5

"The other day, when my son saw me crying, he started to tear up too and ran off. When he returned, he had one of my favorite books, which he put on the bed beside me. 'Reading makes you happy.' Then he grabbed my giant Pikachu pillow I've had since I was 9. 'Pikachu makes you happy, yeah.' Then he stopped for a moment, considering me in his vast 4-year-old attention span, and said, 'I'm sorry, Mom.'

And that's what I hate the most. What this monster darkness does to my precious husband and little boy. They deserve the world. Happiness. Freaking heaven. They brought me into heaven after all the years of loneliness in my childhood.

I'll never let it have its way. That would hurt them most of all."

Despite having plenty of hands, the professor saw it fit that only I and he should do the fine tune adjustments to the cameras and temperature readings. It was more important for me, after all, since I was the only parapsychology major in the trio he got.

But did he have to be so dang picky?

"Little to the left,"

"I already moved it to the left, Boss."

"And it wasn't enough. Do it more. No, now that's too much. Stop getting upset with me and do your job."

"My job is cleaning the boiler rooms at school. Jeff can be picky, but you take the cake."

Professor Davis leveled a cool stare at me that somehow managed to scare me more than his crucifixion glare.

"Are you telling me," he said slowly. "That you are what I have to look forward to as prodigy?"

He said 'prodigy' with the French accent and everything, oh gal.

"Not if you have kids," I said, somehow managing to crack a big smile.

He whacked me on the head with the clipboard for that.

"To the right. Just a tad. If there's just a sliver of the room left out, that's information we will miss. Remember this for the future."

Which made me pause after I had nudged the camera ever so gently right.

What did one do with a parapsychology degree?

Well, obviously what we're doing right now: ghost hunt. Prove places haunted or not. But it wasn't exactly necessary for most of society to survive, was it? When did you hear of a ghost…wait…okay, so the one here could be possibly killing people, sure, but how often does that happen? Wouldn't that mean there'd be few jobs?

"Just what kind of demand is there for this kind of thing?" I asked.

"You signed up for this field without knowing?" he said, scribbling down the temperatures I read off and heading for the door. The room we had just finished up was the front hall. Now we were moving to the kitchen, which was perhaps the most industrial, modern place of the whole house. Such a pity. Old school kitchen stuff is tasty too.

"Well, they couldn't say, but they sure advertised it a lot. The counselors, that is."

He snorted. "Of course they did. The university took a risk making this new program. If not for me, they'd probably not have thought of it at all."

I rolled my eyes. "Arrogant much?"

"Only when I have cause to be."

I had to give it to him. He got me there.

"Should I start clapping?" I asked.

"You should start by setting up this camera in that far corner opposite of the stoves."

"Hear the clink of camera as my roar of worship," I hefted up the camera—and started to teeter.

His hand came out quick and forcefully to steady me. "Honestly, do you not have a muscle in your body? That camera is worth more than you could ever repay, I assure you, do not drop it."

"Thanks?" Newly balanced, I teetered back to the corner he pointed me to. If the jerk wanted the camera lifted with carefulness he should carry the damn thing himself. Ugh, it was much more fun to hear him smack talk the world in general than smack talk me. Or people close to me. I mean general people, who won't be affected by his attitude and won't care about not being protected by me. Yeah.

More fine-tune nudging. Temperature report. Taping some cords against the wall so people wouldn't trip over them. A little more sarcastic banter on my part. I could almost say I was enjoying myself.

Dinner was some sort of tuna casserole that made Takigawa ridiculously proud and Ayako extremely suspicious.

"Never distrust a dish smothered in that much cheese," he said, picking out a pea that had been corrupted and chained by said cheese and popping it in his mouth.

"Ugh! Don't go picking at it with your fingers. People have to eat that!"

"What? I washed them. Hand sanitized them too."

"Maybe they don't want your spit residue."

"Oo, the potent spit residue. Change flavor so muuuuch."

"If you two are done flirting like ten-year-olds," said Professor Davis.

That shut them up.

"If it helps any, I'm her roommate. I can help hook you up," I whispered to Takigawa, grinning from ear to ear.

"No. Thanks. I can pick up my own girls. And nicer ones at that."

He had said that one out loud. I winced at the searing glare of fire Ayako shot across the table.

"Are you for real?" she said.

"Ayako, just forget about him and eat," I said, plopping a full paper bowl of cheesy messy casserole in front of her. "You've hardly eaten all day, you're hangry."

It had been a good call on my part to volunteer to serve the food. 'Cause she took it and peace returned to the long table of the dining room, which was huge, by the way. Both the table and the room, mind you. I was kind of afraid of the fact we were eating on it at all, but there was a weird plastic cover on the pretty wood, so I guess we're safe.

The professor had me back on cameras and temperature duty right after I'd swallowed the tuna cheese monster, which actually wasn't all that bad. I could actually taste the tuna and peas, though the noodles had lost the war to cheese. Talk about freaking slave driver.

At the look on my face, he only said, "Do you even want to be good at this?"

Which got me to thinking and repenting, because, to be honest, I didn't know what else I would do with myself. Whatever else probably required more Shakespeare essays.

And…the whole sociopath thing…

Besides, after I had built up a tolerance for his nitpicking, it did start occurring less and I did get better at it. That, or he became more forgiving—naaaaaah.

Eventually, sweet bedtime came, and I was so achy and knotted up that I figured I could bathe in the morning and more or less fell into bed half naked. Forgot to pack my PJs. Knew I had been forgetting something.

My face hit some paper that hadn't been there the last time I was in my room.

Waving my hand around blindly, I found the tableside lamp and lit it.

The paper was yellowed and simple, of the same consistency of printer paper, and had curling black letters sketched across it.

Strip me clean.

Let me free.

This world doesn't have

Enough air for me.

So may it come

Quietly, quietly,

So no one

Interferes.

And make me naked

To the bone,

To the darkness

Of home.

Make me fleshless,

Make me whole,

Make me no longer

Mortal.

I wrinkled my nose at the words. I had never been much for poetry, and this one I could just see some emo dude with too greasy black hair in his face reciting at mic night. But, more importantly, where the crap did it come from? Who left it on my bed?

Figuring I could just ask everyone in the morning, I left the poem on my bedside table and thought about aimless, stupid stuff till they turned into dreams.