Characters
★Maya Rivera (16): practical, stubborn, recently moved into an old house.
★Elias"Eli" Rowan(17): the"ghost" who insists he isn't dead.
★Daniel Rivera ( 11): Maya's younger brother obsessed with the paranormal.
Maya saw him on her third night in the house.
He was sitting on her desk , flipping through her notebook__ except his fingers passed straight through the pages .
" You're in my room," she said calmly.
He looked up." Technically, I'am not fully in anything."
She stared at him. Pale skin.Dark hair.Gray hoodie. Slightly transparent.
"Are you dead ?"she asked.
He frowned." I don't think so"
That wasn't the answer she accepted.
Over the next few days, Maya learned the rules. Eli Couldn't leave the house. He couldn't touch the solid objects and no one else could see him.
Except her.
"I remember my name," he told her one night."Elias Rowan. I lived here. Something happened in the basement"
"What kind of something?"
"I don't know just a flash. Like lightning."
Then...this."
Maya searched online. The Rowan family had lived there five years ago. Their teenage son,Elias, had disappeared without a trace.
Five years.
"you' ve like this for five years," she told him quietly.
His form flickered ."No.That's not possible ."
But it was.
The basement door had been locked since they moved in.Daniel claimed it "felt wrong." Maya finally found the key taped above the frame.
Eli hovered nervously behind her as she descended the creaking steps .
The basement was mostly empty__except for strange burn marks on the floor and a large metal pod in the corner, hidden under a dusty tarp.
Maya pulled it off.
Inside the pod lay a boy.
Dark hair. pale face.
Unmoving.
Eli started at him."That' s me."
The boy in the pod was breathing__faintly.
"I' m not dead,"Eli whispered. "I' m stuck."
Wires ran from the pod into a cracked control panel on a nearby table.
The machine hummed softly, Still running.
"My dad built things,"Eli said slowly, memories returning." He believed the soul was energy. "He wanted to prove it could exist outside the body."
Maya's stomach dropped."He tested it on you."
Eli nodded.
"You' re displaced,"she said."Half in your body.Half..here."
"If you turn it off,"Eli said carefully ,"I might go back."
"or?"
"I might disappear."
Maya looked at the unconscious boy in the pod.
" This isn't living. she said"
She took a breath and flipped the main switch.
The machine roared to life. The lights brust bright white.Eli cried out as his form stretched and shimmered like smoke in wind.
"maya!"
"I' m here!"
Sparks flew. The humming stopped.
Darkness.
When maya opened her eyes the the basement was silent.
The pod door hung open.
And Eli was lying on the floor, solid and real,gasping for air.
." I can feel the ground ."he whispered.
Footsteps pounded overhead as Daniel call her name.
Eli looked up at her, fear and wonder in his eyes.
"you stayed."
Maya smiled shakily.
"you were'nt a ghost,"she said."you were just lost."
And this time, when he stood, his fit touched the floor.