The last day, and the last prompt of this challenge awaits us. I've been looking forward to this for a while. Here it is: "Write a story featuring a Ouija board, a search engine, and a self-help book."
This is gonna be great.
"You ready for this?" Cliff looked to his friends Popuri, Karen, and Kai for an answer.
"This seems like a bad idea," Karen crossed her arms, flashing her emerald eyes over at Cliff and brushing away some of her chestnut hair.
"Come on, Karen. We came here to have some fun, right?" Popuri insisted, her brown eyes glowing as her curly, pink hair fell in front of her.
"She's right. Let's at least give it a shot." Kai, with his tanned skin, curly black hair, and charcoal eyes said. They all gazed at the Ouija Board before them. It was old, that was for sure. Parts of the letters were chipped, and the planchette had a piece missing from the top.
"Will it even work in the condition it's in?" Karen examined the planchette in her hands. "It looks like something you just picked up off the streets."
"Give it here." Cliff took the planchette from Karen. "I found it in the library."
"This old cabin has a library?" Karen raised an eyebrow.
"It's more like two bookshelves with a lot of ancient books in them." Kai chuckled.
"Close enough," Cliff grumbled.
"Aw, don't get grumpy." Popuri giggled. "Can we start now? I'm really curious to see a spirit!" Before Cliff could answer, KAren spoke up again. "There's no guarantee we'll see anything."
"Let's just start," Cliff muttered, placing the planchette in the middle of the board. "Kai, help me out here. Popuri, you too. Karen...you can just watch." She shot him a cold look. Cliff averted his eyes, and took a deep breath.
"Spirit, are you there?" he asked loudly and clearly. After a few seconds, nothing happened. He tried again. "Spirit, this is a safe place. You don't have to be afraid. Are you there?" After a beat, still nothing. Cliff sighed.
Karen smirked. "Guess there really isn't anything out there after all. Either that or they just don't like you."
"Then you try!" Cliff pointed to the board, feeling frustrated. Karen laughed.
"Sure, I'll give your little game a go. Don't expect anything to happen." She traded spots with Cliff. With a sarcastic smile, she spoke. "Hey, spirit, are you there?" For a moment, nothing. She tried again. "Yo, don't leave me hangin', we should get a drink sometime." Karen laughed. "See? It's just a stupid game that people made a long time ago to scare people like us."
"Karen..." Popuri nudged her. Karen ignored her.
"If you really thought we were going to encounter something, maybe you should've called the Ghostbusters."
"Karen!" Kai exclaimed.
"What?!" she snapped. He gestured to the board. The planchette was moving. First, it went to the 'H,' then the 'E,' eventually spelling out HELLO. Karen was still unbelieving of it though.
"Really?" She looked to Popuri and Kai. "You two don't have to force it."
"We're not!" Popuri insisted.
"Try asking something!" Kai said with wide eyes. Karen rolled her eyes.
"Oi. What's your name?" The planchette moved to spell out a name.
"Aurin?" Popuri cocked her head.
"Ask it how it died," Cliff said from the other side. He was interested, but still a little mad that the ghost didn't appear for him.
"I'm sure you heard the guy," Karen yawned. The planchette jutted to the top left of the board, landing on the YES. Karen giggled. "What do you know, I think he might have a sense of humour yet." Then, the planchette moved to spell out something else. There was a unsettling pause after the word BETRAYAL was spelled.
"That sucks," Karen said. "Also, I need to know something. If you're really a spirit, ghost, or whatever talking to us right now and not some stupid trick, come out here and talk face to face."
"Karen!" Cliff shushed her. "You can't just say something like that!" But it was too late. There was a slight rumble in the floor as the Ouija board shook. All of them let go of the planchette and watched as it began to move on its own, only landing on two letters. "OK"
There was a burst of light from within the hole of the planchette, and a white light came from it, materializing in the center of the board. It formed a shape and - was surprisingly less terrifyng than they all thought. It looked like one of those cartoon, sheet over your head, kind of ghosts.
"What?" Karen blinked at the thing in front of them.
"H...hi." he said sheepishly. Everyone was too stunned to speak. Everyone, that is, except Karen.
"Hey," she responded. "What's up?" Before she could say anything more, the ghost abruptly burst into tears, wailing and sobbing, his tears disappearing in the air before they even reached the ground.
"Oh - okay," she cautiously held out her hands to try and calm him down. "Not good then."
"You...you said you were betrayed, right?" Cliff spoke up. This caused the ghost to wail louder.
"Cliff! Can't you see he's in a bad place right now? Come here, Aurin, I'll help you out." The ghost sadly drifted into her lap. "Now you have to tell me what's wrong."
"I...I-I...I was..." he was heroically fighting off more tears. "Dumped!" After that, the tears came again. He cried on Karen's shoulder.
"Hey, man, it's alright. We all get dumped at some point." She patted his back. "Right, guys?"
"Y-Yeah!" Popuri looked terrified, but still managed a smile. "It hurts for a while but then things always get better."
"B-but..." the ghost stuttered. "She left m-me for him, and...and then..." He took a couple shaky breaths. "I crashed here!"
"Like in a car accident?" Karen inquired.
"N-no..." Aurin said uneasily.
"You took over this place in you ghostly rage?" Kai offered.
"No...the bookcases fell on me." There was a stunned silence. "I'm not strong, so I couldn't lift them off, and I was alone, so I just read all the books until I passed, and...oh!" He burst into tears again.
"Talk about a bad way to go." Kai shook his head.
"Ugh. How do you deal with a depressed ghost? Oh, wait, I have an idea." Karen pulled out her phone. She went to Google and typed in 'How to deal with a depressed ghost.' Nothing useful really came up.
"Are you seriously consulting Google?" Cliff stared at her.
"Yeah. All it talks about is possession, and blah blah...nothing useful." She sighed, putting her phone back in her pocket. "You said earlier there was a 'library,' right?" She looked to Cliff.
"Yeah...what are you getting at?"
"Maybe there's some sort of therapy book or something to help us out."
"Are we really going to counsel a ghost?" Cliff raise an eyebrow.
"He's still a soul like us. Why not? Besides, this little experiment is turning out to be more interesting than I thought. You should be happy." She stuck her tongue out at him and left for the so-called library.
"You guys look through that pile," she told Popuri and Kai as she started digging through another. Aurin tried to help, but whenever he tried to pick something up it just phased through him, so he ended up just sobbing more. After a while of searching, Popuri came across something.
"Here - it's the closest thing we have." Se blew off the dust and handed it to Karen.
"Giving your child a good night's rest?" Karen read the title. "I don't know if this is the exact thing we need."361Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpFI2vfDOij
Kai shrugged. "It's what we got."
"Fair enough," Karen sighed. "Alright Aurin, are you ready to feel better?" Aurin looked at her with tears still streaming down his face. Karen didn't feel as confident as she did five minutes ago.
"Well, first things first, a mug of warm milk will do wonders." Karen read through the book as Popuri poured out the milk, sticking it in the microwave. Once the timer beeped, she took it out and offered it to Aurin. He couldn't hold it, but was able to drink the liquid.
"I don't want to know where that goes," Kai shuddered.
"Feel any better?" Karen asked. Aurin shrugged. She decided to move on with the next step.
"Singing a lullaby is also known to lull the child right off to sleep," she read. "Popuri? You can sing."
"Alright," she agreed, and began to sing. Karen recognized it immediately as the song Popuri's mother always sang to Popuri to get her to sleep. They'd had quite a few sleepovers when they were young, and Popuri was never one for sleeping. Aurin bobbed his head along with the song, seeming to enjoy it, but didn't smile. However, he wasn't crying anymore, so that was already a step ahead.
"Next is actually tucking you into a bed...but you can't do that, can you?" Aurin shook his head. "We could build a fire instead." He nodded.
"I'd like that."
Once a fire was built outside, all of them gathered around it and started telling stories. Not scary stories, but memories of being camping with their family, and crazy funny stories that even had Aurin laughing.
"Did you really jump in the lake naked?" Karen giggled.
"With my butt shining in the moonlight? Absolutely. Mum and Dad didn't think it was so funny, though." Kai laughed. "I was grounded for a month for being so goddamn hilarious." The team howled with laughter.
"What about you, Aurin? Got any funny stories?" Popuri inquired.
"Well..." he started. "I guess there's one."
"Tell it, then!" Cliff encouraged. Aurin hesitated.
"When I first took Felicia on a date - we went to the movie theatre. There was a new horror movie airing and she really wanted to see it. So we went in and watched it, but I had to leave early because I got scared. When the serial killer came in I just kinda bolted. She came after me, and laughed when I told her I was scared. She said we didn't have to see a scary one together, she just liked to spend time with me. We held hands and went to get icecream instead and...oh, no, I went on and on! I'm sorry..." he trailed off.
"No, it's really cute." Karen said. "I'm happy that you two got along together."
"We did, yeah. But she left...I guess we just weren't meant to be together." he sighed.
"Aurin," Popuri said, beaming.
"W-What?" he blushed. "Do I have something on my face? Oh, no..."
"No, silly. You're not crying anymore! Does it hurt anymore?" Aurin stopped, and blinked.
"No," he said. "Not that much." He breathed out a laugh and smiled. "It doesn't hurt." He sounded amazed, and started to laugh. "It doesn't hurt!" A yellowish glow seemed to emanate from his body, as though enhancing his mood.
"So if you feel better..." Karen started.
"I think I can pass on without much trouble," he said happily. "Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" He beamed. The four of them could only watch as their new friend rose into the air, his body overcome with the sunshine glow, and disappeared into the sky.
"I'm glad he feels better," Cliff said, still gazing into the sky.
"Yeah," Karen agreed. "Now that's what I call a good way to spend the night. Cheers!" She raised her mug of hot chocolate and drank heartily from it. Though she knew she could never tell anyone else about this ordeal, it was satisfying enough to have brought a soul like Aurin's the harmony and peace it deserved.
And with that, this concludes our challenge. All two weeks have been completed! Whoo! It's been a good experience for me to get writing again, and I feel this was a brilliant story to end it all on. Thanks for sticking around.
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