The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Ghost of Me
by Melissa R. Mendelson

I laid in the dark,

my body melting into the mattress beneath me.

I wanted no part of the world.

I didn’t care what was happening outside my door,

but the phone never left my hand.

And I messaged those I thought were real,

but they never filled the empty spaces

that crept into my bones.

The darkness closed in,

and those that tried to pull me back

had faded away.

I don’t know how much time passed,

but the quiet was grating on my nerves.

Where was everyone?

How dare they leave me?

Finally, I pulled what was left of my body from the bed,

a deep impression sunk into the mattress,

and my feet were strangers to the floor,

my hands uncertain but forced to grip that doorknob,

pushing me back out into the world.

But there was nothing waiting for me.

They were all gone.

The leaves beneath my feet were strange.

It was like walking in a dream,

but branches protruding out of the walls

said otherwise.

I ventured down the stairs, suddenly thirsting for something more than water.

I called out, no answer.

I called out once more,

and the wind responded by pushing more leaves across the floor.

I made it to the family room, a room once warm and decorated,

now decayed.

The couch looked abandoned, and the curtains drifted like a ghost.

Or was I the ghost?

I let the curtains fall over me, my shadowed frame against the white.

If I stood here for forever,

no one would still miss me.

The world had already moved on.

 

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Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is a horror, science-fiction and dystopian author and poet.  She has two publications with Wild Ink Publishing.  One is a prose poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us, and the other is a short story collection, Stories Written On Covid Walls.  She also self-published a sci-fi novella, Waken and a small short story collection, Name’s Keeper.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com