Noah was laid out on the kitchen island, a head of black flames on his shoulders and a pair of white circles blinking in confusion, staring at the scattered kitchen.
On his left, was a wood table draped with a colorful table cloth, then a stove area on his right, and a tiled island he was lying on.
The kitchen looked trapped between modern clean colors and aesthetic and a child's dream of how a kitchen should look.
He rolled off the island and almost groaned, but he didn't feel any pain in his back, despite falling from upstairs in his room.
His intangibility activated for some odd reason and kicked him out of his own body. He really needed to see someone about this, maybe not a doctor, but not an occultist either. There had to be someone between those, like an astrologist.
Footsteps brought his grumbling thoughts back to a stop; someone was coming down the stairs. He swallowed his breath, holding it and sinking into that feeling of weightlessness to activate his intangibility.
Soon his father came into view, eyes scanning the kitchen alertly. In his hands was a shotgun, and strangely, he didn't look very threatening with it.
Paul Stromer was his father's name. It felt strange to admit that he would forget that after many years. But only a second of seeing his face again brought back so many memories.
Which weren't so nice to feel again. He ignored the pain in his chest and held his breath. He forced himself not to think about how nice it was to be able to become intangible without falling through the floor, since it might break the instinctual process.
Being intangible also meant he was invisible since light would pass through his body. He watched Paul walk through the kitchen carefully, those same green eyes that both Noah and Fara shared were scanning the kitchen for danger.
And Noah was just standing there a couple meters from his father, so close he could touch him. But he didn't. If he touched Paul now, then he would possess the body, and that didn't seem like a fun experience.
After a couple minutes, Paul must have felt he was going mad, so he returned upstairs. Noah still held his breath, though; there might be security cameras down here somewhere.
He looked up to the roof and tried to gauge where his bed was, then he lowered his knees and jumped. His ghost form was much stronger than a human's; that single leap carried him through the roof and back into his room.
The moment his finger touched his body, he repossessed it, gasping and rising from the bed.
That's annoying, so I can't even sleep?
He looked out the window for a while, thinking, then he came to the conclusion that he was undead and sleep might no longer be for him, but his body felt so tired, so he had to leave it and go somewhere.
There was a park not too far from here that he could scope things out from, and he could try stalking the city to find out where the Ironfield mob was set down. Their locations had changed in this world for some reason, but the centers of business couldn't change.
After a moment of contemplation, he let out an annoyed sigh and left his body, allowing it to flop to the bed while his ghost form appeared on his side.
"That was clean, I didn't even fall through the floor while phasing out."
He climbed through the window beside the bed and dropped to the ground with a low thud, then he walked around the house and grabbed a hoodie off the line to cover his head.
If anyone saw that, they would go crazy. What he was worried about was whether the hoodie would fall if he turned intangible. Well, at that point, he wasn't giving up his hoodie, so someone would have to deal with a jumpscare.
As he made his way through the neighborhood, he drew some attention from the people he passed. Mostly because he was wearing a hoodie and his head was down, but he was pretty normally dressed.
He wore red striped pajama pants and a black shirt under the hoodie. But he was barefoot because he forgot to wear shoes before he left his body.
After a long, barefoot trek, he made it to the park and lounged on a bench. It was quiet, dark and filled with trees, there was even a small lake in the middle of the park. But all he did for almost an hour was think.
He needed to find a way to get some sleep next time, or he'd just watch movies all night.
"That sounds awesome actually," he said to himself.
His concentration was broken when he felt a strange tug in his belly. It wasn't hunger, because he wasn't really alive. But something wasn't right.
He got up, trusting his supernatural instincts and began looking around. There weren't any boogiemen hiding between the trees or strange things flying overhead.
He walked closer to the tree and suddenly heard something crying. It was like a child's voice, shrill and terrified.
That sounds like it's not my business.
The moon was out, a half crescent, sitting over the sky, reflected in the small lake at the center of the park. People weren't really littered over the place, but he could see the occasional dog walker in the distance.
He was just about to ignore the cries and go home when it came at him. He didn't think that it also sensed him, but it did, and it was furious.
There was a flash of something grey piercing through the darkness of the trees, and suddenly he was flying through the air. He grabbed the soil as he streaked through the air, ripping a dark line of dirt through their perfectly green grass.
Once he was able to stop himself, he stared into the eyes of what hit him. It was a thin girl, wearing a blue sleeping dress. Her brown hair was scattered, and her face was nightmarishly pale and rough with bloody scratches.
He was confused as to how a little girl hit him so far, but she was obviously some kind of ghost or demon.
He raised his hands, trying to rein in the malice in his eyes. Which wasn't hard because they were just two white circles.
"Hey, I'm not trying to fight. If you want time off your turf just tell me." He didn't know how ghosts worked, but they should have spaces that they claimed as their own, maybe close to where they died.
The ghost didn't seem to care what he had to say though. She launched herself at him almost weightlessly, snarling like something from hell.