Being dead kinda sucks…

That was what Mina thought as her spiritual form floated lazily over Obito Park, a simple square of land in the middle of a wide metropolis. Towering apartments and offices surrounded the park, making the center of the area feel as though it were walled off on all sides by mile-high towers. The park itself was filled with thriving vegetation, often inspiring the living folk to visit during the day despite Mina using this place as her haunting ground. It’s been hers ever since she died here five years ago during a mugging-turned-murder. Not the most original death ever, but she didn’t care about that so much anymore. Just like most ghosts, her spirit slipped out from her shell and coalesced into an ethereal form once it lost the ability to hold her, resorting to holding together with a form of energy that she still didn’t fully understand.

Ectoplasm, as far as Mina knew, was the best answer to any questions she still had when it came to being a ghost. She could touch and “feel” herself- even though she no longer technically has a brain- thanks to a thin layer of Ectoplasm that formed her “skin.” Her spiritual body, which perfectly mirrored her memory of what she looked like while alive, was filled with the mysterious element which stored and managed her energy. It was what kept her anchored to the realm of the living, keeping her existence fueled by leeching the “life energy” of those around her who were still alive. But it wasn’t just some automatic preservation or immortality; those living beings had to be “lively” enough that they could shed the excess energy from themselves. They had to actually FEEL alive in order to strengthen and feed Mina and other ghosts.

Such feelings of liveliness usually come from big chemical interactions in the brain such as when having an adrenaline rush. Sometimes that happens when two people have sex, but for ghosts it’s wildly easier to just scare someone instead. So long story short, ghosts basically need to scare people in order to feed off of the life energy that they generate and shed during a fight or flight response. Just like the living however, ghosts have a type of “metabolism” wherein the Ectoplasm that keeps them held together tends to cycle out. When feeding, the Ectoplasm grows and creates new “layers” on top of older ones, while the oldest layers dissolve into the spiritual essence that it is covering up and keeping contained. This dissolved Ectoplasm becomes a form of waste that slowly builds up inside the body of the ghost and inevitably has to be expelled, either willfully or by force.

Ghosts can go a long time without feeding before the Ectoplasm breaks down, but even so, a ghost’s Ectoplasm is an entirely involuntarily-controlled “organ” if one can call it that. It will suck up any essence that happens to be near the ghost, regardless of their will, and begin cycling the layers as needed whether the ghost likes it or not.

Mina continued floating around, minding her own business as she always did. Life as a dead person was dreadfully boring at times, usually at night. It was impossible to sleep; ghosts never get tired. She couldn’t hold a conversation; ghosts couldn’t be seen without scaring everybody. She couldn’t fly into somebody’s apartment and watch TV; ghosts couldn’t leave their place of death without feeling an overwhelming sense of confusion and unfamiliarity. Mina often wondered if ghosts could see each other effortlessly, but she had never seen one other than what she had seen of her own arms and legs, so she could only guess that living people rarely turned into ghosts after dying, other ghosts would move on quickly, or ghosts really couldn’t see each other. 

The ghost girl stretched out her arms and legs, which still held the same slender shape that she’d had since before she had died. Somehow the Ectoplasm knew exactly what she looked like from her hair to her toes, though it couldn’t replicate the clothes she had died in unless she actively tried to remember them and will the Ectoplasm to take their shape as well. Unfortunately, forcing her skin to take a particular shape took more energy than it was worth, so she opted to let it rest, leaving her “naked,” a concept that she had long since gotten over with the realization that she would be wearing nothing but her Ectoplasm no matter what shape it took. That and she was completely invisible unless she willed otherwise.

After stretching out, she made a noise similar to a yawn, though it was more out of boredom since she was incapable of being tired. Fatigued from a lack of feeding perhaps, but never tired. Her gaining a reputation of haunting this park had been a mistake on her part, now nobody comes to Obito Park after dark. Not even the city gangs. It was utterly boring, and made for slim pickings when hunting for a midnight snack. She could mess with the trees and knock the leaves out of their branches for the thousandth time, but what good would that do? Maybe she could simply try pushing her boundaries, try flying above the buildings to get a better view of the city. That could possibly be fun for about thirty seconds, and then suck for a few minutes as she gets herself over the overwhelming daze of leaving her haunting ground.

Mina flipped about a few times, trying to do something to pass the time as she hovered over a lamp post near the north end of the park. She was wondering for a moment if she should play a lonely game of hide and seek with the nearby benches when she heard footsteps. Looking over toward the street, she saw a man- drunk, if his stumbling was a tell- wander onto the grass. The intruder at first filled Mina with a hope that this night might be just a bit less boring than usual, and that she might be able to have some fun with him. Perhaps she could Manifest, use a large portion of her energy to become tangible for a short time, and scare him so badly that he tries to run in his intoxicated state. Oh what a lovely show it could be! But no, she realized, it would only cause more troubles for her as more rumors spread. Instead, the ghost girl merely opted to watch as he stumbled through her park as he presumably headed home.

The guy mumbled to himself for a while, following the path through the center of Obito Park as well as he could, up until he suddenly swerved to the left and made a perfect line toward the nearest tree. With a piqued interest, Mina followed closely and settled herself in the leaves, which gave an ominous sway at her passing through them. What is this drunk guy doing? She would pass the question through her mind a hundred times before she heard the audible sound of a zipper being pulled down. She’d heard that sound somewhere… five years of death had made her forget the origin of that memory. It wasn’t until about two seconds later that she remembered, and in the same moment that the realization hit her, a golden stream of liquid was hitting the trunk of the tree that she watched from. 

Instantly, this attracted Mina’s attention. She watched closely and snuck herself down the trunk of the tree, almost forgetting that she was dead and invisible especially to the intoxicated. It was a rare occurrence when a ghost in a public haunting ground had a chance to see any kind of nudity, and even the unanchored spirit could feel a kind of thrill from lewdness. Not that it was the same thing as what the living felt, ghosts simply don’t have a nervous system in the same sense. They can get themselves “off” if they really work at it, but their Ectoplasmic skin doesn’t actually have any erogenous zones or anything similar. To bring a ghost to anything resembling an orgasm would take as much effort as it would take a living person to get there by rubbing both arms together.

Mina crawled further down the tree, forgetting for just a moment that she didn’t need to be voyeuristic about it and could easily get as close as she wanted. Flipping herself right-side-up, she practically kneeled before the man and puffed out her chest. Despite this, the pale-yellow stream whisked straight through her and continued splashing noisily against the tree directly behind her. She looked down at her tits, which to her own eyes glowed with the same off-white fade, and could only wish that they could easily be recolored with the shimmering tint of gold. Were she still alive, the ghost girl would see this as a disgusting, even repulsive desire. The internet had shown her the urine fetish long ago, and she was immediately off-put by it even though she didn’t quite know why. She was the kind of person who simply went “that’s bad” and held onto that thought without asking why it was bad. After dying and coming to know the utter boredom of afterlife, she had decided that every moment and opportunity for fun had to be taken advantage of.

And so here she was, imagining that this drunkard had come up to her and started forcing her to be his urinal for a moment. It was a mere fantasy to be saved and used for later, but her imagination would be able to temper her boredom until the morning at the very least. Even if she couldn’t actually get an orgasm out of it. The shower that she had put herself into didn’t even feel warm; it just had the same cold, empty feeling that everything else had. She could have gone tangible at any time, allowed herself the warmth that she craved right at this moment, but she needed to conserve her energy, and even a drunk could spread rumors that would hurt her in gaining more. No, she needed to be a bit more tactful than that. She saw and heard the guy’s stream of urine weakening, pattering to the grass and between her legs. Once he was finished, she flew up and took position. Remembering that he had drifted off to the left as he was about to leave, she flew herself over to his right side and put some energy into Manifesting, choosing to take the form of a young girl dressed in whatever she felt was normal for the youth to wear. She took a few things from memory of what she had seen of children coming to the park during the day, as well as a thing or two from her own childhood, and got a long-haired girl of about eight years old, wearing high socks, a skirt and some spaghetti-strapped shirt with stripes. Her Ectoplasmic skin took on all of the commands that her willpower gave it, and it formed perfectly to what her mind imagined.

When the man turned, he was still tucking his dick into his pants, and stopped when he saw the pale-skinned figure barely lit by the park lamp behind her, but still brighter than anything else. Mina stared blankly at him, giving what she felt was exactly enough time for his brain to add up everything in the scene, taking his alcohol consumption into account. She made her face tense up, as though the girl were about to cry. As soon as the flash of realization and fear crossed the disheveled man’s face, the ghost let out a wailing scream, loud enough to send the man running, but not loud enough to pierce the invisible boundaries of her haunting ground. Unless Mina could steel herself to leave it behind, she would never be able to influence anything beyond this park, including the sounds. Just as planned, the man believed that he had just exposed himself to a young girl, the very thought sending him running for the nearest exit. He didn’t even dare to trip, which was actually impressive.

Mina ignored him and dissolved back into her incorporeal form, relishing in the soft buzzy feeling that she got when feeding off of the excess life force of a very scared individual. As usual, the energy that she gained from this was more than what it took to make the scare, giving her a fresh layer of Ectoplasm as the oldest layer began to dissolve within her. As it did, she began to feel the urge. It wasn’t quite the same as an urge to use a toilet would have been when she lived, but it certainly reminded her of that same feeling. It was the same internal pressure trying to push out, but instead of starting at the belly and ending at the crotch, this was an all-over pressure that could be felt throughout her body. Mina decided that, considering what she had just seen, she would go ahead and take care of it immediately. Floating over to a dark corner of the park, she planted her invisible feet upon the grass and willed open a small hole in the Ectoplasm that kept her held together, right between her thighs. Excreting “waste” Ectoplasm wasn’t at all the same as urinating or defecating, she could open up a port to remove it anywhere that she chose, but she wasn’t fully aware of this, instead believing that it was the same as it came out in liquid form and she never thought about alternatives.

She squatted down, even though this wasn’t fully necessary, and allowed her ghostly body to do as it needed, forces beyond her understanding squeezing a glowing fluid out from the hole that she had formed without dragging her spirit out with it, and leaving an illuminant mess that made no noise at all as it left her or hit the dirt below. If she did not see it coming out of her, she would not be at all aware of its existence- waste Ectoplasm. This was the stuff of dreams for a “ghost catcher,” or whatever that television program was called. Once expelled, it remained as a paranormal element in the land of the living, fully visible to anyone with working eyes, but it only remained as a physically uncertain goo for a few hours before coalescing as dust and being scattered by the breeze.

Mina felt herself empty out the waste that she had made and stood up again, letting herself float away from the sticky puddle of glowing liquid before flipping over onto her back and letting herself float away. It would still be a few hours before the sunrise, so she allowed the memory of the drunk guy relieving himself play out in her head, fantasizing about how it could have been different were she alive.