Who Killed Sarah Foster?

2. Hey You, Freak!

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"There's someone by the football field!" He whisper-yelled yet again. "A GHOST. I think...?"

Leah paused for a moment, weighing the words that she had just heard, and then raised a brow. "You think?"

Paul gave her a flat look. "Well, I know it's not human. Unless we are in a superhero movie."

"Paul..."

"It's a ghost. I am forty-five percent sure that it's a ghost." He nodded to himself.

"And the other fifty-five percent?" Leah asked.

"That it's an evil spirit and you should be researching ways to get me out of here because I don't want to be around it." Paul grabbed her hand.

Leah stared at him, and it was obvious from his face that he was scared.

He had never seen another ghost or evil spirit before so maybe he could be wrong. But what if he was right?

But how was that possible? It surely wasn't someone from the school because no such report or announcement had been made, right? Then who was it? Somebody who went to this school years ago or died nearby? That could be the case.

Again, Paul was an i***t. He had thought she was a ghost too. He could be wrong.

"Let's go check it out." She mumbled as she closed the book and kept it back where she had picked it up from.

She couldn't leave the matter unattended based on her assumptions. A new ghost was extremely dangerous, if they were of the violent kind who had died with a lot of rage. She had the ability to contain them or at least calm them down and with the power that she had, she had the responsibility to do so too.

But if it was evil spirit... Well, that was a completely different deal.

"This is your new customer in three years right?" Paul asked excitedly as Leah quickly made her way out of the library as a clueless Stella watched on. "I was your last customer right?"

"This is not a business Paul." Leah muttered. She quickened her pace as she walked out on to the field.

"There!" Paul pointed at the silhouette sitting on one of the bleachers.

The inside of her palm burnt. Leah looked down at her palm.

She had a mole between her pinkie and ring finger on her left palm which was turning darker and hotter.

"That's a ghost alright." Leah sighed.

She looked over at the silhouette but now it was in the middle of the field, turning about as it took in its surrounding.

"It's confused." Leah blurted out.

"Which means it's newly dead right? Or dying right now to be more specific." Paul asked and Leah nodded. She had told him basic stuff. He had the theoretical knowledge.

The silhouette was like concentrated black smoke with no proper form. The soul hadn't left the threshold of its mortal body yet.

"How nice would it be if we could help it now!" Leah muttered to herself as she watched.

"You know nothing can save a life whose ghost is already forming." Paul sighed.

She nodded. Of course she knew. She had seen it with her own eyes, seven years ago.

"We will come back later." Paul suggested. "It will be too overwhelming for you to approach it now."

Leah nodded in agreement. "It doesn't seem hostile. At least it isn't kicking up a storm now, is it?"

Paul gave her a flat look. "I was having a bad hair day."

"Shouldn't you be a little bit ashamed considering a newly formed ghost behaves better than you?" Leah couldn't help but chuckle at the constipated look that he gave her when she asked him that question.

Paul was an i***t. He had died twenty three years ago. And when Leah first came to this school, this stupid ghost had given her hell for the longest time until they finally warmed up to one another.

Everyone hailed Calum Foster for bringing back the football trophy. No one knew it was Leah who finally got Paul from sabotaging their team. Paul himself used to be in the football team, so it was one of his ghostly grudges to make sure that Greenfield High never bring home a trophy now that he was dead.

Leah actually had to sit and talk it out with him, as if scolding and trying to make a kid understand how wrong it is. A lot of people put in a lot of work into everything but Paul just loved to sabotage it all.

The kids at the school always made fun of her and made her life hell, but she had gotten used to it. Ever since she got her powers and became weird, kids and sometimes even adults had started to treat her differently. And she had gotten used to it all. She thought that it was actually for the best. She was in constant danger and that would put people close to her in constant danger too.

Ghosts like Paul were nice, but there were also some extremely hostile ones. She hoped this one didn't develop into that.

Leah's abilities had scarred her for life and it was not something she could end with her life. On her deathbed, she had to hand it over to a worthy descendant. She was the one for her grandfather. And though she didn't want to, she held bitterness towards him and her grandmother for handing it down to her. And she didn't want to hand it down to someone else but she knew she had no choice either.

She spent the rest of the classes alert and looking about, hoping the ghost stayed put, which even she knew was unlikely.

At least Paul was there to keep an eye on it while she was in class.

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"You should have kept an eye on it, you dumbass!" Leah whisper-yelled as she walked around the empty hallways, peeking into room after room for the new ghost.

"Oh I am sorry, I didn't know I was a ghost sitter!" Paul retorted as he swept past her, pushing his head through the walls.

"Where is it?" Leah muttered, looking through the tinted windows of the chemistry class.

"Hey you, freak!"

Leah stopped in her tracks, cursing her luck as she turned on her heels.

Calum Foster and Tristan Brown made their way towards her.

"Who do these puny kids think they are, calling my best friend a freak?!" Paul exclaimed, standing tall and mighty and invisible beside Leah who just wished she could disappear into thin air like her fellow ghost friend could.

"What are you doing here after school?" Calum asked, tucking his helmet under his arm.

"I...I was-" Leah thought hard to come up with an excuse.

"Should have thought it up before.." Paul mumbled and Leah had to control herself to not look up and glare at him and make a fool out of herself in front of the star players of the school football team.

"There you are!"

Leah looked over at the owner of the voice, so did the two boys and the one ghost.

Stella Marshall stood there, a few files in her hand. "I am sorry I wasn't in the library. I had to get these from the ledger room." She said as she joined the party and turned to the two football players. "What are you boys doing here anyway?"

Leah was surprised that Stella would step in to save her but she didn't have time to dwell on the topic or listen to their conversation because right then, her palm burnt hot and all her senses shut down except for her paranormal vision. Her breaths came out ragged as she felt the being brush past her, simultaneously feeling Paul's presence disappear as the new presence overwhelmed him too much to the point of driving him away.

"Leah?"

She looked up at the owner of the voice again but all she could see was black smoke everywhere.

Black smoke and the girl who was walking away, lost and unaware of her surrounding, her identity and her story.

She didn't know who she was.

She didn't know where she was.

She didn't know how she died.

Nor could she see or hear or feel anyone around her.

All she felt now was emptiness. A sickening emptiness which could stir up a storm inside her and cause mass destruction.

As she turned around the corner, Leah felt the presence completely disappear, and she was soon rejoined by her friend.

"Oh god, that's her isn't it?" Paul whispered, his eyes searching his friend's for answers. He couldn't see her clearly because her aura was too strong, too overwhelming, and almost lethal to his existence but Leah must have seen her.

"Leah, are you alright?" Stella asked her, shaking her by the shoulders. Leah snapped out of her daze, quickly plastering a fake expression of pain. "I think I am having another one of my migraine attacks." She lied through her teeth.

Stella nodded in understanding. "Let's get you out of here."

As she walked away with the librarian, her eyes met Calum Foster's and her heart clenched.

Sarah Foster was his younger sister.

And Sarah Foster was dead.

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