Ocular Transmutational Health Existence Reporter
O.T.H.E.R.?
“You have got to be kidding me. This is how you determine if someone should be seen here? This is a joke, right?”
Claws extend from her pale fingers, and she plucks the box from my palm so quickly, I see nothing but a black blur.
“No. It’s not. If you were…other…this device would tell me. You need to leave. Now. If you don’t, I’ll have to get George to escort you out and wipe your memory of this entire encounter.” She drops the black box back into her pocket, and out of the corner of my eye, George straightens.
“I’m seeing my own ghost!” My voice drops to a whisper, but with too harsh of an edge to hide my words from the others in the waiting room. “All the time. And sometimes, Iamher! Please. Don’t kick me out. Let me see a doctor. I can’t sleep. I’m going to lose my job if I can’t make this stop.” Tears well in my eyes, and through the shimmer they lend to the room, I think her expression softens slightly.
The nurse sighs. “All right. I’ll get you in with Dr. Nem. But if he doesn’t find any evidence ofotherin you, he won’t be as kind as George.”
I force my shoulders back and meet her gaze. Her eyes aren’t a normal human color. They’re almost…purple. I wonder what she is. What all of these people are. But most of all, I wonder what I am.
“I don’t care. I’ll risk it.”
Dr. Nem whirlsaround as a tray of medical equipment clatters to the floor. Shaking off the fog that came over me when he grabbed my head, his fingers digging into my temples, I leap off the exam table and dart through the door. I make it out of the clinic two steps ahead of George. The security guard isdefinitelynot human. His eyes glow bright red, and are those…wings fluttering along his back? Shit.
The doctor tried to be kind—at first. But when I refused to believe my whisper was a figment of my imagination, his anger scared the shit out of me.
“You are as human as they come,” Dr. Nem says. “This ghost you’re seeing? It’s all in your head.”
“It’s not! She can…do things. She knocked a book off the shelf in the library this afternoon!”
He narrows his eyes at me. The man is covered with a layer of short, brown fur. His ears stick out from the top of his head, and his flattened nose flares with his huff. “She needs to be disciplined for showing herself to you. After I wipe your memory, I’m calling the Bureau. She’s broken at least half a dozen laws.”
My whisper floats alongside me as we cross the street. “Is he right? Are you a ghost?”
She shakes her head and points to me.
“What the hell does that mean? God, if you can’t talk, the least you could do is learn sign language or something.”
With a harsh glare—or as harsh as she can manage since she’s mostly translucent—she stamps her foot against the pavement, then disappears completely.
Great. Dr. Nem practically laughed in my face, then threatened me—and my whisper. Do I risk trying another clinic? Or is that a one-way ticket to getting my memory wiped?
I’m so exhausted, each step feels like I’m walking through quicksand. Or…what I always imagined quicksand to feel like.
Is quicksand even real?
That thought occupies me for so long, I almost miss the light and have to run across the street to catch the bus.
But I learned two things today. First, my whisper cares for me. At least a little. She stopped Dr. Nem from wiping my memory.
The second? She’s definitely getting stronger.
FIVE
Gabriel
I have tired of the constantnoisein New York City. The car horns never stop. I attempted to ride the subway—a man selling pretzels from a cart on the street corner assured me this was the ultimate New York experience. But all I find is the stench of too many bodies pressed together with little room to breathe, let alone move.
A hand grabs my ass, and I turn to find a male with a hungry grin and raw lust in his hazel eyes. “Get off at the next stop,” he says, “and I’ll show you a good time, handsome.”
I look into his mind. He wants to get on his knees and suck my cock? The visual is not unpleasant. Though I had no idea such things between strangers were…encouraged in this realm.
I almost agree. After all, I am here to experienceallof humanity. But then the man pictures three others lying in wait to rob me. I stare down at him, infusing my voice with all of my angelic power. “If you ever proposition someone with the intention of taking their valuables again,human, you may very well find yourself trapped on the wrong side of Hell’s gates. Do you understand me?”
