Chapter Text
Jack rubbed his temples as he stood looking at the table.
“Why did I agree to do this?”
“Because you're our favourite pushover,” Miko replied, sitting cross-legged on the couch, the shoes fortunately taken off before her friend could get a heart attack at the thought of getting any dirt on the furniture, and smiled cheekily, “and your house was the only one free.”
“If my mom comes back earlier than usual, she will ground me until summer,” he muttered, but still moved to sit down on one of the spare chairs, resigned to his fate.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Come on, you're overreacting,” she said, tapping on top of the box excitedly.
Jack leveled her with a stare and pointed straight at her face. “Then why aren't we doing this at yours?”
She returned it with equal intensity, though her eyes had been filled with much more ‘duh’ than they should be able to convey without the use of sound.
“Look, I may not be in good contact with my foster folks,” she waved her hand around, the lack of care about this specific fact clear, before her face showed a little guilt, “but they have been so accommodating that I'm gonna listen to the only rule they put down,” she said, putting her hand over her heart, other up, mimicking scout's promise, as she declared:
“No occult in the house.”
Jack stared at her, unimpressed.
“I think you're spitballing.”
She shrugged, letting her hands fall open. “Think what you want, that's the truth.”
“And at mine there are always my siblings,” Raf pointed out, making them both turn towards him at once, reminding them of his presence, “they would have broken the game if I even had it in the house.”
Jack winced at the way the boy's silence made him forget that this wasn't just Miko's wild idea, and that even if his younger friend was quiet, he was also part of this madness under his roof.
“Fair point,” he admitted, the other's family numerous enough to give credit to the claim at least on that part of the situation, before he looked back to the originator of it all, “but why are we even doing this?”
Miko gestured towards the simple box, with ‘OUIJA, Mistyfying Oracle’ printed on top of the simple cover. “It's just a game, Jack,” she said innocently, as if she was talking about Monopoly (which he refused to play with her again, so he would not fall for that facade), and collapsed on the pillows, head tilting back, “and if we do encounter ghosts, it would at least be less dull.”
As much as he wanted to scoff at her insatiable boredom, he couldn't find it in himself to disagree. Since the time the war between Autobots and Decepticons… passed, it had been strange to get back to their normal lives.
The new routines they had developed refused to be forgotten; all of them were catching each other at expecting the bots to appear, at talking about things they were planning to do only to remember that they no longer had those options available. Their old hobbies were bringing them less joy, the daytime dragged on, and their main way of dealing with it so far was to gravitate to one another, as the only ones who understood the special kind of bonds that they have lost.
It still hurt him to think about having to say his goodbyes to Arcee, but just like the others, he couldn't blame the Autobots for leaving; they had a planet to rebuild, and Optimus had just-
Jack still couldn't believe that Prime was gone.
Megatron flew off to god-knows-where, dropping the war like an old toy that was no longer holding his interest, and lived, while Optimus had to sacrifice his life for everyone the moment they were about to have peace.
This wasn't fair.
He looked around, noting the muted expressions; even Miko, for all of her energetic personality, had grown somber.
“I'm gonna leave Jasper in a month,” she mumbled, putting her face in her hands for a moment, “I need to at least… try.”
Before he could try to get worried about a response to such a statement, out of his depth, she groaned, and looked up at him.
“You and Raf at least will stay here for longer, you will have each other close” she complained, and shifted her focus between the two boys, “I don't think either of you will visit me when I go back to Japan, will you? It's so damn expensive to fly there…”
Jack knew the answer from his end straight away, having grown up very mindful about the finances, but it didn't stop him from feeling obligated to try to offer some comfort.
“It's okay, Miko,” he tried to force a reassuring smile, feeling the clumsiness of it by the pull of his facial muscles, "we're gonna see what we can do.”
“And we can still call each other,” Raf proposed helpfully, pushing his glasses up his nose, and the older boy rushed to nod along, hoping it would get Miko out of her blues.
She didn't seem too convinced, but she smiled back anyways, reciprocating in their little theatre of empty promises.
They were all still kids.
Man, that was depressing.
Jack cleared his throat awkwardly, before pointing at the box and glancing at the girl.
“Still, if you get demons into my house,” he announced, firmly but also with an unmistakable air of a friendly joke, “I'm not covering for you in front of my mom.”
She picked up on it easily enough, a grin forming properly on her face.
“Gotcha,” she confirmed with her usual careless approach, and reached out to the game, her pigtails shaking as she proclaimed cheerfully:
“Well then, let's go for it!”
It took a moment to get the board set up on the table so they could all reach it comfortably, forcing Jack to get his chair over so they could congregate alongside one end, closest to Raf, while Miko just scooted over on the couch, holding the planchette.
The instructions themselves weren't overly long, and it's not like they were going to read them anyways; both the older teens have seen enough movies to know how it was meant to work, and Raf had already read up on it when their chaotic friend pitched it, so after rolling their eyes at the suggestion of only having two people play it at once, they got straight to it.
Their hands joined on the small, heart shaped indicator, and Jack already congratulated himself for getting them closest to the youngest among them - the boy's reach was much shorter than theirs, so at least this way he wasn't excluded by their thoughtlessness.
“Is there anyone here with us?” Miko asked, half-whisper, half-dramatic suspense worthy of a B-movie; which was ironic, in a way, as it was also how their host felt about sitting there with his fingers lightly brushing against the planchette and trying to ignore all the voices in his brain telling him that they are being stupid.
This would either work or not, and he knew which side of the answer he would prefer to be.
Which was also why his breath hitched when the item seemed to have moved on its own.
He looked around, scanning the other's faces, but all of them seemed equally shocked.
“Okay guys, this is weird,” Miko admonished them both, recovering the fastest, “don't push it yourself.”
Jack felt his heart begin to thud.
“I… I'm not?” he managed to get out in a whine, as he turned towards their small friend.
“Raf?”
The boy looked paler than usual. “It's slipping my fingers, actually.”
The girl stared at them, and soon her mouth clocked shut from where it hanged open, and she shook her head.
“Okay, maybe it's just a coincidence,” she concluded, swallowing hard and asking clearly into the air:
“What's your name?”
For a couple of long seconds, they stared at the planchette as they focused to keep their hold gentle despite the tension.
It didn't move.
They all breathed out at once.
“See?” Miko laughed, “We're just-”
They noticed her eyes dart towards the board before they felt the indicator tug from beneath their digits, slowly moving across the letters.
“No way,” she gave voice to the thoughts inside their heads, as she followed along the letters as the tiny window stopped over specific spots.
“J-I-M-M-Y,” she narrated slowly, and then exchanged looks with the older boy; the name didn't seem like a demonic one, but it also didn't sound like a way an adult would have identified themselves - they would have chosen ‘Jim’ at least, wouldn't they?
Had they called upon a ghost of a child?
She glanced between the two of her friends, and noticed their reluctance to pick up on the conversation they had clearly started.
It was only polite to at least exchange some pleasantries, wasn't it?
“Well, Jimmy,” she replied, as if this just a normal situation, and not something completely not of this world, “nice to meet you, I hope.”
There was no reply to that, which wasn't the best sign, but she tried again.
“Is there anything you'd like to tell us?”
This time, their hands followed along at a bit of a faster rate, the motion more fluid, and their eyes remained trained on the tiny window.
T-R-A-P-P-E-D
“Huh,” Miko let out, the message leaving her mind blank, and followed up with an ask for clarification.
“You or us?”
A short movement.
M-E
She nodded along, still processing it, but her tongue was already a step ahead of her.
“Do you need… help?”
The planchette rolled over to the side, landing on the affirmative.
This time, Jack intervened with a tightness in his voice.
“We will think about it,” he promised, before forcing the planchette down onto the farewell sign.
“Goodbye, Jimmy,” he hissed out, and the moment he said so, he let go.
He almost expected to see the indicator move again, but it seemed they hadn't broken the game, as there were no more signs of activity, nor had the board caught on fire, so they should be in the clear for now.
‘For now’ was the key part he needed to address quickly, because he couldn't afford (now that he knew this shit was real) to have one of his friends do something reckless again.
He turned, hands clasped together as in a prayer.
“Miko, do not tell me you were thinking about helping some unknown spirit get out of whatever trapped them?”
She rubbed her neck, expression sheepish. “I mean…” she trailed off, shrugging, and he grunted to himself a couple of mumbled swearwords.
“Have you learned nothing from those movies?” he asked her with rising incredulity at the notion of what she almost had done, as he pointed at the game accusingly.
“This is clearly the start of a horror movie,” he claimed, hands flying up in his exasperation, “we let the spirit out and we're gonna be in so much trouble…” he growled to himself, mourning his own common sense, because it clearly had to have died when he didn't just kick this idea out of Miko's head when it came up.
“But it could also be just a lost soul needing help,” she countered, crossing her arms, which made him just feel immensely tired.
Was this how his mom felt when he did something stupid she told him not to do?
He needed to make sure to give her an amazing gift for this year's Mother's Day, this was awful.
He picked up the planchette. “None of us are experts on this,” he said, putting it back in the box, as well as the board, before closing a lid of it with a push that was probably harder than necessary.
“I'll not risk demons in my mom's house,” he stated, hands still on top of the game, staring at the girl hard and lifting the box, handing it to her challengingly.
“If you want to do this, I'm not gonna be a part of it.”
She didn't take it, saying nothing.
He lowered it on the table; either she was honest about her foster family, or she was too stubborn to admit that she was in over her head, but either way, he bemoaned the fact that he felt the responsibility to keep her out of trouble in any way he could.
“I'm not going to lecture Raf on this, because he's clearly smarter than both of us and understands how dangerous this is,” he started, motioning towards the boy that had his hands tightly gripping onto his kneecaps, “but Miko, do not try this again.”
She patted the younger boy's shoulder when she noticed his demeanor, but Jack didn't let up, needing the message to land properly.
“We played, something answered,” he pointed out, tapping the lid, keeping his eyes on her as he tried to imitate his mother's sternness, “let's not push this any further.”
She nodded, but she wasn't meeting his eyes.
He bit his lip.
Chance of mischief that will end up biting him in the ass: still too high.
He glared at the box. “If you ask me, I'd burn this down,” he confessed, and tilted his head all the way to the side in an exaggerated arc, “but I don't think it'd increase our chances of not being inside of a horror movie.”
The fire worked wonders almost until it turned out that the way to release the entity - and while the game would sustain damage in the landfill, unless it Jumanji'ed its way back, it should no longer be their problem.
He sure as hell wasn't going to keep it inside, no way.
“I'm just gonna throw it into the trash and pull the bin out for morning collection,” he decided, letting everyone know in case they wanted to offer reasonable suggestions against the choice; keeping the board could be crucial in case something did move over, but the ghost would have interfered if it could, wouldn't it?
As it was, what mattered was to cut the ties with it all as quickly as possible.
“I say we forget what we had discovered about the life behind death,” he proposed, earning him a small nod from Raf, and silence from the girl.
He sighed, asking whichever power in the universe was listening to give him patience, and queried directly:
“Got it, Miko?”
She finally looked at him, and by the tightness of her jaw he suspected she was considering arguing, but a quick look at the smaller boy made her sigh too.
“Yeah, yeah,” she capitulated, “got it.”
Jack watched her for some more, but when she reached out for the remote, he exhaled quietly and put the box under his arm, going out to throw into the bin already.
The sooner it was out of his house, the less chances of Miko pulling them into some supernatural bullshit that would have people projectile vomiting or walls bleeding.
Cleaning it all up would not be worth the adventure.
*****
Raf sat with his back against the wall, watching the empty parking lot in the shade against the late September sun.
Against what someone might have expected out of him, when the fire alarm sounded off during classes, everyone filing away in front of the school, he waited just enough for the headcount to be confirmed before he took a page from Miko's book - and played hooky.
The bag against his side, or rather what rested against his laptop in there, had already been proof he had been taking some inspiration from the girl when Jack wasn't looking.
He still wondered what pushed him to sneak out in the early morning after their overnight hangout, open the bin, slip the board and the planchette into his bag (he was glad that it somehow fit inside of his backpack, too big for him as it was), and return as if nothing happened later on, waiting for his older friends to wake up properly, pretending to sleep as they began to rouse from their own dreams, but he had been carrying it around for a few weeks now, so at least he was fairly sure it wasn't a demon; nothing oozed nor had there been any spooky things happening around them, so even when anyone learned about it, he had good enough of a defense about his temporary lapse of judgement.
He grimaced.
If someone learned about it.
Just as he suspected, when the school year began again, and Miko had left, it was already obvious that Jack had been getting more and more distracted, his career path becoming more of a pressing concern. Their conversations had been stalling, the time zone differences impacting their shared chat, and almost organically Raf had found himself in the same place he was before.
Alone.
The building he hid behind was quietly buzzing, with only occasional noise of the doors opening when someone got out for a cigarette break, and with those sounds as his only company, he wondered if he had stolen the game because he suspected his chances of making new friends were so tiny, he had better odds with those who were dead.
Jack would have thrown a fit if he knew.
The thought had made him pout, anger joining the fray, and soon after he had his backpack open, the game landing at his front, planchette at the ready.
He was tired of always being the reasonable one, the one who knew better, the smart one.
The one who had all the expectations piled on him, if he liked them or not.
The one nobody had to worry about because he was taking care of himself well enough.
He put his hands on the indicator.
It was time to finally be a dumb teenager for once.
Others seemed to survive just fine, so why wouldn’t he?
He took a deep breath, and let it out.
Here we go…
“Hello?” he called out clearly, and waited.
And waited.
And waited a little more, right until it felt really awkward.
“Is anyone here?” he tried again, giving the planchette a little nudge in case it was stuck for some reason, but it glided right as he pushed it, and stopped when he stopped too.
No signs of a presence like it did back there in Jack’s house, no movements, not even a little pull.
He was alone, after all.
He rested back on his heels, trying not to feel disappointed.
“Even ghosts don't want to hang out with me, huh,” he mumbled to himself, pushing the thoughts of being so undesirable of a company that even those with nothing to do - the dead - would prefer not to reach out to one of the idiots who tried to contact them if it was just him on the other end.
Belatedly, he theoretized that perhaps his older friend’s house has been somehow special; maybe it was on the laylines, or something like that, if he remembered his quick research correctly-
He shook his head.
No point in thinking about that.
This was a stupid idea anyways.
He began pushing the indicator down slowly, towards the farewell. “I guess I better say goodbye, I'm already pushing the rules doing this alone-”
The planchette became rigid under his fingers.
He tried pushing it again, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried another direction, and noticed that he was able to move it anywhere else - just not on the ‘Goodbye’.
It was as if someone was stopping him from ceasing the conversation.
Okay, that was a little creepy.
“Who is it?” Raf asked with as much firmness in his voice as he could muster, “Tell me your name!”
He stared at the indicator intently, before scolding himself as he lessened the force on it, in case his grip caused any issues in the communication, but oddly enough, nothing happened again.
He tried to move it down again, and once more he had been stopped.
This was getting frustrating.
“Can’t you hear me?” he grumbled, annoyed at the weird standoff he was apparently in, before his own words reached his brain.
He pulled his sleeves back. “Okay, let's do it your way,” he muttered, correcting his hold and thinking for a moment as he began to slowly move the window over the letters, mumbling them out as he attempted to get straight to the point.
“W…H…O…”
He barely traced the ‘O’ when the planchette got out, and moved across the same pattern it did all those weeks ago.
J-I-M-M-Y
Raf didn’t know if it was a coincidence, or Jimmy was the only ghost in town, but he didn’t mind that this much - someone actually was there!
And they were talking to him!
“Hello again!” he greeted with a smile, tilting his head as he held his fingers deliberately loose, “Why didn't you answer before?”
Nothing.
Again.
He leaned closer to the board, like he did when he was putting the message in last time.
“... Hello?”
No response.
Well, at least he knew it wasn’t just a one-off problem, at least, nor a proximity issue.
All that remained was to get his hands to move again.
C-A-N-Y-O-U-H-E-A-R
The indicator almost slipped from his hands as it shifted towards the negative, leaving the boy stumped.
“Weird, you could last time-” he managed to observe, but he was cut off when the small window started to move around the board again.
P-H-O-N-E
“You need a phone?” he repeated loudly, the pieces of this strange puzzle starting to feel more and more absurd. At the same time, it was a new clue as to who Jimmy actually was - he couldn’t have been too old if he knew what phone was, though he had no clue if it meant he knew what mobile phones were.
What could be the reason for a ghost to need a phone?
Nonetheless, he decided to indulge the spirit. “That's quite specific, but I think mine should be…” he looked away, towards his bag as he searched the pockets, and was surprised to see it not turn on under his touch. “Oh, I forgot to turn it on after the test,” he remembered, taking a moment to get the device back on, the screen lighting up obediently, and putting it on the side of the board as he took hold of the planchette again.
“Is this enough?”
The answer, this time, was immediate - the indicator moved over across to the other side, landing on the affirmative.
Raf felt his brows furrow. “Why do you need this to hear me?” he questioned, curious at the weird connection between the ghost’s ability to hear with the state of his phone.
The reply was overwhelmingly absurd.
I-D-K
He felt his mouth fall open, closing it as the voice of his mother piped back at the back of his mind to shut it unless he was looking to catch flies, and attempted to clarify, in case the message was a fluke.
“You… don't know?”
Same side of the board as before.
YES
Alright, now he was sure Jimmy had to be someone fairly modern - the use of this acronym was relatively recent.
When had he died? The name made him sound young, did he die in an accident, or was it some illness-
This was probably not the best thing to ask someone about straight away, so he tried to reel his thoughts back.
“You're a weird ghost,” he commented light-heartedly, and the planchette moved away and back on the same reply, making him chuckle.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, oddly hoping to see confirmation.
Was it sad that he hoped a random spirit remembered him?
The indicator moved a little away, before returning where it was.
He smirked challengingly. “What's my name, then?”
This time the window began to hover over letters.
Seeing his name - his full name, in fact - get spelled out to him without any sort of a stumble made him put his fingers down before the other could get the entire way, pressing hard over the ‘Q’ to stop the motion further.
“Okay, okay, you do know,” he acknowledged, trying to find a reasonable explanation to the ghost knowing his identity to this sort of accuracy, and drawing up a blank - aside from ‘afterlife magic’, of course, which didn’t feel exactly logical to his own brain.
He felt the planchette tug a little against his hold, and, for the lack of other alternatives, he let up, following along the trajectory with his eyes.
Y-R-U-A-L-O-N-E
“You're better off asking when am I not alone,” he responded quietly, the initial excitement giving way to his previous melancholy, and he felt his shoulders curve inwards, slumped.
“Everyone is too busy,” he admitted, looking away, trusting his fingers to alert him in case Jimmy wanted to say something, “and with Aut-” he caught himself, the secrecy still imprinted in his mind, “my other friends gone… “I'm having a lot of time to myself,” he clarified, and sighed, “again.”
There was no motion on the board, which he wasn't sure how to interpret - as pity, indifference, or a prompt to continue - but the mention of others made him suddenly feel rather guilty at contacting the spirit again, even if it was an insanely low chance; given Jack's last response, the ghost could have been waiting for a resolution to the promise made.
It wouldn't be kind to lead him on about those odds - and it costs nothing to be kind.
“Look, you said you're trapped,” he said, squaring his shoulders to give himself more confidence as he braced himself for a backlash for stating a boundary, “I don't think Jack is incorrect, it does sound like the worst idea to try to help you,” he admitted, and bit his cheek.
“I also don't know how to even get around this,” he whispered out, apologetically, “I checked the web and nothing looks credible enough, so I don't think I can help you, no matter what.”
Now, the hardest part…
“So if you want to go away…” he offered, showing the best smile he could pull off without feeling overly pathetic, “that would be fine, I'll understand.”
Then he sat back, hands loose as he wondered if the spirit would even give him a response before leaving, or he would need to figure it out when he wouldn't get the answer in the next couple of minutes, yet the worry didn't have a major chance to root itself in his heart because the planchette moved, and he allowed his fingers to gently hold on as he read the message.
I-T-S-O-K
He blinked slowly. “Really?”
The indicator rolled towards the affirmative.
Some of the tension left him, which was great, but at the same time, a different part of him doubted the ease with which the answer was given.
“But… why?” he countered, to his own detriment, “I can't help you,” he repeated, hating to feel the need to know the truth before letting himself hope again; there had to be a reason!
U-D-O
The short response made him feel bitter, even if it made sense.
Of course the ghost had seen something he could use him for; probably to possess him later, or to use his brain to manipulate him, or whatever else anyone would have wanted to be his friend-
“How, precisely?” he asked, much less warmly than he had been speaking for now, but right then, he didn't pay attention to that.
Not when his eyes took each letter the window showed, piecing together the response.
N-O-M-O-R-E-S-I-L-E-N-C-E
The seething coldness in his soul abated.
“Huh…” was all he could muster at first, looking at the board blankly as his fingers trembled.
Whoever Jimmy was, it didn't sound like he had anyone to talk to.
He felt the edge of his lips curl up in a bittersweet smile.
“I guess we have that in common,” he acknowledged, swallowing down as he felt his throat tighten, not willing to wait until his voice broke.
Indeed, what a pair they made.
“My friends, the ones you heard before,” he reminisced about that overnight stay, one of the last they did before Miko left to go back, “one is already away,” he stated, staring emptily ahead, “the other one was looking for a job again, so he can't hang around so much anymore…”
He paused; he had already had the same talk with himself in the past a thousand times, in his head, but aloud it sounded a bit too much like whining.
He really didn't like being ‘mature for his age’, as some of his teachers called him.
It just meant nobody really took the time to care about him.
“Can't really blame them, you know,” he conceded in the end, shrugging his shoulders, “but it sucks to be alone.”
The admission felt natural when it left his mouth, and emboldened by his own slip-up, he pressed on.
“Don't tell them,” he said, tone conspiratorial, “but sometimes I wish they hadn't bumped into me back then.”
Only the fact that his fingers stayed on the indicator was preventing him from hugging himself around his knees, but it did nothing to restrain his tongue as he stated, hollow:
“It was easier to deal with this when I didn't know any better.”
As much as it hurt to say that, it was true. If he hadn't known just how interesting his life could be, how many people - and Cybertronians - could be an active part of his life if the circumstances aligned, he wouldn't be mourning what could not happen again.
The opportunity has come and gone.
All he could do was to make the best of what he had left.
He was startled when the planchette moved again.
U-C-A-N-M-A-K-E-N-E-W-F-R-I-E-N-D-S
“If that was so easy…” he shook his head, murmuring, “I'm not very lucky in that regard.”
There was a beat of silence, which made him suspect that Jimmy was struggling to keep the conversation flowing with Raf's lack of a contribution, so he tried to lose some of his moroseness.
“But I guess that has its good sides,” he claimed, “I have the time to talk with you… if you want, of course.”
His tone was adequately cheerful, but when there was no response, the worry crept in.
What if he already blew it?
He rushed to salvage the situation. “I don't want to assume you'd like to, you know, so if I misunderstood, I'm sorry-”
The planchette rolled to the side.
YES
“Yes…” he read out, considering the response, and frowned, “yes, want to talk, or yes, I misunderstood?”
The window rolled higher, stopping above ‘1’.
The former, then.
Yes, wanted to talk.
“Oh!” he exclaimed happily, bordering on nervousness, “Nice to meet you then, Jimmy.”
He didn't get to see the reply, because that was the moment when he heard a shout from the edge of the parking lot, a policeman whistling for his attention.
“Hey!” he shouted, “Why aren't you at school, young man!”
“Oh no,” he breathed out, scrambling as he moved the planchette down. “sorry, I have to run,” he said, this time successfully pulling the indicator all the way to the farewell, “bye, Jimmy, I will reach back soon, promise!”
He missed the cop's fingers by a narrow margin when he darted through the hole in the fence, small enough to get through even as he clutched his bag to his front the entire time.
Running as fast as his feet could take him, he dived out of sight until he was sure he was no longer followed.
The entire time, though, despite the circumstances, his face was split with a most genuine smile he had put on in what felt like ages.
*****
There was a benefit with the fact that school year was underway; his teachers had easily bought the story about a sudden bout of sickness, his track record helping him out a little, and when he asked if he could be given access to one of the computer labs so he could work on his own projects after hours, they had no concerns as well, asking him only to not leave the door open when he left, setting up an arrangement with one of the janitors to make it all happen.
Now, he had his own little nook at the side of the room where he was able to leave his things without anyone being overly interested, given the amount of scrap and paper he crammed inside the box, labeling it as ‘DO NOT THROW OUT - PROJECT MATERIAL’ to dissuade ancient from questioning it too much and from throwing it out mindlessly.
He would have preferred to not have to do all of this, but he really didn't want any of his siblings to do anything stupid; he didn't think they would care enough to do it maliciously, but accidents have happened in the past enough to know that he wasn't going to risk this.
What if Jimmy was bound to this specific game, and not just any of them?
The board and the planchette was covered in plain, stiff paper, to make the shapes less obvious or interesting; as long as nobody asked him about the materials, he would be fine - and he knew his teachers won't care as long as he produced some results once in a while.
He had a couple of stray ideas, so he could very well play along to that.
As he gained the new privacy, without having to be exposed to the elements or making excuses to his mother, he started to take care to wait until the room would be completely empty before he got the board up, and called out to Jimmy.
The spirit would answer every time; now that he knew that his phone was the fundamental necessity, the response would be almost instantaneous - either the ghost was really desperate for company, or had nothing better to do, but it did make a rush of warmth flood him each time he would be greeted within seconds.
After being overlooked so long, it felt… nice.
Still, it was a little bit hard to get the hang of what they could talk about; there was a reason why Raf didn't exactly have many friends, and it had quite a lot to do with his shyness. It didn't help that he wasn't always perfect at reading the room when he started going about something.
Like now, when his own curiosity made him finally try to ask more about Jimmy's experiences.
It wasn't often one could actually make a coherent conversation with someone dead, so nobody could blame him for doing his part.
For science.
Obviously.
“Are you in any… pain?” he questioned timidly, feeling as if he was tactless to ask, but after he already blurted out the direct ‘Do you know how you died?’, he probably wouldn't top that anytime soon no matter who he came up with.
And the other replied again with IDK, so he didn't think he would hold the grudge for that one.
He watched as the planchette moved to one edge - and then immediately went back to another, making the journey a couple of times in a span of seconds.
YES. NO. YES. NO. YES-
He waited for the tool to freeze, and only followed up then. “Not very precise, you know… is it something you can't describe?”
A pause, and then the next message formed - slower than usual, he noted, but he waited patiently.
H-U-N-G-E-R
He thought the answer over, but it didn't make sense. “That is really weird…” he commented after a moment, and posed the most likely scenario:
“Are you in Hell?”
The reply was a slow roll towards the negative, which made Raf at once sag down in relief and humph at his most obvious theory being wrong.
“How can someone still experience hunger when they're dead?” he wondered, looking down towards his notes, tapping the page idly, “With Hell at least I'd understand it as punishment or something, but does it mean if you can starve even after you die?”
He shuddered involuntarily.
“That is so messed up…”
The planchette moved to confirm the agreement to his assessment.
The continued willingness to answer had been comforting enough that Raf still found himself pressing on.
“But aside from that…” he gestured vaguely, not certain how to phrase the odd limbo in which the other had to be, “and well, being trapped,” he added for clarity, “are you okay?”
His hand, the one that rested on the planchette, his latest experiment working well enough to confirm that he didn't need both hands on the tool to maintain the conversation, waited for the first pull, but it didn't seem to be coming.
“You accepted that I can't get you out, and stayed around instead of looking for someone else,” he reminded them both, trying for optimism, “so maybe it's not so bad…?”
Despite nothing changing, no motion being made, he could almost feel the critical glare leveled at him.
“Okay, no, forget it,” he gave up, “being trapped sucks no matter how nice it could be in the cage.”
It didn't seem enough, but at least the heaviness of the other's judgement seemed to have gone a little less severe.
“I'm sorry,” he offered genuinely, “do you want to maybe talk about something else?”
Topic change seemed to be enough to get them out of the awkwardness, as the indicator moved with a little more jerkiness at turns than usual.
U-R-D-A-Y
“Alright…” he accepted, not wanting to upset Jimmy further, and thought about his day so far, until he stumbled upon something that could pass as a humorous anecdote.
“Remember that computer science class I told you about?” he asked, smiling when the affirmative followed, “So I've found a hole in the school's firewall…”
*****
They fell into a comfortable routine, or at least Raf thought it was one.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he stayed behind in the lab, way past any other ambitious students would have considered reasonable, and took the board up, to speak with Jimmy.
The ghost wasn't much of a talker, but he had been a good listener; he retained everything he was ever told, and offered enough interaction to make the (rather one-sided) conversation flow naturally.
It was quite sad that the spirit lost some of his memories, though.
He tried asking Jimmy, having already started digging into the local obituary records, as well as maybe, kinda, sorta, getting into the nearest funeral home's systems to search their archives for the other's identity, in case there was some family to be consoled - but with a name as common as ‘James’, he already found a couple of kids that had died over last decade; he needed more data to narrow things down.
That was when he learned that the ghost had only vague recollections of his life, with the only few memories mostly related to his siblings, some of which he knew had died before him.
Granted, with the way Jimmy spoke about them, and the things they have done, it could have also been pets, but he didn't have much success in clearing that up.
Still, this ended up making things much more complicated; there was no matching James in the database with deaths in the family, and there was very little chance to narrow down their pet situation besides knocking on people's doors and asking directly about whatever happened a decade earlier or so.
He could be looking at a county wide search, at the very least.
Oddly, it didn't make him feel too annoyed; it was a search doomed to failure, most likely, but it was almost like a case for a digital detective.
It gave him a goal.
His days, quite quickly, seemed to shorten; where previously hours dragged on, the empty pavement in front of the school making things even worse, now he found himself skipping in sleep as he dove into the searching, spent time talking to his new friend, and kept his few projects alive.
He was barely keeping the balance between reasonable and overdoing it, but this time at least there wasn't a war going on.
All things considered, the fact that he was hiding from adults that he had dabbled into some occult things was still a lot more believable than if he tried to explain the prior circumstances.
It felt good to be busy, though.
He was so busy, in fact, that he was catching his rambling way too late; he would speak to himself and any audience sometimes, especially when he was working something out, the quiet of the lab itching to be filled.
He didn't like catching himself when he passed the point at which he should have stopped talking, and with Jimmy, that had been rather blurred - so when he realised he had yet again been spouting his usual babbling, he stared down at the board with guilt.
Thanks to the beauty of the scientific method, they realised as long as the conversation had not been ceased, the physical contact with the planchette wasn't necessary for the ghost to talk back, but it also meant it was harder to notice if he had been asked to stop if it was done mid-explaination, his mind too active to think about how he sounded.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, settling himself back into the chair, “I've been talking for so long, I must be boring you,” he stated with a falsely neutral tone, and put a finger in his own mouth, before mimicking zipping it closed.
“I know it's not very interesting, so I'll shut up now, okay?”
The indicator moved.
NO
Raf froze. “What do you mean?”
The planchette didn't change position immediately, but quickly enough, it rolled around unassisted.
G-O-A-H-E-A-D
An encouragement.
There was something tight in his chest, and his throat closed off for a brief second.
“You don't need to lie, Jimmy,” he assured, not wanting to jump to conclusions, “nobody likes to listen to my rambling,” he said, the words only slightly strained, to his relief, “especially about electronics-”
Another flash of movements, his pupils following along.
I-D-O
“Really?” he asked, watching the indicator roll to the ‘Yes’, and feeling his lungs constrict despite the laugh that made its way past his lips.
Why was it so good to have someone say they liked to listen to him talk his head off about the things he enjoyed?
He looked down when he noticed a hint of motion.
U-S-O-U-N-D-H-A-P-P-Y
He had been laughing to himself this entire time, he realised, and could barely stop himself, edging on some weird sort of hysteria. “I am,” he confirmed, trying to reel it back and failing.
The planchette started up again.
B-U-T-U-R-C-R-Y-I-N-G
That would expect the wetness on his hands, when he tried to gently slap himself out of the fit. “An eyelash fell in my eye,” he lied halfheartedly, wiping his face with his sleeve.
Really, he was too old for this sort of a reaction - not for something so silly.
He looked down at the board. “Don't worry,” he added with a smile that felt right, despite the redness that surely showed on his cheeks, and took a moment to drink some water, breathing quietly to get the worst of it out.
No need to dwell on that.
When he felt more centered, he let his hands link on his lap.
“You want me to continue?”
Sharp movement.
YES
The enthusiasm was almost tangible.
Still, the little voice in the back of his head was whispering its doubts, too insidious to be weeded out by singular affirmation. He tried to fight it, to use his brain - his most important asset, after all - but the insecurity ran too deep to let itself be fully ignored.
“Alright, but tell me at any point if I need to stop, okay? I won’t be upset if you do.”
His offer was met with a quick response.
YES
Raf smiled.
As long as Jimmy knew he could always tell him to shut up, he could feel a little less guilty about talking his ear off.
*****
Over the course of weeks, they had managed to dig deeper into the one mystery that had nagged on the boy from the start - why the spirit board and the phone were needed to speak to the dead?
Not that they found the answer, mind you, but they had gradually realised that the spirit could write out messages directly on the phone - and as long as the conversation was ‘active’, so to speak, and farewell was not made, it was possible to maintain a connection away from the game itself.
That was definitely harder for Jimmy to do so, though, as the time between questions and responses had stretched out, and some of the messages would scramble, but for Raf, it was still a massive win.
Now he really could have a friend in his pocket, strange as it was to say in the privacy of his mind.
He still was going to continue using the board when he was in the lab, not wanting to put an unnecessary strain on the ghost, but at least now he could contact him more often, without having to hermit himself away.
It was almost like having a real friend at his side-
He faltered at the category he had placed their relationship in.
They were talking, sure, and he had been having a lot of time, his heart told him the other was a friend - but had he ever heard anything like that coming from Jimmy?
What if he was just… nice?
It was painful to consider that the level of trust, estimated familiarity and preference for each other’s company was not balanced between them.
Painful enough to keep him up at night, the sounds of the other occupants of his home never letting it go truly quiet.
He pulled his phone out, keeping it under covers so the light wouldn’t be too obvious, and stared at it for a long while, before finally unlocking it, going into the inbox.
“Jimmy…” he asked quietly, not to wake up anyone, phone clutched in his hand, “are we… friends?”
He waited patiently, used by now to the delay, but it felt excruciatingly longer as his anxiety spiked up.
He didn’t know how he would handle rejection.
He wouldn’t stop talking to Jimmy, that was obvious, but in his stomach he already felt the bitter churning at the notion of learning once again he was not enough for someone he liked.
Could he get past that, to keep them as colleagues at best?
The message finally filled the text field.
‘Yes’
Simple.
Direct.
Unmistakeable.
He had to stuff his hand in his mouth to prevent the sounds from getting out, his gut beginning to settle at the tangible reassurance.
“Thank you,” he whispered, giving the other time to let him know in case there was something he would like to talk about, but it appeared the spirit wasn’t going to continue, content with the exchange, brief as it was.
With a much lighter heart, he laid himself back on the pillow, phone in his hand, and tried to go back to sleep.
*****
The rain's pitterpatter on the windows of the lab was soothing, even if the dark clouds made the relatively early hour feel like an evening already.
“You know,” Raf said, getting up to get the blood moving in his legs, wincing at the static coming up as his hours of research made him forget to do more than drink from a bottle of water he kept inside a bucket by his feet, needing it close by but not at the expense of causing a hazard to the equipment in the lab, “I wish this was actually something I could solve.”
He looked at his hands, squeezing them briefly.
“I'm smart, that's my thing, you know?” he asked without expecting any reply, watching the board with letters almost accusingly, and deflating.
“But I can't hack into the afterlife,” he had to admit his limitation, no matter how grating it was to let anyone know he lacked skill or knowledge to do something clearly impossible, and gestured at the papers around him, his notes strewn everywhere, “and these articles are seriously not making much sense either.”
Alien tech made more sense than these guys on all these forums insisted was true, and so he sighed, looking to search for a granola bar he bought with his allowance specifically since he expected to stay in a bit longer, willing to blame the weather if necessary.
“Do you think you could give me some more information, anything that could be useful to figure out your case?”
He heard the first sound of the planchette moving around, and called for the other to slow down, and absent mindedly looked to get his phone out, checking in case someone had needed something from him, and frowned when it didn’t light up.
“Damn, I forgot to charge my phone,” he muttered, looking for a charger, hoping that nothing out of the ordinary happened and his unreachability won’t get him in any sort of trouble at home.
He put the plug into the nearest socket, but before he put the connector end into his phone, he stopped, cord hanging accusingly in his hand.
“Hang on - how can you hear me then?”
The indicator didn’t land on any letter when it had moved, but its pointy end was directed at the screen of his laptop.
He slowly looked at it, and noticed a note app had opened, showing a little ‘:)’ typed out as the only reply.
Raf couldn’t believe what he was seeing - this was impossible!
“That's so cool!” he echoed the thoughts filling his mind, amazed by what his friend had managed to accomplish; it was an incredible step, though perhaps he didn’t know towards what, but to be able to connect through something different than a phone was a development that had to mean something-
The barrage of questions - when had he learned he could do that, how did it feel, what did he think it meant - stopped on his tongue, when he looked at the smiling face again, something in his gut tugged on him to recognize what his unconscious brain had pieced up.
Something that grew very, very alarmed - very, very fast.
“Wait,” he looked between the board stashed on the side and his computer, and pulled down a piece of scrap paper, the ballpoint pen scratching the page loudly.
- Trapped
- Alone
- Neither in heaven or hell
- The only connection through electronics (the game = link???)
He stared at these simple bullet points, and he couldn't stop the natural conclusion.
Shadowzone.
Hesitantly, he added two more:
- Knew my whole name
- Hungry
Who did they know had been in there, without a confirmed release?
He looked at the smiling emoticon, mirroring it on paper.
“Soundwave, is this you?”
The silence stretched out as he watched the cursor blink behind the simple ‘:)’, hearing his own blood pound in his ears as his breathing continued to grow more and more uneven, head beginning to swim.
The patter of the flashing of an I-beam stuttered, and his entire screen glitched.
In the middle of it, a circle appeared - and a moment later it was filled with a hauntingly familiar smiley face.