Chapter 6

Clover does her best to control her princess peach, the large twelfth place on her side of the screen and Chris with her golden number one.

“You have to boost when you turn,” Chris says.

“I… have no idea what that means!!!” Clover shakes the controller in her hand.

Taylor sits up putting her phone down. She puts her hands around Clovers and shows her how to boost “use these buttons when you turn and you’ll go faster when you let go.”

Clover does the thing! “AHHH I'M DOING THE THING!”

“YEAH!” Chris cheers, intensifying her eyes on the screen, not ready to give up first place!

Taylor continues to scroll through her Sparkleapp “hey look, they’re talking about that new magical girl.”

Clover freezes, Princess Peach drives right over a ledge on screen. The ghost who’s sitting on the floor bored perks up, turning her head. She rests her chin on the side of the bed and smiles, looking at the girl in question.

“LET ME SEE!” while still holding first place and crossing the finishing line Chris reaches across Clover for her sister's phone.

Clover’s eyes glance to the ghost.

“They’re talking about us” the ghost sings, and she smoothly floats off the ground and over Chris’s shoulder. Her smile disappears “woah… These pictures are awful.”

“What are they saying about her?” Clover tries to keep her voice as firm as possible.

Clover resists looking at her “what’s team star??”

“The local magical girl team” The two girls and ghost all say at the same time.

“Didn’t you have a magic team back home?” Chris asks, shoving a handful of popcorn in her mouth.

“No we didn’t, I’ve heard of places that had them, but I never thought I’d actually see them in action” Clover tells them, “my town was really small and we never really needed much protection from anything, much less massive kaijus.”

“I can’t picture living in a place with no magical girls” Chris looks at her with big eyes “they’ve always been around.”

“Yeah, and before team Star it was another team” Taylor ads.

“What happened to them?” Clover asks.

Taylor shrugs “the new team said they retired, which makes sense. Being a magical girl probably isn’t easy once you start getting older.”

Clover tried picturing in her head having white hair and was forced to arm wrestle a kraken.

Chris puts Taylors phone in her face “That’s them!”

There’s a group of women all decked in magical girl glitter and big hair. Red, purple, and white smiling, hands on hips with a dead creature behind them.

Taylor attempts to snatch her phone back but Claire pulls away quickly.

“This is your first monster season here right?” Claire says intently scrolling through something on the phone.

“Yeah,” Clover says.

Taylor reaches over Clover and takes her phone back from her sister.

Taylor tosses her phone on the other side of herself “How’ve you been holding up?”

Clover shrugs “well… the kraken was terrifying…” the images of that night go through her head, and she swears she can still smell the salt water “and that flock of migrating birds were scary, I thought one of them was going to eat me.”

“Sometimes they grab smaller people and children” Chris puts a hand on her shoulders “you should really stay inside next time.”

“And the racoons are… loud.”

“Yeaaah” Taylor sighs “they won’t go away… no matter what you do.”

Chris butts in “and they don’t know why they keep getting bigger!” Chris jumps up, holding her arms wide. Even the ghost jumps.

“Here we go,” Taylor sighs.

“What?” Clover looks up at the blonde girl.

“The kaijus, they’re getting bigger!” Chris looks her in the eyes.

“BIGGER?!” Clover asks.

“No they’re not,” Taylor mutters to herself.

Clover looks at her. Then back at Chris.

“Years ago!” she starts “animals apparently used to be smaller like you could pick up a raccoon, or a bird could land on your shoulder.”

“Liiiies” Taylor whispers in Clover's ear loudly “don’t listen to her, she’s crazy.”

“NO I’M NOT!” she shouts.

“Yes you are, stop staying up all night watching conspiracy videos.”

Chris reaches down grabbing her own phone scrolling intently again “I have so many videos on this!”

“They’re not real,” Taylor says, picking up her phone again and leisurely scrolling through her sparkleapp.

“Someones trying to cover it up” Chris defends “and YOU’RE falling for it.”

Taylor looks at Clover “you don’t believe this do you?”

Clover looks between the two sisters “um well…” her eyes even catch on the ghost, who shakes her head no. Better not to get involved in this “I think I need to go to the bathroom…”

Clover gets up from the bed leaving the two bickering.

“Maybe you should take something other than kaiju studies, Chris, and focus on getting a real job,” Taylor says.

“Kaiju studies is a real career path!”

Clover picks up her pace heading downstairs. Clover quickly gets up and retreats out of the room and quickly down the stairs.

“How's everything up there?”

Clover jumps and sees Taylor and Chris’ mom looking over the back of the couch.

“It’s good, everything’s good,” she says.

“Do you guys need anything?”

“No we’re good, I just needed to use the bathroom” Clover pulls on the sleeves of her shirt.

“Right down the hall sweetie!”

“Thank you” Clover quickly makes it out of there.

In the bathroom she flops against the door and takes a deep breath. Trying to steady her shaking hands.

“They’re loving this new magical girl!”

“AH!” Clover opens her eyes, in the mirror across the room is the ghost!

“Are you alright in there?!” Clover hears the girl's mom ask.

“Yes, just a spider!” she calls back.

“Seeing a lot of spiders aren’t you?” the glowing blue apparition smirks.

“Leave me alone” Clover hisses under her breath.

The ghost rolls her eyes and floats out the mirror, gracefully sitting herself down on the counter “why’d you leave the whip back at your dorm?”

“I was hoping it would leave YOU there with it” she points her finger.

“”Nope, I'll go where you go” she says.

“Why?!”

The ghost shrugs “well… you’re the only one that can see me, soooo… here I am.”

“Go find someone else to see you” Clover grits her teeth.

“Nope, you’re it” she smiles brightly “but don’t worry I’m a great roommate! I love gossiping, talking, and watching movies! We’ll have a great time! I’m like a friend that never leaves your side.”

Clover looks around the bathroom.

“Okay… maybe right now I do leave your side, just wanted to catch up with my bestie! I’ll be upstairs with the girls!” She waves and floats through the ceiling.

Clover stares at the ceiling.

The ghost pops her head back out “by the way, just call me Ghost I think that’s simple enough right?” she laughs and peaces out.