Is this the end?

Eli woke up with a mission. 

She got dressed in a white v-neck shirt and put on her comfiest pair of jeans. She put on some Toms and ran out the door. 

This time, Eli didn't freak out when her sister suddenly popped out of nowhere. She promised her sister she would sit down to talk to her later, and ran all the way to the post office.

But she never made it there. Her sister wouldn't let her go.

"Eli, I need to talk to you NOW."

"Alright, " Eli said, "I need answers too."

They sat on a curb and talked about, well, just about everything. Although her sister was the poster child and Eli was the mess up, they seemed to still have a lot in common. Talking with her sister cleared up all the hate and misunderstandings she had with her parents.

People walked by, staring at Eli--she was talking to clouds for all they knew. But Eli was over attention at this point. She didn't care what others thought. She was tired, worn out from the past couple of months in her life. Small gossip could do nothing to hurt her. 

Her sister was here. Not alive again, but here. Nothing could redo what happened that day. But she was here again, and that was still comforting. But why was she here?

Eli turned around to ask her that very question. 

"Hey, why exactly did you com---" There was no one there.

Suddenly, a breeze blew past Eli, making her unruly hair more of a mess. 

Then, there was stillness. Complete silence. No one seemed to pass by the street, no cars went by. Nothing. 

Eli stood up, brushed off the dust particles that got on her, and straightened herself up. She put her hair in a tight ponytail-a different look from her usual unruly mane yet somehow, it was very fitting.

Eli silently went on her way to the Post Office. Thankfully, she wasn't late. Mr. Zheng told her to just work the front desk, and Eli decided to not tell her boss the things she knew. It seemed like the right thing to do: to let people solve their own mysteries and problems. Hopefully, things would go well.

Her work ended with no further inquiries from the Ex-boss, so Eli left without any more answers. On her way home, she stopped by a street vendor to pick up the local newspaper in preparation for a likely new job search. 

Once home, Eli unfolded the front page to get to the ads section. It just so happened to be that the cover story was on a schizophrenic patient who was stabbed to death by another patient who was waiting to see their mutual psychiatrist. 

Although sad and disheartening, something made her feel queasy. The picture of the murderer seemed vaguely familiar. He looked just like the guy from Sobchak Lanes who she went off on......

Eli continued to read the story to find out that he killed the patient out of irrational anger. If this man was who she thought he was, what if she was in danger?

Just as Eli was about to rush to the door to bolt the locks, her sister came to mind. Before she disappeared, she had told Eli to let the natural flow of events to just occur. Otherwise, things would get messier.


Eli thought back on all the events that had happened since she came to live in Castle Apartments. She had gotten into accident after accident, all because she wanted to make things perfect.

Eli decided to leave the door unlocked. Maybe the blind man was right. "What will come will come. Even if I shroud it all in silence."


Eli picked up her iPhone and dialed an ancient number her fingers seemed to still remember.


"Mom? Hi. I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Finally, something exciting...

Eli took out her iphone from her purse to check the time. 9:11 AM. If she ran, she could get there in 7 minutes. She needed to go home to change so her new Asian boss wouldn't think she was homeless but there was no time. Eli hoped her boss wasn't too into fashion, which seemed unlikely since he wore a tattered dusty uniform everyday. 

Well, hopefully she would be able to have a completely new start at this new job.

"I don't think so. Not until you stop and listen to what I have to say."

Eli turned around to see her dead sister floating over her. She finally remembered. So much for the new beginning. Hopefully, Petra was having a better start.


"Well, first off, I can't believe you gave away our family's apartment! And, I can't believe you--"
"Look sis, can't talk, I'm late for work"


Eli ran as fast as she could to the post office. Of course, her sister jabbered in her ear the whole way. Next time, she would have to bring earplugs or something. 


When she got to the office, everyone else was already there. Eli tried to quietly go sit at her new desk, but her boss had to make a scene. Oh boy, hopefully it wasn't to berate her on being late.
"Everyone, we need to chat," said Mr. Zheng in a serious tone. Uh oh.


Well, it ended up not on Eli being late, but it still was pretty bad. Mr. Zheng's old boss (who was crazy- lets just leave it at that) was trying to shut down this post office. This meant Eli might lose her job- again. Eli couldn't help but worry. Where was she going to ever find another job?


So, the whole office decided to work together and they hatched a plan. They all agreed that this ex-boss needed to be dealt with.
"someone needs to go find out [what he's up to], said Bill, another employee.
"Like a spy?" said Eli.
"Maybe," said Bill who sounded annoyed.
Eli ignored his sarcasm. That was the perfect plan, and Eli knew the perfect person to send. 


The office decided to send Curt, but Eli coaxed her sister to go with him. That way, even if Curt got caught, they would still have a spy there to get information. 


The rest of the day was pretty normal, she talked to Mr. Zheng for a bit, did some paper work, and made phone calls.


Eli waited around past her work hours to see if Curt came back from his spying business. After waiting for thirty-one minutes, she called it a day, said bye to Mr. Zheng, and left. 


By the time she got home, this time making it past the Castle Apartment's double door, Eli was exhausted. She hadn't worked a full day in a long time. 


Just as she was about to pass out on her bed, her sister flew threw her locked door. 
" Guess what I found out for you."
"What?" Hopefully it was something juicy.
Her sister smiled. "Well, Mr. What's-his-face actually doesn't own the new post office. He's temporarily managing it. He's trying to use this opportunity to ruin your post office and then get it back. This way, he'll be able to blame all his debt on someone else and still regain the post office."


Eli clapped in delight.
"I guess this means we just need to find some incriminating evidence and we're set!"


Eli plopped onto her bed and fell asleep, rather peacefully, before her sister was able to get out any words to say.

What's with all these ghosts?

Normal is when you wake up in your own fluffy bed to the beeping of an alarm clock. Normal is when your morning is peaceful and unbothered. Normal is.... well, this was not a normal morning...


Eli woke up and her whole body was stiff. Stiff like she had climbed a mountain the day or something. She slowly opened her sleepy eyes to put on her glasses when she realized that she could still see perfectly without them. Why was she still wearing her contacts? Eli looked around and saw that she was in a washed out pale room. She couldn't believe it. She was STILL waking up in strange places. There was nothing there except a small tv, a bedstand and some wilting flowers.


She had been in somewhere like this before. It was when she was 12 and her family had decided to go check out their newly bought apartment in New York City. Yes, buying apartments in such expensive places were all in the name of fun entertainment for her family. This was a "family vacation" or at least, that's what they tried to call it. All she and her sister did was look at twenty-something apartments. Eli came from old money, old family money that lasted multiple generations thanks to her miserly ancestors. Eli remembered visiting the apartment and going into one of the rooms. Her mother had redecorated the whole place except for this one room. Naturally, the only room Eli liked was this room. The room had a tiny retro brown tv that was placed on top of a tv box. There was a plain white bed with a matching bedstand. Eli's mom had tried to decorate it by placing some flowers on top of the stand. A month had passed since anyone gave any water to the poor lilies and it made them look so sad, wilting away, their beauty diminishing. She remembered just sitting on the edge of the bed, touching the wilted flowers and dreaming of leaving the grasps of her parents. She felt like she was one of the flowers, suffocating under the hold of her parents, unable to grow, unable to blossom, unable to breathe. She tried to save the lilies by giving them water, but Eli ended up drowning them. 


 That's all Eli could remember from her trip to New York. But the wilting flowers in this room was enough to bring back the frustrating memory. As her eyes started to adjust to the gleam of sunlight coming through the windows, Eli decided to stop daydreaming and get up to explore. 


The sudden jerk caused Eli to fall back down on the bed. She hadn't registered in her mind yet that she had a sharp needle in her arm, and finding out after almost yanking it out of the grasps of the tight tape protection was not a fun thing. Eli tried to get up again, this time, holding onto her IV stand. While she walked around the room, trying to figure out what got her here, a doctor and a nurse walked into the room. 
" Hello Ms....." 
"Ms. Rosenthal."
"Yes, Ms. Rosenthal. Well, we have here in our records that someone found you passed out in front of the Castle Apartment entrance doors so they brought you here. He was a very nice fellow too, but he left without giving us any contact information."
" How bad is my condition?" 
" Oh, it wasn't anything serious. Just a mild case of nerves and stress."
" When do you think I can go back home then, doctor?"
" I'd say, oh whenever you feel like it."


Whenever she feels like it???? Eli thought this doctor was a big fat phony. He had the voice and the signature smile of an infomercial host. He was not the sophisticated intellectual she imagined all doctors would be like. There was something very odd about him. The nurse, who fidgeted with pulling out the IV was no better. In fact, she slightly scared Eli with the complete monotone voice and lack of expressions. She seemed like the type who could murder someone and feel no remorse. But maybe, Eli was being a bit too dramatic.


As Eli started to leave the hospital building she saw a familiar woman leaving as well. She was tall, slim, and, looked, well, like a model. Except her face had no trace of the common carefree, naive, 'oh look at me I'm a model' look that most models Eli knew of had. Eli definitely had seen her fair share of models while working for Forever 21. However, this girl looked grim, almost depressed. 


It wasn't until the girl got out her phone to make a call that Eli recognized her as the recently-burnt-down Forever 21 manager-Petra. 


CRAP. She still had all of this girl's stuff from her apartment. Wasn't she thinking of giving it to her as a Christmas present? How had she forgotten?


Eli tried to run after her but she lost sight of the girl as she turned the corner. Then, Eli remembered that she still had Petra's phone number. 


She called Petra up and explained the whole story on how she ended up with a bag full of her stuff. The transaction took a much shorter time than Eli had anticipated. They met up at a coffee shop and talked briefly before she handed Petra the bags. But right as they were about to leave Eli became curious. 
" So, what are you thinking to do, now that the store's burned down?"
" I'm deciding whether or not I should go to New York."


Maybe this was a sign, her last chance to depart from her past once and for all. After sitting down again and explaining why she wanted to give her apartment to a stranger (although having met three times before), Eli handed the ancient keys to Petra and went out the door. 


Suddenly,  the air seemed minty, almost refreshing. Never had this town smelled refreshing before. Eli remembered her first day to this town when the air literally smelled like rotting sulfur. 


Who would've guessed keeping those despicable keys in her purse would help relieve her stress and also maybe give another person a new start?


While walking home, she tried to remember what caused her to feint. She really hadn't been doing too much work to have over-exhaustion. WORK! oh no, she had completely forgotten about her new job at the post office! 

Finding another Job...

Eli woke up in the morning with serious questions that needed to be answered. Where would she ever go to find another job?

By this point, Eli was getting desperate. She was a hard worker, smart, and easy to work with. But she wasn’t strong or built enough for most of the jobs offered in this tiny town.

But she couldn’t continue living off last month’s pay. She needed to quickly find a job. Any job.

First, she called the post office, remembering that sweet asian mailman who had saved her life. She needed to thank him, and it didn’t hurt to ask to see if there were any jobs available there.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is uh, the post office, how may I help you?”
“Well uh... I don’t know how to really say this, but do you perhaps have an asian mailman working for you? I’m sorry, I’m not being racist or anything, I just don’t know how else to describe him, and uh... well... you see... I... uh... reallyneedtotalktohimabouthowhesavedmylifeandthatIjustwantobeabletothankhim. You know?”

Wow she sounded like a freak. Hopefully this guy knew who she was talking about and would pass the phone to him.
“Do you happen to be the forever 21 girl that I found in the woods that time?”
Score!
“Yes, actually, then you must be that mailman! Thank you so much for everything and I can’t tell you how much I appre-”
“Yes, yes, you’re welcome. I’m a little busy right now because, oh, I now own the post office. If that is all you had to say...”
“ Oh no! I actually also wanted to ask you if I could possibly get a job there, you know, since my work place burned down.” God she sounded so desperate.
“Hmmn, let me think about it. Are you good at typing?”
“Yes.”
“What about filing?”
“I’m pretty efficient.”
“What about taking calls?”
“Did it all the time at forever 21.”
“Alright, let me get back to you later tonight.”

Eli got off the phone feeling helpless. Hopefully, Mr. Zheng,(she had forgotten his name), would be willing to take her on. Hopefully, he didn’t think she was too ditzy from their past experiences.

Eli went into a couple other shops but they all said they didn’t need any workers. The only place she didn’t venture into until now, was Isabella’s cafe. Of course, she wasn’t there to be a pole dancer, but the prospect of working there at all was a little humiliating.

“So you think you could be a good stylist for our girls?” asked the front man. He was a little intimidating to say the least with his towering frame over her. Eli tried to keep her composure.
“Yeah, I worked at Forever 21, so I know what’s in style or not. It would help with sales you know, people would find them more attractive with better clothes on...”
“How ‘bout we see you work tonight, and if the crowd's reaction is good, I’ll hire ya.”

Eli walked into the back dressing room where all the girls were getting ready. Most of the girls were very nice and willing to let her coordinate their outfits. They were there for the money and were ready to do anything to get more of it. Later that night, they walked out onto the stage wearing skimpy gold bandeaus and sequined skirts with nude pumps. The outfits didn’t make them sophisticated, they were still strippers, but they looked like classy strippers. Oh well, at least Eli had tried.

Eli watched with her potential employer for the reactions from the crowd by intermingling with them. She went up to the bartender to get a drink when she met a young man gulping down his beer. He did not look too happy. She tried to pass by him unnoticed, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Excuse me...” Eli said, trying to make him let go of her.
“That was my father... my father’s ghost. I talked to a fucking ghost the whole time. Fucking ghost Floyd. I’m fucking insane. I must be insane. Do I look insane to you?”
“You look fine, I suggest you stop drinking though.”
He finally let go of her wrist after an hour of ranting and she took his drink with her as the man fell out of his seat, still mumbling about a ghost.

No way there were ghosts. That was one thing Eli didn’t believe in. This guy must have really been insane. Or just really really drunk.

Eli left her card with the manager and left Isabella’s cafe dazed and worn out. Outside at last, she realized that it was near morning. How long has she been in there for?

She checked her phone. 6:30 AM. Crap. She also had three missed calls from the post office. She would have to call back later at a more reasonable time.

Eli decided that she needed a little more time to process her day and so she walked towards the church cemetery instead of back to her apartment. Cemeteries were not depressing places for Eli. They were in fact a reminder for her that all these people who were deceased had people who loved them and cared for them enough to visit them once or twice a year and put flowers on their graves. She wanted her sister to feel loved to. Eli hoped her mother was taking good care of her sister’s grave.

But maybe, coming to the cemetery on this night was the wrong thing to do. Eli felt a little chilled as she remembered what the drunk man had said to her. If ghosts were real, this place would be the perfect place for them to appear. And the air was all wrong. It was still and calm. Too calm. She felt like something was about to happen, something that would destroy the still atmosphere.

And just like Eli predicted, the something did happen. That something was her sister. There she was, right in front of her. She was a little translucent, very pale, and had a little glow about her.

Eli panicked. The instinct to run welled up inside of her, but she crushed it as best as possible. She needed to hear some answers.
“How are you here right now.”
“I flew.”
She flew!?! Things were getting too weird.
“Don’t doubt me, and yes, I flew on that day at the beach too."
“So are you an angel or something?”
“Not quite, I guess you could say I drowned, well at least that’s what happened to my natural body.”
“Why are you here right now, to torture me?”
“No... I’m just here because you need my help. You know that I can help you.”

This was all too strange for her. She felt like something was choking her. And the still air, the unnatural quiet surrounding her was just too much.

She did what she did best at that point. She ran.
“ You can’t run away from me,” her sister said, flying right next to her.

That was the last straw. Eli fainted right in front of the big doors to the Castle Apartments. This was all too much to handle in one day. Especially the flying part.

Why I Ran...

Eli breathed a sigh of relief. She had just walked out of the police station alive.

So many people had been screaming at her it seemed like she was back home with her mom. When everyone finally calmed down, Eli explained what had happened. It took a few minutes of convincing and their lack of evidence of the stolen money to let them let her go.

It seemed as if Eli couldn’t help but get blamed for every bad situation in her life. And maybe it was rightly so. She was the misfit in the family after all. And now she was, yet again, stuck jobless in this city.

Her troubles seemed to emerge whenever she started running. Obviously, it made people think she was guilty of something. Why did she always run?

Eli remembered that she used to love running. But her mom never let her. Whether for her safety or just to make it easier to keep an eye on her, Eli would never know. She used to run anyway, especially when her sister and she were on the beach. Those were the blissful days. Everything was happy and sunny and her mom seemed to actually enjoy life for awhile.

And then Eli remembered that one day they went to the beach and it was very foggy. The fog was unnaturally heavy and moist. There was an eerie feel to the whole day, like the set up in a scary movie before it gets to the scary point. Why they went to the beach on that day instead of a diner or the movies, she doesn’t know.

But it cost them her sister’s life.





One second she was right in front of Eli, running. Eli was chasing after her and then, she disappeared, right into the fog. You’d think Eli would be able to hear her footsteps, or her breathing. Eli heard nothing as her sister was covered up by the surrounding mist.

She kept running after her. Running until her mom and a police officer had to pull her back and sit her down into the car. All she wanted to do was run. Run until she was away from all the yelling, (her mom started bawling and the searchers came with dogs). Eli couldn’t handle this situation.

So maybe that’s why she decided to take up this job; to get away from the horrible day and to stay as far from another beach as possible.

So far, it had been a success. She never thought about her sister until this running incident had happened. Eli decided not to run for ANYTHING anymore, since it always seemed to get her into trouble.

She walked back into Castle Apartments and plopped down on her bed. Thank god at least her apartment hadn’t burned down.... Eli knocked on the wood of her bedpost before she fell asleep.

What I DID NOT do...

Eli finally found a temporary job at the Roller Skating rink doing odd jobs like mopping the floor and cashiering for the scarce skaters who seldom came in.

By late afternoon, Eli was left cleaning the rink from head to toe all by herself. Scrubbing the roller blades to make them shine (at least somewhat), left her hands raw and aching.

Getting fired from Forever 21 left her devastated, especially since the fire was not her fault in any shape or form. But Eli decided that she would get over it and at the moment, focus on taking out the trash.

The few skaters who did come, always brought a variety of junk food that smelled like feet when left over night. Sometimes, she got people who would come in and make Forever 21 jokes at her. How they knew her, Eli had no idea. Eli picked up the pieces of food with the tip of her fingers and threw them delicately into the trash bag. She then dragged the heavy bag, out to the side door of the Rink.

Once outside, she was about to heave the bag up into the dumpster when she saw two slumped figures against the wall. Remembering the time when she herself had been left helpless in the woods, she rushed to help them.

Eli cleaned her hands as best as possible on her black working pants. Thank god she decided to wear all black today or else the coke she had spilled on herself earlier would have been completely visible.

Close up, it was obvious that someone had knocked them unconscious. She leaned a little closer to see if the two men, as she could now identify, had any identification on them and found that the heavier guy had a wallet layed out on his stomach.

Though the splayed wallet was unnatural, Eli picked it up to find a name or a number to help out these people. She looked through the contents and found that there was only a blank card in the wallet with a scribbled number on the back. Eli wondered why a grown man would carry only a phone number with him in such a large wallet.

She was just about to go back inside to phone this number for help and information about the mysterious figures, when she heard a girl scream.

"Help, Help! This lady is robbing these poor men!"

Eli was so startled and so scared that she starting running- with the wallet in hand. She kept on running out of the alleyway between the rink and Walter Lanes.

She kept running until she was stopped by a thud and fell flat on her back on the ground. As she brushed herself off and stood up, she began to realize the situation she had just put herself in.

Why oh why had she ran? She hadn't done anything wrong. She was only trying to help them! Eli decided to go back and tell everyone the truth when the person she had bumped into alarmed her.

" Did you really steal that wallet? "

Eli looked down to see that she had held onto the wallet when she made a run for it. Things were not looking good at all. AT ALL.

It really did look like she had stolen their stuff. If Eli was doubting herself, who was going to believe her?

Christmas Extravaganza.

A strange strange night. All Eli remembered was flames. Huge, towering, blazing flames. And then, she remembered that something dear to her crumbled down in front of her eyes. She saw these flames burst into balls of fire, and they suddenly turned straight towards her.

Eli woke up as the fireballs hit her in the face. They vanished into the air as she got up to go wash her face. When she went into the bathroom she saw a disheveled, leaf covered, girl. Eli touched her hair to pick out pieces of old crunchy leaves. She really needed to start watching where she was falling asleep.

As Eli put on her clothes, the events of the past day played back in her head. The first thing she would have to do, was go see the remnants of the Forever 21 building. And also call her boss.

Eli began to cough as soon as she entered Heaven Street. The whole place was covered with the ashes of the burnt Forever 21 building. As she got closer to the building, she saw the bright yellow caution tapes covering the surrounding area.

Eli turned around and made sure no one was looking and went into the remaining parts of the building. She knew this was illegal, but Eli really needed to see if there was anything, anything at all that could be saved from the fire.

The first floor was completely burnt. There was nothing at all to save. Even the fashion posters on the walls were pitch black. All the beautiful sequin and lace covered clothing were ripped and
missing burnt bits and pieces. Eli was about to walk back out when she remembered that there was a second floor. Where Petra, the manager lived.

Not being able to stop her curiosity, Eli went up to the second floor and opened the door to Petra’s home. There were definitely signs of the fire, but many places in the home were untouched. As Eli toured the house, she found out that Petra had been a shopoholic. A really really big shopaholic. There were flashy shopping bags strewn all over the house. Clothes still with tags on them were in her closet.

As Eli touched the fabric of a delicate cream chiffon dress, she realized that Petra probably left all of these things in a hurry for a reason. This was not a safe place to be. Eli hastily dumped most of Petra’s closet into five enormous Forever 21 bags and went down the stairs to leave. Maybe it was the weight of all the clothes, or maybe it was the pressure of Eli’s feet on the half-burnt stairs; the building started to shake.

It must have been a 30 second run out into the street, yet it felt like an hour-long nightmare. Eli took off her 5-inch heels and threw them in one of the bags and started bolting to the door as the building threatened to engulf her. Just as Eli tumbled out the door, the second story collapsed into the bottom floor.

Why was she getting into such dangerous situations?

Eli made sure that no one saw what she had done and she rushed home to take a shower to cleanse her body of the ashes now covering her ENTIRE body.

Why take the clothes? Eli wasn’t stealing. No, she wanted to give Petra a well-deserved Christmas present, the lady just had her house burned down for crying out loud! Eli chuckled to herself as she realized she was also covered in ashes, just like a real Santa would be, coming down the chimney. But Petra would have to wait.

Maybe in a day or so Eli will take them to her. But not now.... now, Eli needed to rest.