"We went way overboard."

Arielle glared at her nails, wondering why blood hadn't lodged beneath them. She'd sliced them down Benny's back so hard, she was shocked she hadn't taken off chunks of his flesh. Tremors skidded down her spine as she imagined the pain he must have felt.

She hadn't meant to be so harsh, but the ghost had apparently planned otherwise.

"We didn't." The specter-girl clapped her hands, brushing them off, washing them clean of her actions. She dismissed her violence with a shrug and a snap of her fingers.

Disturbing.

Arielle couldn't get over it. "But that was ridiculous. And a bit too traumatizing for me, more so for him. Poor guy. Was it necessary to scratch so deep?"

She'd spent one second relishing in the sensation of touching actual skin, but moments later she was cringing, acid coating her tongue as she watched Benny's flesh tear apart and sepia-toned blood gush out of the wounds she'd caused.

Shaking, she meandered to the living room, away from the scene of her crime—two crimes, in truth. Her death, and her attack on Benny. She couldn't bear to float there and remember what she'd done, what the ghost made her do.

"Fine, maybe I got carried away," said the ghost, flowing in behind Arielle. She shuffled over to the curtains and peered outside. "But they're leaving, which was the point, no?" She chuckled as headlights blasted through the window, showcasing her pallid complexion and the quirk of her lips. "And that chick will not come back, ever. She's the one who gives Benny permission to be here, so if she denies... we're safe."

As the ghost moved away from the glass and let the drapes slide into place, Arielle froze, fixed on her eyes. They were still rimmed with real, vivid red, standing out in the sea of faded colors Arielle was growing accustomed to. She recalled how, mere moments before, the girl had transformed into someone, something else. As if possessed by rage and determined to petrify, to devour. She didn't look like a ghost, but like a demon.

Benny had mentioned the word demonic several times on his way out. Was he right? Were demons a thing, and this ghost was lying about them? Could this ghost... be one of them? Arielle hated to admit it, but it would have made sense. From what she'd seen in Ghost Adventures, and even in fictional shows, demons lied. They tricked you into trusting them, then took over your body or misled you or harmed you. The ghost... had done all three of those things in less than twenty-four hours.

And the way her image had flickered in and out of tune, like a channel losing signal, had sent Arielle through a surge of odd memories. She remembered a girl floating in front of a red door, shifting, blurring, disappearing, then returning. She remembered a white dress, baggy eyes, wet floors, and lots of red. And she remembered ominous warnings and writings on mirrors and messages in blood.

The bully? Is she still here?

Maybe that malicious ghost—that she still couldn't remember the name of—was a demon. And maybe that demon had sensed this ghost's anger and used it to drift into her—a demon possessing a ghost? Was that possible?—and blare another round of eerie alarms directed at Arielle. Maybe this potential demon didn't want Arielle to find out too much, and manipulated the ghost into cautioning her.

"You..." Arielle gulped as she dared to get closer. The specter-girl's energy had cooled down, and the glow that had encircled her had lessened. Yet there was still an aspect of negativity surrounding her, emanating from her expression of forced neutrality, dripping from her repressed smile. Something about her didn't smell right; like a subtle sulfur, rotten egg odor that Arielle knew, from TV shows, meant demon. "You okay? Back there, before we... did the deed, you... freaked out a bit. You didn't seem like yourself."

The ghost flinched, but remained otherwise unaffected, facing away from Arielle as she inspected the palms of her hands. "I told you, I can't always control my anger. Your questions... your doubts... they bothered me."

"But you... you looked like someone else, for a few minutes." Arielle chewed on her lip and gaped outside, but the obscurity threatened to feed on her, so she flipped back to the ghost. "Like... you weren't you. Your eyes changed, and you—"

"—it happens, okay?" The ghost's eyebrows rumpled as her gaze narrowed. "Some of us longer-term spirits can shift to our... original form, our living form, when under stress. It's rare, and it's not normal, but it can occur."

Arielle cocked her head and scratched at her right temple. "So your original form is... a red-eyed girl with crazy hair?"

The ghost snorted, though Arielle couldn't tell if a laugh would follow the sound... or a growl. Her features were so hard to read, so cloaked in mystery, Arielle wasn't clear if she should skidder backwards or get into her space and press her further.

But do I want to see that demonic thing again?

"The red eyes are an afterlife thing, actually," said the specter, tossing her hair as she cruised over to the other side of the room. "They're a product of severe irritation, like I said. And the longer you've been dead, the more that irritation can... build up." She spoke with such ease, not a hint of a tremor in her tone, not a trace of emotion in her words. As if her fury was a common thing, a part of her daily routine, and she had no trouble suppressing it.

"So... how long have you been dead? When... when did you die?"

This time, the ghost's face shifted to one of mortification. Her mouth propped wide open and her eyes rounded and she smacked a hand to her chest. "Arielle!" She puffed out a breath and fixed a strand of hair behind her ears, blinking rapidly. "I guess I should have taught you this sooner, but one does not ask another ghost when they died. It's like asking a lady how old she is—a big no-no."

Arielle almost cackled at the response. Where she came from, her generation didn't care about ages or old-fashioned manners like that. The ghost's offended answer gave more knowledge on her age, on the era where she died, than she likely thought. It told Arielle that she was from a time when women were easily miffed by simple questions.

She swayed closer to the ghost, but ensured the sofa was between them—an obstacle, in case her constant inquiries frustrated the girl once more.

The girl, the ghost, the specter... is there anything else I can call this thing?

She sneered. "And is it also a no-no to ask for your name? Because in all this time since I woke up and since you've appeared to rescue me, I've had no idea what to call you!"

The ghost's shoulders sank. "Ah." She bunched her lips and moved them side to side, pondering the situation. "You're correct, I never gave you my name. And that's not a no-no; it's rude." She bowed, tilting her head forward, one hand over her heart. "I'm Penelope."

A searing flash of random images tore through Arielle's mind. They pounded in her skull and poked at her eyes and tugged at her neurons, but she had no notion what they meant. Marble tiles with blurred letters, ivory and ebony candles, dark shadows looming behind metallic bars, her feet slipping down spiraling stairs—

"Ugh," said Arielle, massaging her temples as they thrummed with pain. "Nice to... meet you."

The flashes continued; some she recognized as her memories, but some were foggy moments she wasn't sure she'd ever lived. Cuts on wrists and orange-red flames swallowing kitchen appliances and a creepy, croaking laugh echoing in a dingy, dimmed room—

"The fuck?" She huddled into a ball, still levitating above ground but her butt inches from the floor-boards.

What suddenly triggered such vicious visions? What provoked such intense agony and burned inside her like a forest fire?

One last delusion drilled into her—that of herself, seated on a carpeted floor, with a cloudy-shaped person beside her. Their hands rested on a tiny wooden device that swooshed back and forth on a shiny board covered in words that Arielle couldn't read. Then more stairs; creaking, rickety, unstable, slippery—

"Okay, enough of this." Penelope yanked Arielle out of her sinister reverie, propelling her back to the present. Back to the ever-drab, ever-colorless world of the Void, where she was doomed to stay forever. "Snap out of it, kid."

Arielle batted her lashes and glanced at Penelope, who had gripped her upper arm and shook her out of her stupor. "Oh, uh... thanks." She rolled her shoulders and straightened up. "What was... what was that?"

Penelope blew a raspberry. "Unsure. It's been too long since I've been in your position, sweetie, so I don't fully comprehend the range of emotions you newbies go through. " She grabbed the edge of the couch and stretched, arching and rounding her back like a cat. "But I could tell you were getting stuck in recollections, and I needed to pull you out before they drowned you."

"Why do I... keep seeing stairs?" Arielle winced at the word, her headache returning with a vengeance at the mere mention of it. "It's like they're haunting me, or something."

"Stairs?" Penelope released the sofa and rubbed her chin. "Which stairs?"

"One set of black-and-white spiraling ones and," Arielle swallowed hard, "these ones. In this house. I can't... I can't even look at them without getting sick to my stomach and a severe pressure developing in my scalp."

"Ah." Penelope's expression was the same simple one from earlier; like when Arielle had asked for her name. And it accompanied the same nothingness in her timbre and detachment in her demeanor.

"Ah?" Arielle wished she could grab her, shake the truth from her, decode her cryptic attitude. Why all the secrecy? Why all the half-assed replies and the random rows of rage?

What is it with this chick and this realm?

"Come with me," said Penelope, zooming into the entryway.

Arielle obeyed, and found herself at the foot of the stairs. "I... I can't." She refused to lift her chin and glance at the steps that gave her such virulent vertigo. "I can't look. It's... overwhelming." Even without looking, she detected it; an oppressing, overbearing stench that clogged her throat and worsened the unease in her gut.

"Well, it makes sense to me now," said Penelope, too calm considering how Arielle's insides were flip-flopping and she couldn't keep herself balanced.

"M-makes sense?" Arielle clutched her belly and slithered backwards until she reached the farthest wall. She didn't want to go through it and end up outside, so she stilled, daring to peek at the steps from a distance.

Penelope observed the stairs, too, then pivoted to Arielle with her fists on her hips. "Yes. This type of reaction is one of the less common but totally possible side-effects of reaching the limits of your perimeter." She tilted her head and studied Arielle. "You can go outside and likely within a reasonable distance... but you can't go up. You're stuck on the ground level."

Arielle coughed, closed her eyes, and shuffled left to right.

That's an interesting development—my perimeter keeps me from going up a set of stairs?