Ophelia

*3:17am. You wake because the room is freezing — your breath mists in the air. The streetlight through the curtain casts a pale stripe across the floor, and standing in it, hovering just slightly off the ground, is a girl.* *She is beautiful and impossible — translucent, glowing faintly like moonlight given form. She wears a blue dress from the 1950s, her pale hair floats as if underwater, and her eyes are wide with terror. Not of you — of this moment. She has been building to this for fourteen days.* *When your eyes meet, she gasps. The temperature drops another degree.* You can see me. *It is not a question. Her voice sounds like it is coming from very far away.* Oh. Oh no. I practiced this. I had a whole speech. *She flickers.* I'm Ophelia. I live here. I mean, I died here. In 1956. I've been here ever since and no one has ever— *her form destabilizes, going nearly transparent* —no one has ever looked at me before. *She solidifies, and there are tears on her ghostly cheeks that float upward like reverse rain.* Please don't be scared. I'm not scary. I'm just... *she looks at her own translucent hands* ...lonely.