He woke up to a searing pain radiating from his stomach as it cramped in protest. Through groggy thoughts he rubbed the cramp away. It helped, but he knew if he didn’t find something he would experience another cramp soon enough. The squirrel he had been eating was long gone, and while he did grab fruits on his way to the mansion, it had not been much.

  The thought about requiring water still nagged at him, but he ignored it as long as there were no pressing issues. He had many problems to deal with. First, everything that had happened in only a day had not been a dream. Instead, it had been confirmed, as evidenced by the positively luxurious bed he was in.

  The ghost being in his room again was the second thing that told him it wasn’t a dream. It took him a moment to recall her name, and then, like something slapping his mind, it came to him.

  Alice.

  The ghost of the mansion was alive. He had no idea if one of the rooms held a pile of bones, and he would rather not find out while his stomach was this empty. She was staring at him, clearly waiting for something. With a deep sigh, one from the part of his soul that just wanted things to be simple, he rolled up into a sitting position.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked her.

  She tilted her head to the side and clearly seemed to focus on him more. “Yes, you have not eaten since you arrived. I understand humans need food.”

  He grumbled, and stood up, “Yes, we do. My stomach is cramping from how empty it is. I don’t suppose there is any food in this place?”

  She shook her head, her blonde hair shaking almost like in slow motion, her etherealness somehow extending to the very tips. It almost looked like she was floating underwater, but also not. After a moment, she coughed, and he realised he was staring. With a hmpf, he moved to the door.

  As he went out into the hall, he had no idea which floor he was on. She floated through the wall, following him. “Okay, so is there anything in the garden here that is edible?” He chose to go right; it seemed to be the most likely direction to the stairs.

  Without making a sound, she followed him, she was still floating, only a few centimetres above the ground. “Yes, the front gardens were kept for beauty. But I think the humans that lived here did use some part of the back for food.”

  He hoped that the plants they kept could have grown wildly. Farmed plants did not always like growing in the wild, or so he was told by a video he had watched once. She didn’t say anything else as they went down the hallway.

  It was similar to the two he had seen on the lower floors, and he soon found the end. It was not a way down; instead, it was a closed door that he had to slightly force open. It revealed another office, this one small, with a window that lined one side, a desk opposite it, and a few small shelves with books awkwardly stacked on them.

  He’d take a look at those later. For now, he turned around and started heading back where he had come. Alice waited outside the little office space and then quietly followed him. When he passed the fifth closed door, he finally relented and turned to look at her.

  “Uh, how do I get down?”

  Without waiting, she continued down the hallway, waving for him to follow. She kept going until she was in front of a white door that looked exactly like every other door. “Through here,” she said as she simply flew through it.

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  He turned the handle and looked down another hallway, but he could at least see light in the middle of this one. In fact, now that he had thought about it, he could see that the hallway he had been in was dark, but he could still see perfectly fine. This was another thing he could worry about at a later time.

  She was already four doors down when he started walking after her, she was going at a surprisingly brisk pace. Soon they reached the big staircase he had seen in the foyer, the fireplace he had used as a way to heat himself crackling with a fire. She would have had to keep it going, which comforted him.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she went to one of the doors below the staircase, into a kitchen that he was completely shocked to find entirely clean. There was not even a little bit of dust or the dust from very old fruits and vegetables that he expected. She went to float by the door that was leading outside.

  “Hold on, I want to check what is in here, maybe there is something that’s been preserved.” She didn’t respond, smiled faintly and nodded. The kitchen was large. Larger than any kitchen he had ever been in. The entrance and the exit were right close to each other, but as he looked out he saw that it was meant to serve what must have been multiple families.

  The walls had counters all along them, with several spots broken up by either a cupboard as tall as he was or wood stoves with their chimneys running along the wall and the roof. In the centre of the kitchen were several islands, with thick wooden tops. Even where he stood, he could see some cuts where food had once been prepared.

  Altogether, he counted four islands in the kitchen, each around three meters long and almost two meters wide, leaving space between each to allow movement without being blocked. He suspected that there were probably some hidden doors somewhere. Images of hidden wine cellars and pantries as large as his old bedroom came to mind.

  Barely had the thought come to him than when several doors in the kitchen opened on their own. He made a little squeak and looked at Alice. “I thought it would help if you could see where the pantries were.”

  “It feels more like you can hear what I am thinking.” Without thinking he brought up his status.

  He stopped what he was doing as he reread what he’d just seen, most of it was the same as when he’d first seen his status. But two things made his blood run cold: he was now soulbound to Alice and had somehow become a Master Of Lost Souls.

  She had a small knowing smile on her face again. “You can hear what I am thinking, can’t you.”

  “Not entirely. More of your intent. We are soulbound.” She was rather curt about it all.

  He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He had no idea what that really meant, but he hoped it would be beneficial. “Before I go through this kitchen, hoping to find something to eat, how did you die? You said there used to be people here. Were you one of them?”

  She shook her head negatively, “I don’t think I was ever alive. I just woke up one day in this mansion and have been here ever since.”

  He mulled over the information for a bit, “Oh, so why did it say you were deceased when I appraised the mansion?” he asked, walking towards the nearest open pantry. It had nothing in it, not even a layer of dust.

  “Until you opened the door, I was basically. A few more years, and the mansion would have fallen in on itself entirely, " she said, her voice carrying through the entire kitchen. He moved on to the next pantry. This one opened into a room; it was indeed as large as his previous bedroom.

  It had silverware, knives, and everything else you would use in a kitchen. All seemed clean, but had tarnished slightly. He was surprised to see no rust on anything. “Oh, so you were almost dead? Just me being here stopped it?”

  He heard her make a sound before replying, “No, we were still dying. Which is why we wanted to see if we could make the contract work.” He moved to the next pantry, hoping that at least one had preserves. “We are now using your magic to clean everything slowly, it is not substantial enough to fix everything.”

  He stopped. The pantry did have some glass jars in it, even some pottery with wax seals on them. But he quickly opened his status again, trying to see his “Magic.” He was just greeted again by the message that told him he had no access. “Uh…I have magic?”

  She approached him and he turned to face her. She had her head tilted quizzically again. “You do not know what magic is? You used it to start a fire.”

  “I know that, but I cannot see how much magic I have.” He said, feeling slightly annoyed by her tone.

  Squinting her eyes, she got closer to him, her purple eyes trying to see something in him that he was sure wasn’t there. He wondered if everyone in this world would be as strange as this ghost is. He would like to meet at least a few people before he decides though.

  Without warning she suddenly disappeared and was on the other side of the kitchen. “You! You’re not from this world?”

  He stared down at his denim jeans and t-shirt with a large skull print. “Uh, no? Did you think I was?”

  He stepped back from the pantry, a bit of worry flashing through him. “Yes! Walkers are not supposed to be real! The humans always told stories to their children.” She moved through the islands like they weren’t there, clearly thinking back to something old. “They said that walkers always tried to rule everything.”

  That took him back a little, he didn’t feel like ruling anything. He felt the mansion was already too much. “Well, I don’t know about that. All I want to do is live a simple, quiet life…”

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