Through A Lost Soul ?

Sophie sat in her little corner, lost in her own mess of thoughts as the two ghosts, Amanda and Julia, talked in the other corner. They had remained kind to Sophie, respecting her wishes not to be called Soph and keeping her company. Though, given that, they knew when Sophie wanted to be alone. She was pondering the best ways to escape, though her plans were unrealistic, she was getting closer to a real idea.

She was in the middle of visualizing her escape when she saw dim colors appearing in the corner of her eyes. She looked over to see a new ghost appear, and she couldn't help but wonder why she was doing this to herself. She knew the ghosts weren't real, yet her subconscious seemed to have added another reason for her to think she was crazy.

The new ghost looked at her with rather sad eyes, her black hair contrasted with her pale skin. "What's your name?" Sophie asked as she let out a breath of air, the other ghosts were friendly to her, so she had no reason to fear the new one. Amanda and Julia made their way beside her to see the new ghost, but all she did was look at Sophie.

"Could this be the other ghost we sensed?" Amanda asked, looking to Julia for confirmation. Julia nodded, but remained quiet as she looked at The Silent Ghost with wide eyes. Something about her demanded the attention of everyone in the room, and Sophie had a hard time looking away.

Sophie stumbled back in surprise when the already faded and dim girl before her got even less visible. In her, a new image started to take form. It was Charlie. His golden brown curly hair, the light freckles above his nose, she almost started to ask the ghost why she'd shown her this. It wasn't until she saw something in Charlie's eyes that she became speechless. He looked sad, a different sad than the ghost. He looked hurt.

The image started to move, and he was only looking straight ahead. His head crooked to the side. "Soph," he croaked out, making her flinch.

The Silent Ghost became fully herself again, any sign of Charlie was gone. "Was that real?" Sophie asked The Silent Ghost, but when she didn't answer, she looked to Amanda and Julia.

"I've seen this done before," Amanda started, looking back to Sophie. "It's an ability only old ghosts get. A lot older than even me. But she had to have actually been with him in order to get the image."

"Does that guy mean something to you?" Julia asked, apparently more interested in that than the mysteries of the ghost herself. The way she looked at Sophie made her wish she could make them go away. She was just crazy. This wasn't real.

"That's Charlie," she replied, trying to recall a memory the image could have come from. The memory must have been hidden deep because she couldn't find it.

"Can we leave Sophie?" Amanda asked, giving Sophie a sorry look. "I didn't mean it that way, it's just that Julia and I haven't been able to leave you." That must have meant they tried, even the figments of her imagination wanted to leave her!

"It's okay," Sophie replied looking to The Silent Ghost again, and she'd never looked away from Sophie. "If she can leave me and you can't, there must be a reason." Sophie knew that saying this meant she'd started treating them as real, but something about seeing Charlie had made her start to believe. "Is this a message from him?"

The Silent Ghost nodded.

"Can I communicate with him?" Sophie asked, Amanda and Julia had gone off in their own conversations like they always did eventually. The Silent Ghost was no longer a threat and she became old news.

The ghost replayed Charlie's message.

"Am I just supposed to talk?" The Silent Ghost only looked at her, knowing Sophie had already known the answer to her own question. With that, she started talking, hoping the message would get to Charlie. She didn't know what to say, so she just started casually. She heard people walking around outside her door, and The Silent Ghost disappeared.

"She's really fallen a lot faster than the others," one of the guys started saying. "She's already having full out conversations with herself."

"Some resort to that kind of stuff faster than the others," another voice replied, she heard feet just outside her door.

"But so soon? It makes me want to let her go. She's not fit for this," the first voice replied.

"None of them are! That's the point." The little square hole opened and a plate of food and a glass of water was slipped through. "Don't try anything, we have cameras in there. If you do anything reckless we can see."

They closed the hole and she slowly walked to the food, realizing just how hungry she was. She tried not to talk to the ghosts for the rest of the night. Those monsters couldn't see or hear the ghosts, which only proved that she'd gone crazy.

She sipped the rest of her water and ate her plate of food, she couldn't help but be grateful they weren't starving her. It was a normal portion, and she hoped they wouldn't make the portions smaller.

When she finished, she put her stuff on a tray next to the square opening, she figured they'd want their stuff back. She crawled to her blankets and started to feel really tired. She hoped they wouldn't put anything dangerous in her food, but couldn't dwell on the thought much longer because of her exhaustion.

A/N Again, sorry for the short chapter... I decided not to merge this with the next part because the next part is pretty long compared to normal chapters here. (By here, I mean in just this story,)