Chapter Text
When Sunny woke up that morning, he had no reason to think it wouldn’t be an average day in his new life.
His new life was something that he was starting to get accustomed to. It was a lot different, and it wasn’t how he expected things would be. He was now free from Headspace, a place in his mind that had now become part of the past. Though he wasn’t sure if he’d ever really be seeing his old friends much anymore now that the truth was revealed…he was still glad that he had been able to forgive himself after all those years. It was good to finally get that off of his chest, once it was remembered, despite the mixed reactions that he received.
It was a week after Sunny had ended up in his new apartment in Closeby City. As it was summer, he wasn’t in school, so he was currently living a rather simple life. His mother was around more than she used to be, and though they weren’t the closest on earth, he still did appreciate her company. …Sunny was also still getting used to only having one eye.
He took a deep breath, as he finally opened his eye, sitting up. He was about to stretch, trying not to let the awful thing that had happened when he and all of his friends left the hospital cross his mind. He was—
“Hey, Sunny!” A loud voice startled him, and before he got the chance to see who had said his name, Sunny scrambled in a panic, falling backwards into his bed.
That voice…he definitely recognized it. His eye was wide with…confusion? Fear? Something like that. There was no way that voice belonged to whom it sounded like. Maybe Sunny wasn’t as good as he thought. Maybe there was still something going on in his mind, because that was the only explanation he could think of! He was afraid to look up.
It seemed he wouldn’t have to. A face peeked over to look at him, hovering over him as he leaned to where Sunny could see him.
It was Kel, alright. Albeit…a bit transparent looking. He could see straight through him, the ceiling still in his sight above him. It wasn’t possible. Not after what happened. There was no way. Kel had a bright grin, just like he always used to. He chuckled. That was surely Kel’s laugh. “Sorry, bud…did I scare ya?”
“...I’m hallucinating,” Sunny stated. He knew it was true, because there was no way Kel was standing there. It was impossible for Kel to be there after what Sunny had seen. Everyone had seen it. It was physically impossible for him to be there right then.
“You’re not hallucinating,” Kel told him, with a tiny giggle and a small roll of his eyes. “I mean, I get why you might think that. I’m not a hallucination, though! I’m definitely here.” Kel reached out his hand, briefly poking Sunny on the nose. He felt it. Sunny’s heartbeat quickened. This was confusing.
“I definitely am,” Sunny insisted. Maybe if he was so sure that this was a hallucination, the hallucination would go away. How much more clear would he have to make it that he was sure that this couldn’t be real? “I am hallucinating. I know I am hallucinating, because you can’t be here. There’s no way you could be here because you’re—”
“Dead?” Kel finished for him. If it weren’t for the fact that Sunny’s head was resting on his pillow, he would have nodded. “I am dead! I’m sure you can tell I’m not just standing here alive based on the fact that I’m, like, transparent…” Kel said, standing up all the way rather than leaning over Sunny. Sunny did his best to quickly sit back up in bed to look at him. Kel was looking down at his own, see-through arm.
“But…you can’t be here if you’re dead. I…I went to your funeral.”
Kel quickly looked at him. His smile was gone, the look on his face replaced with surprise. “My funeral already happened?” Kel asked, sounding confused. He rested his arms at his side, no longer admiring his newfound transparent-ness. “How long have I been dead for? Has it been a while?”
“Well, it—it hasn’t been that long,” Sunny replied. This all felt so surreal. “It’s been…exactly a week. I still remember it so clearly, though. It still feels so weird knowing that you’re gone—”
“I’m clearly not gone,” Kel responded. “Though, I’m surprised it's been so long! I mean, I know a week isn’t that long of a time, but I could have sworn I died like…right before I ended up here. I haven’t been here for long. I’ve only been around like ten minutes or so ago. One minute I was outside the hospital with all of you, and then the next…” Kel trailed off, looking away a bit as he fiddled with his hands.
“Yeah, I remember…”
—✩—✩—✩—
It wasn’t like I knew that I was going to die that day! I mean, I just heard the craziest news of my life, and I thought that—
Kel…this isn’t your flashback. Can’t you be quiet for just one minute?
Oh, whoops! Right… My bad.
Sunny didn’t expect his friends to take the news of the truth well. He knew that their reactions would likely be mixed at best, but he was sure that it was for the best to get it off of his chest. It wasn’t right to keep something so major from all of his friends any longer, and the thought of doing so made him sick. Maybe that was just because he felt sick, anyway. There was a chance he’d have to vomit after leaving the hospital, but that was besides the point. It was his last day he and Basil were both staying there, so he knew for a fact that he’d have to tell everyone before he moved away to Closeby.
Sunny had just finished telling the awful story of how he and Basil had been the ones to hang Mari. Talking about it made him feel more than horrible, but it was something that he had to do. The sight of Mari hanging was still something that haunted him, and he was sure that it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Little did I know, I was gonna see something else that’ll probably haunt me forever soon enough!
All of his friends were staring at him. “I’m…I’m so sorry, for all of this…” Something between shock and horror was shown on all of their faces, though on Basil, he saw both fear and shame. Kel, though…Kel looked different. While Hero looked like he’d see a ghost, Kel’s expression was a lot less telling. What Kel said was not something he expected any of his friends to even consider saying.
“Thank you for telling us, Sunny,” he said. He glanced at his brother, grimacing a bit seeing the look on his face. “It’s…it’s a lot to take in, but this doesn’t mean we’re not friends anymore..!” Sunny’s heart warmed with hope. “We’ve all just become friends again, and I think it’d be wrong to all just give up now—”
“I think it might be best if we go separate ways, at least for now,” Hero said, as if he hadn’t even heard that Kel was talking.
Ouch. Not unexpected, but still, ouch.
“I do appreciate you telling us. I just…” His hand tightened into a fist, but Sunny saw no anger on Hero’s face. “I think I’m going to need some time to process this. I’m sure you can understand.”
Sunny did understand, and with that, Hero grabbed onto his brother’s hand to make sure he’d come with him, exiting the hospital room. “Hey, wait!” Kel struggled, but still ended up following along with his brother. “I’ll figure out a way to text you or something, okay, Sunny?” Kel called out to him. “We’re totally gonna figure this out! We’ll all still be friends eventually..!” With that, Hero closed the door behind them.
Sunny wasn’t even sure what to say. That wasn’t the worst reaction he could have gotten…and he was surprised that Kel still even wanted to be friends with him after hearing what he had done. Sunny slowly turned to Aubrey. She was looking at the floor. There was a mix of emotions on her face that Sunny couldn’t quite decipher.
“I’m…I’m not really sure what to think of all of this,” she said, looking over at Basil, then at Sunny. “I…I don’t hate you guys or anything, just so you know. It’s…a lot to take in, though. Maybe we can talk later, but…I just need some time to think, like Hero said. I’m sorry.”
“It’s…it’s okay, Aubrey,” Basil chimed in, and it was the first thing that he had said in a while. His voice was fragile. “I understand.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I still feel bad about how I treated you, even knowing this now. It’s really awful, but…I can’t even imagine just how hard this was on the both of you. I still care about you. I just need time alone. I don’t…I don’t know if we’ll ever all really be friends again like we used to be, but…I just still care, like I said. I’ll see you guys…later?” The last part of that sounded more like a question, but Sunny hoped that she meant it.
As she left the room, Sunny breathed a sigh. He didn’t want to have to lose any of his friends, but…he knew it was for the best that he told them what had really happened to Mari.
—✩—✩—✩—
It was a funny coincidence, how all five friends ended up outside the hospital in the same place at the same time. It was like the world just wanted them all to be together for another moment before all of their lives were changed forever…again. Maybe the world had just wanted to make sure Hero, Sunny, Basil, and Aubrey would all see what was about to happen. No one knew that anything had changed. At that moment, not a single thing had changed! …Yet.
“Thank you for telling them, Sunny…” Basil sighed softly as the two of them walked outside the hospital. Even with the awful fight they had had, Sunny was glad to have his best friend back. Maybe things would turn out at least a bit okay. “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get myself to tell them if you didn’t.”
“Of course, Basil. I—” Sunny stopped his words and dead in his tracks when they turned the corner, seeing that everyone else was already there.
Aubrey had gone around to that side of the hospital for some alone time originally, but that was interrupted when Kel and Hero ended up there to sit at the bus stop. The bus they were going to be taking back to their neighborhood wasn’t going to be coming around for another thirty minutes or so, though, so both of them were stuck waiting around. Hero was staring off into the distance, sitting on the blue bench, while Kel aimlessly paced back and forth.
“We’re going to be waiting here for a while, anyway, right?” Kel said, stopping his pacing and looking at his brother. “I’m getting bored of just waiting around.” Sunny looked on with curiosity. It seemed that none of them had even noticed the partners in crime that just arrived. “I have a bit of cash on me, so I’m gonna go and walk over to the corner store and grab a snack or something. You want something?”
“Me?” Hero asked. Who else? Kel nodded. “Oh, no, I’m okay,” he responded. “Thanks, though. I… don’t really have an appetite right now.”
“That’s alright, man!” Kel smiled, stretching his arms. “I’ll be back in like ten minutes or something! I won’t miss the bus or anything, don’t worry!” Kel smiled, and with that, he went to cross the street. Sunny was still looking over at him, as there was not much else to grab his attention away at that moment.
If this was some dramatic story, they’d probably say it felt like time slowed down, right then. It really didn’t though. It all happened so fast that I barely got the chance to realize what was happening before it was already over…
Although Kel for whatever reason decided to cross the road in the middle of the street rather than using the crosswalk that was probably less than thirty feet away, with how fast the semi-truck had been speeding, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, anyway.
For a second, Sunny saw Kel happily going to cross the street. The next? He saw a flash of white, and then there was no one left in the street where Kel had been. Everyone froze still in an instant, just staring in horror. None of them could even believe what had just happened. Sunny blinked once. He had definitely seen that right.
Kelsey Ramirez: dead at age sixteen, killed by jaywalking and one very reckless driver. One that would never go onto get caught for their vehicular manslaughter, of course. The fact that Kel was jaywalking was likely irrelevant to his death, honestly, seeing as the truck sped across the crosswalk, as well.
That truck had been going fast. Sunny didn’t know much about vehicles, but he could only guess that the semi was going upwards of at least ninety miles per hour. Sunny didn’t know that semi-trucks could go that fast.
After screaming, Hero was the one who went and found where Kel had been left. Aubrey called 911 in a panic, but when Kel had been hit by such a large vehicle at such a high speed, he was entirely unable to be saved. Hitting the ground, however many feet away, likely didn’t help, either. Getting hit by a truck at such speeds hadn’t made any sort of blood splatter around, like Sunny thought it would, but Kel’s body had been all messed up inside from the impact. Broken bones, broken organs. Eugh. It wasn’t like Sunny knew the technical terms. He wasn’t a doctor. He just knew that Kel was dead.
The funeral was a few days later. Everyone was in tears, Sunny included. It felt so unreal to lose his friend just like that. The truth left everyone’s minds. At the very least, it mostly left Sunny, as Kel was the main thing he was thinking about. Not even two weeks ago from that very day, Kel had been the one to finally get Sunny to come outside and go out of his house again…but now? He was dead, all because some idiot was either drunk or asleep at the wheel! Not only that, but because of Faraway’s unimaginably incompetent authorities, they never even ended up getting caught for it!
Despite what had happened, though, Sunny still had to move away, and try to get used to life in the city. Though he was more than sad about what had happened to Kel, he was still in a bit of a better mental place than he had been in his last days in Faraway. He felt more at peace, even with his misery, because he had been able to accept what he did all those years ago. It seemed his hallucinations would finally leave him alone after the loss of Headspace! He hadn’t seen something behind him in the mirror since he was in Faraway.
His new life was nothing short of boring. However, that was a lot better than trying to transition into extreme busyness right after everything that had just happened. He had a lot of free time. He had always had a lot of free time, for the past four years, but now he was actually doing something with it other than sleeping. He liked to sketch out the different things that came to his mind, whether they be goofy or…terrifying. He wasn’t the best artist in the world, but he was still usually able to get what was in his mind down onto the page. Once, he drew a semi-truck depicted as some sort of demon. It felt accurate.
Now that Sunny’s mom was around more often, she usually was reminding him to take care of himself. She used to do that with her sticky notes left around the house when she was gone all the time, and she still did do that on occasion, like when she had to go to the store, but there was a whole lot of, Hey, Sunny! Remember to brush your teeth! Even if he rolled his eyes every now again, Sunny did appreciate the reminders.
Sunny did try to call Basil a few times, but his phone had gone straight to voicemail. He hadn’t even shown up to Kel’s funeral, which felt incredibly unlike him. Sunny knew that Basil cared about Kel just as much as he did. He was rather worried for him, but there wasn’t much he could do right at that moment. Maybe sometime soon he should take a bus to Faraway and see what was up, or ask his mom to drive him over. He knew that his friend probably needed some still space, but he still thought it would be best to check up on him.
Everyday was pretty much the same routine, so far. Except for today, of course.
—✩—✩—✩—
“So…you only like, just now ended up as a ghost?”
“Yep! One minute I was walking onto the street, and then the next I was here! I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t budge. You must have been exhausted or something. I don’t know how or why I ended up here specifically, but I can only assume there’s some sort of reason for it!” Kel seemed rather delighted for someone that just experienced death less than thirty minutes ago within his perception of time.
“Being a ghost feels weird, but not that different, honestly. Being able to see through my body is really weird. Also, I can float!” Kel lifted both feet from the ground, but rather than falling over, he stayed in the air, hovering slightly. “Isn’t that awesome?”
I guess..? “When am I going to stop hallucinating..?” Sunny asked the universe. Despite evidence to the contrary, how was he expected to so easily believe what he was seeing? “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“I didn’t really think ghosts were real before either, since I never saw Mari, or anything, but clearly they are! If you were hallucinating, you wouldn’t have been able to feel when I poked your nose!” Kel countered, and though it seemed like an explanation that was obvious, Sunny still couldn’t help but be…confused.
“Maybe I could have felt it,” Sunny tried to suggest.
Kel let himself stop hovering, his shoes hitting the ground again. He walked over to the bed where Sunny was sitting, letting himself fall to sit beside him. Sunny did feel the impact as the bed moved a bit. “I don’t think you can feel hallucinations,” Kel said. “Isn’t it just seeing things? Or hearing things?”
Sunny shrugged, and Kel leaned over, wrapping his arm around his friend. Sunny, once again, could definitely feel that. “I…did used to see Mari,” Sunny admitted.
Kel immediately sat up straight, removing his arm from Sunny. “You did? You saw Mari? Why’d you never say anything? If you saw her, why did you think ghosts aren’t real?”
Sunny looked away from Kel, and down at the floor instead. “Well…I thought she was a hallucination. I’ve…had lots of those, so I didn’t think seeing her was different. I don’t know…” After a few seconds, he looked up at Kel again.
“Do you still see her now?” Kel asked him, looking around the room as if she was there without his knowledge.
Sunny shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since I…accepted the truth of what I did. I thought accepting things had just made my hallucinations go away, so…not seeing her anymore made sense to me.”
Kel looked at him with wide eyes in silence for about ten seconds or so, when it seemed that suddenly, some sort of lightbulb went off in his head. “She must have moved onto the afterlife!” Kel declared, as if he was one hundred percent sure that this was a fact. “Don’t ghosts only stick around when they have, uh…unfinished business, or whatever? That’s like…a thing about ghosts, right? Maybe her unfinished business was making sure you were able to accept what happened, forgive yourself, and tell the truth!”
“How…how did you figure that out so quickly?” Sunny asked, tilting his head just a little. That seemed like a bit of a stretch of a conclusion to make on such a whim…but Sunny also guessed that he didn’t have any better ideas. “Would that mean you have unfinished business?”
Kel put his hand under his chin, looking up a little in thought. “I guess it would mean that…” he said, before looking back at Sunny. “I think I do have unfinished business,” Kel said. “I mean, our friend group’s not back together the way it's supposed to be! You shouldn’t be here alone…sulking, missing everybody… You should be hanging with Basil, Hero, and Aubrey at the secret hangout spot or something! I don’t think I would want to go to the afterlife unable to fix that.”
“I wasn’t sulking,” Sunny retorted. “I was sleeping. You saw me. And…it’s not like we hate each other, or anything. Plus, Basil and I are still friends…even if I haven’t really heard from him since we were at the hospital. I don’t think we’re all really going to be able to go back to how we used to be now that everyone knows what I did. I’m okay with that, though, I—”
“You can’t just sit back and let the world decide how things are gonna be!” Kel insisted. “All of you have got to still be friends! I know it can happen. We can make it happen, right? Clearly, I’m here for a reason, and I think that reason is making sure you guys become friends like you used to be. That’s really the only unfinished business I can think of, anyways. We were all so close for so long…I know things change, and obviously it won’t be exactly the same as it was back then, but…we have to try!”
“I’m…not so sure,” Sunny said. Do I want to be close with all of them the way that I was before? Sunny frowned. …Of course I do. “It…feels like that’d be a hopeless effort.”
“Nothing’s hopeless, Sunny! You’ve gotta be more positive about this!” Kel stood up again, giving him a friendly tap on his shoulder. “Sure, maybe it’ll take a while, but you’re free all summer, aren’t ya? We can figure it out!”
Sunny stayed silent in thought. Maybe…maybe it wasn’t that bad of an idea. What was the worst that could happen, anyway?
“Plus, you can’t just leave your buddy hanging, can you? If you don’t help me out I might be stuck here as a ghost forever! What if the afterlife has, like, the coolest basketball court ever or something? You can’t let me miss out on that.”
Sunny managed to chuckle at that. Despite the odd circumstances, it was nice to have his friend around again. “I guess you’re right about that,” he said. “I guess we can try.”
“Heck yeah!” Kel threw his arms up in the air in excitement. “High-five for good luck?” Kel put out his hand. Sunny almost smiled. He remembered high-fiving Kel back in their days in Faraway…when he was… alive.
The two went to high-five…and, uh, Kel’s hand phased right through Sunny’s, leaving Sunny’s hand awkwardly still in the air. There were a few seconds of confused silence.
Kel took his hand back towards him. “Whoops..!” He laughed. “Still getting used to how this whole ghost thing works,” he said. A moment later, since Sunny’s hand was still in the air, Kel made a second attempt at a high-five.
This time, it was successful! Sunny wasn’t sure how ghosts work, but he was glad the high-five was able to actually happen.
“We’ve got this. Alright, Sunny? We’ve got this! You say it, too.”
“We’ve…got this,” Sunny repeated, before more quietly adding, “...I think.”
“No, you don’t think,” Kel insisted. “We know! We know we’ve got this! Before the end of the summer, you, Hero, Aubrey, and Basil are going to be the best, closest friends the world’s ever seen!”
That’s a bit overachieving, Sunny thought. How would the best-ness of friendships even be ranked, anyway?
“We’ve got this,” Sunny said again, this time more firmly. He wasn’t sure just how sure he actually was, though… That was more to appease Kel than anything else, but he guessed it was better to be more confident about this if he was really going to try.
“That’s the spirit, Sunny!” Kel beamed.
…
“...Get it?” Kel asked, trying to hold back a laugh. “Spirit?”
Sunny frowned and sighed.
“‘Cause I’m a ghost? And spirits are—”
“Yes, Kel. I get it,” Sunny interrupted. He didn’t need that explained to him. Easiest joke you could make; i.e., not funny.
As Kel burst with laughter, Sunny could only assume he believed he was the funniest person on earth.