Stevie glanced at Warren and then chuckled.
“Me right about something geez, now even I think you’ve gone off the deep end”
“Yeah considering you also said spirits shouldn’t be able to appear corporeal, I’m taking things you’ve said with a grain of salt, fart-face”
“Hmm… well up until a few minutes ago you didn’t think I was really a ghost, the feelings mutual, colonel stink-bag.”
Warren went to hug his cousin then stopped, realizing.
“Yeah, well, looking corporeal, and being fully corporeal are two different things” Stevie's trademark grin slowly returned as their conversation continued.
Then as Warren spoke both their expressions shifted back to being serious. Mostly due to the gruesomeness of what else they were to talk about.
Warren tried to look Stevie in the eyes but failed, he turned his head in the opposite direction and picked at the zits on his face, a nervous habit.
“So not that I’m not stoked see you’re well-ish, but h-how did it happen” Warren was practically whispering by this point, he hadn’t really wanted to ask but felt he had to.
“Which part, the dying, the finding someone who might listen, or the coming back process overall?” Stevie's eyes sharpened as they focused in on Warren.
Sheepishly Warren answered, “The first one, I think”.
“I wish I knew that myself” Stevie stood up a bit straighter almost flawlessly now compared to where he started.
“So you can’t remember anything?’
“It’s what I said loser”
“Yeah well, dork, how is that possible”
“Blackout, maybe, the subconscious does try to protect us from a traumatic experience, and well…” He paused
He didn’t even have to finish and Warren knew what he meant immediately. Dying couldn’t have been an easy thing.
“Anyways, I was on my way out to get myself some fast food, and some drinks, and then, blackness”
“You wouldn’t be the first mugging gone wrong in this place” Warren testified.
“Yeah maybe, but, there's a sinister feeling I can’t shake” Stevie looked even paler for a second if that was possible even.
“Sinister, from a failed mugging, no couldn’t be” Warren spouted to which Stevie stuck out a middle finger.
“Anyways, I see you’ve been a wreck without me, and who can blame you, I am pretty cool, If I do say so” Stevie's smirk returned as he jokingly boasted.
“You have any idea how true that is, then again neither did I when we knew each other back in college, and prior” Warren answered honestly.
Stevie looked genuinely touched, as much as a ghost could anyways.
There was another short silence then…
Warren studied Stevie's face as if double-checking for confirmation that he was indeed there.
“Why did that photo give me ghost chills, why did you come back now, why hasn’t this happened to people before, so many unanswered questions,” Warren asked afraid of the answer to those questions. Afraid as Warren might have been and as Stevie definitely was afraid of them he knew he needed answers.
“The first one is probably spirit’s tendency to attach to things or people that might have been important to them in life” Stevie speculated.
‘As for the rest I guess I don’t know anything in that area” Stevie looked worried
“What is it?” Warren inquired.
“What if I’m the only one, what do you think people’s reactions are gonna be to something like this?”
“I don’t have the answers either, you know.” Stevie rolled his eyes at Warren’s response.
“Maybe You don’t have the answers, but there is...