Spectral Roommates - #4 - Veronica Cosbey

 Okay, I’ll admit, I don’t really think the things in my house are ghosts. They’re more like inhuman beings. They definitely weren’t human in their most recent lives. I’ve classified them simply as “spirits”, giving their forms a lot more freedom. 

Let me start over: I share my house with four incorporeal beings. As far as I know, only one has shown themselves to anyone but me, so I’ll start with him. 

“The Hound” is a dire wolf sized being, casting his form as a dark brown and black wolf. He’s probably the oldest spirit here. He first “attacked” two of my family members by waking them in the middle of the night, standing on their chests, snarling and growling in their face. Both family members, in a sleep paralysis state, couldn’t call out of push him off. With his weight on their ribs and lungs, they couldn’t help but stress themselves back to sleep. 

The Hound has been much nicer to me by comparison. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve always been discontent with the dark. When I was younger, I remember running up the stairs to the second floor of my house followed by a large, angry wolf. But in the past year, I’ve grown much closer to the spirits and most of the time, they give me my personal space. When I go upstairs after 10pm, The Hound is usually sitting in the doorway to the living room or the library with his head down, almost in a respectful or trusting way. And when I’m especially lonesome and unable to fall asleep, The Hound curls up in bed with me. 

The next spirit takes the form of one or three little shadows. They look like children, but they’re the size of a piece of paper. They either have wispy trails of shadow where their legs should be, allowing them to float around, or have plump toddler legs. They always have wide open eyes and empty, inhuman grins. They run around corners, between table legs, and through curtains. I call them Sprites. 

Since I’ve well exceeded the word recommendation, stay tuned for the last two spirits.