UMA ✦ Stay Gold

Stay Gold was... pretty sure her apartment was haunted.

She had previously bought the small apartment just to sometimes lounge when she returned from her long travels, and to keep all the eccentric souvenirs she bought somewhere. It was supposed to be a private sanctuary, a vault for her memories. But recently, she's been home more often, mostly because the cabinets are always open and her stuff is constantly thrown out.

It was becoming a routine. She would unlock the front door, expecting the quiet stillness of an empty home, only to find her meticulously arranged belongings scattered across the floor. She paused at the entryway, dropping her travel bag onto a nearby chair, her eyes scanning the chaotic living room. Shouldn't ghosts be scary? Aren't they supposed to manifest as chilling drops in temperature, disembodied wails, or blood dripping from the walls?

Today too, she came back to her usual empty house, and sure enough, everything was wide open. From cabinets to closet doors, nothing was left untouched. The drawers were pulled out just far enough to look deliberate, and her collection of travel books lay in a messy heap on the rug. She walked deeper into the space, stepping over a discarded throw pillow, and leaned against the kitchen counter. A single glass was positioned precariously near the absolute edge of the counter, practically begging the laws of physics to pull it down.

Yeah... Whoever this ghost was, they sure weren't scary at all. They were just mildly inconvenient and incredibly petty.

"...Seriously."

Stay gold walked to the kitchen, grabbed the glass, and put it safely back in place. She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she turned to look at the sink. The dirty plates and utensils from last week, when she had finally invited two of her friends over for drinks, hadn't been washed clean at all. The sight of the crusty, stacked porcelain only added to her growing irritation with her invisible roommate.

"Why can't I have a useful ghost?"

She complained to the empty room, resigning to her fate of cleaning her own mess instead of letting it rot in the sink. If she was going to share her living space with a supernatural entity, the least the spirit could do was earn its keep.

"Couldn't you have done the dishes or something?"

She turned on the faucet of the sink, watching the water steam up. She stared down at the piled-up mess as if the plates were foreign objects from another planet, unsure of where to start, before finally picking up a sponge and squeezing a generous amount of soap onto it. She started to scrub the forks first, a prominent pout on her face. She's never liked doing chores, and the lack of ghostly assistance wasn't helping her mood.

"Or maybe... a freaky ghost?"

She threw out casually, her voice echoing slightly in the tiled kitchen, speaking aloud as if there really was a ghost listening to her rambling. She rinsed a fork and set it aside, her mind wandering to Hollywood tropes. Whether she was taking it seriously or not, it would only matter if the ghost started breaking her bear-themed stuff. That was her hard boundary; the ghost could mess with the cabinets, but the souvenirs and teddy bears were sacred.

"Like that one scene in ghost busters... I wonder what that feels like..."

She picked up the knives next, starting to clean those too, her movements slow and reluctant. She wiped the soapy sponge down the dull side of a blade, glancing around the room out of the corner of her eye, half-expecting a chill to run down her spine or a cabinet door to slam in response. If there really were a ghost in here, they could sure as hell make things more entertaining than just opening things.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ- Create your own scenario . . .