The Ghost of Melissa

The worst day of my life surprisingly started on a morning as normal as any other.... My parents and I were getting ready for a trip to the Amazon forest... The flight would leave at 7:15 a.m and we had plenty of time to reach the airport.... But still, my parents were rushing me like we were late! I tried to tell them to stop worrying but they wouldn’t listen.... Next thing I knew, I was on the flight to Brazil.... One of the major reasons I hate traveling is because of my motion sickness.... When we finally arrived at the Brazil airport, the first thing I wanted to do was run out into the fresh air...

Soon we were in a taxi going to the resort just outside the amazon forest... When we got there, I ran straight to the room and tried not to get sick from what seemed like years and years of travelling... The next day... we would be going out into the Amazon forest, with a guide who would arrive in the evening.... The next morning came so soon that I thought I had slept in the evening and woken up the next day!!! But my mother insisted that I had only slept the night.... Soon we were in the Amazon forest, and the guide only took us through the sunny path.... but suddenly, as if from nowhere, the most beautiful butterfly I have ever seen fluttered past me... I couldn’t resist the urge to follow it and so I gave in and followed the butterfly deep into the forest...

Before I knew it, I was lost! When I looked up, I saw that the canopies of the trees were getting thicker and it was becoming more and more difficult to see... suddenly, I stumbled on a root of a gigantic tree and slipped down a steep slope... “Ahh!”, I shouted, but I knew no one could hear me... Suddenly, I felt a chill breeze rub against my back and slowly, I turned around... and what I saw made my blood freeze, a girl a little older than me was standing a little distance away, but she didn’t look human.... she looked like a hologram, and it was almost as if I could see through her... she held in her hand, a normal looking stick, but I on the edge there was a red liquid that was dripping to the ground....

“Who are you?”, I managed to ask, but no reply came...”Please don’t hurt me “, I said, my face pale with fear. “My name is Melissa, ghost of Melissa, and if I need to be freed from my dark prison, I have to sacrifice another, quite like myself and you are the chosen one, if I kill you I will be set free!”, said the ghost. I couldn’t take this in! What chosen one? Did she just say that she is going to kill me? These were the thoughts running in my head. “Wait, why are you in that form? Were you a ghost from the beginning? What happened to you?”, I asked to buy me some time to run away. And it seemed to have worked, she spoke long and bitterly, ”I was just any ordinary girl like you, but not that ordinary, I was going to be the youngest person to discover one of the rarest sights in the Amazon, the Rafflesia flower. But when I was so close to finding it, a man came with this same stick in my hand and hit me on the head from behind. And there, on the very spot, I died”.

I was touched listening to the tragic tale of her life, but now was not the time to show her sympathy, for she was going to kill me! So I asked her, “how do you know it is a man?” while edging my way out. “I heard his voice “, she said.”He said something like finally, I found you! Now I will kill you and finally live in peace without having the anger inside me and plotting on how to avenge my grandfather! And then he hit me on the head and killed me”. I was finally very close to a path leading somewhere, but at least it wasn’t here. So I ran as fast as I could and she came running behind me shouting “ If I must be free, you must die and so be it!”

At the end of the path and when I stepped behind the bush, I saw her, but it looked like she was human but she was lying on the ground and looked unconscious. I bent down and touched her and she had no pulse. “This is how I look when I am human “, came a sad voice from behind me, “Did you have parents when you were human?”, I asked. “Yes”, came the reply, ”They would have missed you, right?”, I asked. “Of course! My parents loved me!”, she said. “So do mine and if you kill me they will feel as sad and worried as yours are”, I said. “So stop this, I will help you and be your friend, and I will help you find the flower if you stop trying to kill me!”, I said. And she agreed! I exhaled a sigh of relief...I was going to live! “Let’s start right now!”, I said. “First we need to find that flower!” ” Where did you last see it?”. “In that part of the bush”, she said. “So there we went and you wouldn’t believe what we found!

The Rafflesia flower!! It looked old but as beautiful as it can be! But this was too easy!! “Nice job on doing all the hard work when you were human!”, I said. “You made this very easy for us!” “I spent the last 5 years of my life looking for this plant! And I have finally found it!!”, she cried. “But how will we tell the public that you died and that I found the map of its location in your hand? Okay... I made that up but how do you think we should break it to them?”, I asked.” Exactly like that”, she said. And so we did, I mean the announcing was my part but she did everything else, it was almost all her... Next thing we had to do was the most difficult part.... trying to convince her parents... they took the news very hard and started crying right there... so I left them to figure it out, I mean what could I do?

Finally when we returned to the forest, we were both tired... I didn’t know she was tired until she told me, I mean I didn’t know ghosts could get tired.. When I told her this we both cracked up and laughed hard for some time... then I told her that even if she may have been scary at first, she was a really good person... so I asked her,” Melissa, will you be my friend?”, expecting a no or of course not as an answer but instead, she said,” Of course I will be your friend!”. “Friends forever?”, I asked, “Friends forever!”, she said. But then, I noticed that she was suddenly starting to fade! “Melissa! You are fading!”, I cried, but it was too late!

She was already half-faded.... And then there was a flash of light and all the light seemed to drain into her body and then, I noticed when my eyes adjusted, Melissa was moving, I mean the real Melissa was moving! And then, slowly, she opened her eyes and looked very surprised, she was human again! Her dream was fulfilled and she was human again! She sat up straight and hugged me, we were both overwhelmed and overjoyed that she was back! Now there was only one more thing left to do.... tell the whole world!