all the little angels

Note: this story was meant to be published under the prompt "write a story where the ghost isn't the scariest thing in the room"

CONTENT WARNING: human-trafficking, rape, suicide, mental health. Really dark one, don't read it if anything might trigger you.

The girl tells me that dying tastes like moldy brambles and ichor.

She is wearing fishnets over scraped knees, and she uses the ashes from a cheap cigarette to smear stars onto the basement floor. Her arm is gory, a long gulley from her wrist to her elbow. She uses the damaged arm to raise the cigarette to her lips, taking a long breath as she fills her unmoving lungs with smoke.

When she leans her head back to exhale, I can make out the hyoid-bone pressing out of her skin and the cuts around her neck -- thin as paper cuts. The smoke leaves her lips slowly, curling in the stifling air of the basement.

She drops the cigarette and uses the heel of gaudy combat boots to crush it into the dull concrete. There is the sound of yelling, people fighting downstairs.

Stop moving… fucker…

The words float up in strands, blocky and confusing.

The dead girl with the slit wrist and  cigarette speaks.

"Who are you?"

I run my fingers over my chapped lips and count the ridges. The tips of my teeth peek through, and I run the carefully groomed tip of my fingernails over that too. It fills my brain with a quiet scratching sound.

"I don't remember," the words are thick, they are hard to get out.

Who am I?

The word bitch floats from the downstairs, quickly muffled as the girl across from me coughs.

"Do you know where you are?"

Her voice is confusing. It is raspy from smoking, it reminds me of my father in that way, but occasionally, it evens out. The word are goes from gravelly to soft and smooth.

"Kid, where are you?"

I tilt my head and tugs at the hem of my shirt.

"I'm in Brents house.”

Brent.

Brent was my counselor in rehab. He baked food for me. When he started bringing me to his house he would go out of his way to make me meals and drinks, and he never minded when I’d drift off in his basement.

The girl purses her lips; she watches me with her dead-eyes.

"I used to be one of his favorites."

She speaks slowly, her fingers jumping like a flighty-bird, hunting for the feeling of another cigarette. When she doesn't find one, she runs her fingers through her hair and glances up at me when I speak.

"Why am I in the attic?"

The words feel... wrong. They rattle around in my mouth like baby-teeth in a jar.

The image catches my mind, and I get stuck in a loop. The memory of the time I pulled out five of my teeth in front of Brent. The way they rang against each other like windchimes when he asked me to hold them in my small hands. I run my tongue over my teeth on reflex, missing the gummy feeling my once-empty mouth had offered.

The girl does not answer me, I try another way.

"Brent doesn't let me in the attic."

There is a quiet sob from the downstairs, accompanied by the sudden start of a rhythmic thumping sound.

"Who is that?"

This time, the girl finds her voice.

"We do not need to worry about that yet. Do you want something to drink?"

I turn my head away from the door to the basement and back at her. She is holding a bottle of cheap wine. It's the kind that Brent buys when he wants to smash bottles and watch the red seep across the room.

I nod.

She climbs over, settling next to me.

When I was a child, I thought that ghosts couldn't touch people. I thought they were wispy changelings, drifting through rotting houses and empty graveyards -- but I can feel this girl.

Her fingers are calloused as she opens my jaw and tips the mouth of the wine bottle back. It fills my body, spreading from my throat to my stomach, then trickling to every corner of my body. My nose wrinkles at the bitter taste, but I let her pour more into me. It escapes my lips and slips down my neck, staining my clothes.

She pulls the bottle back and watches me.

"Thank you," I whisper -- swiping the little red drips from my chin.

"You're a good kid."

"I'd like to leave the attic now."

She frowns, staring at me before she changes the topic.

"Why aren't you scared of me?" She asks, "the other ones are. They aren't used to seeing dead people."

I look at her.

"You look a little like an angel, I think."

She chuckles. "I look like an angel? I didn't know you were religious."

I shake my head. "I'm not religious."

She tilts her head, looking at me closely. "Then what do angels look like? What do they do?"

My fingers drift to my ribcage, the wine warmed me.

"I always thought angels look wild. Cigarette-stained teeth and angry eyes. When I was little, I wrote a story about two angels who ran away and burned down a church because they missed the warmth of home. It ended when they both jumped, because they thought if they did it together, they might be able to fly away, they wanted to escape."

The words are pointless and jumbled, they offer nothing in the way of usefulness, but the girl seems to like them.

"What happened to the angels?"

I pause a moment before an answer.

"They fell. Angels can't fly when they're here."

She considers the words for a moment. "So, they never got out?"

I shake my head and lean forward, pressing the tip of my finger into the ash-stars.

She watches me for a moment before she speaks.

"Do you like your clothes? I got to pick mine after I died."

I shrug, looking at the door.

"I'd like to see who that is now, downstairs."

The girl takes a slow breath and looks at me.

"Okay."

She pushes herself off the ground and turns, her shirt is cut in the pattern of a skeleton, revealing the impression of her spine against her skin.

Her gait is shaky; she favors her left side and winces as she approaches the door. Her hand presses against her pelvis, and she braces the wall for support.

"Are you okay?" I feel my brows furrow, and my hands hesitate a few feet from her.

Can I even touch her?

She gives me a tired grin. "A side effect," she straightens herself, "of being Brent’s favorite."

When she opens the door, the world rushes in violently. The air cuts through the smell of eroding wood and stale water. There is the greasy scent of bacon and cold pizza, normally it would be repulsive – but hunger rips through my body in an embarrassingly loud rumble.

"Don't feel embarrassed kid, nothing wrong with being hungry," the girl says.

As she leads me downstairs, the smell grows stronger -- this time interlaced with a cheap floral soap.

Grease and flowers. The combination unsettles me.

The stairs are made poorly, nails poking out here and there. I lift my heels off the ground while I walk, dragging my finger along the dark tiles on the walls. Dust builds up on my fingertip, coating it like mold.

When we reach the downstairs, the girl pushes open the door. She holds it open and lets me wander into the living room, the kitchen only a few feet away. The screaming and thumping are coming from behind a closed door.

I pause and look at the room; I have been here for a long time -- but it's different now.

I came here first when I was sixteen. I've spent maybe a year here since then, but I can't remember why. Whenever I try to draw a memory, I hit a wall.

The couch is old and ratty, it smells like sex. Underneath is a rug the color of shit, stained and dirty.

The decorations Brent chose are just as worn, big black crosses hung above his yellowing kitchen sink. Skulls tied and hung with butchers’ twine in front of the window. He's scattered taxidermy animals all over this place.

I kneel in front of one, tracing my fingers over the whiskers of a petrified cat. A very soft memory slips back into my head, timid and faint.

My fingers are stroking the cats’ paws, fingernails scratching against his little claws. I can feel the shaggy, itchy carpet against my thighs, rubbing back and forth. In the memory, there is a thumping.

Then, my brain stops. The entire memory goes black, and the only thumping is the one in the other room.

I push away from the cat and look at the dead girl; she watches as I walk towards the door. The handle is gothic and rusting, the thumping and the screaming are so loud now.

Bitch.

Shut up.

The only answer is quiet crying.

Who is behind that door?

I look back at the girl, and she waits.

"Who is in there?" I whisper

The girl only watches me; her eyes are tired and sorry.

I turn the handle and the door creaks open slowly. There are working lightbulbs here as I step inside the room, slipping into a corner.

All at once I go cold.

There is a person on the bed. They are pinned under a man who smells like grease and old sweat, but they look exactly like me. They have my hair, my eyes, and my clothes strewn on the floor a few feet away from me.

The dead girl gently presses her hand against my shoulder as I watch, my stomach turning.

"What is he doing?"

The girl does not answer, she only watches me watch the people on the bed.

The teenager, the one under the man, roles their head to the side. They lock eyes with me and my stomach clenches; my knees go weak and I slide to the ground.

It’s me.

My hands go to my mouth and I stare. I can’t take my eyes away, I take a step forward, trying to help them- me- but the girl grabs me.

I realize that I am sobbing, I am sobbing and begging her to let me go, to let me help, but she does not move.

“Kid! Look at me,”

I turn to her, trembling.

“Have you noticed how he hasn’t heard you yet?” She points at the man on the bed.

Why hasn’t he noticed us?

How can I see a ghost?

I turn back and look at myself on the bed. There is a gag in my mouth, quieting the screams. My body is scattered in fresh wounds – the same color as the wine I just drunk.

“I’m dying,” I whisper, “I’m going to die.”

The moment the words leave my mouth, the body on the bed begins convulsing. I watch my limbs twitch and shake as foam fills up my mouth.

I turn to the girl. “What’s happening?”

She doesn’t answer me, and my voice grows higher.

I am seven years old and I am playing in the rain, I love the taste of it and I want to live forever.

“Please-”

I am eleven and I am curled under the blanket with a flashlight and a book and I promise myself I’m going to be great someday.

“What did I do?”

I am thirteen, I am playing guitar on the stage, and everyone is clapping. I want to live. I want to live.

I want to live.

“What did I do?”

My voice cracks, and I clutch her damaged arm.

She bends down and carefully slips something from her pocket.

A bottle of painkillers, completely empty.

The man on the bed is yelling, he is cursing and swinging his fists and I watch. I watch as my body grows increasingly broken and the girl holds me back.

And then, the world goes completely quiet.

The man has stopped hitting, and I have stopped moving. The girl has let go of me and she lets me run up to my limp body.

The man curses, he pushes away from me as the girl starts to drag me out of the room.

My throat is throbbing from the pain of crying, but I have gone silent. I let the girl push me onto the couch as I go numb.

“Look at me, kid look-“

She grabs my head and makes me turn to her.

“Look at me. Do you understand what happened in there?”

I nod, trembling.

“Am I dead?”

I feel the waver in my voice, the childish lilt.

The girl softens, and she grabs both of my hands to stop their shaking.

“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry.”

I touch my face -- my skin is cold and tight.

“What do I do now?”

The girl wraps her fingers around my hands, and she looks me in the eyes. “Now, we are going to go pick your clothes. You are going to wear whatever it is you want, and then we come back here and we wait.”

 “Wait? What are we waiting for?”

Her eyes go soft and sad; she turns to look at the door. Brent has opened it, he is dragging my limp body down into the basement where I first met him. He gave me buttery popcorn and a cold bubbly soda. The man who was on top of me follows behind him. They are arguing, Brent is throwing words like bought, and my property, and you owe me. The man is just as angry, he gives Brent words like wasn’t my fault, and dud.

I am shoved into the man’s hands, and he is sent to deal with me. I watch from the couch as he puts me over his shoulder and drags me down like the ragdolls I played with as a kid

He leaves Brent to open the door to the house, an answer to the incessant knocking that I’ve just noticed.

“Watch,” the girl says, keeping her eyes on Brent,

A man is waiting in the doorway, he steps inside and shoves a bundle of cash into Brents hands, a few moments later Brent yells through the house, the name Lilly.

A girl with long red hair walks down, I’ve seen her a few times at Brents house. I think she’s thirteen.

Brent pushes Lilly towards the man and points them both towards the door of an unused room.

“We’re waiting for her, and for whoever else comes.”

I turn to look at her.

“Is this an afterlife?”

She gives a weak smile, tears welling in her eyes as the sound starts in the other room.

“No. No this isn’t an afterlife, we’re just… here.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

The girl leads me back upstairs as the crying starts. She tells me that not everybody dies in those rooms, that most don’t.

We sit in the attic, and she gives me a cigarette. I swore I would never smoke when I was six, pinky-promised my father when his lungs went black and the cancer took over.

I hate the taste as soon as it fills my throat, but it smells like my father, and it gives me something to do with my hands.

An hour later Lilly walks in, eyes completely empty as she takes her seat in the attic.

She isn’t fully here yet; her soul is still tied too tightly to her body.

When she wakes up, I will tell her that dying tasted like wind and trapped angels.