The crooked and leaning halls and doors were in no way new to Astrid. She wasn't frightened of the sight of them.

Nor was she frightened of the sight of the people in the halls. She was left with a question, though, as to why this haunted house was still in full swing, two whole months before Halloween, but she put that thought out of her mind.

This was clearly a very unique haunted house. She had always known that, since 'B' had first brought her here. So, it operated by its own rules.

When they got to one of the waiting rooms-Astrid still didn't know what that was all about, Jeremy told her to wait there, he went off to ask some questions.

Astrid's eyes found two things seated on one of the couches. A man dressed in a Santa Claus outfit, burnt to a crisp, and glass and metal cube of some sort with moving human body parts in it.

Astrid almost laughed. Really elaborate costume that the guy with the Santa suit was wearing.

And obviously there were animatronic body parts in that cube that were moving around.

Still, to be polite, even though it wasn't remotely close to Christmas time yet, Astrid said to the person with the Santa suit, "Merry Christmas."

The Santa suit wearing figure nodded to her.

Jeremy arrived back and told her where they should go. Astrid tried not to roll her eyes, deciding to go along with it and followed him.

'B' ran through the halls fast, grumbling a greeting every now and then to those that he went past.

(I'm coming, kid,) he thought to himself as he moved.

There was a time when he had told himself that Astrid was nothing except a means to an end. That he was only protecting her to get into Lydia's good graces. And that he only cared about her at all, because she was Lydia's kid.

But he knew that wasn't it.

Not anymore.

He remembered the exact moment he realized she was growing on him, a year after they first met.

He had grumbled to himself, making some fungus grow on his hands before erasing it, "Shit, kid's growing on me like a load of fungus."

It was too late now. He'd get her back and throw that fucker that took her into the inferno, where he would burn.

Jeremy and Astrid reached yet another line and Astrid was really impressed by the person behind the desk that was looking after some of the people on the line.

The woman was all dressed up in a mummy-like costume, and there were some decayed looking prosthetics that were sticking out from under the bandages. She wasn't quite a mummy, but the costume she had been fit with, clearly was designed to look somewhat like a mummy.

She wore a sort of officer hat atop her head and her accent sounded Russian.

When Astrid and Jeremy got up to the window, the woman behind the desk instructed, pointing to something above Astrid, "Say 'cheese.'"

Astrid looked up at where the woman was pointing and a blinding light flashed, causing Astrid to almost faint, but Jeremy held her up.

She realized that her picture had just been taken for some reason.

"I don't feel so good," she said quietly to Jeremy.

"Really?" Jeremy asked, smirking, "I feel great."

Somewhere in the back of Astrid's mind, even though she was certain this was all a game, all an elaborate, fake game, suddenly felt like alarms were going off. Something didn't feel right.

"What's happening?" She asked quietly.

"Well," Jeremy began, "It's very simple. You remember that chant that I got you to read? You willingly agreed to switch your life for mine."

Astrid's eyes widened. The way Jeremy was looking now? He looked like he really meant it.

"I didn't agree to that," she said quietly, an unnerving question entering the back of her mind, (What if this isn't all fake?)

But that was crazy, right?

She heard running, and turned, startled when she saw a couple of decayed bearded men with stereotypical Russian army uniforms with the fuzzy hats and everything, running over to her, flanking her and grabbing her, beginning to carry her off, as Jeremy kept smirking at her.

What the hell was happening here?

Minutes later, when Jeremy reached the next line, to get his passport to the train to have a new life to be stamped, 'B' jumped and grabbed the guard, tossing him behind his shoulder, grabbed his uniform and dressed up as the guard, and went to the window, waiting for Jeremy.

And he took Jeremy's passport, as he said, smirking, grabbing the stamping implement and changing it physically, making sure the words, "to be resurrected" were not present, and instead, making it into a short sentence of expletives as he said, stamping said passport full of expletives, "Wasn't it Dostoevsky that said, yer shit outta luck?"

He stamped the passport and pushed it to Jeremy.

Jeremy looked at it in alarm, then at the man across from him.

Beetlejuice grinned at Jeremy and pulled the lever next to him, which had been enacted as soon as Beetlejuice had made the pact that Jeremy tricked Astrid into making, void.

Because the pact was now void, Jeremy would be sent where he belonged.

In hell.

Beetlejuice watched as Jeremy screamed and fell through the compartment in the floor, flames rising up as Jeremy was consumed by them, being punished for eternity for everything he had done and for being an all-around piece of garbage.

Beetlejuice then closed up the compartment, grabbed Jeremy's passport, pulled off the uniform, tossed away the hat and rushed to the soul train, where Astrid would likely be.

He got there just in time.

As the guards were trying to bring a struggling Astrid to the open doors of the soul train, as people danced around the train, all of them clearly convinced that they were heading to a better place-and maybe they were right, since Beetlejuice didn't know what their lives were like, so, for all he knew, maybe all of them were heading for heaven-he didn't have time to find out-he rushed over to the guards, yelling for them.

"Yoh, guys!" He said, coming to a halt in front of the doors of the closest train car, intercepting the guards and Astrid, his feet making a comical car braking screech as he came to a stop, and he held up Jeremy's passport.

"The deal's off," he said, showing the guards the pages in Jeremy's passport where he had stamped them, "That means you give up the not quite yet ghost, okay, boys?"

The guards looked at each other, then let Astrid go.

Beetlejuice let out a relieved breath as he tossed the passport to the guards to take it to the authorities, and he grabbed Astrid's left hand.

"It's alright, kiddo," he said, "I'm getting you back home."

But when Astrid looked at Beetlejuice now? Beetlejuice felt like a line had just been crossed.

Astrid looked at him now, as if she saw him as a threat.

Beetlejuice said quickly, realizing that he had to get Astrid out of here now, "Look, kid, say whatever you want about me. Hate me, I don't care," That was a lie and Beetlejuice knew it, "But I gotta get you outta here, alright? So, yell at me when I get you out."

He pulled her along.

There were a lot of people that greeted him, since he was going through the business route, rather than the halls he usually took to entertain Astrid.

Inevitably, Astrid heard his full name, as they went along the halls.

Beetlejuice grumbled when he heard that, then grunted, alarmed, when he heard one guard laugh at him, "Ah, 'Juice!' Did someone finally get fed up in the living world and say your name three times?!"

Beetlejuice mentally cursed as he pulled Astrid along, getting her to one of the chutes he knew that would lead back to the living world and helped her climb up the ladder.

He felt her eyes staring at him uneasily the whole time.

He followed after her, after she climbed out first.

Wouldn't you know it, they got out of a small, stone mausoleum in the graveyard in Winter River.

When both of them were out of the mausoleum, and Beetlejuice closed the door, he saw Astrid backing away from him.

"It's okay, kid," he said, smiling, hoping she might try to trust him again, "It's over."

"No," Astrid mumbled, shaking her head, "No, this isn't real. None of this is real. That wasn't real just now."

"Kid-" 'B' began and Astrid spoke more loudly.

"No!" She said, hands rising up to her head and holding it, wondering how long she had been this mentally delusional, "You're imaginary. That's the only explanation. You're not real. I made you up because I was lonely the whole time. There's no way anyone can do what you do, because you're not real! All of this is my imagination."

"Astrid," Beetlejuice said, one of the few times he used her actual name, "Look, I know this is all weird, but-"

"What was it that that person I imagined, called you?" Astrid asked, staring at 'B,' "Beetlejuice?"

'B' hissed, tensing up as if he were a cat that had just seen something disturbing.

"Don't say it another two times, kid," he said it and Astrid heard the urgency there in his voice.

"Why not?" Astrid asked, a laugh leaving her as she dropped her hands, feeling hysterical, because of course, she had been imagining all of this, it was the only explanation-Jeremy too, had been part of her imagination, "It's all in my head. So, I can do what I want. Maybe, if I say your name two more times? My imaginary friend will disappear and I can actually live in the real world, for once."

"Kid, listen-" Beetlejuice began, his voice definitely panicky now.

"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" Astrid yelled, resigned to what she believed she had to do.

Beetlejuice yelled, then disappeared from the cemetery.

Astrid looked around the graveyard.

No one was here, except her.

She knew she should have felt triumphant, overpowering her childish delusions, but all she felt was empty.

The greatest and longest friendship she had ever known outside of her family, wasn't real.

It was all in her head.

She hugged herself, shaking, tears at last beginning to fall from her eyes as she walked from the cemetery, sniffling, heading back to her family's house.

It had all been in her head. She had invented it all.

Because she had been lonely.