For a joyous water elemental that just wanted to sail through the

  air, jumping across the rooftops of Beaconsfield like a frog from

  lily pad to lily pad was the ticket.

  The higher peaks of downtown– buildings three floors and more–

  called to Ghost Thing, though, and he found himself shifting in the

  direction of the place where arrays of skyscraper windows reflected

  sun like big mirrors. He meant to take it easy that afternoon and he

  knew that the closer he got to the core of Toronto, the bigger chance

  he would be attacked again, but jumping around the east side of town

  reminded him of how great the jump felt a few metres higher.

  It had been so long since Ghost Thing got to express himself with his

  moves. Yes, they were practically dances he did as he hopped, jumped

  and soared over top the pedestrian world. During his time of

  suspending himself from his water form, Ghost Thing fantasized (with

  great yearning) about cool moves he could do. Now was the time to

  test them. He did flips, somersaults, and other agile manoeuvers that

  felt like him copying things he saw on the Matrix. Moves he never

  really did before.

  There was a puddle on one roof and when he landed on it, he slid. It

  required concentration, but when his liquidy foot hit water, he could

  make it so that the two substances repelled one another, denying

  friction, and Ghost slid like he was skating on ice. And when he came

  to the edge of the puddle, he dropped down into a blob and then

  snapped into the air, using the forward momentum to toss himself into

  the sky. With a jump that powerful, he went a few metres into the air

  and cleared the area of an entire building like he was skipping a

  stair. Oh, it was those moments– those moments where he nailed a

  jump so well it could have gotten him Olympic gold– that felt too

  perfect. He felt at one with his body, the air, and all the physics

  that kept around.

  He had all the room in the world to try out new tricks, so why would

  he have not? He tried sliding back on his foot and then tossing

  himself upward to swing his legs overhead. It was a hard trick

  whenever he landed it, it was stylish and impressive. It was a

  showcase to how resilient his aquatic form was, though, because out

  of the several attempts he tried of the acrobatic feat, he only

  landed it twice. Every other time he bit it. But he would shake the

  minuscule pain, get up, and try again!

  If he had the chance to look at himself, watch himself perform like

  he was part of Cirque de Soleil, what would have Ghost thought about

  himself? He might have looked graceful. He might have even looked

  . As he rode around the rooftops of Queens, he thought

  to himself why couldn’t he have displayed such agility and prowess

  when he was fighting that lady with the psychic powers and the stick?

  He saw great potential within himself. In fact, as he jumped around

  the old brick monuments of his hometown, he wondered something he

  hadn’t in quite some time: how powerful could he get? What were the

  limits of his aquatic body? Was his ability to smack someone with a

  heavy fist of water the peak of his power? How would he even attempt

  to test how to strengthen his abilities?

  In his midair escapade, wind blasting his face, a sliver of

  melancholy broke through the rush of euphoria. He could have sighed

  but sighing was an activity for the still.

  Usually, he could ask someone and get an easy answer. But his liquid

  body was his own world and there was no one to question about it. He

  was the top researcher in his field and he had no skills on the

  matter.

  Ghost Thing looked around at buildings flying underneath him as

  rollicked towards downtown. Soon, the vicinity that had three storey

  buildings at the highest was replaced with a neighbourhood where

  buildings rose higher than the platforms Ghost Thing chose as his

  runway.

  He didn’t know how to bolster his fighting ability, but what he was

  doing that afternoon– really cutting loose with flips and jumps,

  practising his gymnastics routine– probably helped him become a

  better fighter.

  Another strike of melancholy hit him. Fighting? Was that something he

  wanted to continue to do? Heck, the fight at the loan agency was the

  only time he fought and won, and even then he didn’t feel great

  doing it. But as that thought rolled out of him, he realized fighting

  probably wasn’t going to feel good.

  No, why would it? Ghost wasn’t going to fight criminals because it

  felt good. He was going to do it because it was

  Or maybe he wouldn’t. He was dead set on not being a superhero

  anymore.

  That thought didn’t pass through Ghost Thing quietly. It tugged at

  something. He wondered, Do I... do I not want to be a superhero?

  At all?

  Ghost Thing got so lost in thought that he didn’t realize, that

  after taking off from a coffee shop, he was going to land on a

  rooftop with a spread of large, plywood boards on its surface. No big

  deal. The boards weren’t going to break if there was something

  underneath.

  Except there wasn’t.

  When Ghost landed on the shuffled plywood, maybe it was the way he

  landed with a single foot out, or maybe his centre of gravity was

  positioned in such a way that made his body hit particularly hard,

  but Ghost Thing’s foot broke through the wood, and tugged his body

  down through it as well.

  The water lad crashed through the ceiling and dove to the floor,

  toppling across the ground while the wooden boards fell after him.

  Okay, landing hurt.

  “What was ” cried a lady’s voice from below.

  Ghost Thing looked up and got his bearings. He had fallen into a dark

  attic (he it was an attic) with old, unfinished walls

  and tools hanging around on hooks bolted in between the studs. The

  ceiling of the room had a big hole in it and those wooden boards

  Ghost crashed through; they were keeping it shut. Light from outside

  shone down into the room. The place was scattered with discoloured

  chairs, furniture draped in tablecloths, and stacks of weathered

  cardboard boxes. About the only thing in that room that looked intact

  was a poster for the movie hanging above the stairs.

  And just as Ghost Thing noticed it, a light came on from below and

  footsteps thumped up towards the room.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Oh

  no! thought Ghost Thing.

  He had to get out , and a good jump would do the

  trick. He got on the floor and squished himself down into a ball, but

  when he snapped out to shoot himself up into the hole, a piece of

  wood slid underneath him causing Ghost to misaim the jump and he

  fired himself right into the corner of the room, knocking over a few

  boxes with another big crash. Reverted back to his humanoid form,

  Ghost collapsed behind the bunch of toppled cardboard artifacts.

  “Was that you?” a man’s voice called upward.

  “No,” said the lady. Her voice was clear so Ghost knew she was up

  in the attic with him. The water elemental kept low, hiding behind a

  couch. he asked himself, but he had no

  answer. He crawled along the floor, and peeked over the couch to see

  where the woman was.

  Angeline was a thirtysomething woman wearing a blue bandana over her

  bright red hair. She stepped out into the centre of the floor and

  looked up at the open roof.

  “Aw, ” she said.

  “What is it?” asked the male voice, footfalls stomping up to join

  everyone in the room.

  Patty, a chubby fella with a fuzzy field of facial hair, got up to

  join the woman in the attic. He took her side, staring up at the same

  hole in the roof she had her eyes on.

  Patty sighed. “Guess we gotta patch that up.” He checked around

  the floor. “What caused it?”

  “I don’t know!” said the woman, her voice abrasive with

  irritability. “Do you think an animal got in here?”

  He would miss the humanoid form’s sharper eyesight and hearing but

  Ghost melted down into his puddle form and slid across the ground,

  hoping the puddle’s more compact shape would do enough work to keep

  out of sight and touch as little as possible. He made his way around

  the room, circling around the two house owners, as he looked for an

  escape. If he couldn’t hop back out the way he came in, there had

  to be another way.

  It was then he knocked one of those boxes and rattled the insides–

  metal tools or maybe plates. The house owners turned towards that

  corner of the room, wary.

  “Oh god,” said Patty. “You think it’s a bird or something?”

  “Sounds heavy,” said Angeline. “I think it might be a raccoon.”

  “Man...” said Patty with his word overtaken by his breath.

  Although the water lad flashed his form in public where anyone at a

  window could spot him, Ghost Thing didn’t want to be seen– not up

  close. He slowed himself down to mute every squeak and pop that his

  puddly body could produce as he crawled along the edge of the room

  and hoped that soon he had left the area that the humans had their

  eyes on.

  Where to crawl? Where to crawl? Ghost couldn’t think of any ideas

  on how to get out, but then the light of the staircase caught his

  eye. If the two of them were up there with them, maybe Ghost’s exit

  was the way they came. Ghost slid over to the edge of the floor to

  the banister. He peeked from under a couch to see which way the

  human’s heads were facing– away, it looked like– before he

  snaked through the columns of the rail and landed on a staircase with

  a dusty red carpet. He went down to the bottom of the staircase where

  a door lied.

  The door was much newer then the building around it– and it had

  weather stripping around the bottom. It was like a

  plastic container! Ghost couldn’t slink through it.

  “Hold on,” said Patty. “I’m going to get the broom.”

  Ghost panicked and slid back up the stairs quickly and bolted through

  the columns, back behind the couch. Ghost could see Patty’s

  slippered feet still on the floor, the man likely heard Ghost’s

  scurry back into their room. Patty’s steps pivoted away from the

  stairs and towards the couch Ghost hid under.

  The puddle had to be slow enough to not make any more noise but fast

  enough to get out of the range of Patty’s sight before the

  slimeball was spotted!

  “You see something?” asked Angeline.

  Patty looked behind the couch. Nothing. He turned to his wife.

  “Apparently not.”

  Ghost Thing had slithered away once again, but he was still stuck in

  the room with two humans keeping an eye out for him. What to do?

  But just then, he saw a vent. Vents; his saving grave. How did he not

  notice earlier? Problem was the vent, an old vent with decorated

  bronze grating, was out in the open and in plain sight of Angeline.

  He couldn’t slip in without being seen, and Angeline’s eyes were

  right in that direction.

  He needed a distraction, and saw an unused headlight on the floor,

  something that toppled out of a box, maybe. He could have tossed it,

  but in order to give it a good toss, he would have to turn into his

  much less compact humanoid form. He didn’t want to expose himself

  like that, but he found a spot in the corner that was behind a few

  boxes and a draped dresser or something and he turned into his

  humanoid form.

  It seemed alright until he saw his leg had light shining on it,

  reflected off the centre of the room. He pulled his leg out of view

  and looked around to figure out how to fold his body so that Patty,

  over by the couch still, wouldn’t see him. It took him a few second

  to give up and concentrate on making a distraction away from him. The

  quicker he threw the light, the quicker he could return to the safe

  compression of his slime form. He took the headlight, and when

  Angeline turned her head away just enough, Ghost tossed the headlight

  across the room.

  It hit the ground with a thunk and got Patty and Angeline both to

  jump in fright.

  Patty stiffened up. “What the?”

  Angeline’s eyes were off the vent so Ghost Thing returned to slime

  mode and slid over to the vent. Pressing his body through the bronze

  workings, he entered a vent. Patty and Angeline’s frantic chatter

  faded into silence.

  The vent was open for him to travel through, but boy was it .

  There was black soot on every corner. Ghost could feel himself being

  dirtied with every waddle through the corridor.

  He followed the vent, not sure where it led, until he felt a draft.

  He took a turn towards the chill and saw outside light shining up

  into the vent. It was his exit. He squeezed through another grill and

  dropped into a lane outside between tall brick buildings. The sounds

  of the city hit his ears once again. He should have peeked that it

  was all clear before he dropped out but he got lucky and he fell into

  an empty alleyway. By the time someone around could have looked into

  the alleyway to see if a soot-covered young water elemental had just

  fallen out of a vent, Ghost Thing had shot himself up on top of the

  roof’s, out of public site.

  Ghost Thing distanced himself from the building he had fallen into

  before he purging the grime off of his body. He would have to let

  parts of his body drip off onto the floor, taking the dirt with the

  jettisoned liquid, to clear and purify his form. He didn’t have to

  purge too much of his liquid to do a good job, though. After

  splashing off a lot of the dirt, he continued on. There was still

  more cool tricks and awesome flips to be done that afternoon.

  Hopefully, that couple wouldn’t have been too troubled with a hole

  in their roof.

  Perhaps to not tempt fate, Ghost Thing thought about cutting his

  outdoor splendour short at

  six o’clock and ended his

  joyous return by watching the sunset. He found a rooftop to relax

  upon– a solitary spire

  with a nice air conditioning unit to lean up against–

  and directed his eyes at the sun. Even with the day closing off, the

  sounds of the city still roared. There were cars, people and music.

  Horns honked and

  chatter rattled through the air. Someone

  had their subwoofer on max because a car drove by and Ghost could

  feel the thump of the bass through his whole body.

  Ghost Thing looked around. How

  could so many rooftops be so beautiful? The dull heads of a

  crop of buildings had

  become such

  a lovely sight to him. Ghost’s youth got the better of him because

  that view

  represented something he lacked

  the words for.

  He

  had missed being on top of the world. It hurt him to think that he

  was neglecting this, even if only for a week. Not

  even a week, actually.

  As he glanced at the sun, he

  took a big breath in like he was pulling air from every corner of the

  world. "No way am I giving this up. I'll do

  whatever it takes."

  Ghost waited until the sun was nearly gone before he got up. It was

  time for him to head home, but it was the most triumphant day he had

  in a little while.