I don't know what was more surprising: That PRT headquarters was evacuated because it was "haunted," which was probably Ashley's fault now that I thought about, or that they'd locked the building down while Ashley was still inside. Either way, it only took me threatening to introduce my shoe to an Agent's manhood to get me past the quarantine to look for my foster sister.

To be honest, when the lights were off and there was no one, not even the late-night skeleton crew working? It stopped feeling like law enforcement/paramilitary and more like an abandoned hospital ten minutes before the zombies and/or the invincible guy with a big knife shos up. I could swear I could even hear the ambient sounds of that kind of movie, even.

"Ashley?" I called out. If she was still in here, then obviously she would hear me, and we could get the hell out of here and...

KNOCK-KNOCK!

My train of thought was interrupted by a pounding in the walls. "Ashley? If you got stuck in the crawlspace again I swear to god..."

I walked over to the wall I'd heard the knocking from, knocked on it myself, and placed my ear up against it to listen for a response.

At first, all I could hear was some kind of moaning... Was there a draft in the wall?

I strained my ear, trying to listen more closely and I could make out the sound of harsh, raspy breathing... "Ashley?"

Suddenly all the sound stopped and I was left in dead silence. A chill ran down my spine and I felt goosebumps forming across my skin and...

I jumped! Something touched me! Something like a... Like a child's bare hand.

"Damn it Ashley this is not time to be playing pranks!" I turned to glare at her and... That wasn't Ashley.

Ashley wasn't paper-white with soulless solid black eyes and a mane of tangled black hair framing a face whose mouth opened far too wide into a void with no end in sight. Whatever the hell this Ring-Grudge-Japanese Stringy-Haired-Ghost-Bullshit thing was screamed something that made me feel like burning hot shards of glass were being jammed into my ears.

I fell back and pushed myself across the ground while the specter went flying off cackling.

I did my best to even out my heavy breathing and get my heart rate under control and then the realization hit me: Not only was the building somehow actually legitimately haunted, but those bastards had left a ten-year-old in here with some J-Horror Super Ghost and...

One thing at a time. Find Ashley and get her the hell out of here. Then add more ghosts to the haunting.

Brockton bay was lousy with bugs of all kinds, so I reached out and grabbed every insect, arachnid, worm, and miscellaneous within two blocks of the building and pulled them all inside to help me scour the place, borrowing their senses to find my foster sister so I could get her away from this suddenly haunted hellhole.

It took three minutes. Truth be told, I wasn't anywhere near as good at assembling sounds and images from bug senses as I'd said when I first signed up, but I could make out two small shapes rapidly skittering across walls and ceilings, jumping from one to another periodically, two floors up...

"No... No..." That... Thing was actively hunting Ashley.

I let my body move on autopilot, running for the nearest stairwell while I used the bugs to keep track of the chase, making it up there in a flash and...

The ghost wasn't chasing Ashley, I realized as it fell from the ceiling and began rushing down the hall, right for the stairwell in an upright flight.

Ashley was chasing the ghost. Ashley got close and lept from the ceiling and tackled the ghost and... How do you tackle a ghost?

And then Ashley said loudly and cheerfully "Tag! You're it!"

And that's where my brain broke. "Wut?"

It was that I noticed that the ghost appeared to be an eight-year-old.

"Hey, Taylor!" Ashley greeted as she noticed me. "This is my new friend Erma. She's a yokai." The ghost sat up and whispered something in Ashley's ear. "Sorry, half-yokai. I hope you don't mind but I invited her to movie night." The ghost whispered something else to Ashley. "She likes slasher movies."

Instead of responding, I grabbed Ashley by the wrist and started dragging her to the exit. She actually waved goodbye to the ghost.

AN: Erma is a character from a webcomic of the same name that I binge-read recently. It is cute and wholesome and it was either write about Ashley hanging out with her or write about a terrifying but still friendly Ashley and this came easier.

Obviously this is non-canon.