Endless Path of a Yurei Girl (Reboot) 1
By Shin

This is a reboot of a story I wrote more than half a year ago, a "What if?", what had happened should Shinko have died suddenly without her knowledge... if she had become a Yurei (A Japanese ghost whose hands dangling lifelessly from their wrists, and they lack legs, instead sporting a blue trail of energy), what happens is a journey, a journey that will change her li-...er...undeath.

Darkness surrounded her, confused, she looked around, scared by the gathering gloom.
"Wh-what happened?!" She asked herself,  trying to close her eyes and escape the obsidian world that surrounded her.
How had she gotten here? Where was she? Just moments ago she was on her way home, and then... everything else was a muddled blur.
She opened her light brown eyes, and beheld a grim scene.
She saw someone... she couldn't tell who, but, she could tell by the pool of blood building over them that something horrible had happened...
"Wh-who is that? I can't see who that is..." She said, as people began to gather around the body of this girl she did not know.
The confused girl perked up her ears. "Come on Shinko, listen to what they have to say..."
"Oh my God!" "What happened?" "Is she dead?!" "Take a pulse!" There was a pause "... No good" A grim voice said
"No pulse, she's dead." This was met with collective gasps, Shinko's included
She tried to get closer as more people began to swarm around the unfortunate soul. As she tried to get closer, she recognized no one, they were strangers to her, as she began to make her way closer to the people, not noticing that she no longer made footsteps... or that she went through people, working her way to the morbid event.

Something about the body... did not seem right... this unfortunate soul whom had just had her life ended wore a school uniform, not unlike Shinko's... with a red skirt... and...matching neckerchief.
In shock, and dismay, she got a closer look at the body. She had to see the face, had to know...!

Her face was covered in blood, the hair now a crimson shade, but... there was no denying it...
The person who had died this day...
...
Was her.
"N-no.... that can't be!" The dead girl shook her head with disbelief.
"I-I'm right here!" She looked at herself, and screamed.
Her legs were no longer there, nor her skirt, the Auburn haired girl now had a stream of glowing blue light where her legs were, she was...floating off the ground. A glance at her hands revealed that they were no longer functioning...dangling off her wrists lifelessly, like a broken limb, unmovable...
"I-i...I'm a ghost?" She asked herself plainly, tears streaming down her face.

A dark haired girl was casually walking down a nearby street when an event had caught her attention, people gathering around in a circle, almost as if they were staring agape into a hole.
"Whats that look like, Emiko?" Her friend asked
"I don't know, lets get a closer look", she responded as she went to the street.
"Excuse me, sir, what ha-...ppened..." Something twirled her stomach into a knot, she didn't feel well
She knew this feeling, the feeling of a spirit nearby.
"A girl died. A Bowling ball hit her on the head and seems to have cracked her skull in two."
"A girl?" She said, trying to get a closer look.
She beheld an auburn haired girl floating over the bloodied body of another that looked just like her. The main difference being that this girl had no legs, just a mysterious...energy seeping through where legs would be, and hands that hung from her wrists without any movement, as if dislocated, she looked...very sad...
... It was a ghost... not just any ghost, but the ghost of this girl who just died.
"Wait... is that...?!" she pushed people aside to get a closer look at the body.
...
"... it is... I recognize you... you go to the same school as me..." Recalling the events of earlier.
"I should have said hello, maybe have gone to school with you, maybe I could've saved you from this fate." Emiko said, glancing at the ghost whom had paid no heed to her.
The dark haired girl held back a tear, despite the immense guilt she had felt.
"I could have helped you..." Leaving the body, and walking back to her friend.
"I-...it was that girl from earlier... the one I said I should've talked to... what was her name?"
"Sh-Shinko!?"
"Yes, this is bad... I know this won't end well at school..."
"Do you think people will noti-..."
"Don't finish saying that" Responding with the swiftness of the wind.
"No matter what, someone dying leaves a wound in someones heart, even if it was just a passing glance once in your life, you feel it. She may have not had any friends, but trust me, she at least left a mark on this world, and the world will weep at her passing." Trembling, she turned back to her friend.
"Should we go tell the school?"
"Probably."
They nodded, and turned around.
Emiko glanced at the ghost again, and whispered to herself "I have a duty to fulfill, and I will help you... stay there, please."

Frowning, the recently departed girl gazed at her body. "I-I'm dead..." She kept repeating to herself.
"Will anyone really miss me? What am I supposed to do?" Her head was spinning.
All she could do was stand...or...float there...gazing at her shed mortal shell in tears.
Soon enough, men clad in white had come and lifted up her body, and put it on a stretcher, it was covered in a black bag, and hauled onto the back of a white van, it drove away.
"N-no! That's my body! Give it back! Maybe there's a chance..." She stopped, mid-sentence.
She had never felt such loneliness...such... despair...she was in anguish.
Dead... transformed into a ghost...and now completely alone, as no one could notice her.
Overcome with sorrow, and grief, she couldn't hold it anymore.
She cried, she cried so much, yet felt nothing in her "body", she could not feel the tears from her eyes, nor the frown on her face...and no one could hear her...or even see her.
The essence of true lament was what she felt.
Some of the civilians whom had come to see the spectacle found themselves in tears too, as they, like Emiko said, could not but feel a wound in their heart from this girls passing.
People Shinko had known...and some whom had never ever met, all joined in this grief

The ghost had cried for hours, until the sun, painting the sky with with its heat and orange warmth had descend, with the pale moon rising, and coloring it with darkness, and giving a portrait of the space that is beyond our earth.
She wiped whatever tears had remained on her incorporeal eyes, and gazed up into the star-lit sky.
"I guess this is it then...I'm dead...and trapped here on Earth" She said in ultimate defeat, and sighed
"I just wonder... what I can do for an eternity..."

"I wonder why I try... we've tried this for centuries...not a single success... I guess we have to do our part, to give those deserving another chance at life" Emiko said to herself.
"My guesses are that she is still here, probably cried for a while" Approaching the site of where her classmate had her life snuffed out, her body began to tremble.
"S-some kind of priest I am... I'm supposed to help them...yet I can't stand near one without feeling scared...!!!" As she approached the site, her guesses were right, the ghost had not moved, she was still their, her auburn hair unchanged, her eyes still bearing the look of a saddened and unhappy one.
Carefully, she stepped forward.
"... Shinko?"

The ghost turned around as she heard a voice...adressing her?
"...Shinko?" Could someone see her?
"Y-yes?" She turned to a dark haired girl, she looked familiar, even though they had never met.
"I heard about your death, tragic, really." The girl replied.
"...You can see me?"
"Yes, its part of my blood, my duty. I've came here to tell you about that duty"
"D-duty!? Are you going to exorcise me? Send me to Hell?" Shinko asked, clearly frightened by her tone
"No no no...something else, my name is Emiko, and I am here to help you"
"Help me?" Shinko was curious, how could this...Emiko help her?
"It may not work... but..."
There was a slight pause
"We could bring you back to life."
The apperition gasped, there is no way this could be true.
"Y-you're joking..."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
She gazed at this strangers face, her eyes full of fear, yet gloom, and determination.
"...I-I believe you."
"Good...I'll tell you more tomorrow night, until then, get accustomed to your new...body, if you can call it that"
"O-ok.."
As suddenly as she had come, the girl..."Emiko" had left

"I'll do my best...its never been proven to work, yet every year we have someone like her...could she be different? I felt something different about her..." The young priest said to herself as she left.

Once more, the ghost gazed up into the starry night sky.
"I guess I don't have to worry about what I can do for an eternity...I just have to hope... I can gain another life time, and wonder what I can do for that!" She said, as she floated back to where she had died, eager for Emiko's return.