"Alright, big guy," Glacia said to her adoptive son, "Gale and I are having a date night. I'll be staying at his house until noon tomorrow. You gonna be okay alone?"

  "Mom, I'm eighteen. I'll be fine," Gadalik assured her. "You and him go enjoy yourselves. I'll take care of everything here in the meantime."

  "Well, okay, then, Mr. Adult," she huffed with laughter. They heard a mare's whinny come from outside. "That's him now. Stay safe! Keep the door locked if you go out on ghost business! I'll be taking the spare key in case you're not home when I get back."

  "Of course. Now do you have everything you need? Change of clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush, wallet…"

  Glacia froze, thinking it over. "Don't make me second guess myself! I packed everything in my bag last night. Now I gotta go; he's waiting on me. See ya tomorrow."

  "Have fun." He watched her leave from the doorway, exchanging a wave with Gale as the latter helped his girlfriend into the carriage. The two took off and Gadalik went back inside.

  The house was unusually quiet without her, and when he shut the door, he couldn't help feeling isolated.

  Gadalik shook the feelings away and went up the stairs toward his room, but paused at his mother's, his striped blue eyes assessing the mess visible through her carelessly left-open door. He'd had the urge to clean it ever since he returned from his most recent job where he and his companion Mira faced two powerful ghosts only three days ago. Now that Glacia was gone it was the perfect opportunity to fix it up again, although he knew from experience after he had last done so–which was when they'd returned from vacation–that she'd unintentionally trash the room soon after. Upon growing more restless the longer he did nothing, he decided to go through with it regardless. Then a memory hit him:

  "...And then there's Glacia's room..." Gale said.

  "W-What about her room?" Gadalik asked.

  "The last time you cleaned it was after a spirit destroyed your father's staff… and, almost, you."

  "Aha--yeah! That was a couple months ago. It's been a long time coming," he brushed it off.

  "Well, almost one month ago, a spirit at our vacation's resort nearly killed you… and now that we're back you've cleaned that room again. I can't help but see a connection."

  The teen presently looked down. One of the two aforementioned ghosts from his recent job had mentally possessed him–digging up his repressed childhood trauma: the day his birth-parents were murdered by a spirit right in front of him.

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  What am I doing…? Am I really that desperate for a distraction?

  Gadalik shook his head and shut her door, then continued down the hall to his own room, sitting down in the patch of waning sunlight stretching across his bed from the window above its headboard.

  The silence was deafening. He couldn't stop his mind from drifting back to the incidents Gale had mentioned, and the mental possession. The spook wanted nothing more than to forget about all of it and simply go on with his life, but it seemed that the memories were always in the back of his mind, whether or not he acknowledged it.

  ‘All of this time… I've been focusing on the here and now. I have a good life, Mira–I do. But that's not moving on from the trauma; it's just… running from it.’ That's what he had realized at the end his mission with her.

  And I'm still running, by way of all these distractions…

  ‘You just have to accept that that's how things happened, and keep going with your head held high,’ Mira had replied to him.

  Accept how bad it is… Gadalik repeated in his mind.

  He rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin on the pillow, folding his arms between it and the mattress.

  How can you simply accept something like that? It feels so bad just thinking about it… and I don't want to feel bad…! I just want to feel normal. Why can't I just be normal…?!

  The teen tucked his legs in to sit up on his knees. He once again glanced toward Glacia's room.

  No! he stopped himself. No more distractions! Just… accept it. Accept that I've witnessed my parents' deaths. Accept that the spirit had broken my father's staff in its attempt to kill me. Accept that I had brutally annihilated the ghost at the resort after it broke my rib. Accept that I actually drowned fighting a spirit at the lake. Accept that a witch nearly strangled me to death while trying to kidnap me for my blood.

  Gadalik laughed out loud humorlessly.

  Just accept it! It's no big deal!

  He continued to laugh hysterically, then fell forward, catching himself on his elbows and letting his forehead hit the pillow as his hands balled into fists on either side of it.

  His laughter then gave way to voiceless sobs.

  It was a big deal… all of it. How often he had come so close to a permanent death was terrifying. Seeing his parents slaughtered before his eyes for the second time during his possession was just the final straw that finally broke him; until now, none of it had felt like it had happened to Gadalik specifically, but rather a character in a movie, wherein he had watched the events unfold from a safe place. But now he was forced to remember that it was real life: he was the one there through it all, and he had been in just as much danger as the ones who didn't survive. He had to accept it.

  Teardrops from his tightly-closed eyes were absorbed into the pillowcase below. Sobs racked his body and he released a silent wail. All he could do was vent it all out.

  Gadalik woke up from a dreamless sleep on a pillow still dampened by tears.

  He wiped his eyes and sat up to look out the window, seeing that around an hour had passed.

  The spook turned around and leaned against the wall beneath it, staring at the ceiling. He felt… relieved, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

  He brought a hand up and inspected it. I'm here, he concluded.