The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the cool air on my skin. It was strange. I wasn’t sure why the air felt so cold. There were no leaves or branches or anything between me and the sky. I was lying on the grass under the night sky. I looked up, and I started to cry.
I was lying on the grass under the night sky. I looked up and saw all the stars I had always known. There was the North Star and the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper and the King’s Cross and Orion. My breath caught. I would always know my way again.
But it was all wrong. The night sky, everything was still there, but they were all the wrong colours. Everything was wrong. I was lying on the grass under the night sky. The night sky was black! The sky was black! All my life, I had been told the sky was black. But then there was my real sky. It was a hundred shades of blue. I hadn’t seen that blue anywhere else. I had always expected the night sky would always be black.
Once I had stopped crying, I tried to sit up. It was so very hard to move. The grass under my hands was rough and wet. My skin was smooth and itchy. It skipped over my back and rippled across my disappearing waist. I peered over my shoulder, and I didn’t even recognise my own body. My skin was white as snow. I reached up and brushed the black hair that had grown in since I was expelled. The hair was short and dull.
I looked down at my hand – it was white, too. I let out a gut-wrenching cry – I was a ghost. I was the ghost of Barney. I was dead. I wanted to pass out; my head felt light. I was the ghost of Barney, my skin had gone all white, my body was like the other ghost boys’, it was all grey, and I was going to die.
And the night sky was black. I was lying on the grass under my beautiful sky, and in the distance, I heard someone scream. I had to get up. I had to find out why the sky was black. But when I tried to move, something was holding my legs down. I ran my hands down my legs. They were in a strange position, and they were cold, encased in something wet. I turned my head, although it was hard to turn. Something was holding me down.
I brushed the spongy material, and it fell off my legs in a clump. I stared at the grass around me, the grass I was lying on. I was lying on the grass, but it was white. I was the ghost, Barney, the dead boy, and I was lying down on the grass, but it wasn’t the grass I was used to. I tried to move my hands through the grass, and it was so heavy to touch. I tried to move my legs.
I couldn’t feel them.
I looked up and everything was wrong. My neck was wrong, my ribs were wrong, my skin was wrong. My hair was wrong – it was too short and it was the wrong colour.
My hands were clutching the grass. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my legs. I was staring up at the sky – it was black. The sky was black! How could the sky be black? Maybe I had died. Maybe that was how it happened.
I tried to close my eyes. I tried to move. I tried to breathe. Nothing was happening.
I was staring at my beautiful night sky. It had always been black. All my life, I had lied underneath the same black sky. I had never known anything else. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid. I should have known. I should have known.
I was at home. I was back home, under the same sky I had known my whole life. But the sky was black.
And in the distance, I heard someone scream. It was a loud, gut-wrenching scream. It was a scream that was coming nearer.
I tried to close my eyes, but my eyelashes were pressed down on my skin.
The scream was so loud, it hurt my ears. I wanted to scream with it. I had never heard a scream in person before, just in the movies. The person sounding like they were about to die – it was a horrible sound. I wanted to jump up, but I could do nothing.
All I could do was close my eyes. I tried to close my eyes, but they were pressed down. I heard the footfalls and the desperation in the ghost boys’ shoes.
And the scream. It was getting nearer.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my body, and the scream was getting nearer. I heard the footfalls getting nearer, and the scream was getting nearer. I tried to focus my eyes and look at the ground around me. I was lying down. I could see the mud and the grass and the rocks. I could see the dead leaves and the little brown bugs all over the ground. I saw the grass bent over and I could see the clumped hair tangled up in the dirt. I could see the clumps of dead leaves and the little brown insects sitting on the leaves. I could see my arms wrapped around the ground.
The scream was getting nearer. I was practically deafened by the loud screech. I heard the screech – it was so loud.
It was almost on top of me.
And when I opened my eyes, I saw a shadow.
I opened my eyes, and I saw the shadow of a boy on the ground. His legs were bent tightly up. His hands were gripping the ground. A dark shadow surrounded his body; the ground was splattered with the blood from his foot that had slipped underneath the grass. He was holding his throat. His mouth was stretched wide open. The scream was a small whisper.
The ground was splattered with the blood from his foot. I could see him swallowing it. I could see him swallowing his own blood, as the scream got closer.
The ghost boy groaned, and his feet jerked up from the ground. His hands grasped the ground on either side. I felt the wind blow past me, and the scream became even louder.
The ghost boy held his neck, his hands were still gripping the ground underneath his feet. He tried to stand up, but the scream was getting louder.
The ghost boy was back on his feet. He was looking around in circles. I felt so sorry for him. That they had made him a ghost.
There was a splash of red, and I held my hands together. It was like seeing someone hurt, and you want to help them. Only the ghost boy wasn’t hurt, and he was just a ghost, so I couldn’t help him.
I heard the scream and watched as he fell. He collapsed into the mud. I heard the scream, and the mud was red. He was lying in the pool of his own blood. He was lying in his own blood.
There was a huge deep raw scream. I knew he was dead. I could feel it.
I heard his neck snap. I followed the scream and watched as it echoed around the forest.
Why did they have to do this? He was my friend. The scream was so loud, and I was so afraid. I wanted my mum, the neighbours, anyone. I wanted my mum to call the police. I wanted the police to come and stop it.
I don’t know why they did. They did this to him for fun. To see how he would react. Because they didn’t have families, they didn’t have parents.
I wanted my dad. I wanted my mum. I wanted them to go away.
I was so sorry, so sorry. He was my friend, my best friend. I didn’t even want to know his name.
Maybe he was right, maybe I was cheating. But I felt like I owed him, like he had saved me.
The scream was so loud. I had never heard a scream before. It was so loud and overwhelming.
I couldn’t stop crying. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin, but I couldn’t. And I was so scared.
Because it was so loud, because it was so final. Because he looked so much like me, because he was the first human to have spotted me, because I wished I had been him.
I didn’t want to be him. I didn’t want to be in that lake of blood. I didn’t want to see myself in that pool of blood.
I felt him move, and I heard the splash. And he screamed, and he screamed, and he screamed.
And I wanted to scream too. I wanted to scream, for him, and for my mom, for my dad, and for my mom, because I was the ghost and I didn’t like to be dead.
‘Why?’ His voice was quiet. I turned my head towards the pool of blood, and I could still hear the scream from the other ghost boy.
