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It was the first day of summer vacation, but today was like any normal Saturday afternoon for Dib Membrane. After grabbing a suck monkey at the local mini mart, he was ready for some old fashioned ghost hunting. He’d just received the newest and highest tech EVP device yet from Crop Circle Magazine and he couldn’t wait to try it out. As he dug open the box, his father spoke up,“Son, you’re fifteen now, don’t you think it’s time to give up the para-science?”Dib rolled his eyes, how many times had he heard this before? Professor Membrane was a man of “real” science, and unfortunately it was impossible to open his mind about things he didn’t have definitive proof of.“No, Dad. A thousand times no. I know no one believes in what I do, but I swear it’s all gonna be worth it one day and you will all see the truth!”“Please stay out as late as possible.” His sister Gaz grumbled.“Oh, I will .” He replied snottily, slamming the front door. ~ As Dib wandered through the graveyard, he was surprised he didn’t have any kind of signals from the EVP recorder. Not one blip. “Hmm…Maybe I didn’t calibrate it properly?”He moved further back into the trees, past the graveyard and into the deeper part of the woods, all the while fidgeting with it. Eventually, it began to read. Faintly. He couldn’t hear anything but the signal seemed to be getting stronger as he approached the edge of the ravine. Then he heard an actual voice, someone calling from below while the recorder went nuts. Confused, he discerned the recorder was falsely picking up the sound of whoever was down there and interpreting it.“Hello? Is someone up there? I tripped and fell down here and I need help! I’m stuck and can’t pull myself out.” Dib ran to the edge and peeked over, and sure enough, a girl about his age was down there tangled in the gnarled branches lining the bottom. “Holy crap! Oh man, don’t worry I’ll get you out of there!”He dropped everything and carefully slid down the edge of the ravine, extending his hand when he got close enough to her. She grabbed his hand and with his strength, he was able to break her free from the brambles below and climb back up with her.“Thanks, I feel like I would’ve been stuck down there forever if you hadn't come along.” She said, brushing off her clothes. She was really dirty.“Don’t mention it, how long have you been down here anyway? Are you hurt?”“I think I’m fine besides maybe some bumps and bruises. My neck does feel a little sore though. And actually I’m not sure how long I’ve been down there because I think the fall knocked me out. I actually think your footsteps are what woke me up.”“Oh…well that’s good, I’m glad I came along then. Um…my name’s Dib. Do you live on the other side of town? I think I’d recognize you otherwise.”“Yeah, I live on the east side, and my parents are on vacation in Europe at the moment so I’ve got the house to myself for most of the summer. Go figure, I do something stupid and almost get myself killed on the first day. They didn’t want me to be by myself but I convinced them otherwise.”Dib noticed that there was something strange about the girl, but he couldn’t quite understand why. Even with dirt smudges on her face, she was pretty, and pretty girls never talked to him. His stomach twisted a bit at the realization that he was alone with a pretty girl who didn’t automatically reject and hate him. She told him her name, and for some reason it seemed familiar. “So what are you doing all the way out here anyway?” She asked.“Heh. I think I should be asking you that, but if you must know, I was…ghost hunting.”She lit up, excited. “Oh my gosh. You’ve seen a ghost? I’ve always believed in ghosts and supernatural things. I’ve got loads of stories about all of that stuff. But my parents think I’m nuts.”“Wow really? Same here! Actually, this is my new EVP device, but I think it’s not working right because see, it’s picking up a really strong reading but I don’t hear or sense anything. Anyway I’ll take it home and see if I can figure anything out.”She agreed and then added,“Welp, I think I oughtta head home now too and clean up. These clothes are definitely ruined now. It wasn’t really all that muddy down there and yet somehow I’m literally covered in it.”“Hey, um…could I maybe walk with you?”She lit up again.“Hey, I have a better idea, do you want to actually come over? Do you like really bad old monster movies? They’re hilarious and I have a bunch of them on vhs!”Dib grinned, completely amazed at his luck. Finally, someone he could relate to, on his same wave length, and to be frank, extremely cute and beautiful to boot.“Let’s go!”As Dib walked with her, they laughed and talked about werewolves, horror movies, aliens, pretty much every subject Dib was interested in. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to her, how nice and smart she was, he didn’t notice when they passed that people were staring at them with disturbed expressions. “But even after the whole Florpus incident, people didn’t believe me that it was Zim that caused it to happen. My dad especially, says it had to do with ‘quantum disruption’ or some stupid scientific reason. But if I hadn't intervened and disrupted his plans, we’d all be Florpus mush.”“Wow, Dib. You’re a total hero…seriously.” She said in amazement. He blushed intensely and ran his hand through his hair.“Yeah well…y’know. It wasn’t like I didn’t have help. My sister was there, the only time she’s ever been nice to me actually. And as in denial as my dad is of all of this, he did help. He’s actually the one who saved us all technically with minimoose.”“I remember when that happened. No one knew what caused it or who stopped it. The news tried to explain it away as some bogus theory, but I didn’t buy it. Wow. You’re amazing Dib, you deserve an award, like… ‘The Greatest Person Ever To Live’ award!”He laughed so hard at this. ~ As Dib waited in the living room for her to change into clean clothes, he looked at all of the family photos lining the mantel and shelves. Her and her parents seemed so happy. There was one specific photo of her that struck him the most, like he’d seen it somewhere before. Everything was really dusty, too.“Oh yeah, that was last Summer during out trip to Greece!” Her sudden appearance startled him, he hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. She was in a new, clean outfit now, looking even prettier than before. She was holding a vhs tape with a black and white cover of a really stupid looking turkey buzzard monster. “The Giant Claa-aa-aaawwww” She said in a wavery, spooky voice.“What in heck’s armpit is this?” “A movie that will change your life. Truly a gem. Made in 1957. It’s about a giant alien buzzard from outer space that comes and eats people. You will be profoundly moved by the end and have gained such a higher level of consciousness you’ll hardly feel human again after watching it.”Indeed, it definitely affected Dib because he was laughing so hard he almost keeled over. They both laughed all throughout the film at the ridiculousness of the bird puppet that was used for the monster, and how cheesy and derpy it looked. ~ “Well, I have to say today was pretty amazing. I was not expecting such an adventure today.” Dib said as he got ready to head back home.“It’s weird how that happens isn’t it? I’m so glad I met you, Dib.”“Would you ever wanna…I dunno…hang out again? If not it’s totally okay, I’ll understand.” He asked stupidly.“I’d love to! My parents are supposed to call me tonight to check in, I can’t wait to tell them about you.”“Oh, heh. So would you want to meet somewhere or hang out here? Or you could…come to…my house?”“I’d like that. I bet you have all sorts of cool stuff in your room. One second, let me get a sticky note to write your address on.”Dib felt excitement and joy bubbling up inside of him at the prospect of seeing his new friend again. He could prove to his family that he was capable of making friends, and have someone to share all of his ideas with who didn’t think he was crazy. He felt light as a feather as he walked home, sometimes breaking out into a sprint just for the hell of it to expend the happy energy he had.The next day, he eagerly awaited for her arrival and he felt his stomach twist when he heard the knock on the door. “Hey! I didn’t get lost! I’m usually really bad at directions but for some reason I got here super easily, it was weird. Anyway!”Dib smiled, today she was wearing the original outfit as yesterday, but it appeared clean and brand new. She must have been able to wash it and get all of the mud out after all. “Dad, Gaz! This is my new friend I told you about!” He said excitedly, bringing her into the kitchen where they were eating. They both looked up at Dib with strange expressions. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you!” She said to them in a friendly voice.They wouldn’t look at her and instead looked at each other with concerned expressions.“What’s wrong with you guys? Can’t you say hello?” Dib said in irritation. They both looked around toward her and then back to him. Professor Membrane looked in her direction and said in a rigidly polite tone, “Hello, Dib’s new friend.”“Yeah...what he said.” Gaz said slowly.Dib nudged her arm and whispered,“Sorry about this, I thought they’d be excited to meet you but something is bugging them today I guess. Anyway, let's go up to my room.”She waited a moment to follow Dib up the stairs because she could hear his father and sister whispering. “It’s getting worse.” Was all she could make out before heading up. She felt hurt that they were so unfriendly to her, and wondered why they couldn’t look or speak to her directly. ~ Dib explained all of his findings and research passionately while she sat on his bed and listened intently. She really seemed to understand everything and even made her own hypotheses for some of his theories. The time seemed to stand still as they talked and researched together. When it started to turn into evening, Dib suggested they go to the mini mart for snacks. “Has this place always been here? I swear I don’t remember there being a mini mart here.” She asked.“Eh, I think it’s been here for a year or so now.”“Ah, I guess I just haven’t been on this side of town for a while.” As Dib placed two suck monkies on the counter to purchase, the cashier asked,“So you’re really gonna drink both of these at once?”“Um, no. One is for my friend over there.” He pointed to where she was in front of the candy bars. The cashier raised an eyebrow and simply responded,“Okay, whatever you say.”Happily drinking their suck monkies, they decided to hang out at the nearby park. “It’s weird, I haven’t felt hungry since before I fell down the other day. Maybe it’s just a residual shock response. But this thing is super yummy! Awe look, here comes a doggie!”A dog walker appeared and Dib couldn’t help but feel concerned when the dog started growling dangerously at his friend. She tried petting the dog but it snapped and the owner ripped the leash away from her.“Uh-oh. Sorry. I guess I shoulda asked before petting him.” She said.“Hmm, there’s something about you young man that he didn’t like. He’s usually very friendly. Maybe he doesn’t like slushies.” The person said directly to Dib, completely ignoring her. Dib thought nothing of it as he was used to being hated and blamed for nearly everything unfortunate that happened, even if he had no involvement in it. After finishing their slushies, it was starting to get dark. “I’m hoping my parents call soon, they were supposed to check in with me last night but the telephone never rang. And they don’t have cellular phones so I can’t get a hold of them. I hope my telephone isn’t broken or something.”“Oh, that’s weird.”“Yeah…well anyway I should probably head home anyways, maybe they tried calling and left a message.” ~ The days seemed to meld together as he spent each and every one with her. They explored, talked, hung out, watched movies. He felt as though he was in some sort of trance, but a euphoric one. Was this what it felt like to actually be happy? He’d wanted this for so long, he couldn’t have felt better and more on top of the world, even when his family tried to weigh him down. Two glorious months flew by like nothing.Soon her parents were due to arrive home, yet she had still not heard from them. When Dib came to visit her, she was uneasy.“I think my telephone is broken because, any time I dial a number and someone answers, they can’t hear me. I’ll shout hello over and over but the responses are always something like, ‘Hello? Who is this? I can’t hear you if you’re on the other line, it’s too staticky.’ It’s kinda been stressing me out. But I'm guessing that's why my parents can't get through. But I would have thought they'd have come home much sooner if they couldn't get a hold of me within a week or so. I hope nothing bad's happened. And something just doesn’t feel right to me. I can’t really put my finger on it, but things are starting to feel…off. I'm not realizing things as they happen, and I feel like I'm in some sort of conscious coma.”“How do you mean?” “Well, I don’t really remember waking up this morning, or going to sleep last night. It’s actually been that way for weeks now, around the time we met. It’s like suddenly I am just…conscious and then I’m not…and I didn’t realize it until now. I don't remember what I've eaten either but I'm never hungry so I must be eating enough. And the other thing is that my neck still hurts, but the rest of me feels fine. I’m wondering if I sustained some kind of cognitive damage when I fell?” Suddenly, a very unpleasant pang hit Dib in the chest, as if his body had realized something he was mentally unaware of. His mind began to wake up and turn very slowly. The rest of the afternoon felt weird, and he couldn’t figure out why, but all he knew was that he wanted to help his friend. She was now the most important thing in his life, and he wanted to do everything he could to put her mind at ease. ~ When Dib opened his front door, both his dad and sister were on the couch watching TV. “Son, I think it’s time we had a serious talk.”“Not now, Dad. I have something very important I need to do.” Dib said, flinging off his backpack and heading toward the stairs.“It’s about your imaginary friend.” Gaz said in a condescending tone.“Ugh, you guys are ridiculous. Anyway, I’m busy.”Dib rushed up the stairs to his room and plopped onto the bed, racking his brain. Then it suddenly occurred to him.Imaginary friend…He thought back on the day he brought her over to meet them. How they wouldn’t even look at her. The strange looks from everyone they passed…Then the guy at the mini mart…The dog…He shakily typed in her name on the computer search engine and his stomach turned. An article from two years prior popped up:
Local Teen Girl Declared Missing
Authorities have issued a response to two concerned parents who, upon returning from an extended absence, noticed their daughter missing from the home. The parents expressed vehemently that they tried contacting their daughter every single day while away to no avail. After days of not hearing from her, they called the local police for a welfare check to the home and it was discovered she was not there. There are no signs of foul play, and no evidence to suggest abduction. It has been ruled as of now, a teenage runaway case which unfortunately, there are too many like it in the city to keep track of.
Dib felt his heart start to pound as he saw the picture of the girl. It was his beautiful friend, the same picture he saw of her on the mantel that first day at her house. Underneath was a physical description. He vaguely remembered hearing about this and seeing her picture back then, but like the article mentioned, the city was full of things like this so it went buried in his subconscious pretty quickly after seeing it.“No…no…This can’t be right…” He whispered over and over, his heart palpitating so hard he could barely breathe. Another article dated several months later:
Search Of Missing Girl Officially Called Off
The search for the local teenage girl has been called off as of this date. Sadly there are too many cases and too little police to be able to keep up with the search. Parents heartbroken and unable to cope, have moved across the country, abandoning the home. Convinced she’s still alive, they have left her a note inside with their new phone number and address should she return.
“We always showered her with love and affection and she never showed any signs of rebellion. She was such a shy and sweet girl. We are so distraught that she chose to run away, but we hope she will return to us someday. Until then we just can’t bear to live in this house anymore. But we will keep it here for her, exactly how she left it.” Her parents told our reporter. Dib began to hyperventilate while his ears rang and his skin turned clammy and sweaty.“This can’t be true, I found her. She’s real and alive!” He flew down the stairs, completely ignoring his family again and sprinted. It seemed forever before he got to the graveyard and the woods where they’d met. Once he reached the ravine, he carefully tread over the branches, searching, for anything. When he made his discovery, he collapsed into painful sobs and desperate cries of denial. ~ Dib slammed his fists against the door of her house, shouting for her until she opened the door.“Dib…something is really wrong, I’m really afraid…I don’t know what’s going and I don’t know what to do! People are ignoring me, I’m not eating, I don’t know where I am most of the time and the only time things feel normal is when I’m with you…wait, are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying or just seen a ghost.”He spoke her name softly, trying to keep it together.“I think…I think we should go to the forest today. There’s something there you need to see.” He said in a quivering voice.“Dib…you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s going on!”Dib grabbed her wrist and in what felt like the blink of an eye, they were suddenly there. They both gasped, unable to comprehend how it happened.“How did you do that?” She asked.Dib sighed sadly.“I…I didn’t do that. You did.”“I don’t know what you mean! Please, Dib, I’m so scared right now. Something’s happening to me and I think I need to be taken to a doctor!” “We have to go down to the ravine first.”Dib led her down the edges and kept her steady along the branches, holding her hand and helping her step. He made sure to stay in front of her. The farther they went, the sicker and more frightened she felt. Suddenly, he stopped and turned toward her, a look of pure anguish on his face.“Please, please tell me why we’re down here!” She cried.Dib didn’t answer, and instead threw his arms around her. He held her with all of his being, a sorrow so strong it seeped through into her own body, yet he felt so unbelievably warm. He pulled away and whispered her name, tears in his eyes. “I need you to look and tell me if you can see what I see.” She looked down and at first only saw the muddy clothes, the same clothes she was wearing now. Then she realized what she was actually looking at. “No…no…please no!” She whimpered. Dib instantly took her in his arms and pulled her away from the sight.“Dib…please…please tell me that isn’t real. That…that can’t be me down there, it just can’t!” She cried into his chest.“I…I think you died when you fell down here. You broke your neck, I could tell that’s what happened when I found you earlier.” His voice quavered as he held her.“How is it that I’m here then? That you can see me, touch me, that I can feel you?” She shook in his arms, panic arising inside of her. “Ohh, I can’t be here one more second!”In a flash, they were in her living room, the very same way they had appeared at the graveyard. “It just happened again! I can’t…I just can’t!” She sobbed. She pushed open the front door and screamed at the people across the street walking by. They didn’t even turn their heads. She pinched her arm and felt no pain. The only physical pain she felt was in her neck. As she reached up to squeeze it she realized it was all wrong. Broken. The pain instantly stopped and replaced itself inside of her chest. She fell to her knees and wailed.Dib dropped down beside her and closed the door. He put his arms around her, gently rocking and comforting her until the loudest of her lamenting subsided. “I wish I knew you then, I wish I had met you sooner.” He whispered. She looked up.“It all makes sense now, it’s all coming back to me. I was out exploring that day and all I can remember was tripping and falling before waking up to the sound of your footsteps. I was here all this time, but not aware of it until you found me. Your EVP device wasn’t broken. Your family couldn’t see me, the people on the telephone couldn’t hear me, my parents never called because they must be long gone somewhere.” She said sadly.“I don’t know why I was meant to be the one to find you that day, the only one who can see and hear you…And touch you.” He added, cupping her cheek and wiping a tear from it. “But all I know is that…these have been the happiest days of my life. This summer has felt like a lifetime…and I’d…I’d do anything for you.” “Oh, Dib. Why does it have to be like this? Why couldn’t we have known each other before?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her embrace started to feel icy cold but he didn’t care. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he was glad she couldn’t see them.“W-we can still be together. I’ll visit you every day, and we can just go on like this never-”“No…Dib. I can’t. I’m realizing now that I have to leave here. I’m ready now. For whatever reason, I was kept here all this time because we were meant to meet each other. You were meant to find me. And now you can go to the police and give my parents closure.”“Wait, no! No! Don’t leave me!” He said frantically.“I’m so sorry Dib.” He released her and looked down at her, no longer caring that he was crying. “I…I don’t think I can go on without you. I know it sounds insane, but…these past weeks…I’ve…”He felt at a complete loss for words. His heart tore at the prospect of never seeing her again. He didn’t care that she was a ghost. He wanted to be with her forever. “Can’t I come with you? I mean…there’s nothing here really that I have to live for.”“Don’t you dare say that! Of course you do. The world needs you, Dib. You’re going to be adored by everyone some day, everything you’ve done will be worth it and you’ll be so, so happy.”“I don’t want any of that if it means losing you forever! I'm happy now!" He cupped her face, but it was already happening. She was becoming less physical, and appearing more translucent. At least he could still feel her.“Dib, thank you for saving me.” The air around her was starting to become crystalline.He began to panic. She was disappearing before his very eyes. He blinked the tears away furiously so she wouldn’t be blurred in his vision for even a millisecond. “No! No, you can’t leave me!” He gritted his teeth in anger while tears spilled in floods down his cheeks. But it was no use.“I-I love you.” He whispered. He took in her beautiful face to his memory one last time before leaning in and kissing her. Her lips were icy cold, but soft. It felt as though an arctic wind was surging through his very core as images of them flooded his mind in those seconds. Memories they’d made together. Happiness. True love. Their tight embrace began to weaken, he savored their kiss as she faded, more and more until he could no longer feel her. He tried holding tighter, but soon the air was empty, and his arms fell limp. She was gone now.She had been everything he’d ever wanted. She had given it all to him. She was his forever. The beautiful spectre that had changed his life forever that summer.