[WP] Whenever someone dies, the person responsible will always be able to see the ghost of their victim for the rest of their life.

Mark desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but he couldn't. He gave a defeated sigh and glanced over at the clock. 9:02 A.M. Way too early to deal with this, he thought. He slowly raised himself to a sitting position, praying to whatever god may be listening that she wouldn't be there.

She was.

His longtime tormentor stood at the foot of his bed, staring at him, as she always did. The phantom was roughly five feet tall, with shoulder length blonde hair. She was dressed in a simple yellow dress that was stained with blood. Her face was marred with lacerations, her right arm was grotesquely broken, and her neck bent at an unnatural angle.

She didn't speak - she never did. She just stared at him with that empty, emotionless expression. Mark dragged himself out of bed, doing his best to ignore the specter. He went about his daily routine, avoiding the gaze of the dead girl whenever possible.

The day he had first seen her was burned into his memory. He had woken up in a hospital bed, gauze wrapped tightly around his forehead. She was there at the foot of the bed, silently staring at him. He had screamed and thrashed about so much that a nurse had to sedate him. She had been there ever since. At the foot of his bed, in the corner of the room, at the end of the street, wherever he was, she was there.

He wondered bitterly if the mother saw her. After all, she had been the one that ran the red light. He vividly remembered that moment, the light was green, he glanced up at the rearview mirror, and then nothing. He was knocked out almost instantly, and spared the gruesome scene.

At first he thought he was crazy, and had gone to several therapists and psychiatrists. They each had a different treatment or prescription, but no amount of pills or remedies would make her go away.

He had turned to alcohol, and then to drugs. Anything to help lessen the pain of the shade haunting him. After a few months he had OD'd on heroin and almost died. After he recovered, all he could think about was the peace he had felt as he slowly lost consciousness. He was convinced he was going to die, and he realized that he would be free from her, free from the guilt. He had felt better than he had in years.

Mark had considered suicide several times after the accident, after the girl started haunting him, but he never could go through with it. But, his sanity was starting to fray. It was getting harder and harder to function. Depression was tightening its grip on Mark's mind.

When he swallowed the pills that would end his life, Mark felt genuine happiness, a feeling that was almost foreign to him at that point. He wasn't concerned with any possible afterlife that awaited him, or how harshly any God that existed would judge him. He just ready to be free. A twinge of fear passed over him when he became sleepy, but it was just the fear of the unknown, he knew. When he laid his head down to take a small nap, the girl was there, like always. When he closed his eyes for the last time, she was there. He smiled at her, finally escaping this ghost that had caused him untold grief and guilt.

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