(Fall seven times, rise eight)
"Hey, if it isn't Suicide Girl!"
A voice rang out in the distance—mocking, like a stone skipping across an empty coffin.
Every head turned at once, as if pulled by the same spring.
There he was, leaning against the gas tank of his bike, one hand raised like someone waving at fate and disaster in the same breath. Gustavo.
Dennis was the only one who noticed how Ashley, shadow-quick, slipped behind her back like a leaf terrified of the wind.
George stormed toward his younger brother, clearly annoyed.
"Damn it, Ghost! Who the hell are you calling that? Did you swallow a battery or are you just in idiot mode for fun?"
"Nah, I just got hit with… nostalgia," Gustavo said, letting a half-smile drag across his face.
"Forget it. Thought I saw a ghost."
He started the bike, eyes locked on the shadowed figure behind Dennis—more mist than flesh.
"What are you staring at, Ghost? Do I turn you on?" Dennis raised an eyebrow, pushing irony like it was a butter knife.
"I'm just watching a soul, not a cliff," he replied, letting out a coarse laugh—like he was laughing straight into the void.
"Catch you later… or not, Suicide Girl."
Minutes later, the motorcycle screeched to a stop outside Ninna's building.
Gustavo gave George a shove.
"Move it and get your bony ass off my seat. You're making me pregnant with the exhaust pipe."
"If you weren't my brother, I swear I'd knock your damn teeth out," George muttered, half-joking, half-tense.
"Who did you see?"
Gustavo just shrugged, smiling like someone pretending not to remember the thing burning inside them.
Dennis crossed her arms while Ashley tried to recover her breath—and her usual statue-like expression.
"Right. I'd ask for an explanation about what the hell that was… but knowing you, I'll save my breath."
Ashley looked at her like she'd just woken up from a dream with no windows.
"You staying over tonight?"
"No," Ashley replied, voice echoing from some basement within her.
"Why not?"
"I'm grounded."
"You're still grounded? For how long did your uncle ground you?"
"A week."
"A we—Ash, do I look like an idiot to you? It's been over two and a half weeks! Again with this?"
Ashley blinked, surprised.
"Are you sure?"
"Obviously, you little nut. So… are you staying?"
Ashley hesitated. One long heartbeat.
A maybe drifted out of her like a rootless leaf.
Going home felt like stepping into a minefield patched up with duct tape.
The dishes were right where she left them—food crusted like post-apocalyptic art.
The TV was on.
That meant the ogre was home.
She climbed to her mother's room.
Found her half-sunk in pillows and pills.
Her skin looked like rice paper singed at the edges.
"Hi, honey… How were classes?"
Ashley smiled, swallowing the salt in her throat.
Helped her take the pills.
Her mother swallowed them like stones to calm a quake.
"Today… was just another day," she said, trying to sound alive.
Then she heard it.
That sound in the hallway.
Steps that weren't steps—warnings.
He appeared in the doorway.
A failed mixture of a toad in a hat and a hangover with legs.
"You're back already?"
He spoke in that fake-sweet tone used by psychopaths and insurance salesmen.
Ashley tucked her mother in quickly.
"I asked you a question. Not answering is rude, my dear…"
The air thickened.
He stepped closer.
His hand brushed where it never should—like always.
"I'm going to wash the dishes… then head to Dennis's to do homework."
She left without waiting for permission.
She knew her mother would fall asleep soon.
She knew her time was short.
And still, it wouldn't be enough.
Hell doesn't always smell like sulfur.
Sometimes, it smells like rotting onion, warm beer, and the sweat of monsters.
And hell has hands—many.
And knives that don't cut, but leave scars where no one looks.
An hour later, Ashley was no longer Ashley.
She returned to ghost mode.
Walked like a phantom trying to pretend it's human.
Put on a long coat.
Couldn't wear underwear—it hurt. It chafed. It humiliated.
She served dinner.
Her uncle, greasy in his throne, looked at her.
She spilled a glass by accident.
"Goddammit! Can't you do anything right? Those freckles make me nauseous. You look like chickenpox with legs."
She endured it.
She did the dishes.
She showered.
Boiling water.
Red skin.
As if she could scrub off what doesn't wash away.
As if bleeding in the shower made a difference.
Skin doesn't forget.
But she tried to lie to it, one more time.
That night, the world collapsed.
The walls curved.
The floor melted beneath her feet.
The bed—oh, the bed. That still-warm tomb.
The blankets were tangled, still throbbing with scent.
Ashley ripped them off.
Threw the pillows.
Gasped like a fish out of water.
Like someone running without moving.
She pulled on her favorite hoodie.
The one with the Japanese proverb:
"Nana korobi ya oki."
Fall seven times, rise eight.
Then she jumped out the window.
She ran.
Until her lungs burned.
Until the world went quiet.
Until she found herself—again—there.
The bridge.
The rusted old railing.
And in the distance, a motorcycle slumped like a sleeping dog.
As she got closer, she saw him.
That boy from before.
Ghost. Gustavo.
Sitting like a vacationing suicide, cigarette between his lips, hands full of cuts.
She didn't think.
She ran.
Grabbed him from behind, like maybe—just maybe—life could be held onto that way.
He turned his head.
Smiled.
His red eyes shone like beacons underwater.
"Well, who would've guessed?"
Ashley swallowed the lump in her throat.
"Hey… dynamite boy," she said, voice fragile, shaking, broken.
"Someone once told me… 'If you're gonna jump, do it already.'"
He laughed.
A strangled sound.
More scream than joy.
"Is this karma?"
Ashley looked at him.
Had no answer.
But her lips moved on their own.
"I'd say yes… but I'd also say no."
He let out a hoarse chuckle.
"Using my own spells against me, Suicide Girl?"
And for the first time in days,
even if just for a second,
she smiled.