. Bad. You must leave."
Kim almost laughed. Was Odessa talking about Jerry and Milton and Jack? Not a single one of them could even hurt her if they tried. She could take Jerry and Milton down in a second flat and Jack had some sort of girl-complex that forbade him from harming her. "They won't hurt me, they are my friends. Why do you think that?"
"I know they will," Odessa insisted. "Once, I-"
Odessa stopped talking and Kim snapped her head to the door when it crashed open. Jack, followed by Jerry and Milton stormed into the dojo. Kim quickly looked back to Odessa and watched as she seemingly returned to her rehearsed chanting.
"Leave!" She gave one final insistent plea before quickly ascending to the ceiling and disappearing just as Jack, Milton, and Jerry ran in.
Now that she had been able to hold a conversation and start to get information out of Odessa, Kim was angry at the trio for storming in and scaring Odessa away. She was so close to finding something useful. Instead, she got nothing out of the conversation besides Odessa's name.
"Kim!" Jack rushed to her and grabbed her arms, looking her over. "Are you okay?"
Kim pulled herself out of Jack's arms. "I'm fine. I was talking to her, why'd you rush in here and scare her off?" Kim demanded.
Jack had not expected her to be angry with him, but he hardly cared. He was still worried about her safety.
"The line went dead, we didn't know what happened. I thought you were hurt," Jack explained, grabbing Kim again and not letting her pull out as she had before until he had made sure her shoulder was fine and she was completely unharmed.
Kim sighed. "Well, I wasn't. Odessa was-"
"Odessa?" Jerry questioned.
Kim nodded. "Her name is Odessa."
"She told you that?" Jack asked, genuinely shocked that Kim had conversed with the ghost.
"Yes. And she was going to tell me more until you ran in here banging on the walls and scaring her off." Kim wasn't upset that the boys had come running to her aid, just that they had been so disruptive in the process. Their noise even scared Kim a little.
"We're sorry Kim," Jack apologized sheepishly.
"Are you sure we scared her away?" Milton asked.
"Jack practically tore the door off its hinges and Jerry screamed louder than a little kid on Christmas," Kim deadpanned.
"I just mean, think about every time you've seen Odessa. You've been alone haven't you?"
Kim thought back and confirmed Milton's observation. "Yeah, but we already knew that."
"And when has she left? When has she kept her distance?"
Kim shrugged, knowing Milton was just going to state his theory whether she could guess it or not. Sometimes he just liked the show in the whole production of his theories. More often than not, it just annoyed Kim.
"Us. More likely Jack. She's not afraid of the sound, she's afraid of Jack. Or she respects Jack. Whatever the reason, she doesn't like to be around you when you're around Jack. Not only does she appear to you when you're alone, but when Jack shows up, she leaves."
Kim thought about it and knew Milton was right. The first time Odessa appeared, she fled as soon as Jack ran inside. Then when she was in the ER and she thought she saw Odessa. It had been only a glimpse before Odessa must have seen Jack with her. When she was at school and Odessa appeared in her dreams the moment Jack left and disappeared the moment he returned. It all made sense.
"So what Jack's intimidating," Jerry admitted. "What did she say?"
"Really, just that her name is Odessa. Well, she kept saying I have to leave while I can or I'll get hurt. But that's nothing new." Kim shrugged as she picked up her bag, set on leaving since the whole thing had been a bust.
"Did she say why you would get hurt?" Jack asked.
"Well…" Kim stopped. Odessa did say something about that. At the time she had played it off since it was such a ridiculous accusation. "She did say you would hurt me. But that's completely ridiculous."
Kim didn't have to explain why it was ridiculous. She was safe with her friends. They had already proven that a thousand times over. They had each other's backs.
Milton shrugged. "Sure it's ridiculous, but there has to be a reason she thinks that."
"But anybody who knows anything about any one of us knows we would never hurt each other," Kim pointed out, not seeing what Milton thought he could get out of that. "I think that's a dead end."
Jack shook his head and hesitated when Kim looked at him with a frown. "I think he might be on to something Kim."
"Jerry?" Kim asked, turning to the last one who hadn't yet voiced their opinion.
"You guys know I have no idea what you're talking about right?"
Kim glared at Jerry and he straightened up. "Uh, yeah, I agree with Kim."
Jack rolled his eyes. Kim sure loved intimidation. "Go on, Milton," Jack said anyways.
"Just like Kim said, if Odessa knew anything about us, she wouldn't say we would hurt Kim. So that means she isn't basing her warnings off of something she knows about us."
"So what is she basing it off of?"
"That's what we need to find out. My bet is something from her past life. It would make sense. Something so significant from her time with a body that it has motivated her to come back and warn Kim."
Although Kim didn't want to admit it, it seemed like Milton was right. Even if he led them nowhere, it was the best course of action.
"So how do we do that? Call Odessa back? I'm not so sure she's going to come with y'all around and she might not trust me anymore. I don't know if I can hold a conversation with her again," Kim said.
"We have her name, why can't we just look her up?" Jerry suggested.
"A name isn't really enough to look someone up," Milton said. "We would need something else too."
"Didn't Kim tell you that story about a girl who played karate a few days ago?" Jerry asked.
Everyone froze.
"What?" Jerry asked, genuinely confused. "I thought it was obvious. Did you guys not think that story was about Odessa?"
"I can't believe Jerry was the one to bring that back up," Kim mumbled.
It wasn't that they didn't think the story was about Odessa, they had just sheepishly forgotten that the story existed in the first place. But of course, to Jerry, it was all the same since he contributed something nobody else did.
"Okay, so we have her name and a few facts about her life. She did karate, and probably lived in the area, or else she wouldn't be warning Kim about something, what other details can you remember Kim?"
Kim thought back to when she had been telling Milton about the girl. She really wasn't sure how she knew about it. As far as she remembered it wasn't in a book or movie or show. There wasn't much else Kim would offer, but they had enough that the group was hopeful. It may take a while, but they could figure out who Odessa was when she was alive.
So they've got a plan, now what... scared yet?