Kaiser

by MellowSoul

Ghosts of the Past (Part 2)

The first night went off without anything out of the ordinary occurring. After breakfast, Twilight and Spike visited the store in town. Twilight picked up a copy of the daily paper. She scoured the headlines for ghost sightings.

"Anything?" her brother asked.

"Not today."

"That makes me think there's some truth to this whole thing."

"Everyone assumes supernatural encounters work like the movies, but truth is often stranger than fiction."

"That's how I've felt for years."

"Do you wanna talk about last night?"

"Later. There's too many people."

"Gotcha."

The siblings used their leftover funds to purchase a few more supplies. On the way back, Twilight pointed out a rather interesting statistic.

"Out of all the sightings, not a single death or disappearance has been reported, which means..."

"We're not dealing with an evil spirit..."

"Yahtzee."

"Then...What should we do...?"

"Wait. If she shows, all we have to do is establish communication."

"'She'?"

"You didn't know it was a girl?"

"I didn't see the whole article."

"From what I read, this is similar to your typical 'woman in white' deal. She wanders the town, but nobody knows who or what she's looking for."

"Considering what we know, it's either a departed lover or a guide to her killer."

"I don't know...Something about this doesn't add up..."

"We can do more research at the inn. Come on. Let's head back."

---

Back at the inn, Twilight asked the innkeeper if she could borrow the computer.

"Sure. Mind if I ask why, though?"

"I wanted to do a little research on this."

Twilight held up the article.

"You a fan of ghost stories?"

"Something like that."

"Have at it. It's one of the few things that bring people in these days, anyway."

"Much appreciated."

"Sure thing."

Twilight typed in the town's nickname for the deceased soul - the Hollow Falls Specter.

"Well, lookee here."

Spike took a closer look at the monitor. Sightings dated back over a decade, with the first being reported in April of 2000...

"She was reported to resemble a resident of the town," Twilight discovered, "Her name was Maple Glaze. She died in her home of natural causes..."

As Spike read on, he became more and more despondent. Shortly before her death, she had fallen into the same cycle of isolation and despair as he had.

"She was...Like me..."

Twilight grimaced. The hardest part of empathy was seeing oneself in the victim's shoes...

"If only I'd known..."