After yesterday's incident, the female ghost grew more confident about showing herself. Like right now. While I was brushing my teeth, her face appeared in the mirror. She grimaced, revealing her dirty, blackened teeth.
Reflexively, I jumped backward. That creature nearly scared my heart right out of my chest. Still, for the sake of preserving my sanity in the days ahead, I pretended not to see her.
“Damn gecko!” I patted my head as if trying to shoo a gecko away.
“You really can’t see me? I thought you could yesterday.” The female ghost’s lips puckered.
I pouted. Could ghosts actually feel sad? They weren’t supposed to be able to feel anything anymore. Then again, she’d been in pain yesterday when her hip got caught in the TV screen, too. What a weird ghost.
“Yuna, Yuna!” The ghost shook my shoulder. She got so carried away that she fell flat on her back. I laughed without meaning to. Whose fault was it for acting so weird? She should’ve realized I couldn’t feel anything because her body was transparent.
“Are you making fun of me?” The ghost rubbed her back and butt.
I put my cold expression back on. My eyes stayed fixed straight ahead at the mirror. I ignored the creature as she popped up briefly from the right, then the left, then above me, trying to get my attention.
That wasn’t all. She also appeared while my family and I were happily watching TV together. She went all out this time, hanging upside down from the ceiling. Her bloody face was only two inches from Dad’s forehead.
“We’ll have grilled chicken for dinner tonight, Babe,” Dad said casually as he sipped his coffee, completely unaware that a ghost with a mangled face was drooling into his cup.
Sitting on the couch, I spit out my warm tea. “Watch your head, Dad!”
Dad turned to me in confusion. “Whose head?”
“Nothing, Dad. Yuna’s just sleep-talking,” I quickly covered, then shot the female ghost a sharp look. Get down! I ordered silently.
The female ghost flashed a wide grin, revealing the three teeth she had left. “It’s your fault for refusing to admit you can see me.”
What was that supposed to be? Was she sulking? Did she really think that would work? Fine, come on, if you want to challenge me. You’re already ancient, and you’re sulking like a kindergartner, I continued scolding her in my head.
In the middle of the night, I woke up in a cold sweat. My breathing was labored. When I opened my eyes, the female ghost’s bloody face was only an inch from mine. She was lying on her side beneath my blanket.
“Damn ghost! You scared the crap out of me!” I shouted, kicking at empty air.
“Well, you kept ignoring me,” the female ghost sneered, rubbing her half-detached nose. “I’m really happy I got to meet you. After all these years, there’s finally a human who can see me.”
“You’re the only one who’s happy. I’m not.” I pulled the blanket over my head again.
To my surprise, the female ghost suddenly began to howl. Her high-pitched voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. A second later, the howling turned into a cackle like a kuntilanak’s in the movies. She slipped straight through the blanket, bringing her face close to mine again.
I immediately squeezed my eyes shut. My principle remained the same: I wasn’t going to entertain any more ghosts. I was twenty years old, and my future was still ahead of me. I didn’t want other people to see me as some lunatic who talked to herself or acted strangely.
“You really don’t want to help me?”
Just as the female ghost finished speaking, my bedroom door opened. Zayn appeared in his T-shirt, holding a bowl of instant noodles. I immediately opened my eyes and threw off the blanket covering my entire body. I saw Zayn looking at me with pity.
“The ghost from yesterday came to you again, Sis?”
I nodded, then quickly shook my head. Zayn’s face filled with even more sympathy. The kid seemed to have memorized that whenever I acted like that, it meant there was still a ghost around me.