There were laws in the realm of the dead; those that governed the dead and kept them from intervening in the realm of the living. One such law rendered them incapable of possession. A spirit could never enter a body unless the bodies were conditioned to receive them, or the human had granted the spirit access to possess them.

"Allow me to possess you," she said. Her words took a while to register. Until then, I was still processing the embarrassment that I’d have faced had I gone ahead with my idea. When her words finally dawned in on me, my head whipped up at her in horror. "What?"

"Let me possess you, Sandra."

"Heck no!"

Several people turned around to look at me. I stiffened and flashed a polite smile. Some returned it while others turned away like I were mad. My body grew jittery from all that attention. I whirled around and hid behind the archway anxiously.

The ghost watched me with a frown, clearly displeased. "If he doesn’t apologize, you get back at him, which I can see that you will never do."

"I’m not worried about that, I’m worried that you’ll vandalize and get me arrested."

"No, no, I have a better idea."

I shot her a deadpan look. Even better than vandalism. Right.

Her words somehow gave me the push that I needed. Without another word, I turned around and stormed back into the banquet hall, deciding to talk to father instead. It was more rational than whatever disaster she was cooking up in her head. But, of course, things had to work against me. The minute I entered the crowd, my gaze instantly fell on those madmen sauntering casually from the archway. Father was dangerously close to them too. As I kept watching him, I inadvertently met their gazes too. They broke into a sneer, and all that courage I had gathered disappeared into a puff of smoke. Instinctively, I turned away and hid among the crowd. "I can’t do this!"

"Then let me possess you."

"No!"

Spotting my mother ahead, I began to head towards her for company, suddenly too anxious to stay alone. Irritation filled the ghost. "Good grief, I know a way out! It will only be a minute."

"No, you’ll start vandalizing."

"It’s your call!" she shouted out loud, her voice unheard by all but me. "Your father is already talking with him."

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"They died a miserable death, Sandra. Do you want to save them or not?" her voice boomed in my head again. It reminded me of the horrors of my reality that had occurred not too long ago. I had just escaped police custody, my parents had been murdered and Lisa was nowhere to be seen.

My heart began to pound. I looked up at her, the insides of my eyebrows rising. With great difficulty, I sighed and bobbed my head into a nod. The ghost smiled, her eyes beginning to gleam an electric blue. "Stay still," she murmured and then swept through the floor with lightning speed and crashed into my body.

My limbs convulsed at the impact, though it wasn’t too noticeable in the crowd. I found myself being dragged back into nothingness, my vision becoming hazier by the minute. To the outside, I appeared as still as a corpse but within, my surroundings had begun to vanish until I was floating in a dark void.

"Ghost?" I called out loud, anxiousness beginning to fill me. She didn’t respond but gradually, my vision cleared. The shadows right in front of me waned to a considerable extent, revealing those bright yellow chandeliers, the dome-shaped ceiling, and the merry crowd standing before me. It felt as if I were in a box of darkness with only the front face open for me to see.

Just then, someone bumped against my shoulder and I stumbled forward. I’d have crashed onto a woman, so I decided to raise my right hand and brace myself but instead, my body used the momentum to twirl around gracefully and break the fall with a hand on one of the tables.

I wanted to see who had bumped onto me. Instead, my head turned towards the table. My hands automatically moved and picked up a glass of juice as if I had lost all control. Fear washed over me. "Hey!"

"Relax, I got this," the ghost’s voice resounded in the void. I couldn’t understand where it had come from.

"Where am I, exactly?"

"Your consciousness."

I watched as the ghost lifted the glass and took a hearty sip. A tang of orange filled my mouth as if I were tasting the juice myself. It was instantly followed by a feeling of sheer delight, which was odd because I wasn't happy. Was I feeling her emotions too? "Ghost?"

Of course, she didn’t respond. She was too busy enjoying her fill. A waiter sauntered past just then, and she picked up two toothpicks of kebab without throwing him a glance. "Good heavens, these are delicious!" she exclaimed out loud, completely oblivious to the long look that he gave her as he passed by.

She wasn't paying attention to the matter at hand at all. When the corner of my vision showed my father already conversing with that conglomerate, fear seized me. "Ghost!" I exclaimed frantically but she wasn’t listening. With the kebabs in one hand and a glass in other, she sauntered away from the crowd, munching to her delight.

I found my heels and toes twirl at odd angles to the soft music as she swung her body gracefully and moved up the stairs. She was humming along to the tune as if she were lost in it, earning weird looks from a few. By now, my embarrassment knew no bounds. She was behaving like a lunatic. "GHOST!"

"Shh, listen to the music," she said, walking up the stairs to the office on the first floor. We didn’t stop there though. She dragged me through the darkness and moved all the way up to the second floor. Unlike the corridor below, this floor was an open space, bounded by balusters on all four sides. The banquet hall could be seen over the rails. She leaned over one such baluster and watched the crowd peacefully. By now, I was irritated. "What are you doing?!"

She didn’t respond, yet again. We kept watching the crowd for who knows how long. Mother was standing at one corner, chatting happily with the rest of the ladies. Father was next to an archway directly beneath where I stood, also chatting happily. Lisa was standing next to the musicians across the floor, her arms crossed and face twisted into a scowl. Nate and his friends were at the same spot that they had been at when I had entered the hall, a few feet away from my father.

"TO ALL THE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" a female yelled all of a sudden, snapping me out of my trance. As soon as she did, the hall grew deathly quiet. The music stopped playing. Everyone turned to look up at me. 

It took me a while to realize I was that female.

Chills ran down my spine. I found my lips curl into a nasty sneer as I raised my drink and looked down at Gilbert. "HALLELUJAH!" I cried, and then emptied the glass right on top of his head.