Your ghost walks these halls

Breathes ice onto my mirror

Comments on my choice of whole wheat toast

Cradles me like a casket

Haunts me like a song

Your ghost dances these floors

Leaves words written on my walls

Laughs when I can’t find the keys

Hums like a premonition

Hovers like a head-cold

Your ghost holds these dusty bones

With creaking steps

And silent echoes

DING

"Good Morning, everyone!"

"Morning."

"Good Morning!"

"'Sup."

"Glad to see you all logging in again. We'll give the class a few minutes but it looks like we've got at least half of the students here today. Please remember to hit mute and we'll get started shortly."

"Alright, well I asked everyone to keep their cameras on today since we're going to do some group work. If you aren't able to access a camera that's alright we'll just try to--"

SCREAM

"--hold up, hello? Who was that? Something wrong?"

"HOLY -- LOOK AT MILES' SCREEN!"

"$#!@"

"WHOA!"

"Dude, run!"

"Everyone, please put yourselves on 'mute' - Miles, this is not funny. Cease it immediately or I'm kicking you from the meeting."

"Wait - what's on my screen??? I don't understand."

"Miles, I don't know what kind of greenscreen horror setup you're running over there, but I will not have my class pranked. Turn it off, please."

"Backdrop?? There's nothing behind me though??"

"MILES - SHE'S RIGHT THERE!"

"Dude, she's hovering over you!"

"Ick, that hair looks nasty, bro, how do you not feel that??"

"Wait - what's going on behind me? Guys, there's nothing there!"

"Miles, I'm sorry, but that's it - I'm kicking you from the meeting."

"Oh $!@#, man - she's smiling now."

"Miles, run!"

"Get out of there!"

DING

User has been removed from the meeting.

"Alright, everyone, moving on with today's lesson. Please refrain from posting your 'viral videos', I'm very certain this hoax will blow over and I will speak with Miles outside of class."

SCREAM

"Teach...."

"Crap - teach!"

"BEHIND YOU! BEHIND YOU!"

"Holy - she moved, dude!!"

"Everyone, knock it off - I'm tired, and I understand online classes are stressful for everyone but I will not tolerate --"

DING

The host has ended this meeting.

Normally, with me out of the house for eight straight hours because of college, I wasn't around to see just how haunted my apartment was. And when I finally got home, I guess I passed out and slept so deeply that no demon, ghost, or whatever could wake me. Or maybe they were afraid to, since no one wants to be around me during the morning.

This all changed with COVID-19. Objects started moving on their own, lights flickered even when I changed them out, and I saw things out of the corners of my eyes.

But when the spirits had time to scare me, I had time to combat it.

So far, I've done four big DIY exorcisms, and probably a lot more unintentionally. I've decided to write this to document each one as best I can.

The first was this creepy-ass kid from around the 1880's, named Briar Williams. Bri-boy kept moaning about dying from tuberculosis every night at approximately 2:07 am, and wouldn't stop until five. He obviously had to go first, since Victorian era children are a lot more annoying than the Tumblr memes told me they would be. However, they were right about one thing: playing Kismet by XIX at full volume made poor Willy instantly evaporate. That's what the little shit gets for not even offering me cocaine-Cola.

The second one was a lot harder to exorcise. Not because I didn't know what to do or she was fighting back, but because this specific demon was kinda cute. Her name sounded like the Playstation motto in those ads when she said it, so I'll just be a nerd and call her Tomie. So I found this Junji Ito-looking baddie when I checked behind the shower curtain for serial killers, as one does. Of course, I wasn't expecting some aged-up Ring girl using my conditioner, so naturally, I panicked on this one. I spent a good minute balancing my feelings for her against her claws reaching for my throat, and ending up decided to hurl my Himalayan salt lamp at her. It actually worked really well, but when Tomie melted into the bath, I had to order a ton of Drain-O to get her out for good.

The third was a lot less stereotypical to horror movies, since she had died quite recently, 2007 to be precise. I had heard rumors of a teenage girl committing suicide in this very apartment, but had to live here anyway because of how cheap the rent was for being so close to my uni. I would actually say that this was one gave me the scariest experiences, since nothing could have physically prepared hungover me for hearing a distorted "it's Britney, BITCH" from my closet at midnight. Her name was Kat Foster, and despite the Spears reference, she was actually an "ironic" Myspace scene kid, which was another nightmare altogether. She terrorized me with readings from "My Immortal" and unwanted MCR karaoke until I got my Wiccan friends to schedule a banishing Zoom call meeting. I've been considering witchy things myself, now incorporating protective sigils and charms into my daily life to ward off other bad spirits.

The fourth and most recent more of a local cryptid than a spirit, but I still handled that situation pretty well (if I do say so myself). I didn't exactly see it, but I knew I was in danger of that happening when I heard an unholy screech at the crack of dawn instead of, like, a rooster. I can't really describe it, but I can compare its energy to that of the song ARIES by Water Spirit. But this specific sound I heard then scratched my brain in a bad way, not a good one, so I had to act. The first thought that went into my smooth brain ended up being my first action: I screech back, imitating the monster but slightly louder. It then had the balls to repeat itself. And then I responded back. What started as an irrational fight-or-flight response turned into a 45-minute long argument/conversation/?. I ended up winning, at the cost of the landlord breaking in to find out what the commotion had been all about. I would say the he's more terrifying than any of the monsters I've faced so far, and, for that night, louder than both me and the cryptid.

I know that there are still more spirits out there, ones that could be terrorizing my neighbors too. And with the uncertainty of how much longer this pandemic could last, it could be a year before I can go back to school. That would mean facing different kinds of horrors, but at least it would be things I had already been used to before.

I don't know though: using saltwater guns to fend off demons is a lot cooler than standing up in front of a lecture hall and announcing a "fun fact" about myself.