Aven
My reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror looks like a cautionary tale about the dangers of aesthetic nihilism, too much eyeliner, not enough sleep, and the kind of bruised-pretty look that makes little old ladies clutch their rosaries tighter as I pass.
I splash cold water on my face, but it doesn't wash away the static.
It never does. The water's freezing, stinging the raw edges of my consciousness, yet the mental noise remains at a steady, vibrating hum.
Behind me, hovering near the mildewed shower curtain, a woman who died in the seventies is flickering like a bad fluorescent bulb.
She's been humming the same three bars of a disco track for three hours, her spectral polyester jumpsuit casting a dull, sickly green glow against the tile.
Her hair's a rigid, hair-sprayed helmet of blonde, and her eyes are two hollow voids that suggest she's forgotten everything except the bridge of a Donna Summer song.
"Take it outside, Gladys," I snap, grabbing a thin, scratchy towel. "I've got a ninety-minute lecture on the sanctity of the soul, and your rhythm's objectively terrible. If you're going to haunt me while I'm hungover, at least pick something with a lower BPM."
She doesn't move. She just continues to mouth the lyrics to "I Will Survive" with a vacant, translucent stare, her fingers twitching in a ghostly pantomime of a snap.
I sigh, tugging on my black sweater, the one with the frayed cuffs that I use as a sort of urban camouflage, and pull on my boots.I still have to show up.
The Saint Jude's Annex doesn't care if my head's a beehive of dead voices; they only care if my seat's occupied by 8:00 AM. Besides, if I miss another morning, Ezra'll start calling, and I'm currently at absolute capacity for managerial concern.
The walk to the annex is a blur of grey pavement, humid air, and the persistent feeling of being watched.
It isn't just the ghosts. It's the cross in my drawer, the burn in my palm, and the feeling that something in the world's started paying attention to me in a way I don't appreciate.
A man with half his face caved in follows me for three blocks, whispering numbers under his breath.
A little boy in a school uniform stands at the crosswalk even after the light changes, pointing at something over my shoulder.
I don't look. Looking's how they know you're listening, and listening's how your morning becomes a community event for the damned.
I find my usual seat in the back row of the lecture hall.
The room's a masterpiece of ecclesiastical gloom: vaulted ceilings, dust motes dancing in the light of high, arched windows, and the lingering scent of old paper, floor wax, and institutional repressed trauma.
At the front of the room, Professor Miller's adjusting his spectacles, his movements precise and irritatingly academic.
The heavy silver cross around his neck catches the morning light every time he turns to the chalkboard.
Every time it flashes, my right hand twinges.
I can still feel the ghost-heat of my own cross burning into my skin two nights ago, a theological disagreement manifested as a second-degree burn.
I'd thrown it in the back of my junk drawer, wrapped in a socks-ball, but I could still feel it through the wood, a tiny, righteous furnace.
Today's topic is Spiritual Warfare. It'd be funny if it weren't so profoundly exhausting.
Two pews over, a spirit with a jagged hole where his jaw should be is sitting next to a terrified-looking first-year.
The student's diligently highlighting his Bible in neon yellow, unaware that the ghost's leaning over his shoulder, picking at its own face with translucent, grey-scaled fingers.
Little flakes of spectral skin, looking like ash, drift down onto the student's Greek Lexicon, disappearing before they hit the paper.
"The adversary," Miller drones, his voice a dry rasp that sounds like leaves skittering on a tombstone.
He taps a chalky finger against the board.
"The adversary doesn't always strike with fire.
He strikes with the whisper. He strikes with the doubt that your soul's your own.
He seeks to turn the vessel against the Maker. "
I click my pen rhythmically, the sound lost in the sea of scrawling notebooks.
I'm pretending to take notes, but the page in front of me's a mess of frantic scribbles.
I find myself writing down what the jawless ghost's muttering instead of Miller's definitions.
It's cold in the marrow, I write in jagged script.
The marrow's where the light goes to die.
They keep the doors locked from the inside.
Empty houses. Empty rooms. He's coming back for the teeth.
I stare at the words for a second, a cold shiver crawling up my spine.
Then, I ruthlessly cross them out until the paper tears, the black ink bleeding into the desk underneath.
I'm not a conduit. I'm not a vessel. I'm just a student with a hangover and a very vivid imagination fueled by sleep deprivation and cheap gin.
That's the lie I've been practicing since I was twelve, and I'm getting quite good at it.
If I say it enough times, maybe the universe'll eventually believe me and stop trying to use me as a telephone for the damned.
The cross on Miller's chest flashes again, a blinding glint of silver.
I shift in my seat, my skin crawling with a sudden, sharp itch.
I feel like a radio tuned to the wrong frequency, picking up every scrap of misery in a three-mile radius.
The dead don't just talk; they press. They've got a weight to them, a psychic gravity that pulls at the edges of my sanity.
They demand to be heard, to be seen, to be anything other than the static they've become.
And here I am, in a room dedicated to explaining them away as metaphors for sin or psychological manifestations of the dark night of the soul.
Miller turns back to the board. "We must arm ourselves. Faith's the shield, and the sacraments are the sword."
The jawless spirit lets out a sound like a wet sponge being squeezed.
It turns its head slowly, painfully, and looks directly at me.
It doesn't have eyes, just two pits of dark, swirling smoke.
It tilts its head, and I can see the white of its neck bones through the ruin of its jaw.
You smell like the door, it wheezes into my mind. Who opened you?
I break eye contact, staring hard at my ruined notebook.
My heart's thudding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Not now. Not here. I clench my jaw, focusing on the grit under my fingernails, the smell of the girl's perfume in the row in front of me, something floral and cloying, anything to ground me in the physical world.
When the bell finally rings, signaling the end of the lecture, I'm the first one out the door.
I don't wait to pack my bag properly; I just shove the notebook in and bolt.
I'm halfway down the stone steps of the quad, the cool autumn air hitting my face with the force of a benediction, when a familiar voice cuts through the chill of the morning.
"Aven! Wait up!"
I don't have to look to know it's Ezra. He's the only person in this entire building who says my name like it's a project he's halfway through finishing, one he's very proud of but still thinks needs a bit more sanding around the edges.
I slow down, schooling my face into something resembling casual boredom, masking the tremor in my hands by shoving them deep into my pockets.
"Ezra," I say, as he falls into step beside me, his pace easy and confident. "You look dangerously wholesome today. Even for you. Is it the sweater vest? I bet it's the sweater vest. It says, 'I've got a retirement fund and I've never once questioned the nature of reality.'"
He smiles, that warm, practiced expression that used to feel like a safety net back when we were first starting out.
Now, it just feels like the door to a soft-walled room.
He's wearing a navy blue vest over a crisp white shirt, the very image of the perfect seminarian.
"And you look like you haven't slept since the mid-nineties.
Or like you spent the night fighting a very small, very angry bear.
Come on. I'm buying you coffee. You're vibrating, Aven.
I can practically hear your teeth rattling. "
"That's just the caffeine from yesterday finally hitting my nervous system," I lie, though my stomach's a knotted mess. "It's a delayed-release mechanism. Very high-tech."
I let him steer me toward the little cafe on the corner, a place called The Daily Bread that smells of cinnamon and scorched milk.
Ezra's got a way of navigating the world that makes choice feel like an unnecessary burden; he simply moves, and the world, including me, tends to follow.
He picks the quietest corner table, the one shielded by a large, dusty monstera plant, as if concern gives him the right to choose the acoustics and the privacy levels of my life.
He sets a large oat milk latte in front of me, he remembers how I take it, which is both touching and irritating, and sits down, leaning forward. His eyes are far too focused, searching my face for cracks in the facade. "So. Talk to me. How are the... perceptions?"
"You can say visions, Ezra. We're in a coffee shop, not a confessional," I say, taking a long, scalding gulp of the latte.
The heat burns my tongue, a welcome distraction.
"They're fine. Vibrant. High-definition.
It's like living in a 4K horror movie. If the goal was to hallucinate during breakfast, I'm basically an overachiever.
I should get a scholarship for my commitment to the craft. "