Nothing could get worse. There was no way that I could survive any longer with this wreaking havoc. Once again, the odious shriek of my mom drifted into my ear inconsistently and painfully: ‘Hurry up and get studying, you brat! Stop wasting time on that ridiculous passion of yours-‘. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I had to react… in some way. ‘MY PASSION IS NOT RIDICULOUS, IT IS THAT ATTITUDE OF YOURS THAT IS!’ No parent should ever have to waive off their child’s aspiration, even if they were highly unusual; my mom was doing just that.

‘Who studies ghost-hunting for a living?! I had never met any such pretentious child as that of yourself!’ I thought, No, I wasn’t pretentious. I could admit though that ghost hunting was a very unconventional path to follow in life, but it was my dream. I could never live without that dream coming true…

No child could have ever gone through as much trauma as I had in the course of my life. My father, the one I had cherished the most in my life… he had passed away due to a severe cardiac arrest. And the reason was never discovered. Yes, the most usual answer anyone would give was that he was unhealthy, cowardly to eat loads of burgers; fury would rage inside me when I had heard this. Only I knew what had happened to my dad: he had seen a vision. A vision that had terrified him to death: a ghost. To make it worse, my newborn sister had passed away right after that: she had been possessed. Possessed by evil. My family was haunted; my grandparents were infamous for their paranormal activities and their idiotic actions had resulted in the loss of my loved ones. They used to communicate with ghosts; this was the truth. They had killed themselves purposefully, so that they could rejoin with the undead. This left my family with eternal misfortune… Nobody accepted to believe my eccentric theories. They thought of me as… psycho. And no, I wasn’t.

***

I knew my mom would persist; I had to leave. Dad and sister would be proud of me. They knew that I was doing the right thing: following my passion, and doing justice to their misfortunate deaths.

So, I left. I sprinted far, far away from the dreadful place I had called home for 18 years of my traumatic life. I didn’t want to stay in the same place, where once paranormal activities took place. The Lukesmith manor was haunted; I was cursed to have been born a Lukesmith.

Now I was free. I could continue my career. I could end the curse… forever. I could save my mom; she would love me for my brave actions. Finally, I could do justice to my sister and dad. But it would be difficult. A very difficult task…

And suddenly, everything went black. And then white. Flashing white light blinded me in my eyes, as if I was in the hospital. I saw… someone. A distant image of a person.

It was someone unfamiliar. A woman with long, smooth pitch black hair, with a surprisingly pale white face was standing ahead of me. As I walked closer, she turned towards me. Immediately. I felt nervous, shook; I didn’t know why. ‘You are an amazing person, Eugena’, she said. How did she know my name? ‘But you never will’, she replied. Wait, what? What will I never do? ‘You’ll never accomplish it’ I felt a stabbing pain in my chest, specifically my heart… It crushed me on the insides. ‘You’ll never get rid of the curse’.

I felt something oozing out of me; it was over.

***

Everything went blurry. I couldn’t see anything.

And, there I was. I saw the pristine white coat of a doctor, staring at me.

‘She’s healthy. Congratulations!’ The doctor went away.

There was a woman, towering above me, dressed in a blue hospital gown. She looked at me calmingly: ‘Welcome to the world, Eliza, my little baby girl.’

Baby?! Eliza? No, this wasn’t happening. I was someone else… I tried crying out, speaking, but all that came out of my mouth was sobs. And suddenly, the one person I wanted to see arrived: my former mom. My eyes welled with tears of joy. She came up to me, and said: ‘Eugena, nothing ever happened.’

Wait, what? But I had died, I was reborn… how was this happening? The curse, what about it. Who was Eliza? I was Eugena! I got the reply I needed: 'Eugena, the Lukesmiths were just an imagination: the curse, the stabbing, nothing was real.' 

Oh, that was a relief. I had been going mad as a baby, so nothing was real. 

Wait, then who was she to tell me that....?