I feel ridiculous. Ouija boards are toys used to scare kids, not to summon the dead (Don't even get me started on demons. Ugh). Yet, here I sit on my bedroom floor in the dark, awkwardly waiting for communication. I know the rules are bullshit. Even if I were to say goodbye spirits would continue to pester me (Again, I am not saying these things are legit). "Okay, I guess I'm really doing this." I sigh to myself, then look around the room.

      "Is there anyone here that wants to talk to me?" I wait for a response, but nothing happens. I know the spirit is here. Their presence is weak, but I can feel them looming over me. "I know something happened to you. I just want to help." Again, nothing. I start to become agitated. "I don't want to wait here all day." Nothing. I take my fingers off the planchette. "Look, I can't help you if you aren't going to talk." The spirit's presence begins to recede and I sit up straight. "Wait."

     I bite my lip. Maybe being impatient and harsh isn't the way to go. This spirit is scared and confused. They need to be... coached on how to... be a ghost. "I'm sorry. I want to help you, I really do, but to do that I need your help." I place my hands back on the planchette. "Can you do that?" My heart skips a beat as the planchette begins to slide across the board. 'Yes' The hole reveals. I laugh in disbelief. Maybe these things aren't so useless after all. "Okay," I adjust my sitting stance. "Can you tell me your name?"

      The planchette slides to 'No'. I frown. "Why not?" The planchette slides around. 'D', 'A', 'N', 'G', 'E', 'R'. "Danger." I recite. I bite my lip slightly. "Does it have to do with that warehouse?" The planchette quickly slides to 'Yes'. I nod and calculate my next question. "Are you in danger?" The planchette slides to 'No'. I raise and eyebrow. "Is someone else-" I don't even fully finish my sentence as it slides it 'Yes'. I feel the spirit's connection becoming stronger. "Who?" The planchette slides around so fast I have a hard time reading it. "Alice?" I ask, hoping I had followed along correctly.

      I scoot forward, now more invested. "Okay, who is she? Friend? Girlfriend? Daughter?" The planchette spells out 'SISTER'. My eyes shoot up as a figure begins to shade in front of me, their hands on the planchette. I look back down on the board, determined for answers. "Was she..." I swallow hard. "Did that guy try to hurt her?" It slides to 'Yes' so fast I almost lose my grip on the planchette. "Do you know where she is?" The planchette slides to 'No' and the spirit's face becomes clear.

      I squint my eyes. He looks familiar. My mind is then brought back to the hospital. The first time the spirit latched onto me was when I saw that man laying in the hospital bed. "You..." The spirit makes eye contact with me and looks surprised. He tries to say something, but no words come out. I shake my head. "I can't hear you." His features become sad and I bite my lip. "Are you that guy I saw in the hospital?" The spirit nods and I smile softly at him, taking my hands off the planchette. "If I go there, I should be able to hear you."

      He looks at me confused and I simply shrug. "Being in a coma is similar to being dead, but spirits aren't as strong. If I go to your body, then the connection should strengthen." I purse my lips. "Kind of like a cell phone connection. The closer you get to the cell tower, the stronger the connection." The spirit nods, then fades away. I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. There's just one problem with that plan. Visiting hours at the hospital ended two hours ago. Looks like I'm going to have to do some breaking and entering. Let's just hope I don't get caught. That won't look good on my college applications.

° ° °

      Movies really do dark hospitals justice. As I walk down a dark hallway in the basement the lights flicker overhead. The hum from the generators fills the halls, creating a creepy ambience. Apparently the dead don't scare me; Hospitals do. "Have you heard from Sasha today?" The voice startles me, and I quickly jump behind a bin of used bed sheets. "No, I was actually wondering if you had. You don't think something happened do you? She is due soon." Two nurses walk past, not noticing me as they do.

      Once I'm sure they are gone I continue running down the hospital hallway until I find a flight of stairs. If I remember right, the man was on the 10th floor. I look up the several staircases and gulp. This is going to do my muscles no good. I don't do anything to work out. I'm a couch potato, but a potatoes gotta do what a potatoes gotta do. I sigh and start walking up the stairs.

      I begin to wonder if this is how my brother felt when he would go out and do his night job. He was a thief if you didn't know that, but to me he was a hero. He may have done bad things, but he wasn't a bad person. To my mother he was a scorn to her family name, but me and my dad never thought that. Sure, we wanted him to have a better life but we both knew we couldn't control him.

      Of course, my brother was a professional. He wasn't breaking into hospitals to speak to dead people. That's my job. My brother did have the gift though. The lucky duck didn't have to deal with the full force of it though. He only could hear ghosts. The gift is what made us so close, but I'm the thing that got him killed.

      Finally I reach the 10th floor just in time for my lungs to nearly give out. That was a lot of walking. If I didn't lose any weight, I'm suing god because that is just bullshit. Careful Jesus, I'm coming for you.

      I laugh and shake my head at my own humor. It's a shame no one else can experience my jokes. "Okay, now to sneak past the brutalian of nurses." One thing I've learned from the countless nights at this hospital as a kid, it's that Nurses have eyes in the backs of their heads. They always caught me trying to scam the vending machine while waiting for my mother to get off work.

      I get down low as I start sneaking down the hallway. I pass by Peter's room and find it vacant. He must have been sent home. Ugh, what would he think of me doing this? Breaking into a hospital? Then again, why am I asking myself what he would think? I shake my head and scurry past the nurses station and into the room where the man was last. I close the door and slowly turn around, the presence so heavy, it rarely weighs me down to the floor. "Okay, lets try this again."

      I reach for my bag to take out the ouija board, but I hesitate, my annoyance for the darn thing resurfacing. Biting my lip, I close my bag and look around the room, briefly looking at the man's face. "Are you there?" The temperature in the room drops and I shiver, rubbing my arms. My breath is visible in the frigid air, then I notice a figure slowly appearing next to the man's body. "I'm dying..." The spirit looks up to meet my eyes and my eyes droop at how miserable he looks. "Aren't I?"

      I wish I could tell him differently, but considering the state his body is in, it's not likely. The spirit sighs and looks down at his hands. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I should have been more careful. She's my responsibility and I failed her." A pang hits my heart, causing me to clench my fists. "Whatever happened-" He looks at me and I shake my head. "It wasn't your fault." He stares at me for a long moment before looking down. "But it was."

      I open my mouth to argue, but I can't find any words leaving my mouth. How could I convince this spirit that whatever misfortune had befallen him and his sister wasn't his fault, when I could tell myself the same thing? I bite down on my tongue and take a deep breath, composing myself. This is no time for crying. "What happened to her?" The spirit glances at me, then looks up at the ceiling. "We were camping." I take a step closer to the spirit, and had I not been so close I would have missed the bittersweet smile on his lips.

      "She just turned 14. I wanted to do something special for her. Our parents died last year and neither of us have been doing very good." I nod in understanding, and I almost reach over to put my hand on his shoulder only to remember it will pass straight through. "She kept telling me she saw someone watching us from the cabin next door." He frowns and looks down at his body. "I should have listened to her." The spirit looks at me and I swallow hard as his face flickers with blood.

      "They came in during the night and tried to take her away. I fought them, but..." He looks down at his body and I then realize how he had been beaten so badly. "I told her to run. To not look back." He shakes his head sadly. "Now I have no idea where she is, and those men are still looking for her." He takes a step closer to me, desperation in his eyes. "You have to find her. Please. She'll die out there."

      Before I can stop myself, or even think of what I'm doing I blurt out my answer. "Of course I will." Looking back, maybe I should have thought things through. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten myself into the mess I now call my life.